MobLand: TV Review - Top Notch Cast Saves Middling Mob Drama

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT. This isn’t a great show…and it might not even be a good show…but it is somehow, someway, a somewhat mindlessly entertaining show.

MobLand, which stars Tom Hardy as a mob-fixer in modern-day London, just finished its first season on Paramount +…and I have some thoughts.

As readers may remember, I have been in a bit of a funk when it comes to film and television as of late…television in particular. I have been overcome with a great sense of indifference to the current era of “prestige tv”, and have struggled to even watch a show for more than two episodes.

For example, the recent spate of new seasons of prestige tv dramas – Severance, The Last of Us and The White Lotus, I did not watch or quit watching after two episodes because I just didn’t give a shit.

Readers may also remember that I almost skipped the Disney + series Andor altogether, but ended up watching it out of some weird sense of duty and ended up really loving it.

Which brings us to MobLand.

I am not a regular Paramount + viewer. In fact, I’m usually not subscribed to the streaming service but because my wife wanted to watch one of the shows she enjoys (Yellowjackets) we got it for like a three-month deal or something. It was during this stretch that I saw ads for MobLand…and I saw it starred Tom Hardy, an actor I really admire, and when I was bored one day, I figured, why not give MobLand a try?

MobLand, which premiered its first episode March 30th and ended its ten-episode season June 1st, has quite the pedigree…it is produced by British filmmaker Guy Ritchie, it is co-written and created by esteemed playwright and screenwriter Jez Butterworth, and its cast features the aforementioned Tom Hardy as well as Paddy Considine, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren….not too shabby.

The series follows the travails of Harry De Souza (Hardy), a fixer for the Harrigan crime family. The Harrigans – led by aging patriarch Conrad (Pierce Brosnan) and Lady MacBeth like matriarch Maeve (Helen Mirren), are quite the collection of misfits and miscreants. Kevin Harrigan (Paddy Considine), son to Conrad and Maeve, is Harry De Souza’s childhood friend and his adult accomplice in crime.

Of course, Harry and Kevin have wives and teenage kids and they create all sorts of drama too, and Conrad and Maeve like to stir the pot with their various nefarious machinations as well. There are also the cops who are breathing down the Harrigan’s neck as is another crime family looking for blood and to take their crown.

I’ll avoid plot specifics from here on in…but rest assure there is A LOT of plot, and a whole lotta shit going down in the seedy London crime world.

So, is MobLand as great show? No. Is it a good show? I’ll be honest…I don’t think so. Is it a watchable show? Yes…most definitely.

The reason it’s watchable is because it has a terrific cast that do steady work despite the at-times trying script. The plot is…well…very tv show-ish…meaning it is preposterous and outlandish to the point of being absurd.

MobLand isn’t the Sopranos, or the Godfather or Goodfellas…and yet…I kept watching it, which is saying a great deal. As flawed as it is, its greatest trait is that it is somehow mindless enough to be oddly compelling.  

Tom Hardy does stellar work as the brooding Harry, who navigates the Harrigan spiderweb of treachery with a steely-eyed aplomb. Hardy never lets you down and that is very true in MobLand, as this show just doesn’t work without him.

Pierce Brosnan is showier than we’ve ever seen him as Conrad – the bombastic and brutal crime boss, and it is amusing to watch him huff and puff and blow doors down in every scene he inhabits.

Paddy Considine, a truly remarkable actor, gives maybe the best performance in the show as a conflicted and psychologically tormented son to greatness. Considine imbues his Kevin with a bruised and battered humanity that is desperately trying to survive in a cruel and heartless world, and it is quite riveting to behold.

Unfortunately, I found Helen Mirren’s performance as Maeve to be, frankly, distractingly bad, but at least she isn’t in it enough to really muck things up. There’s just something off about Mirren’s portrayal of Maeve…a sort of disconnect, which is not apparent in any of the other performances.

One performance of note is Anson Boon as Eddie Harrigan, Kevin’s rebellious son (and Conrad and Maeve’s favorite grandchild). Boon is so good at playing Eddie as a despicable douchebag asshole, that he might just ruin his entire career. And the costume designer who put him in the most off-putting douchebag ensembles, deserves an Emmy – well done. Boon is like that kid who played Joffrey in Game of Thrones and was so good at being an obnoxious piece of shit he essentially quit acting afterwards. Boon as Eddie has the most punchable face in recent memory and the attitude to match…and it is shocking how much I hated this little prick. Kudos to him.

As for the structure of the series, it is kind of all over the place. The show starts small and gets much too big for its britches and it becomes more preposterous with every passing moment and by the end of season one is borderline psychotic. But like I said, it is an oddly fun piece of mindless tv…and can be enjoyed in that way.

If you’re bored, or bed-ridden, or have nothing else to do but stare out a window, you could do much worse than watch MobLand to pass the time. It is one of those shows that asks nothing from you and lets you just watch with no pressure and no expectations.

MobLand certainly didn’t end my indifference towards television, but it did do enough to keep me watching it…and that should be considered a victory…for who I have no idea.

©2025

Andor - Season Two: TV Review – A New Hope

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A truly remarkable television series that is everything franchise entertainment should be, but isn’t….namely, art.

I have a confession to make…I’ve been in a very deep funk of late when it comes to film and television…a funk so deep it could be diagnosed as depression.

The truth is that I have been despairing over the abysmal state of film and television for some time now, but recently, in this age of raging sub-mediocrity in art and entertainment, that despair has manifested as intense disinterest, which is a shocking thing to admit considering watching this mind-numbingly predictable shit is how I make my living.

An example of how things have been going for me is that in recent months there have been three big prestige tv shows that have come out, White Lotus – Season Three, Severance – Season Two, and The Last of Us – Season Two.

My reaction to these shows speaks volumes to not only the state of entertainment in our current era, but more importantly to my state of mind.

When it came to HBO’s White Lotus Season Three, I skipped it completely…I had zero interest in it after suffering through seasons one and two, which I found to be painfully trite and much too try-hard-to-be-cool-and-edgy.

I enjoyed the first season of AppleTV’s Severance when it came out in 2022, but when the new season premiered this winter, I couldn’t have cared less. Out of duty I watched the first two episodes and then I bailed on the show because I simply didn’t care about anything or anyone on it. I know I was supposed to be dazzled by Severance – Season Two but it seems to me the thrill is most definitely gone, lost somewhere in its long three-year absence between season one and two.

And as for The Last of Us – Season Two…I haven’t even contemplated watching it. I watched season one and thought it was a bit “meh”, so for season two I find myself just not caring one iota no matter how much the pop culture gods demand that I do.

Which brings us to Andor – Season Two. Even though I am admittedly not a huge Star Wars guy, I loved the first season of Andor so much that I thought it was the best Star Wars series of all-time, and, dare I say it, the best Star Wars anything of all-time.

But being in my current funk, I did not watch Andor’s second season as it rolled out its episodes on Disney + three at a time per week starting on April 22, and ending on May 13. I was going to skip Andor entirely out of sheer self-deluded ambivalence but then the gods intervened…and I got sick.

I was bed-ridden with some grievous virus or something and really couldn’t do much else so I figured I’d give Andor season two a try since I had nothing else to do…and boy am I ever glad that I did.

Andor is exactly what Star Wars, or any franchise intellectual property (I’m looking at you Marvel and DC!!), should be. It is not fan service or a nostalgia delivery system, rather it is a finely crafted, dramatic, pop culture vehicle through which to illuminate the complexity and tragedy of the human experience.

The show’s creator, Tony Gilroy, who also wrote the Star Wars film Rogue One (which I think is the best Star Wars film), has constructed a rich, compelling, captivating and brilliant series that never, ever, relies on cheap gimmicks or franchise fan service, but instead creates deeply moving drama by plumbing the depths of human frailty.

To get into the plot of Andor would be a fool’s errand as it is a rich tapestry of spy thriller/political intrigue wrapped around interpersonal drama, but the basics of it are thus…the rebellion against the evil empire is in its infancy, and people on both sides of the divide must make choices that have enormous personal and political consequences.

Andor is masterfully put together by Gilroy, who weaves multiple storylines together and treats the audience like adults, never showing them everything but instead letting them infer what has happened without spoon-feeding it.

The cast of Andor is spectacular, with remarkable performances from Diego Luna (as Cassian Andor), Kyle Soller, Denise Gough, Adria Arjona, Stelland Skarsgard, Elizabeth Dulua, and most particularly Genevieve O’Reilly as Mon Mothma.

I’ve never been a huge Diego Luna fan, but he does superb work as Andor, the spy-soldier trying to navigate the paranoid world of anti-imperial rebellion and his own personal life. Adria Arjona plays Andor’s wife Bix, and she is an undeniably captivating screen presence.

Kyle Soller and Denise Gough play Syril and Dedra respectively, two ambitious Imperial bureaucrats who climb career ladders due to their moral and ethical flexible. Soller and Gough are so good in these roles it is difficult to adequately describe it. They both bring these complex characters to life exquisitely when in lesser hands they’d be nothing more than mustache-twirling villains.

Stellan Skarsgard is phenomenal as Luthen Rael, a morally dubious spy-master for the rebellion, as is Elizabeth Dulua as his “daughter”, Kleya. Skarsgard brings such skill and talent to bear to this role that it really is remarkable to behold, and Dulua is simply a revelation in her role.

And finally, Genevieve O’Reilly gives an exquisite performance as Mon Mothma, a Galactic Senator who is a lonely dissenting voice against the Empire. O’Reilly’s performance is so internalized and subdued yet so powerful and vibrating with life that it is a joy to behold.

What strikes me about Andor is that it is so good because it feels only coincidental that it is set in the Star Wars universe. If you set the show in modern times on planet earth, it would be just as compelling and just as relevant.

In terms of relevancy, no doubt viewers could project whatever political beliefs they have onto the show and would feel seen, a crafty piece of work by the series’ creators. What is most striking to me is that the series expertly dramatizes the notion of manufacturing consent through media manipulation, and the soul-crushing, dehumanization that animates all bureaucracies…two topics quite relevant in our fallen, and falling-ever-faster-and-farther, world.

Andor’s political relevancy is much less important to me though than its dramatic potency, which is monumental. I found the second season to be deeply, incredibly moving, which is a very bizarre thing to say about a corporate franchise tv show set in a galaxy far, far away.

The reality is that Andor’s second season is so good it actually made me believe once again. Well, that’s not actually accurate, Andor didn’t give me belief in film and television again…that would be a very tall task…but it did give me something…let’s call it “hope”…or dare I say it…”A New Hope”. Hope that all is not lost. Hope that things could actually…just maybe…get better.

That hope may be misplaced and completely delusional, but for me it is real, and it is all thanks to Tony Gilroy and his masterwork, Andor. I highly recommend you check it out.

©2025

The Last of Us: TV Review - Zombie Video Game as Prestige TV Zombie

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. An uneven show that feels like prestige tv fool’s gold.

HBO’s latest prestige tv series, The Last of Us, is a strange one.

The series, which premiered in mid-January and recently ended its first season, follows the trials and tribulations of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and his teenage ward Ellie (Bella Ramsey) as they navigate the perils of a post-apocalyptic, fascist America under siege by fungus-fueled zombies. Considering that description it should come as no surprise that the series is based on a 2013 video game of the same-name.

It seems a bit of an odd choice to make a prestige tv series based on a video game, but thanks to the hard work of HBOs savvy marketing department, the show was well-received by critics and generated a modicum of cultural chatter, no small feat in our scattered entertainment era.

Full disclosure, I’ve never played the video game The Last of Us and in fact had never even heard of it until the tv show came along. This lack of knowledge left me unencumbered by the source material and able to judge the series solely on its value as a tv show not as an extension of the video game.

My thoughts on the series are that…it is…despite some great moments, overall sort of underwhelming. The show is very uneven, as it’s at-times extremely compelling, but also often dull and aggravating. It’s also one of those rather annoyingly trite shows that poses as elevated but is really rather philosophically vacuous and politically vapid.

The first season runs nine episodes and the first episode is easily the best of the bunch. The drama of a civilization instantly crumbling due to a quickly expanding pandemic – a fungus spreading across the globe which turns its victims into zombie extensions of itself, is fantastic and eerily reminiscent of the real-world’s recent tumult. The flashbacks in episode two of how the pandemic started are equally captivating and may have been my favorite part of the series.

Another solid sequence is in episode four and five when Joel and Ellie meet up with a pair of brothers in Kansas City. The four of them must avoid not just zombies but blood thirsty locals. The conclusion of this particular adventure is phenomenal.

The problem though is that the show often feels like…well…a video game. The set ups for most of the adventures feel painfully contrived and uncomfortably like a sequence from a rather simple video game.

The series also has trouble with pacing and with generating and keeping dramatic momentum. For every episode like one, two, four and five where you’re fully invested, the show also has episodes, like three and seven where everything slows down to a crawl and we get stuck in the muck and mire of inconsequential characters and their flaccid non-drama.

It really is purely coincidental that the focus of the drama in episodes three and seven revolves around characters being gay. Even if these characters were as straight as arrows their stories simply wouldn’t be that interesting. Although it must be said that HBO injecting a heavy dose of cultural politics into a story that doesn’t need it is not the least bit surprising in our current hyper-political age. In addition, considering the paucity of people we get to know and spend time with in the series, that close to half of them are gay is sort of hysterical in an absurd way. To quote Kurt Cobain, “what else can I say, everyone is gay!”

The later episodes encapsulate the overall issues with the show as they seem both dramatically lethargic and narratively unfocused. In these last few episodes, a survivalist, charismatic Christian cult comes to the fore and considering the other cultural politics of the show it will not surprise you to learn that they are the most-evil people imaginable.

Despite the first season being much too slow at times, it also somehow manages to feel uncomfortably rushed at its conclusion. It also doesn’t help that the series and its violence become less based in reality in terms of its action as the season progresses, culminating in a rather bizarre 1980s action-movie climax.

The acting in The Last of Us is like the rest of the show, not particularly great. I genuinely like Pedro Pascal and find him to be a pleasing screen presence, and he does solid work as the tortured tough guy Joel, but he’s never really asked to do too much heavy lifting.

Bella Ramsey as Ellie is like nails on a chalkboard. Ramsey is a very unappealing screen presence and she feels completely phony as the struggling teen. Ramsey’s cadence and speech are so odd as to be grating and her entire performance rings very hollow to me.

Melanie Lynskey, an actress I very much like, is terribly miscast in a supporting role as a revolutionary leader fueled by bloodlust and revenge. Unfortunately, Lynskey is so unbelievable in the role as to be ridiculous and it scuttles what is one of the more intriguing storylines.

As for the special effects, the zombies do look pretty cool, and the actors portraying them do a terrific job of being creepy as hell.

On the whole though watching the first season of The Last of Us, despite its occasional high points, felt like a bit of a chore. Maybe I would feel differently if I was familiar with the video-game. Who knows?

In terms of just being a tv series, The Last of Us seems like one of those prestige shows that, like HBO’s Westworld, run out of creativity, lose the plot, lose their audience, and then are quickly tossed down the cultural memory hole never to be thought of again.

Considering The Last of Us seems to have already lost its creative steam (around episode six), I’d guess season two will see a precipitous decline in both audience engagement and critical adoration. It seems to me this prestige drama is a mindless zombie ultimately not long for this world.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2023