‘Gangs of London’ Recap: ‘Episode 10’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for the season finale of ‘Gangs of London.’
​
While disasters and outright chaos instill a sense of fear into our hearts since they tend to outright take us by surprise and leave us wondering if our lives are about to fundamentally change; we find comfort in those moments courtesy of the safety net that is present in our modern world. For emergency services and trained medical professionals are there to help us and pick us up when the world goes sideways and that truly does give us some semblance of hope and we should definitely be grateful that we have something like that to fall back upon in times of strife. For there are parts of our world where the safety net doesn’t exist, such as the criminal underworld, and when disaster and chaos strike in that particular world, everyone suffers greatly… as evidenced by the season one finale of Gangs of London.

For this particular tale saw London’s crime syndicate in complete disarray, thanks to Sean Wallace’s latest vengeful act. Because now the police were involved in this matter and that is never good for a crime syndicate, since constant scrutiny could in fact bring forth some uncomfortable truths and that left the syndicate beside itself for a moment, which in turn allowed for chaos to reign supreme. To the point where Luan was able to exact a little revenge for having his family threatened and Lale also used the fallout of this moment to finally make Asif pay for his crimes against her, by taking the time to pose a journalist that was eager to interview Nasir regarding his big win as London’s mayor. All so that she could violently murder him in a manner that would allow for Asif to find his body and she too was successful in her revenge related endeavors. 

Which really did make it seem that everything was about to fall to pieces in this tale and that chaos would reign supreme and eventually devour every corner of this unique world. But eventually… order came to chaos. For the investors finally decided that the best course of action was to clean up their mess post haste and send a message to all that this kind of stupid and impulsive behavior was not going to be allowed in the slightest. And they accomplished this particular feat, by beginning to whack anyone that crossed them or knew a little too much about the situation. Which led to a harrowing conversation between Ed and Marian, wherein Ed (kind of) performed a little cleanup duty with a gun, and she wasn’t the only one to fall prey to this crackdown. For Jevan knew everything about what happened, and that meant he too had to die in order to preserve the future of the investors.

But of course, to truly gain control, the investors needed Sean Wallace out of the way once and for all, and to accomplish that… they recruited Elliot to their cause. Which allowed for him to finally track down Sean and put a bullet in his head when the time was right, ending the chaos at last and giving the investors hope that Alexander would continue their grand prosperity in London and that particular twist also made it seem as though… hope would not be found in this tale. Because if the investors can catch Elliot’s eye and buy him off, then this world is about as cruel as it gets. But thankfully, Elliot wasn’t totally sold on the investors, in fact, his failure to bring Sean in… combined with his discovery of their existence and reach, motivated him to take possession of all the information on them that Sean had collected on them, so he can eventually bring them down. Making him a flawed but powerful hero in the end and his actions definitely leave us hungry to see where this story will take us next.

Because in the end, the real villain here is the investor group, and bringing them down… would in fact do a lot of good for the world. Which means that a second season of this incredible show, is an outright necessity. So, we can see Elliot redeem himself and so that we can explore in great depth… what the power caste of the criminal underworld looks like and how it operates. But while we wait for that good news, we can bask in the majesty of one incredible season. One that took us on a powerfully bleak journey that was filled to the brim with dynamic characters and incredible visuals and engrossing storytelling and really the finest lesson that this season taught us in regard to this grand exploration, is that crime most certainly does not pay, and it is only a matter of time now before Elliot teaches the criminal elite that particularly cold lesson. Until next time.  

---