'Gangs of London' Episode 6 Review: Marian embraces her inner Cersei Lannister, but how safe are the Dumanis?
Spoilers for 'Gangs of London' Episode 6
One of the biggest factors separating 'Gangs of London' from 'Game of Thrones' -- despite their uncanny resemblance of violence, and gore -- was the lack of nudity, violence against women, and of course, unnecessary soft porn inserted wherever possible in almost hour-long episodes. But even with those salient distinctions, Michelle Fairley's Marian in the 2020 British crime thriller is quite reminiscent of her Lady Catelyn Stark from the period drama. Just like Catelyn, Marian's husband dies, and she goes on to know him as an unfaithful spouse after his death. But at the same time, what Marian does to protect her kids and avenge her husband's death does make one think that perhaps if she had lived long enough, Lady Stark would have done the same in those scenarios. In that, Episode 6 sees Marian turn into a sadistic torturer hanging her prey as she tortures her for hours and days at a stretch, using means that would put GoT's prime antagonist Cersei Lannister to shame.
When we meet the Wallaces in this episode, they are fresh into hiding after that dinner massacre at home. The previous episode finally fit the puzzle pieces of who was targeting the family and why, but it's not the tortures done to them that gain the prime focus in this episode. There's an eerie calm at the beginning as blood-splattered walls make for an interesting background for children's toys and someone baking a cake. ‘Only You (And You Alone)’ by The Platters keeps playing on repeat as soft greetings brisk between Sean (Joe Cole), Billy (Brian Vernel), and their mother Marian who, for some reason, looks not quite what you'd expect someone who was just ambushed in their own house to look like. And that is our biggest clue to the storm brewing deep inside the house, locked away within plastic tarps and deafening screams of Marian's new prey Tove (Laura Bach), the German mercenary who had come to kill Sean.
On the outside Marian is calm, paced out, acting as if nothing happened. Inside, she is a whole other force of nature -- using pliers and broken shards of glass bottles to paint Tove's face and feet red and blue. Marian keeps Tove hanging from the ceiling, her feet less than inches away from the broken pieces of glass. One by one, Marian uproots Tove's fingernails as what she calls "finding out who did this to their family" and the only respite in all of those screams drowned out by The Platters (very 'American Horror Story' essence, by the way) comes in the form of wishful thinking about Lady Stark turning into the monstrous Cersei to avenge her husband and family's death. Who wouldn't love to see it, right?
But the cathartic and karmic relief when watching Marian walk around asserting her dominance even when her son Sean falls weak, bloodshot eyes, broken teeth, and a battered look upon Tove aren't the only ghastly appearances in this episode. Things get worse when Billy outrages at the torture and soon Sean caves in too, the moment he finds out Tove has two kids and their father is already dead. He tries to strike a deal with Tove -- her freedom in exchange for a name on who ordered the hit, but it is only when Tove retorts saying Marian would never allow her to go free do we understand the full extent of her sadistic nature.
Throughout the episode, Marian is being countered by her sons, who beg and plead her to stop torturing the woman in secret, accusing her of doing the 'noble' act like their father and pretending what she's doing is right. But in the end, when Tove eventually breaks free of her shackles, thanks to a drugged up Billy, it is Marian who comes to their rescue and single-handedly takes the German mercenary down. Her agenda is to protect her sons and nothing can come between that; especially, not the aftermath of her cheating crimelord husband wanting to quit crime.
In all of this, however, the ones that brave the biggest risk are the Dumanis. Jevan Kapadia (Ray Panthaki), the investor who ordered the hit on Finn (Colm Meaney), Sean and Darren (Aled ap Steffan), wants Ed and Alex Dumani (Paapa Essiedu) to keep working for them and hand over Sean. Alex, at first, is appalled by this overturn of loyalty and allegiance; baffled, he can't believe his father would turn on his closest friend for his son's safety. Alex's integrity is confronted by a father's attempt at protecting his son, but it overpowers and off goes the Dumani son to spill the beans to the Wallace heir -- only to find the waitress he had shot is not quite dead, but instead hanging on a thread, being tortured alive.
This changes the game for Alex and the extent of Marian's horrors propels him towards the investors. It's the final breach in the Sean and Alex's alliance -- something that's only further amplified by Marian's private investigator tracing the Dumanis' every move and reporting it back to her. At this point, Marian is moments away from confronting Ed -- the man she has treated beyond just family all these years. But knowing the tortures she is capable of, one can only imagine what her punishment for prospective traitors would look like.
'Gangs of London' premieres with all nine episodes on April 23, and now airs every Thursday, at 9 pm only on Sky Atlantic.
