'Gangs of London' Finale Review: With Sean's fate looming large, who will be the next Wallace heir?
Spoilers for 'Gangs of London' Episode 9 (Finale)
After eight strong, commendable, and adrenaline riveting episodes of its debut season, 'Gangs of London' finally lays things straight. With the narrative still jagged and as far away from linear as possible, it's sort of like a bad hangover where you're scrambling for memories from the night before, all thanks to Elliot Finch's (Sope Disiru) narrative who becomes the point of view in this final twist in the game. The previous episode sees Elliot trying to spill to Shannon Dumani (Pippa Bennett-Warner) about the incoming chaos and devastation before he heads straight to Sean Wallace (Joe Cole). In this episode, however, we meet him in what looks like an underground police facility and he's stripped naked and tied to a chair. Elliot is being interrogated and the progression of the plot is exciting enough to make us what to question just what the hell happened, the moment there's someone other than him on the screen.
The answers arrive soon as Elliot recalls and recollects, and eventually, things boil down to the Wallaces vs the investors. The inevitable has happened, and Sean has met the same end as his father. The build-up to his final moments is thrilling for reasons more than just a couple, but the one question that teases us is -- what next? Is this the end of the Wallace empire or is there a new heir to come? The season finale packs everything in moderate proportions like a full course meal. There are intense police interrogation scenes with Elliot scrambling for his memories as he constantly questions where his handlers -- DI Vicky Chung (Jing Lusi) and the Captain -- are. Soon we learn both are dead; Vicky was taken out by Shannon, and the Captain met his fate in the final fight between London and the Wallaces.
The actual progression of the narrative is way less cynical; watching Elliot hunt down Sean in flashbacks, paralleled by his interrogation makes for a fun sequence of clutching the heart and sincerely hoping he doesn't die. Or not, perhaps, because the series never made Elliot out to be a tortured hero our heart goes out for. Sure, he had all the elements of a tragic past, but Elliot's always been a man of action and we continue looking at him the same throughout this episode, even when he is getting the life beaten out of him, locked away in the literal underground.
After asking Shannon to leave with her son Danny (Taye Matthew), Elliot reaches out to Sean, with whom now resides the phone of the other undercover cop who had infiltrated the Wallace organization. We know all of this is just a reenactment of events leading up to Elliot's interrogation, but Cole's menacing Sean going through his plan of action with Elliot is enough to give viewers chills. We know Elliot is alive and well, but Sean's confrontation doesn't make us worry about him any less. Neither does the Wallace investors ambushing him and taking him for a ride in their limo does.
Earlier in the episode, they do the same with Jevan Kapadia (Ray Panthaki) and his fate sees him thrown out of the window, onto some spikes. And considering the way Lale (Narges Rashidi) and Sean plot their revenge on Asif Afridi (Asif Raza Mir) -- the way Lale disguises herself as a journalist only to kill Asif's son, Nasir, at his own celebratory event without a single person noticing, Elliot's fate seems bloody and bleak at this moment. However, as plot twists and irony would have it, despite Elliot coming clean about putting crimelords like Sean behind bars, Sean wants Elliot to continue working as a double agent, keeping both the police and the Wallaces at bay from each other. Too bad their moment of understanding and reinforced camaraderie is cut short by Alex Dumani (Paapa Essiedu) barging into the room, bribing the security outside to let him carry his gun. Alex is ready to shoot Sean because he is a kind friend; he knows what the investors have planned for Sean is much worse, and he isn't wrong.
Alex points his gun at Sean, ready to pull the trigger and after an intense minute or two of painful pacifying, the moment Elliot is able to retrieve the gun from Alex, our undercover agent turns to Sean and shoots him right in the head. The rest of the story is your typical panic after the storm as we take looks at the devastation that's been uprooted. Elliot helps Alex flee the premises of Sean's hideout before he surrenders to the police who finally arrive at the scene, late, as usual. We now know why Elliot is being detained and interrogated, but he has allies on the inside. A nurse who keeps checking his vitals at intervals gives him some intel on how to get out of the mess, and when the topic of the arrest comes up, Elliot tells the cops he’s protected under diplomatic immunity by the Republic Of Panama. Remember what we said about the narrative? Yeah, the past props up unexpectedly, giving you little dosages of information at a time, only to be able to fit that puzzle piece into the actual picture much later. The meeting with the investors ended with them ordering Elliot to kill Sean and now he can move about scot-free in a Wallace-free underworld.
Or is it all that Wallace-free after Sean's expected death? Elliot's freedom comes after Ed Dumani (Lucian Msamati) and Marian Wallace (Michelle Fairley) have a chat at the cemetery where Finn Wallace is buried and Marian is shot in the stomach by her trusted family friend, leaving her to die at the premises. Meanwhile, Billy (Brian Vernel) and Jacqueline (Valene Kane) are on the run from everything Wallace and life in London as they know it and they plan on starting afresh with new identities. But like most clouds of impending gloom, the silver lining arrives in the form of Floriana (Arta Dobroshi) visiting Finn (Colm Meaney)'s grave. She spots a bleeding Marian and offers to help her -- thus laying the prospects of a second season run by the Wallace matriarch.
Knowing the tortures and cold brutality she is capable of, the wait gets even more painful even though the latter half of Season 1 seemed a little rushed. Sean's little sexcapade with Lale seemed forced too, and let's not even bring up the gross injustice given to the Nigerian gangsters. Our only hope in this haphazard mess is Marian emerging as the Wallace crimelord and taking London's reigns back into her hands.
'Gangs of London' premiered on April 23 and now airs every Thursday at 9pm only on Sky Atlantic.