5 TV Shows To Watch If You Like MobLand

• “MobLand” fans can find similar thrills in “Gangs of London” and other British crime dramas available for streaming in the U.S.
• “This City is Ours: A Crime Family Saga” offers a unique take on crime family power struggles in Liverpool, focusing on domestic drama and cultural specificity.
• “A Thousand Blows” and “Love/Hate” provide immersive looks into the criminal underworld in London and Dublin, respectively, with compelling character-driven narratives.

The 2nd season of “MobLand” has just kicked off, and the week-long wait between episodes will be painful for anybody eagerly waiting to find out what the next threat facing Harry (Tom Hardy) and the Harrigan’s criminal empire will be. Luckily, this is where we step in, with some series recommendations that scratch a similar itch, all of which you can binge between each forthcoming installment of the Paramount+ series; we’ve deliberately chosen titles with lower episode counts, so you can power through them in a week or less.

We’ve avoided including any crime dramas that are already widely beloved –- you don’t need us to tell you to watch “The Sopranos” <a href="https://www.looper.com/1859293/best-tv-shows-like-the-sopranos/" rel="nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>or TV shows like it. With “MobLand” being a British program, we’ve kept our recommendations to the series from the other side of the Atlantic; acclaimed U.K. and Irish shows, all of which are available to stream here in the U.S.

If you like “MobLand,” these could be your next small-screen obsession. Best of all, many of the shows we’ve included below have new seasons in development that will be arriving soon, so there’s no better time to catch up on these.

Gangs of London

“Mobland” has frequently been compared to this action-packed crime series co-created by “The Raid” director Gareth Evans. Ahead of the upcoming 4th season, it’s worth catching up with “Gangs of London,” which charts the ongoing fallout after the head of the city’s most powerful crime family is assassinated. Don’t expect a British “Sopranos” with this tale of the ongoing power struggles among some of the world’s most powerful crime families. Very loosely adapted from a 2006 PlayStation Portable video game of the same name, the surviving Wallace family –- led by son Sean (Joe Cole) and matriarch Marian (Michelle Fairley) — lead a search that causes ripples throughout the underworld, threatening longstanding relationships and peace agreements between different organizations.

As their empire crumbles, an undercover officer (Sope Dirisu) infiltrates the Wallaces to investigate their shady dealings, but instead gets a taste for the very lifestyle he’s informing against. What distinguishes the series from similar crime sagas is its over-the-top action, with the 5th episode of the 1st season particularly acclaimed for its shoot-out mayhem. 

Following seasons pit the Wallaces against various other rivals from the underworld, finding new and extremely graphic ways to torture and kill off its characters. It looks like a Guy Ritchie series from the outside but bears a closer resemblance to the unsparing realm of the John Wick movies, and we can’t wait to see how it ups the ante.

This City is Ours: A Crime Family Saga

Crime family power struggles are also at the center of this acclaimed BBC drama, which was recently renewed for a 2nd season. We’re moving a couple of hundred miles up north to Liverpool for “This City is Ours: A Crime Family Saga,” in which human spoiler warning Sean Bean plays aging crime boss Ronnie Phelan. His departure from the underworld triggers a clash between his two would-be successors; right hand man Michael (James Nelson-Joyce) and his son Jamie (Jack McMullen). 

However, this series from creator Stephen Butchard takes the opposite route to “Gangs of London,” closer in spirit to what a Ken Loach-directed “The Godfather” would look like as it foregrounds Michael’s domestic drama, and why he’s desperate to retire. He wants to settle down with girlfriend Diana (Hannah Onslow) and start a family, making as many trips to the fertility clinic as he does to shady business dealings, but every time he thinks he’s out, he keeps getting pulled right back in.

The crime plot follows many of the comfortingly expected beats, but Butchard’s writing keeps things distinctive, tapping into the cultural specificities of its northwestern setting to distinguish itself. Joyce’s lead performance netted him a BAFTA nomination, with the series also nominated for the best drama prize, and an imminent 2nd season is likely to increase its cult popularity. Be warned though: viewers in the U.S. will definitely need subtitles to understand some of those Scouse accents.

A Thousand Blows

James Nelson-Joyce also plays a key supporting role in this 1880s set drama from “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight, set in the underexplored world of illegal bareknuckle boxing, and the various crime syndicates that operate around it in London’s East End. Stephen Graham plays the self-professed “emperor,” and the 1st season charts the ongoing clash with the all-female crime syndicate the Forty Elephants, led by Erin Doherty’s Mary Carr, as well as the dreams that newly arrived Jamaican immigrant Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) has of becoming a professional boxer.

If there is a criticism to be had with the opening season (the second premiered to far stronger reviews) it’s that it packs in too many stories to do them all justice. Mary Carr and Hezekiah Moscow were both real figures that could be the central focus in their own right. What makes “A Thousand Blows” satisfying is how Knight takes these case studies to create a well-researched and thrilling look at the experiences of immigrants and women during the late Victorian period.

The exploration of these underrepresented figures and their pursuits of wealth and success within the white, male dominated boxing empire makes for a fascinating look at the power imbalances of the era. More importantly, it’s also one of the most thrilling series the prolific writer has created; it’s a shame it’s as overlooked as its characters were in the history books.

Love/Hate

Heralded as one of the most acclaimed TV shows in Irish history,”Love/Hate,” created by playwright Stuart Carolan, takes viewers into the dark heart of the Dublin criminal underworld. The 1st season introduces us to Darren Treacy (Robert Sheehan) who returns from exile in Spain with the intention of starting a new life away from drugs and crime with girlfriend Rosie (Ruth Negga). That plan goes out the window when his brother is assassinated, and he falls back in with the gang who run the city streets, led by Aidan Gillen’s John Boy.

The 1st season premiered in 2010, and struck an immediate chord in its home country, which was brutally hit by one of the worst financial downturns of 2008; unemployment rates continued to grow to a staggering 14% by 2012, and austerity measures would continue to affect the public. Who wouldn’t be taken in by John Boy’s assertion that life in the underworld would be the only way to make money in a country where hundreds of thousands were struggling to make ends meet? 

Marrying its gangster series tropes with timely social commentary, as well as an exploration of religion groundbreaking for Irish TV (Darren’s outspoken atheism put him at odds with his devout peers) and a barnstorming series of performances, it’s easy to see why it was such a sensation in its home country. Nearly two decades removed, it remains every bit as addictive.

Top Boy: Summerhouse

You might know “Top Boy: Summerhouse” from its 2019 Netflix revival. The original run lasted for two short seasons of four episodes in the early 2010s on Channel 4, cancelled after the 2nd despite critical acclaim, and plans for a 3rd, with a return only seeing the light of day thanks to Canadian rapper and superfan Drake. When it returned, the first Netflix season was listed on the streamer as the show’s 1st season, not the 3rd, with the first two becoming available to stream later under the new title of “Top Boy: Summerhouse.” Confused yet?

The first two seasons follow the reserved Ra’Nell Smith (Malcolm Kamulete), who is brought into assisting with criminal operations around the Summerhouse housing estate while his mother is admitted to hospital. We’re introduced to the two drug dealers who are in charge; Dushane (Ashley Walters) and Sully (Kane Robinson), who Ra’Nell grows cannabis plants for to help raise money for a pregnant friend of his mother. When a rival dealer steals Dushane and Sully’s supply, attention shifts towards their dynamic, and later seasons keep them front and center.

“Top Boy: Summerhouse” garnered comparisons to “The Wire,” but this is a different beast that deserves more attention, focused entirely on the underworld rather than the bigger system. It goes bigger in its Netflix revival, but the original series shares a similar social realist approach to a drama set within a criminal enterprise.

If you enjoyed this article, sign up to our free newsletter for the biggest movie and TV news delivered straight to your inbox. You can also follow us or add us as a preferred search

Read the original article on Looper.