Whispers In The Shadows
Episode 4 of Gangs Of London begins with another flashback, this time of a drunk Finn talking to his son about the Wallace legacy. With Ed and Alex watching on, they celebrate together as we cut back and forth between this and Sean in his empty study. Meanwhile, a group of opportunistic men rob a jewelry store but as the alarms wail, they bolt. They head back home and realize that the place they’ve just robbed happens to belong to Sean Wallace and deliberate over what to do next. Sean speaks to Ed in the morning who reveals what’s happened with the jewelry store and tells him people are starting to lose respect. Elliot’s stunt with Cole puts big suspicions over his role in this whole operation too, as Ed sets out to uncover the truth surrounding just who he is. Before he does though, he calls Alex into his office and shows him the photos Luan gave him several episodes ago. Those photos happen to be of dead Albanians killed under Finn’s orders. These are clearly linked to him being shot in the head, prompting Ed to try and work out what happened. Are the Albanians responsible for this as retaliation for the death of their loved ones? Lale and Sean strike a deal and begin working together. Asif catches wind of this and immediately decides to launch a counter-offensive. With elections coming up, Nasir implores him not to do anything rash as he takes to the public eye and calls out the criminal empire in abandoned apartment buildings – a jab at Sean Wallace. Elliot meanwhile visits Shannon and admits the truth about his wife and how she passed away several years prior. As they keep talking, things look set to take a turn for the romantic until her son arrives. Elliot agrees to walk him to school though, as flashbacks from the past haunt him. When Elliot returns home, Ed happens to be in the living room with his father. After quizzing him about his son’s life, Ed leaves Elliot’s father and instead takes Elliot outside where he admits he attacked Cole because of kids being involved. A suspicious Ed tells him to follow instructions until further notice, forcing him to prove his loyalty to Sean by doing exact what Mark asks him to do. Marian learns more about Floriana, Finn’s mistress, and starts going through her husband’s wardrobe to uncover the truth. Sean arrives though and tells her to put this aside in favour of a celebratory dinner that evening. At the evening banquet, Ed and Jevan discuss Finn’s previous deal and he tells Ed people are relying on Alex to follow through with Finn’s deal. Meanwhile, Vic receives a message from Floriana telling her to stop what she’s doing with an attached video of someone with a Stanley knife inside her apartment. She leaves a message for Elliot not long after, telling him he needs to find Floriana. As we cut across to a different scene, we see Floriana locked up in a basement and fed food in the dark with a chain wrapped around her ankle. Luan returns home and admits to his family that Finn’s deal involving the Nigerians will be going ahead. For now though, this drip-feed of information remains a mystery but inevitably will become more prominent later on down the line. Mark leads Elliot to the warehouse housing the four men who originally stole the jewelry. Held up at gunpoint, Elliot is forced to bash the man’s kneecaps in with a hammer. With Elliot on the verge of defying Mark’s rules, they get a call from Sean who requires their assistance straight away. Outside though, Mark holds Elliot up at gunpoint and figures out he’s a cop. Sean is brought before Luan who admits that Finn owes him a lot of money. As they talk, a sniper aims at Sean’s head but Mark jumps in the way and takes the bullet as all hell breaks loose. Elliot dives in the way this time and saves Sean at the last second, taking a bullet in the stomach for his troubles. As they drive off together, the sniper gets on the radio and tells whoever is on the other line that they’ll be going to Plan B. Finn drives Elliot back to his house and removes the bullet. A delirious Elliot begins to mutter Samuel’s name, as he sees his dead son beside him. The chaos spreads to the family as they try and work out what to do next but one of the workers happens to be a mole on the inside and clearly working with the sniper. She brandishes a gun from her apron and presents herself in the living room, pointing it at Sean’s face until Alex kills her before she can fire. “Who’s doing this to us?” Sean mutters incredulously as they try to work out who could be behind this hit. As we approach the halfway point of the show, things are really starting to heat up now. There’s lots of unresolved threads all over the place and Gangs Of London has done a great job keeping things tense right the way through the episode. Episode 4 features even more great camera work, with the sniper segments and dizzying cameras following the laser sights among the highlights here. There’s a great final shot as well of the family mirror, with our main characters looking back at their reflections in despair. This shattered mirror image perfectly captures the hole in their family unit right now and whether Sean Wallace will be able to find who killed his Father before he’s killed himself remains to be seen.
