Gangs Of London – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap & Review

Hell Hath No Fury

Episode 3 of Gangs Of London begins in the Turkish Kurdistan in 2014, with an enraged Lale rushing out with a machine gun and mowing down an entire platoon of army men on her own. As she looks upon the burnt body of her husband in their warehouse, she realizes that Asif has sold them out to the Pakistanis. Lusting for blood, Lale promises her revenge.

In the present aftermath of the caravan shoot-out, Ed arrives to inform Sean that what happened is all over the news. Given what Sean has learned about the heroin and Lale’s part in last episode’s heroin deal, he promises to go after her while Elliot speaks to Vic, bemoaning that he wasn’t able to be there and catch Sean Wallace that night.

Lale goes ahead with her operation, where it’s revealed that her motivations stem from giving money to her hometown and buying precious resources for her people to rise up against Asif’s men.

Marian meets with an investigative reporter who digs up information about Finn, including receipts for big purchases including a desert island and a cruise ship named Floriana. This also happens to be the name of an Albanian who was pregnant with Finn’s baby, which Vic also uncovers in her investigation.

Back home, Marian confronts Ed over what she’s learned, where he admits that he never met Floriana. However, given Jack was Finn’s driver he would have known. Is this the reason Ed killed him? Before we can learn much more about this, Elliot picks up a dangerous man named Cole and drives him to an apartment building still under construction.

Meanwhile in Nigeria, Luan meets with his contacts and strikes a deal with a powerful Nigerian man while another is buried alive under concrete and trapped in the pillars of the building. 

Elliot heads to his next job, which happens to be driving Shannon to her apartment with a rug. Only, when they get there they start kissing but just as things get hot and heavy, he admits to being married and pulls away. She immediately tells Elliot to drive her home. On the back of this, Ed drives Elliot to an open grave and quizzes him over Shannon’s behaviour the previous night. Keeping his cool, Elliot tells him nothing happened as they head off to find Lale.

They make it to her warehouse but find the men inside shot in the head and the gear gone. Even more alarming are the two backpacks for the kids who left earlier in the day too. As he and Ed check the CCTV footage, they realize Sean is the one behind this. Ed tells him to destroy the footage and the computer drive before heading home and awaiting his call.

At the Finn Wallace Foundation, Alex gives an impassioned speech to the men and women there as Ed paces in the elevator, ready to confront Sean over what’s happened. Only, Sean isn’t there and happens to be out, awaiting a call from Lale.

Lale continues her operation, using a plane to smuggle money out the country. Only, she receives a call from her sister advising that Cole, at the command of Sean Wallace, has her nieces and is threatening to kill them. Begrudgingly, Lale decides to press ahead with her plan although she’s clearly rattled by what’s transpired.

Only, Sean is wise to what she’s doing and confronts Lale, asking for the money. As she admits the truth about Asif and what happened to her, Sean holds Lale up at gunpoint. Instead of killing her however, Sean reveals the shipments of money back to her home town never actually took off and he proceeds to burn the stacks infront of her instead.

Meanwhile, Elliot cuts the power in the apartment building the girls are being kept in. He fights with Cole, determined to save the two girls and their mother. They fight across the building, with Elliot almost choking him out before Cole gets the upper-hand. As things look bleak and Cole stalks the family with an axe, Ed suddenly arrives and shoots the man in the head, saving Elliot and the family at the last second.

As the episode closes out, Sean tells Lale he can make her bigger than Asif, knowing that she’s not the one behind killing Finn. He warns her against double crossing him and walks away as she’s forced to breathe a sigh of relief and look out at the flaming wreckage.

With lots of action at the end of this episode, it seems that Gangs Of London is reserving its big action set pieces for the end of each hour-long slice of drama. This time around it’s a one on one fight between Cole and Elliot, which results in some gorgeous cinematography (including the camera rotating between impacts) and a solid dose of tension running throughout the episode.

Quite what Luan is plotting with the men in Nigeria remains to be seen but the nonchalant way he buried a man in concrete is certainly reason enough to have alarm bells ringing surrounding this possible coup. With Sean and Lale on the same page (for now at least!) and Finn’s killer still out there, one thing’s for sure – this story is far from over.