In MobLand Season 2, Episode 5, things have totally gone off the rails. Not only has Harry (Tom Hardy) possibly started another gang war after taking out an Irish mobster known as Medusa (Colm Meaney), but Frankie Cooper (Johnny Flynn) has made a huge move to eradicate the Harrigans outright. And when Harry leaves for Ireland to save Gina (Teddie Allen) and Eddie (Anson Boon), there’s basically only one character left with the Harrigans who has any sense about him: Conrad’s (Pierce Brosnan) right-hand man, Paul, as played by Emmett J. Scanlan.
In Episode 5, it’s the long-suffering Paul who overhears Maeve’s (Helen Mirren) plotting with Eddie on the phone, and quickly makes Harry aware of the chaos. And, even though it’s all very dire, and nearly all the characters get murdered in this episode, there’s something kind of funny about the way Scanlan plays Paul’s reactions, the madness as utterly befuddled. When Harry and Paul briefly confer, it’s almost like we’re watching two dads we might know, briefly commiserate about something minor, not life-or-death mob stuff. This continues to be the magic of MobLand, a whip-smart crime show to rival most other mob shows in the streaming era, but one with grounded characters who feel weirdly relatable. To be clear, Conrad’s not really relatable, but Harry and Paul certainly are. As MobLand hits the middle of its second season, Men’s Journal spoke to Emmett J. Scanlan to get a sense of how this tonal magic trick works.
Why Harry and Paul connect as men and as MobLand characters
From Scanlan’s point of view, other than Harry, Paul is the closest character in the MobLand world to have the same perspective as Harry, the sense of both being relatively sane, surrounded by insanity. “It’s like, you get two normal guys in crazy situations and then see how they deal with it,” Scanlan says of the relationship. “And it can be chaos, it can be fun, it can be touching in ways.”
Scanlan also agrees that Harry is the go-to character for not just fans of the show, but other characters who feel unmoored by the constant back-and-forth of the various shifting allegiances and blow-ups. “Harry’s the kind of guy that everybody goes to,” Scanlan says. “And let’s face it, he’s the kind of guy that Paul looks up to and goes to.”
How Paul was almost killed in MobLand Season 1
Although Paul feels like a stalwart of the show, constantly being pulled into bizarre moments with Maeve or Conrad, like many of the characters in this violent crime series, the possibility that he could catch a bullet at any moment is built into the writing. “Everybody’s on borrowed time,” Scanlan tells Men’s Journal. “But I’m just so grateful to be part of this beast of his show and that they’re allowing me to play.”
In fact, Scanlan reveals that his character was not originally going to appear in Season 2 at all, and that the original plan was that he wouldn’t even make it through all 10 episodes of Season 1. “When I came into MobLand, I signed up for nine episodes. I was supposed to die in episode nine, and I was really happy about that,” he says with a laugh. “I said: ‘Do I get to say Jez’s [Butterworth’s] words and get on set with Guy Ritchie and Pierce Brosnan and Tom Hardy and Helen Mirren?’ They were like, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t give a sh*t if it’s one episode or nine episodes, sign me up!'”
But even though Paul was slated for a tragic end, it never happened. The writing of MobLand Season 1 shifted, for reasons that Scanlan doesn’t fully understand. “About halfway through, they changed their minds, and they wrote more and more stuff for me,” he says. “And I’m very grateful for that, very grateful to Jez for doing that and putting me into some crazy situations.”
How long can Paul last in Season 2? Will he survive to Season 3? Scanlan can’t say, but he does understand why viewers find Paul to be one of the funnier characters, saying: “There’s a level of levity when it comes to Paul, who comes in, f*cks things up and then pisses off again.”
Scanlan also says that even though Season 2 is half over, there’s still plenty more big twists and surprises. “If you thought Season 1 was a rabid dog, Season 2 is like the dogs of f*cking Hades…there’s some crazy sh*t that’s about to go down,” he says. “And Season 3? I mean, do I think that [Jez Butterowrth] is going to amplify it even more? Yes. And does that terrify me? Yes. It’s going to be absolutely fantastic…Whatever the MobLand family does in season three, I absolutely guarantee you it’s going to be biblical.”
MobLand Season 2 airs new episodes on Fridays on Paramount+.
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