Tom Hardy's Best MobLand Scenes So Far, Ranked

5 min readThe most troubling thing about Harry da Souza is that, in another world, he’d probably be tremendous fun at a party. There are hints. Like when he laughs at Kevin’s joke in season 2 and his face cracks like a dam with one hairline fracture too many. The way he talks to his daughter, Gina, adult to adult, as he finally offers her the truth about his life. There are glimpses, even, of the Harry Jan once fell for, though they grow sparser as MobLand wears on.But these are glimpses caught only in passing, like a bullet whistling past your ear: you feel the rush of air, you register the sudden, unexpected intimacy of it, and by the time you turn around, it’s already blown some other mug’s face off.Hardy is a master of that flicker: the split second when the mask slips, the hint of a human who might once have collected stamps or sung in a choir. We’re meant to understand that Harry is a warm-blooded killer, not as cold as his actions imply. He is, as Conrad describes him, a “broken” man, bent out of shape by a life marked by danger. Perhaps that’s what keeps Harry so calm under pressure: a sadness for what his life might have been, and a cold resignation to what it has become.Anyway, here are his five best moments.Luke Varley/Paramount+Rest easy, folks: Tom Hardy will return for MobLand season 3.1. The Russian Roulette Power Play (Season 2, Episode 7)This is the best scene in the show so far—and it’s tenser than Eddie’s jaw after a night on the sniff.Harry walks alone into Frankie’s casino, knowing it’s a trap. Frankie, dickie-bowed up to the jugular, is thrown: “You knew it was a trap and you came anyway? Alone… You’ve got something, haven’t you. You rotter. What is it?”What follows is pure gangster comedy gold: Frankie in all his exuberant camp-Cockney effervescence, Harry calm and giving nothing away.Suddenly, the scene tightens like a garrotte. All humor departs and Harry reveals he has a hit lined up on Frankie’s son in prison. Frankie spins the revolver and clicks it at Harry’s head—Russian roulette over a literal roulette table. Click, click. Harry never flinches. Then he whips round, seizes the gun and flips the dynamic into total psychological dominance. Finally, Frankie—with no choice but to believe the bluff—lets Harry and Paul go.2. “It’s All War, Conrad” (Season 1, Episode 6)In the “Antwerp Blues” episode, mob war finally erupts. Brendan and Seraphina are hostages of the Mexican cartel, and Harry’s job, as always, is to save their bacon.“Are you ready for this war?” shouts Conrad (Pierce Brosnan) as the pair walk toward the chopper, like Henry V striding toward his charger on St Crispin’s morning.Harry, a man who won’t raise his voice even over helicopter rotors, offers a chilling four-word reply: “It’s all war, Conrad.”It captures his weary, pragmatic, ruthless worldview, and it sets up a breakneck sequence in which Harry “MotoGP” da Souza burns up tarmac on a motorbike to reach the warehouse before it’s too late.“God, that’s sexy,” drools Bella from an upstairs window.“No, it’s not,” Jan replies desolately. “Not anymore.”3. The Hospital Threat to Huey Campbell (Season 1, Episode 1)Cast your mind back to episode 1 of season 1, when Harry tracks Hughie “Huey” Campbell to Homerton Hospital after Eddie has stabbed him at a nightclub.Huey panics as Harry leans over his bed, practically whispering.“Nurse!” calls Huey.“Mate, this is the NHS,” says Harry. “All these poor nurses are run off their feet trying to save people’s lives, which incidentally is what I’m trying to do for you.”“I’ve just been stabbed, you cunt,” whines Huey.And so Harry goes full Crocodile Dundee: “That’s not a stab. Eddie doesn’t know how to stab someone.” Then comes the promise that if Huey doesn’t do as he’s told, Harry, or possibly one of his associates, depending on availability, will open him up again and do him serious, serious harm.I’ve paraphrased some of it for brevity. It’s best watched in full. But the scene perfectly captures the lethal civility of Harry da Souza.Paramount+Harry da Souza is slowly inching his way up our list of all-time TV characters.4. The Freddy Interrogation and Phone Hack (Season 1, Episode 5)The whole of “Funeral for a Friend” is a masterclass in tension, with everything going sideways at once. For Harry, it’s the first glimpse of his panoptic vision. He is a grandmaster of future possibilities, the Magnus Carlsen of mafiacraft.When Kevin asks how they’ll get guns into the Stevenson house if the funeral goes tits up, Harry is unbothered: “I’m not worried about that. I’ve got a way in.”That way in is Freddy, one of Richie’s henchmen, who had a fling with Richie’s wife, Vron (the funeral is hers). Months earlier, Harry lifted Freddy’s phone and cracked the code (123456). Inside, he found sexy pictures. Now he makes the goon say it out loud: “I am the weak link.”They never even need the guns. The whole scene is there to show how dastardly cunning Harry can be.5. The Maeve Threat and the Gina Reconciliation (Season 2, Episode 6)I’m folding two scenes into one here, but both involve Gina and take place in the same episode. It starts with Maeve.Fresh from killing the Medusa to save Gina’s life, Harry confronts Maeve in Majorca. “I have yet to find a line I will not cross in your service,” he growls. Then he leans in. “Well, yesterday I found it. Yesterday you knowingly put my daughter in mortal jeopardy. If you ever put my daughter in a dangerous situation again, I’ll just kill you.”If we’ve learned anything over the past season and a half, it’s that you don’t threaten Maeve. Remember in season 1, episode 5, when she had Vron Stevenson car-bombed simply for questioning her fuckability in public? Or the fact she sent Eddie on a pointless, quasi-suicide mission to kill a random Irish gangster just to prove a point?Well, Harry’s threat doesn’t so much ruffle Maeve’s feathers as pluck them right out.Then comes the quieter scene, and the better one. Harry finally sees what he’s done: dragged his only daughter into the mayhem. The only way to win her back is the truth. “Ask me anything you want about what I do, and I’ll tell you the truth.” Gina asks nothing. She just hugs him. It’s a rare moment of tenderness in MobLand, and a reminder that Harry has a heart, however well he hides it.