British gangster drama Gangs of London season 3 is back with a bloody vengeance, and so is Michelle Fairley's fearless matriarch character Marian Wallace.
Season 3 of the brutal crime saga takes place months after season 2's shift in power between the London gangs when undercover cop-turned-gangster Elliot Carter (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) took over from the imprisoned Sean Wallace (Joe Cole) to become the city's biggest drug lord.
This change in leadership was all thanks to Elliot's newfound partnership with the Dumani family, which impacted Marian both personally and professionally. In Gangs of London season 2, Marian takes control over one of the most influential crime families in London after her son Sean is sent to prison. However, Marian's hunger for power over the drug trade ultimately led her to betray her family and lose them altogether.
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So while Marian still reigns supreme as part of the London drug trade in season 3, Elliot's takeover and the loss of her family is certainly "a good stomach punch," Fairley told me in an exclusive interview with TechRadar.
Now estranged from pretty much the entire Wallace family, Fairley revealed that Marian has transmitted all her bitterness and resentment into building a lucrative business. "She has endeavoured to regain control and she has created her own very successful business because she has nothing else in her life anymore. She just has channelled all of her anger, her revenge, her vindictiveness and her will to succeed into her business."
New alliances and rivalries are formed
Not only has she suffered the loss of her family, but also her friendships with long-standing allies like Albanian gang lord Luan Dushaj (Orli Shuka) and Marian's late husband's right-hand man Ed Dumani (Lucian Msamati).
"She doesn't have any personal relationships, but she has professional relationships and there is a distinction," she said. "Some of those professional relationships are with people that she used to be incredibly friendly with like Ed Dumani, the Dumani family, and other gangs like Luan. But there are no personal friendships anymore, they're strictly work."
If Marian didn't already have enough challenges to deal with, season 3 sees her livelihood threatened when the Mayor of London, Simone Thearle (T'Nia Miller), plans to bring the gangs to their knees after a batch of spiked cocaine kills hundreds. This drugs scandal ignites a war among the gangs and they all come under scrutiny as they try to expose who is responsible for spiking Elliot's cocaine.
There's new characters this season, including the arrival of her brother Cornelius Quinn (Richard Dormer) and assassin Zeek (Andrew Koji), so fresh alliances and rivalries are formed, making the situation even more volatile. "Marian faces a lot of challenges this season, some of them are personal and professional. There are new characters that appear as well that she isn't particularly pleased about."
Fairley added that Marian "also has a lot of loss in this season as well and it fuels her to strive and succeed. She becomes increasingly, I wouldn't say ruthless, it's about self preservation. She figures out that she has to do something in order for her to survive."
It's not just Marian in self-preservation mode though, as all the characters will do anything to maintain their lives and that usually comes with ultra violent consequences. Fairley revealed: "All the characters have to shape shift in order to survive. They have to do things that require possibly ending somebody else's life, so there's lots of intrigue and survival techniques."
All eight episodes of Gangs of London 3 have launched as a box set on Sky Atlantic and the streaming service NOW from March 20 in the UK and Stan in Australia. Meanwhile, Gangs of London seasons 1-2 are available to stream on Netflix in the US. Season 3 is currently unavailable to stream in the US.
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