[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for MobLand Episode 7, “The Crossroads.”]
The Harrigans wanted a war, and they got one, with more severe consequences than anyone could’ve expected — well, anyone except maybe Maeve, the master manipulator of the family.
For Helen Mirren, the opportunity to play this character, who’s introduced each week next to a statue of Medusa, has been an unexpected treat.
“I’ve never played anyone like Maeve before. I’ve never got close to it,” the decorated star told TV Insider. “I guess the closest I ever got was playing Phaedra in the theater. [There are] elements of Maeve in Phaedra — the sort of do-or-die-ness of the character — but I didn’t know going into it, really, what she was going to be like… As the scripts came, and it revealed to me what this character was, I just have to relax into playing her, and I love playing her. It’s one of my favorite characters ever, which is a terrible thing to say, but it is.”
In last week’s episode, we learned it was Maeve who secretly made the call to Richie (Geoff Bell), serving him Conrad’s (Pierce Brosnan) beloved daughter Seraphina (Mandeep Dhillon) on a silver platter as a sacrifice to make up for what happened after the other call she made — to have Vron’s (Annie Cooper) car exploded. Maeve knew Brendan (Daniel Betts) would be with his half-sister during the Antwerp meeting that Richie’s crew would intercept, so she could reasonably expect the danger she was putting her firstborn son in.
Still, Maeve did make a toothless demand to Richie for the protection of her eldest. However, her threats against him rang hollow right away, considering the man had already lost his wife and son and wanted revenge against Conrad. Perhaps predictably, then, Maeve’s plea landed on deaf ears, as, in the end, Richie ordered Jaime’s crew to put a chainsaw through Brendan’s head, too, and Harry Da Souza (Tom Hardy) didn’t arrive in time to stop his murder.
So did Maeve really think Richie would abide by this request to protect Brendan? Well, sort of. Mirren told us Brendan may have been a sacrifice Maeve was willing to make.
“I think she thought that Brendan would be protected. I do think that. But I think she also thought, ‘If I’ve got to sacrifice someone, I don’t really mind sacrificing Brendan,’” Mirren said. “It was unfortunate. But of all of them, she wouldn’t have felt the same way about her grandson, right?”
That wasn’t the only mistake Maeve made in the episode, either. After she put on a showcase of false despair in response to the kidnappings of Brendan and Seraphina and said something very cryptic about not being able to trust people that are closest to you — she was talking about Harry, but might as well have been naming herself — Conrad grew suspicious of her.
“Are you toying with me, Maeve?” he asked. “Is this some kind of game you’re playing?” It was the most directly aggressive he’s been with Maeve since the first episode, when she convinced him to kill his lifelong best friend Archie (Alex Jennings) over a suspicion he was in cahoots with the Stevensons.
Luke Varley / Paramount+
To cover, Maeve then made up a story about Richie texting her to confirm that he had possession of Brendan and Seraphina, but that only made her husband more upset. As Conrad demanded to see those text messages — which, of course, did not exist — Maeve immediately went into defense mode, asking repeatedly if he didn’t believe her. She then offered one last-ditch effort to stop the inevitable by saying, “Well, of course I’ll show you, but it’ll be the last thing I ever show you because the second you lose trust in me is the second this family turns to dust.” But, really, she was only saved from herself by the arrival of her other son Kevin (Paddy Consadine) with news of his siblings’ location.
It was the closest Conrad has come to realizing how manipulative his wife has been, and it was also the first time we truly saw Maeve afraid.
“She’s terrified,” Mirren said of the character’s true feelings amid Conrad’s interrogation about the fake texts. “But, you know, that’s her life. She loves being terrified. That’s her meat and potatoes is terror.”
We’ll have to wait and see whether she’s fully wriggled her way out of that falsehood or if there’s more mayhem of her own making still to come. For now, though, her machinations have landed at least one of her children dead, and the war has only just begun.
MobLand, Sundays, Paramount+