[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for MobLand‘s finale, “The Beast in Me.”]

Well, the battle has been won, but the war has just begun.

Sunday’s (June 1) season finale of MobLand picks up right where the penultimate episode left off: with Kevin Harrigan (Paddy Considine) lingering in the kitchen of the former prison guard whom he shot point-blank as vengeance for the sexual assault he inflicted upon him in prison. This lifeless, silent corpse gives Kevin an opportunity to vent about his biggest resentments, including the fact that Eddie (Anson Boon) is the son of his wife Bella (Lara Pulver) and his father Conrad (Pierce Brosnan), not him. He also laments the fact that his mother Maeve (Helen Mirren) has turned Eddie into a monster but vows to become an even bigger monster himself, saying, “In this world, my world, only the biggest monster survives.”

The actor playing Eddie doesn’t necessarily think he’s a monster, though, despite everything he’s done. Anson Boon told TV Insider, “I consider Eddie to be someone who is being raised by monsters.” Boon also thinks Harry Da Souza (Tom Hardy) nailed it earlier in the season when he simply pointed out, “I think he’s a f***up because he’s a kid.”

While Eddie and Seraphina (Mandeep Dhillon) are whisked away to a safe house following their parents’ arrest, Harry de Souza (Tom Hardy) grills O’Hara (Lisa Dwan), revealing that she’s been the family’s traitor all along. Harry’s calmness disarms her into doing his bidding; she double-crosses Richie into sending his men to both O’Hara’s office and the Harrigans’ safehouse, where ambushes await both. That leaves Richie and O’Hara alone, with Harry coming in to gun them both down and finish this particular part of the war.

There’s still plenty of trouble brewing, of course. When Kevin visits Conrad in jail, he vows to take the helm of the family: “When you and Mum get out, we can get together, sit down, and have a nice little talk about the future because when you walk out of here, you’re walking out into a different world, my world, and in that world, Conrad, people pay for everything. Everything,” he promises.

Plus, Eddie himself discovers the truth of his lineage — from Maeve, of course — and immediately goes off to attack Bella; he’s only stopped from killing her on the spot by timely guards. And Alice (Emily Barber) is summarily murdered by Colin (Toby Jones); Harry’s trusted enforcer Kiko (Antonio González Guerrero) is a casualty of the dual attacks on the Stevensons; and Harry declines Kat’s (Janet McTeer) invitation to jump ship and work for her; and Jan (Joanne Froggatt) accidentally stabs Harry in the chest during an argument.

To break down this consequential season finale and find out what the big reveal about Eddie’s true family history might mean for the Harrigans going forward into a hypothetical Season 2, TV Insider caught up with Anson Boon!

First, do you consider Eddie to be a monster? And why or why not? 

Anson Boon: I consider Eddie to be someone who is being raised by monsters… Harry’s the only character that says it, actually… where Bella says to Harry, “Is it my fault he’s such a f***up, he’s such a monster?” And Harry’s like, “No, I think he’s a f***up because he’s a kid.” And I’m like, “Oh yeah, that’s really interesting!” Especially despite the animosity that builds between Eddie and Harry, that Harry still sees it like that. And I think that you can count on one hand the amount of times that you see Eddie in a scene with his mum and his dad, which speaks volumes because they’re super distant from him…

And then you get Conrad, who, yeah, Eddie really respects his grandfather, but his grandfather’s kind of horrible to him a lot of the time. And then he’s got Maeve. Yeah, she’s very nice to him, she says all the right things — but she’s totally twisted, and she’s totally stirring the pot… You see the scene in Episode 6 where Eddie’s just going for a chat with her, and she gives him a hug, and she’s talking about chess and how you have to sacrifice the pieces. And you see Eddie’s face for a second over her shoulder, like, “Oh my God.” And then she goes and calls Richie and rats out Seraphina or Brendan. And it’s like, how is he supposed to trust someone that’s doing this? They’re sabotaging family like this, and yet she’s the only person that’s been nice to him.

So in that respect, I get it. He’s not an angel. I wouldn’t trust him. I wouldn’t send any of my buddies on a night out with Eddie Harrigan. But I think that I’m excited to see how he grows and develops as he gets older.

Do you think he has any remorse for having basically started this war that’s been so damaging?

I don’t think he has remorse for starting the war because that was always the aim, and it’s all part of the plan. It’s all part of his plan to eventually sit on that throne that his grandfather’s currently sitting on, right? And you don’t get to the throne of the Harrigan family by running a sweet little business with a very nice life. That’s not how it works. You see [in Episode 10] when Kevin visits Conrad in prison and Conrad says, “There’s 1000 men in the ground, and you know who put them there? Me.” And that is what makes him formidable in their world. So Eddie has to do things to prove himself to be that man one day. So the war, no, I don’t think he has remorse for that.

However, there’s a moment that I really wanted to include that I worked with Danny Serkin, the director of Episode 5: in the funeral, when Eddie sits down and he sees the order of service with Tommy’s face on it. I think for the first time, that’s when the gravity of what he did really hits him. He was totally directed by his grandma. That was all orchestrated by her. She convinced him to do this, and it was such a good idea because it’s going to start a war, and then Eddie’s going to run the family one day. And then he sits down and he sees his school buddy on a piece of paper, and Eddie killed him. And he has this look at Harry, and it’s a very quick look, but me playing Eddie, I know in that moment, I was thinking, “What have I done? I can’t believe I’ve done this.” And Harry looks at him, like, “Hold it together.” So I think he has remorse for that specific action.

Speaking of Harry, there’s such an interesting dynamic between Eddie and Harry. It seems like he’s the one person who actually scares him. Do you read it that way, too?

Absolutely. Yeah, he definitely scares him. I do believe — as Anson, not as Eddie — that Harry is supremely intelligent, and that’s why he’s so good at his job. Eddie would never admit that even if he kind of thought it. But I think that with Harry, the reason he’s so good at his job is he’s always a step ahead of everyone else, always. He just gets it. That’s the way his mind works.

So the moment that I think dislike turns to hatred between Eddie and Harry is when Harry says to Eddie, “Come downstairs and at least pretend to be a man” at the wake. That’s something that would hurt Eddie way more than a blow to the face or a stab. That really hurts Eddie and affects him. And at that moment, he decides that he’s going to get at Harry somehow. And he chooses the form of sleeping with Harry’s daughter to get at Harry, thinking that that will really hurt him. And then just when he thinks [he’s got him], Harry comes into the bedroom, he locks the door, Eddie gets in his face and says the most vile things to the girl’s dad about the girl, and Harry sits him down and says he’s okay with it. And that is 100 times more terrifying than Harry beating Eddie up because Eddie knows that he’s not really okay with that. So what is he gonna do? And that spooks Eddie out.

Do you think he ever had real feelings for Gina, or was that just a game? 

I don’t think he did the beginning at all. I think it was totally a game. At the end of Episode 5, it’s kind of a montage of all the characters decompressing after the funeral that day, and Eddie sat on the sofa, and you see him like in real contemplation while he’s vaping, and in that moment, Eddie’s thinking, “How am I going to get this man back?” — meaning Harry. And then when the De Souzas have to move in with the Harrigans into the Cotswolds house, Eddie sees his opportunity, and he takes it while Harry’s in Antwerp…

When they’re drinking coffee, then they’re walking around the lake, and Eddie’s talking about his family, he’s talking about his confusion growing up, that’s all a load of rubbish. Eddie doesn’t actually believe any of that stuff. He’s saying what he thinks she wants to hear. But she’s very intelligent. She sees through him, but she’s like, “Oh, why not? I’m here in this house. Let’s do it.” And I think that in each other, they do find they’re both very lost souls, and I think they do find a bit of comfort in each other. In the end, I do think that that grows into being something he didn’t see. It was nice.

In Episode 10, what do you think it does to Eddie’s psyche when he finds out who his real father is?

I think it is the ultimate betrayal, in his eyes, to find out that his whole life has been a lie. And these people that you’re supposed to be able to trust… Eddie is like a 19, 20-year-old guy, right? You’ve been raised by these people. You’re supposed to be able to trust your parents and your grandparents, and then to find out that every single one of them knew. I mean, you even find out that Harry knew — everyone knew except Eddie. And in this family, where you never quite know whether someone’s going to stab you in the back or not, there’s trust issues anywhere in this family to find out that a lie on that level, that your dad isn’t your dad, and that your grandma, who you’ve placed so much trust in for the last decade, she’s not even blood-related to you… And he knows how much she hates Seraphina for that exact reason! It is the ultimate betrayal, and I think that is what just tips him over the edge and causes him to do what he does to Bella.

Speaking of that, do you think that he would have killed her if the guards hadn’t come in?

It’s a hard one because you’ll never know. I mean, I can’t see [him stopping] unless she said something, unless she said the right thing. I think that he was so overcome with hurt and betrayal that I can’t see him being able to stop, but who will never know? Yeah, and luckily, Bella lives.

We didn’t get to see him confront Kevin yet. Is he going to be angrier at Kevin for having raised him knowing all this?

I think that what happened with him and Bella was so soon. He went straight from that prison, that meeting with Maeve to Bella. So it was like a real instinctual reaction, and it was just a gut reaction to it…. Like I say, he couldn’t stop himself. He was so overcome. But perhaps, he’s ran away. Zosia has given him a punch to the stomach, so she’s kind of taking the wind out of him. He’s gonna take some time to regroup before he eventually sees his brother, I guess, Kevin… yeah, before he sees him again. So perhaps he’ll have time to collect his thoughts and evaluate what his next move is.

About those next moves, there are a couple of things bubbling up at the end. We see Conrad kinda rallying the troops at the prison, then Kevin kind of getting Harry on his side, and I’m guessing Eddie will throw his hat in the ring too for a leadership position. 

Sure, I imagine so. Yeah, I mean, Helen Mirren’s character Maeve has definitely tied that whole thing up in that she thinks that the right thing to do next is that Eddie becomes the king and she becomes the queen — in what sense that is, I don’t quite know yet, but I know what she’s thinking. That’s the idea she’s pitching to him. But, like I say, that betrayal, it’s so profound, it will be interesting to see how he chooses to react to that. But despite the fact that he snaked her out to Conrad for ratting out the whole family, she still, as far as Eddie’s concerned, seems to trust him. She still seems to want to work with him and put him in the position on the throne. So maybe he’ll trust her still.

Why do you think that is that Maeve is so invested in Eddie, knowing what she knows about his lineage? What do you think it is she sees in him? 

I am just as confused as Eddie about that, because, like I say, look how she treats Serphina, and she’s related to Seraphina in the same way she’s related to Eddie in that she’s totally unrelated to her. But she seems to really believe in Eddie. As Bella said, since Eddie was about 12, 13 — so literally, for 10 years — she’s been working on him. She’s been grooming him. She’s been raising him. I guess we’ll find we’ll hopefully find out, if we get the privilege of doing a Season 2, we’ll find out whether she’s been secretly raising him as a pig for slaughter or whether she sees something unique in this guy and she’s like, “No, no, he can really run this, but he’s his granddad’s son. He can run this family one day.”

Luke Varley / Paramount+

Since this is your character, do you think he has that ability?

I do, yeah.

Why? 

I think that he to be raised by [the Harrigans] — I mean, because the difference between Eddie and Seraphina is, even though they have the same relation to the family, Seraphina has always known that she’s not [a full-blood daughter]. No one ever lied to Seraphina. So she has half an out of this family — I guess she’s got her mother’s side and all that kind of stuff. Eddie grew up believing that this just was his family. So he’s kind of unique because he’s got this aristocratic woman, his mother, and then this gangster is his father. So he gets kind of that sense of power and entitlement, which gives you a real confidence, from his mother’s side, and then an equal sense of power and entitlement, because they’re ruthless gangsters from his father’s side. So that gives you leadership qualities in the first place — to run a mob anyway — and then also his grandma, incredibly intelligent woman, perhaps not for the good, but she’s definitely very intelligent. She’s definitely teaching him everything that she knows.

You see throughout the show, he’s given a private insight into how she’s pulling all the string when calls Richie, when she calls the police. And then, equally, even though he wouldn’t admit it, perhaps he’ll come to realize one day, I think he learns a lot of Uncle Harry as well. Think he learns a lot of Harry [and] the way that Harry handles himself. At every point that Eddie thinks Harry’s going to beat him up, instead, Harry just uses his words, which is so intelligent. So I think, having grown up, soaking up all of these qualities, Eddie could run that family one day, if he gets his head screwed on a bit more.

What other hopes do you have for Season 2? As a fan of the show, which you clearly are, what are you looking forward to and what do you want to see? 

You know, what I really would love to see is, towards the end of the show, I mean, it becomes far more international. You see the Mexican cartel become involved with Jaime. There’s Kat McAllister, who’s American, and she’s kind of traveling all over the world in this private jet all the time. I would love to see the Harrigans on a long-haul flight together and to see what kind of trouble the Harrigans would get up to at 40,000 feet in a titanium tube because there’s no containing that family, so I think that would be really entertaining.

MobLand, Paramount+