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Warning: contains spoilers for Gangs of London series one and two.
The opening scene of Gangs of London series three doesn’t come with a caption, but the presence of Emmett Scanlan’s Jack – whom we saw murdered back in series one – tells us that we’re in flashback territory. The scene takes place a couple of years before the show begins, and depicts an event previously thought unconnected to the violent, gangland world of the Wallaces and the Dumanis: the death of Elliot Carter’s wife and son.
In series one, Elliot told his new girlfriend Shannon Dumani about having lost his wife Naomi and young son Samuel in a car accident. Now, we now know that it was no accident. Naomi and Samuel’s car were pursued first by Jack, who worked for the Wallaces, and then by a mysterious assailant who rammed their stationary vehicle and flipped it before taking a file from it and leaving them both to die as it was engulfed by flames.
It’s not just the names Naomi (seen on the woman’s ID card in the footwell of her car. Surname Keegan) and Samuel (which she calls her little boy in the scene) that show us these characters are Elliot’s wife and son, but also the fact that the woman wears a gold knotted necklace pendant which is later seen in the present day, being handled by Elliot as a keepsake. Additionally, when Elliot visits Sean Wallace in prison in the series three opener, Sean confirms that Naomi’s death had been ordered but refuses to say more. He says he hadn’t realised the connection between Elliot and the car victims until now.
Naomi and Samuel’s deaths set up several mysteries for Gangs of London series three: who ordered their deaths? Who was the assassin that crashed into them? And most intriguing of all, what was contained in the manila folder with the V/N logo that the assassin took from the car? Was it information from the company where she worked, and was Naomi a whistleblower planning to expose criminal activity?
In series two, Elliot told Sean that he’d chosen to go undercover with the Wallace family because of the sheer extent of criminal activities Finn Wallace was involved in – drug dealing, arms trafficking, money laundering, countless murders and brutal criminal violence… Having lost his wife and child, the former soldier chose the riskiest, most dangerous target he possibly could, perhaps driven by a death wish.
Elliot, however, proved difficult to kill, and his new relationship with Shannon and her young son Danny gave him a reason to try to survive. Now, it turns out that the very loss that drove Elliot towards the Wallaces in the first place, was, unbeknownst to him, tied up with their criminal activity. After he sent Sean Wallace to prison to avenge the murder of his dad in series two, Elliot now has another revenge mission: to find out who killed Naomi and Samuel, and why.
Gangs of London series three is streaming now on Sky Go and NOW in the UK.
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