Mc Mafia?

[Clawdy]

Anyone watched it? Well acted and gripping, James Norton good as usual. Also nice change to see so many new faces. But I'm not sure about watching seven more episodes........

I think he lost his family anyway. Oleg (?) said they knew it was his dad that organised the hit so he needed to distance himself from them anyway.

I don’t understand the timeline? How old was JN supposed to be? Dimitri hadn’t been to Russia for 15 years but Alex was educated in England.

Why wouldn’t he shake Antonio’s hand?

Janey that’s what DH said - give him a few mins and he’s going to hand in his dinner pail anyway, no need to shoot him.

yeah whats the story with him and Antonio?

Just showing power over Antonio I think. Antonio fancies himself as quite important, Alex was just saying, no you’re not.

Yes I agree not as good as the night manager (it was more clear there who was good and bad)

The actor who played alex’s father was amazing.

Antonio Mendez isn't Antonio Mendez. He is a Columbian drug dealer who stole the name and identity of one of the boys who attended Harvard in the same year as Alex. I think the not dealing with him and not shaking his hand was a way of Alex letting him know that he had never had him fooled from the start.

I think he didn't answer the phone to Rebecca was because of Vadim saying that if he took that path then he'd have to be alone forever, as any family would be used against him (like Vadim's daughter had been).

Definitely scope for a 2nd series though.

Found myself on Vadim and Ilya 's side tonight.

Poor Vadim, it felt like a mercy killing in the end.

Please let there be a season 2. I absolutely loved it. Loved all the Russian actors. Gutted Vadim is dead just to be replaced with more Armani.

Second series would be great, just hope he doesn`t get pinched to play the next James Bond.

I love Oksana. Why can't I have a MIL like her?!

it felt like a mercy killing in the end.

I agree. Vadim was dying a slow painful death, leaving him would have been more cruel. Of course, calling an ambulance would have been better!

Yes, Alex had gone fully over to a life of crime. I think learning of the baby killed off all compassion in him.

I think the way they lined up the remaining “players” at the end hints at another series.

Yes definitely hints at another series. I had read a suggestion that a second series might look at another aspect of organised crime. However I'm quite sure a second series will be centred around the Godmans.
Sadly I read that the real 'Ludmilla' was indeed trafficked via Egypt to Israel but to a brothel. She contracted HIV. She did eventually return to her native Ukraine but was very traumatised. Also one of the girls she was trafficked with was indeed shot and left for dead in the desert. Sorry to be a wet blanket but that is beyond sad and these women shouldn't be forgotten.

Vadim was so well acted, I thought. He played a very complex, conflicted character. I think that's why he's the one I felt for in all this, regardless of what he was.
I wasn't convinced by Norton's performance - I know he's a good actor as I've seen him in other things, and I think I know what he was going for here, but for me it didn't really come off. The hints of what was going on beneath the surface were far too subtle. Plus I think his family and fiancée were miscast or miswritten. They were all pretty ghastly IMO and I just couldn't see this deep bond between them that supposedly motivated Alex.

Anyone else developed a Vadim crush?!

Houseofmouse-yes I agree with you on alex, still didn’t have him down as a bad guy

Eliza it seemed to me that the creators of the programme went out of their way to make people pay for what happened to those girls. (They were girls, really not women.) And Alex, specifically, who was happy to profit from their exploitation, was given exactly the same trafficking treatment when he was being ferried around Moscow, further and further from the glossy centre, panic rising. No more rhetoric about protecting other people. I was glad. He deserved it. I would have liked to know that at that moment he understood what he had done. And the irony of his having to crawl to Ludmilla's flat for rescue ...

A couple of questions. Why did Alex start talking to the boy about football - was that to try to make his guards think he wasn't about to run off?

And how did Alex get on to the train platform without a ticket - or did he jump over something (I might have missed that bit).

No sympathy for Vadim - don't you remember that Czech police man lying dead on the rails? Loads of sympathy for Natasha, obviously!

I think the football conversation was just a diversion so he could move away from the car for a better view.

He got in close behind the man going through the gate at the station and went through at the same time.

It’s odd to have a series where all the main characters are basically bad - who are you meant to root for?!

I felt he was positioning the football boy between him and Vadim’s car so they didn’t shoot him from a distance

"It’s odd to have a series where all the main characters are basically bad - who are you meant to root for?!"

Ludmila and her mother!

Not josef unfortunately, I suspect he has been involved in bad things in the past.

If Rebecca had been written differently, she would have been a candidate, but she never really engaged me. The McMafia baby (swimming pool) was also very sweet. Femi and Katia were ok. And the lovely Natasha.