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Am I a little psychopathic for being so obsessed with gangster TV?

Am I a little psychopathic for being so obsessed with gangster TV?

Most of my favorite TV shows feature gangsters in some way: The Sopranos, The bad news, Top boy, The offer (that brilliant series on Paramount+ about the making of The godfather), series two of The White Lotus, Suburb, Gomorrah; you could even argue, Game of Thrones (cod medieval fantasy gangsters with dragons) and Succession (gangsters who don’t need guns).

It’s the first thing I’ve been looking forward to in a while to watch the next episode

Perhaps there is something mildly psychopathic about being so seduced by a genre that celebrates ruthless, brutal killing, where the forces of law and order and civilization are the enemy, and where the business model is to get ridiculously rich at the expense of the desperately poor, addicted and hopeless. But I can’t be the only viewer with this vice, or TV executives wouldn’t keep commissioning this sort of thing. Family (originally on BBC1; second season now on Netflix).

Family is essentially, Gomorrah is set in Dublin rather than Naples. The title is a play on the name of our local crime family antiheroes – the Kinsellas – who you might initially think owe a little too much to the Corleones. There’s the hothead (like Sonny) whose nickname is a Viking and whose plot function is to get the family in a pickle with his excessive aggression. And there’s the cold-blooded, stone-faced killer – not unlike Al Pacino’s character Michael – who returns to the family after a stint away (only in prison, rather than the army) to solve their problems as the ruthless, innocent angel of death that he is.

Personally, I don’t mind the clichés. In fact, spotting them is part of the fun: the millionaires trapped in their gilded cages with their fancy cars and entourages, never quite knowing whether it’s their turn next; the chiaroscuro fundraising in the seedy, sinister apartment blocks; the heroin shipment with its car boots, suitcases and storage sheds; the gruesome murder on the street; the innocents caught in the crossfire; the deal that goes horribly wrong. It’s a wonderfully convenient plot accelerator, this amoral universe in which every character, even those played by actors of the class of Ciaran Hinds and Aidan Gillen, could be wiped out at any moment.

What we love most about these shows, I think, is that they all adore something we can relate to emotionally: chaotic, annoying families in extremis. None of the characters are particularly likable, least of all the super-capable, tough cookie—yes, another cliché—Amanda (Clare Dunne), who takes over the Kinsellas’ business because the men are so weak. But you can’t help but root for them, despite all their insane flaws (no, Frank! Can’t you see that scouring Grindr for dates with coquettish young men isn’t a wise decision when every rival gangster in Dublin wants to kill you?), because you quickly come to empathize with them as if they were your own family. It’s you and them against the world, no matter what.

For those who haven’t seen season one yet, it’s a must: an addictive binge-watch full of plot twists, some predictable, some completely unexpected, like the Succession-esque scene in which the crime boss is forced by his dying hippie wife to confront his inner demons at a posh, rustic ayahuasca retreat. And the premise is great: as a result of doing something suicidally irresponsible but tragically inevitable, the Kinsellas find themselves with no supplies, no friends or allies, and on the brink of destruction from which only the most cunning female cunning and the most viciously extravagant male violence can extricate them. Season two delivers more of the same, only more epic. This time around, the greatest threat comes not from relatively small-time Irish gangsters, but from the much larger clan of Turkish mafiosi they upset in the reckoning of season one. And also from one of their own: the monstrous, implacable and downright terrifying patriarch Bren (Francis Magee), who has been safely in prison until now and is determined to wrest power back from Amanda (who, as a woman and an outsider, he believes should never have been allowed near the family business).

I’m quite surprised at how relatively little has been noticed Family has been. It should really be on everyone’s top recommendation list. It’s the first thing in a while that’s made me salivate to watch the next episode (as opposed to, say, season three of The bear where I thought: ‘And how are they going to distract us from the fact that nothing happened again?’).

The acting is first-rate. The characters are well-drawn. Modern Dublin does a fine job of playing itself as a bleak, soulless backdrop with nothing that would recognize Yeats or Joyce, let alone Cuchulain. Peter McKenna’s storylines keep you guessing. And you’re always on the edge of your seat, because you never know who’s going to be cut off next.