Saba may still be in her teens but she’s proving herself to be a particular asset to the crime syndicate as Gangs of London returns for season three.

Partnering up with Faz, Saba works largely under the leadership of Elliot when we’re reintroduced into the world. Bright and astute, Saba is fiercely loyal to her small part of the world.

But when the entire organisation faces a crisis, she needs to keep her wits about her when it comes to who to trust - or face the fallout in a brutal way.

Speaking ahead of the season three launch, actor Jahz Armando talks about Saba’s journey so far, what fans can expect, and how her character has evolved across the series so far.

It feels amazing, I have to be honest. I can’t fathom the fact it’s been years in between seeing everybody again, and it’s crazy how intense it always feels coming back to this team and to these places. I feel really grateful because every time I meet everyone again, I feel like I’ve grown enough to appreciate every single bit of it even more deeply.

With season three of Gangs, we’re going with a plot and a mystery that allows us to both enjoy the action as much as the deep questions that come to the characters and how they get to grow and challenge themselves by trying to understand who they can trust or who they should take a step back away from. This whole season is about two big mysteries we get to see unfold in front of our eyes. One is way more intimate than the other.

I think we can expect to see everything we’ve loved already, but also be surprised by everything that can still be done, because we went deeper with everything. Emotions of the characters, their motives, what makes them act the way they do. I think we can also expect a lot more reflection, because these characters, they do things they don’t even know they’re doing.

It’s so interesting to perceive those arcs. How can someone shift like that when you were sure they were a certain way? I think it makes you think a lot of things through.

Character driven stories for me are very deep because you get to relate to them. I think it’s what we all appreciate the most when we watch something. We want to recognize human patterns, but of course it’s not the same thing, this is extreme. Why do you trust the people you trust? Why do you feel you need certain people and what does it say about you?

I think the characters this season, we get to understand them by looking at their weaknesses and looking at what they fear, especially Elliot. I believe we get to see him struggle with the mask he decided to wear. He wanted to play this role. He wanted to be this guy, and he went for this life. At the same time, we get to see his psyche struggling to find balance again in between all these relationships and people. Saba and Elliot, I feel like they complete each other somehow, and that’s because it’s all about what they don’t say and what they don’t show. I think that’s what we all relate to the most.

For Saba, I believe we get to witness her evolve in a place where she does not belong. We get to find her in season three by Elliot’s side, and basically Sopé and I started talking to understand how that happened, and we came up with this idea that really made sense for us, that Elliot’s had so much guilt for letting her down somehow at the end of season two, he went on to try and make it up to her. Maybe they got to agree on helping each other somehow, little by little, and it grew to be an actual team. I believe they, without being conscious of it or wanting it in the first place, got to be who they really are with that person.

Elliot plays this guy and has to secure a certain role with other people, but he lost the innocence that Saba still has and holds on to. I think they found each other because of what they couldn’t be with any other person around them. She needed a father figure, that power dynamic in her life. Someone that wouldn’t use her, somehow would guide her. I think they complete each other like that, so we find her living this new life with Elliot and Faz and their group. I don’t think she knows what she’s doing, she goes with the flow and what feels right.

It’s the first time she meets someone that’s not trying to use her, or actually cares about what she thinks, so we find her understanding what she can be, but not doing it yet.

Saba is loyal to Elliot above doubt and anything even her closest cousin says to her. I think she trusts him because they found each other in a moment in their lives where they had no one they could actually trust.

But that innocence, that moment when you look in somebody’s eyes and you know that they’re not trying to use you somehow, that a part of them needs you, but not in a negative way, I feel like she saw that in him. She saw he’d lost so much and just needed that kind of love. I think they found each other, and that power dynamic is kind of equal. They listen to each other, there’s no, “I know better”, it’s, “What do you actually think?” I think that she saw something in him that other people didn’t get to see, because he felt, I think, confident enough to share maybe his vulnerability.

It was something I’ve dreamt about because I observed him from afar in season two, and I was just fascinated. The way he vibrates on set, he just has this aura, and I’ve really wanted it to happen. I felt inspired, to be honest, because it feels like he’s someone that did not lose a single bit of his inner child energy, even though he just kills s**t and works so hard, he can just go watch anime and then chill, and we had the deepest kinds of conversations ever. He has this ability to master his own energy on set and I admired that from day one. I really tried to take it in, in order to understand. I think Saba, somehow, feels the same way. You get inspired and try to evolve in order to match the energy.

When I got to know about Hong Sun, I knew it was going to shift the show to something brand new because the art we make is the sum of everything we’ve had the chance to consume, the art we get inspired by. So I knew a whole new culture was going to elevate the DNA of the show.

I think that’s the strongest point in Gangs, it reflects a grandiose mixture of cultures. I love that because that’s the truth. When you walk the streets of London, that’s how you feel. You feel like it’s a world city, and getting a bit more of every single culture I think is so rich. Artistically, that’s the goal, to get as far as possible from identities that are too much of something. You want to widen them out. So I knew it was going to go to some crazy places.

Mysterious, exciting, deep.