Warning: Major spoilers ahead

Seven years before the main timeline’s events, Naomi meets with Johnny, her informant, in the woods. He hands over the file seen at the start of the season. As she leaves, the man is shot dead by Jack, Finn Wallace’s old handler. We relive the car chase from the opening episode, but now we see that Zeek drives off after totalling Naomi’s car. A second hooded figure then approaches the car, steals the file, and leaves Naomi and her son to die.

In Myanmar, South-East Asia, business woman Isabel Vaughn, is visiting an opium farm. She is informed by Henry that Naomi has been killed. She informs them she’ll join them once she’s done.

With the truth out, Billy and Cornelius viciously beat Ed Dumani for information on who ordered the spiking, but he maintains his family have nothing to do with it. Elliot, however, knows better, especially after his altercation with Shannon, and confirms Asif and Henry were both involved as well.

Marian commands Liam to find Shannon and Danny and have them killed, prompting Ed to buckle, promising to talk if nothing happens to them. He says the spiking was the work of Isabel Vaughn, one of the “investors”. Ed tells them a meeting is being held that day, and he has an invitation to it.

At City Hall, Simone confronts Henry about being in bed with the gangs. He tries denying it, but she’s checked the information herself and knows Asif Afridi has been bankrolling them. Henry hits back, calling her naive and claiming ‘that’s how politics works’. When she threatens him, he calls her bluff, saying he will turn her in for cocaine use and letting Elliot go. He bitterly tells her he made her and can just as easily break her.

As Billy and Elliot head to meet Isobel, Marian hands Billy a gun, and tells him she’s proud of him. Billy is hesitant to go with Elliot, but he insists. Meanwhile, Cornelius is in charge of looking after Ed. With him strapped to a chair, Cornelius takes out Ed’s knees, but he continues to taunt Cornelius, saying his own sister is ashamed of him. Cornelius eventually storms off, but not before taking Ed’s phone.

As Shannon and Danny prepare to leave, she receives a text informing her to meet him at the warehouse. She’s suspicious, but goes, and is met by Luan and a group of thugs. Luan holds her at gunpoint, and he asks where Danny is, and she begs for his life, but he counters that his daughter, Elira, was just a child too.

Guns start ringing out, and it’s Danny, trying to protect his mum. But not well-trained, he’s quickly cornered by Cornelius, who disarms him.

At the investors meeting, Henry holds court about the government’s plans to legalise drugs, with Isabel’s Vaughn Alliance ready to swoop in and pick up the contracts of what could become a £100billion industry.

The meeting is interrupted though by the arrival of Billy and Elliot, who arrive on Ed Dumani’s invitation. They’re escorted into her office. When she meets them, she offers them money, but Elliot refuses, saying they want answers. She says spiking was necessary to turn the tide of public opinion, with the 600 lives lost ultimately a low cost for saving thousands. She scolds them both for not seeing the bigger picture, and her security attacks them, but the pair overpowers them, with Henry killed by Billy as a brutal fight takes place. Billy is nearly killed but is saved by Elliot.

With Isabel injured, she tries to barter with them both, promising to make them rich, but Elliot wants answers about his wife and son. Isabel doesn’t know what he’s talking about until he says Naomi’s name. She says Naomi worked for her, drawing up the framework for the legalisation of drugs. Her death was at the hands of Finn Wallace, not hers. Promising to kill whoever is responsible, he leaves.

Back at the Wallaces, Marian visits a dazed and injured Ed, who asks her to let him go, promising to leave London forever. She doesn’t believe him, but he argues he deliberately tried to keep her out of it, even though Sean was killed on his order. He tells her the gunman was Zeek and his mother is Emi Kimura, which shocks Marian. She accuses him of lying again, but it unnerves her regardless. She calls in Liam and asks for his gun.

Ed says he was forced to work for the investors again because of the impending New Order, with the legalisation of drugs working against the gangs. He offers her a way in, but Marian receives a call from Billy confirming that Sean’s death was Ed’s call.

Holding her gun to him, he argues that Marian ‘never cared’ for her children and hadn’t spoken with Sean in more than a year. He says her life is cold, which is why Finn had so many mistresses, and laughs in her face when she tells him he won’t betray his family again. He says he’ll die knowing he loved and was loved, before she shoots him in the head.

Luan takes Shannon and Danny to his house, where Elira died, but is met by a furious Mirlinda, who tells him she needs to grieve. He tells her if he can’t avenge his daughter, then what kind of person is he? Still enraged at the loss of his daughter, he holds a gun to Shannon and Danny’s heads in the exact spot Elira died.

Shannon begs for Luan to spare her young son, saying she is willing to die for him if need be. In grief, he collapses to the floor, wailing.

Elliot returns home and roots through Naomi’s things, discovering that Isabel was, in fact, telling the truth about Naomi working for Vaughn Alliance.

Billy returns to his mum and asks what’s going to happen to Shannon and Danny. Marian said they’re being ‘taken care of’ but Billy resists, saying they had given their word. Marian insists it’s too late. Billy then informs her that Elliot’s wife and son were the lawyer and child that Finn had killed all those years ago. He argues that, as much as they hate Elliot for putting Sean behind bars, what they did to him was worse, and triggered it all themselves.

Marian asks if Elliot knows, and when he says he’s not certain, she commands Billy to kill Elliot before the truth comes out. Billy asks if killing is the answer to everything, and she asks if he’d rather wait for Elliot to come after them instead, telling him this life requires difficult decisions.

Elliot meets with Simone to tell her what he knows, but she informs him she’s already reached the same conclusions. He hands her Naomi’s plan and tells her to do with it what she wants. He tells her everything about his family, and how he ended up down the path he’s on now and tells her to ‘remember her bearings’.

The next day, at City Hall, Simone announces Henry’s death to the press as a gangland assassination, turning him into a martyr for the cause and pushing forward with the plans to legalise drugs and end the gangs forever.

Meanwhile, Elliot meets with Billy, drunk and high, who tells Elliot this life destroys everything they have, and it’s an unwinnable game. Placing a gun on the table, Billy instructs Elliot to kill him, because he was the one who killed his wife and son. While Zeek drove the truck that flipped the car, Billy was the one who stole the papers from Naomi’s car, and had the chance of saving them, but didn’t.

As the season comes to an end, two gunshots ring out.

ORLI SHUKA (Luan): Shannon was gifted from Cornelius, So Luan took that for granted. Even the Dumanis were close to them, but in the end they did the whole drug spiking thing. So, everything was spoiled for them. But the other side of Luan was, you cannot kill children. You cannot kill women. So they were safe in the end, even if it was a bad choice to bring them into his house when Mirlinda was there as well.

LUCIAN MSAMATI (Ed): The conversation about the demise of Ed Dumani started long before we turned over on set. I sat down with the producers and the writers, and they revealed to me that Ed comes to an end at the end of this season, which was a bit of a heartbreak because I’m a little bit fond of him, but I think that his end is probably the most satisfying for the character, and it comes at the hand of his oldest and dearest friend, Marian, who pulls the trigger. We also felt that was a nice kind of full circle moment, because at the end of season one, these two people have guns drawn on each other. And Ed, did he miss? Or did he mean to kill her? And they find themselves in exactly the same configuration, only this time, it is Marian who makes no mistake and ends the life of her oldest, dearest, and closest friend, but not after he has revealed some cold, hard truths about her to her.

You’re not going to believe this, but what you think are his brains aren’t actual brains - it’s banana! When I was shot in the head, there’s a whole apparatus behind me that’s been painted out digitally. You don’t know it’s there, but it sticks there like a finger, spouting banana. Movie magic, kids. Blood and banana brains.

MICHELLE FAIRLEY (Marian): We knew it was coming, I’m just so sad that he’s not there any more. It was just finding a way to make it really memorable, it has to have an effect on both of them. This is years of friendship, so how are you going to play that out in a scene in so many minutes? You don’t want to be going, ‘well, you did this, you did that.’ It’s more than that, and when it turns, they become incredibly personal and angry with each other, and things are said.

I think it’s really heartbreaking, actually, because I genuinely believe that they both could turn back time and respect each other again, but I think she necessitates it because she knows that’s the only way she can survive. Seeing Lucian go is the biggest heartbreak.

PIPPA BENNETT-WARNER (Shannon): I was devastated and still am. Ed Dumani was one of the best characters, and I'll deeply miss working with Lucian.

At the end of the series, Elliot gives Simone Naomi’s plan for legalising the drugs. Why does Simone go through it, and how do you see it playing out next series?

T’NIA MILLER (Simone): So I think the reason Simone goes forward with the legalisation plan is because it's the only way, really, to stop the gangs in their tracks. It's the only way to gain back power. Nothing else has worked. Look at the society we live in now, where drugs are illegal. It doesn't stop, in fact, it’s a mass industry, right?

So in her world, by legalising it, it's regaining some control and power and in her mind keeps people safe. The safety her brother never had. How this plays out in season four, I have no idea. I'm excited as you will be to find out but reckon it's going to proper kick off.

BRIAN VERNEL (Billy): I think he wants to confess because I just don’t think he’s happy with how his life has turned out. It seems to go from one tragedy or misery to the next one. Whether that’s personal feelings, whether that’s things that have been done to him, family. You know, it’s a struggle for him. And I think when he finds out what he’s done, what he’s been involved in, he uses it as an excuse for Elliot to kill him.

PETER MCKENNA (Lead Writer): They’re not really predictions but I think there are events at the end of episode eight that give you an indication of where we’re going with certain storylines. I think one of the events is you see the joining of Lale and Zeek, and both Lale’s son is Sean Wallace’s son, and Zeek is Finn Wallace’s and it’s kind of like the Wallace’s against the bastard Wallace’s. Two bloodlines battling. I think that’s been set up and I imagine Luan will be somewhere in the middle. We also see the beginning of legislation which will change the world that the gangs operate in. So I think they’re two storylines that we will probably look at to see if there’s mileage in them. But I’d say there will be.

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