Big mobs, small jobs: 10 crime series to stream on Showmax

Wherever important underworld figures gather in a dimly lit boardrooms with concealed trapdoors down to the proverbial shark tank, somebody is in a backroom somewhere, tending the sharks, ordering shark food and forging permits, paying vet bills, and balancing the shark tank’s chemicals. 

Organised crime only works when the big brains at the top are able to delegate jobs all the way down a massive underworld network of henchmen and women who take care of the dirty daily details. From bulk-buying those leather totes and metal briefcases they use to exchange money and guns (the reusable gift bag of the cartels), to supplying the absurd number of phones that people just throw in dustbins, to ye olde corpse butchers, bleach buyers, and clean up crew, it’s steady work. Just don’t ask about the retirement plan. 

Here are 10 small but essential jobs we spotted in big mob series like The Cleaning Lady and Gangs of London.

1. The Cleaning Lady: The cleaner

Ex-surgeon Thony De La Rosa (Élodie Yung) started her journey on the very bottom rung of the Barsamian syndicate – as a literal crime scene cleaner for this powerful Armenian gang. As an undocumented immigrant who was desperate to stay in Las Vegas to ensure that her young son got the best medical treatment, she was willing to exchange her silence, cleaning skills, and eventually even her surgical skills in exchange for Arman Morales’ (Adan Canto) protection. 

There’s nothing like a cleaning job for letting you observe people unnoticed, steal incriminating evidence, or pick up little bits of paper that’ll give you leverage against the wrong people at the right time. Thony literally knows which skeletons are in whose closet. And while her superb skills with the bleach and mop impress the mob, it’s her ability to save lives that earns their respect … and stops them from killing her off because she knows too much. In the latest season, she’s gained enough influence that she’s finally getting to use her skills outside the cartels again. But while her mind is as sharp as her scalpel, sometimes mob business is too dirty for even Thony to keep things clean.

Watch The Cleaning Lady Season 1-4. New episodes Wednesdays.

2. Gangs of London: The henchman

Elliot Finch (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) starts Gangs of London as a mere footsoldier in the Wallace family gang. He’s just there to follow orders, beat up people, know his place, and skim hidden sewer cash for a better cut of his pay. He’s so irrelevant that the Wallaces don’t even know his face when they pass him in the street. But unknown to the Wallace organisation or their allies and enemies, Elliot is a man on a mission. 

This undercover cop has an entire arsenal of observation and manipulation skills that he brings to bear on infiltrating the heart of London’s criminal network, by taking strategic action to solve stubborn problems for the Wallaces. The longer Elliot works, and the more “favours” he does, the deeper his grip sinks into London’s complex, ever-shifting network of multi-national drug suppliers, traffickers, and arms dealers. By the end of Season 3, he’s gotten so far in that he’s able to start Season 4 occupying a seat at the table with the city’s most powerful underworld figures.

Binge Gangs of London Season 1-3 now.

3. The Penguin: The pet rat

Gotham’s underworld is in crisis at the start of this mini-series, which picks up just after the events of the 2022 film, The Batman. The Riddler’s murder of Gotham’s biggest mob boss, Carmine Falcone, has created a power vacuum. And Carmine’s right hand man Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) is prepared to backstab and scheme his way to becoming the dictator of crime. And when small-time criminal Victor Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz) unwittingly catches Oz’s attention when he tries to steal the rims off the big man’s car, his stutter prompts Oz to take him under his grubby Penguin wing – as a fellow freak – instead of whacking him. From that point, Victor is not just the would-be-boss’s good luck charm, he turns into his closest confidant. 

Since Victor has no ties within the Falcone gang or any of Gotham’s criminal organisations, and has no crimes that he can hold over Oz’s head, Oz can be sure that he has no axe to grind. It allows a rare form of trust to form between the two, and gives Oz access to Victor’s keen strategic mind and ability to think (and lie) on his feet. In exchange, Oz gives him a home. All Victor has to do to earn his place is to mutilate a corpse here, lug a body around there, and save Oz’s life occasionally. But Victor should beware, because he has a tiger by the tail and the only power and protection that he has in Gotham comes from Oz.

Binge The Penguin now.

4. The Sopranos: The bada-bimbo

If you think your business’s org chart is a living nightmare, try being a member of the DiMeo crime family! Between bosses, underbosses and street bosses dying (mysteriously) and winding up behind bars (less mysteriously), and the world’s most dangerous “business” mergers, you’re constantly navigating a delicate mess of egos, in which everyone is armed and dangerous. It’s best to keep your head down, and avoid being boss … but you’ll need to keep a little power.

Twenty-year-old Tracee (Ariel Kiley), a dancer at the Sopranos’ Bada Bing nightclub in Season 3 is as far from power as she can get, which is why she’s desperately sucking up to the big boss, Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini). But she isn’t so much a person within his organisation, as she is a product – like the guns and drugs they move. Controlling and exploiting her body to feed the DiMeo’s coffers is the job of one of Tony Soprano’s consigliere, Silvio Dante (Steven Van Zandt), who traps Tracee in debt by paying for her to get braces, then drags her around by her hair when she doesn’t show up for work, since she’s now effectively a debt slave. The money made off Tracee’s body helps to pay for Tony Soprano’s daughter, who’s Tracee’s age, to live an easy life and go to college.

Binge The Sopranos Season 1-6 now. Also watch The Sopranos documentary Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos Part One and Part Two, and the Steven Van Zandt documentary, Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple.

5. The Wire: The phone supplier

Reporter David Simon and former Baltimore homicide detective Ed Burns spent a year digging down into the roots of what was driving poverty in Baltimore. The book they wrote, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, became the backbone of their series The Wire. The series ties together the links in the chain between the city’s police, politicians, schools, port workers and unions, the press, and the local drug gangs. In their study of the gangs, particularly, David and Ed spotlighted the small but key role of the phone supplier, Bernard (Melvin Jackson Jr).

To avoid police listening into their calls, the Barksdale crime organisation has strictly enforced rules about using burner phones (cheap mobile phones with pre-paid minutes, which can be thrown away after a key deal is completed). The gang goes through a lot of phones and despite second-in-command Stringer Bell (Idris Elba) ordering Bernard to buy a maximum of two phones from any shop, while using different rental cars to drive around to shops, Bernard blows it when he tries to take a shortcut. He catches the cops’ attention when he buys eight phones in one go. Undercover cop Lester Freamon (Clarke Peters) then poses as a conman offering phones in bulk, and he sells Bernard phones with the cops’ wiretaps pre-installed. Alas, if only Bernard had followed the simple rules for his role!

Binge The Wire Season 1-5 now.

6. Power Book II: Ghost: The connect

After killing his own father, Ghost (Omari Hardwick), in the finale of Power, university student Tariq St Patrick (Michael Rainey Jr) needs a way to pay for both his mom Tasha’s (Naturi Naughton) legal fees, as well as his university fees, since he won’t inherit his dad’s millions until he graduates. Tariq knows there’s only one way to raise that much money, that fast, and that’s to step into dad’s shoes as a drug kingpin, using what he learned from one of his father’s greatest enemies, Kanan Stark (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson). Stepping up in the game brings Tariq into contact with one of the city’s ruthless minor druglords, Monet Tejada (Mary J Blige), and he quickly makes himself at home in the Tejada family. 

Unlike Ghost, who had a whole warehouse full of drugs, the Tejadas don’t have direct access to the cartels that source and transport contraband. Instead they depend on a middleman. A “connect” is a wholesaler, or a human modesty curtain between the business of creating drugs, and the business of selling them. It takes a delicate finesse to negotiate between two groups of trigger-happy people who’ve scratched the word trust out of their dictionaries. The Tejadas’ connect is Rico Barnes (Jackie Long). While he’s barely visible in their day-to-day operations, the moment you take his piece of the board (which happens at the end of Season 1) everything falls apart. So the Tejadas are in a shambles before they finally get a terrifying new connect in Season 3, Noma Asaju (Caroline Chikezie). 

Binge Power Book II: Ghost Season 1-4 now.

7. Warrior: The “independent contractor”

In this action drama series inspired by Bruce Lee’s series outline, a Chinese martial arts prodigy named Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji) emigrates to San Francisco in the late 1870s and becomes an enforcer for one of the powerful Chinatown gangs, the tongs. The tongs employ everyone from prostitutes to hatchet men, with each gang ruling over their turf with deadly violence. But one man goes where he pleases: Wang Chao (Hoon Lee, who’s also in Banshee) the “independent contractor”.

Ruthless, smart Wang Chao is the black market’s tiny but vital keystone in Chinatown. While he has no official power in any of the tongs or in the police, he has a finger in every pie, offering Cantonese-English translation, a taxi service, business advice, recruitment and placement, printing counterfeit cash, acting as a police informant, and facilitating negotiations between tongs. If you’re wondering where the Hop Wei, Fung Hai, and Long Zii tongs get their endless supplies of daggers and hatchets, look no further! And San Francisco’s bully boy cops need guns, they come to Wang Chao first. He’s made himself too valuable to kill, while staying too small to threaten the tong leaders. Endlessly entertaining and canny, his motto in life is “live fast, die rich.”

Binge Warrior Season 1-2 now.

8. Banshee: Hairdresser and hacker

A nameless ex-con (Antony Starr) pretends to be (recently murdered) sheriff Lucas Hood to hide from a crime boss, and brings his own brand of justice to the small town of Banshee in this hard-hitting action drama series. His con brings him into conflict with the area’s crime kingpin, Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen). Procter left his Amish community in favour of a life of crime, and now intimidates neo-Nazis, assassins, serial killers, satanist cults, and the Ukrainian mob. Luckily for “Lucas Hood”, he has an ace up his sleeve: Job (Hoon Lee). 

Job, the cabaret director-turned-hairdresser, is so outrageously flamboyant and outspoken that his secret identity as an ice cold computer hacker is pretty safe, even after he winds up in Banshee after fleeing Ukrainian gangster Mr Rabbit (Ben Cross). He’s not just skilled behind the scissors and the keyboard; Job can hold his own whether you’re having a fist fight, or a gun fight. And in Banshee, that’s saying a lot! He’ll steal an identity here, hack a CIA spy satellite there, and deliver a snide takedown in his down time. If you want to know what anyone is up to, Job has the receipts. Nobody has secrets from their barber.

Binge Banshee Season 1-4 now.

9. Boardwalk Empire: The driver

Steve Buscemi stars in this epic HBO historical drama series based on Nelson Johnson’s semi-fictional book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City. Steve’s made-up character of Nucky Thompson was inspired by real-life politician and crime boss Enoch L Johnson. And the series explores how prohibition laws boosted the rise of gang networks during the 1920s. The time was ripe for anyone blessed with more brains than conscience to take advantage … which is how 21-year-old mob driver Al Capone (Adolescence star Stephen Graham) is able to race up the ladder from being a mere driver, to becoming the king of Chicago’s underworld.

Al Capone starts out in Boardwalk Empire as a loudmouthed, joke-cracking driver for Big Jim’s (Frank Crudele) outfit. He drives Big Jim’s underling, Johnny Torrio (Greg Antonacci), to Atlantic City for the meeting between the mobsters discussing the Prohibition law. During their downtime and idle chitter chatter, Capone and Nucky’s driver, Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), come up with a scheme to use their driving skills to hijack Nucky’s liquor shipment to the Rothstein gang. Al delivers the alcohol to his boss, Johnny, who’s so impressed that he arranges for Big Jim’s assassination, taking over as mob boss. From that point, even though Capone keeps making trouble, he can do no wrong. All the driving around also prompts Capone to suggest to Johnny that they cut out the Atlantic City mob and look for alcohol suppliers closer to home. But once you cut out one middle man, why stop there?

Binge Boardwalk Empire Season 1-5 now.

10. Power Book IV Force: The mill

At the end of Power Book II: Ghost Season 1, Tariq helps Ghost’s former right-hand man and enforcer, Tommy Egan (Joseph Sikora), to fake his own death in a car crash, using a couple of Tommy’s recently extracted teeth. By the time Tommy arrives in Chicago to set up business for himself, he is a dead man according to government records. And if you’ve ever tried to replace your official government documentation you’ll know that even Tommy would be collapsed on the floor, drinking and crying, unless someone supplied him with a new set of identity documentation to go with his new life. 

In Power Book II: Ghost Season 3, episode 9, when Tariq needs to secure green cards that will allow Noma’s associate Obi (Kyle Vincent Terry) to bring his family into America, he pulls strings with crooked cop-turned-newly-elected city councilman Rashad Tate (Larenz Tate). So Rashad is probably the one who also supplied Tommy’s documentation. Who needs a dedicated master forger on the payroll when you can get top quality fakes from the government itself? In real life, though, this job is a cornerstone of organised crime, with dedicated forgery gangs called mills supplying demand. 

Binge Power Book IV Force Season 1-2 now.

Looking for a gang to join to leverage your new inside information? Binge Gangs of London Season 1-3 now, and watch The Cleaning Lady Season 1-4. New episodes Wednesdays.