'This City Is Ours' Introduces Liverpool Gangster Noir

This City is Ours was one of the BBC’s most popular debuts in 2025 and has finally turned up on AMC+ for our recapping pleasure. The cast is great, led by Sean Bean (Game of Thrones) as Ronnie Phelan, the patriarch of a criminal empire that dominates the Liverpool cocaine trade. (Don’t worry, it’s just his usual Sean Bean schtick.) James Nelson-Joyce (A Thousand Blows) is his trusty but ambitious lieutenant, Michael, who Ronnie wants to take over the business. However, it’s also no surprise that Ronnie’s somewhat daft son Jamie, played by Jack McMullen (Hijack), is also under the impression he is in the running as the next big cheese.

The series pays due homage to the city of Liverpool without making you feel like a tourist. There are some interesting venues in France and Spain, but since the main feature of places outside the U.K. is sunshine, it’s difficult to tell where we are.

The first scene takes place on a golf course, where Ronnie and his male entourage make an entry on golf carts to Wagner’s The Ride of the Valkyries. (The soundtrack of this show is great.) Over to one side, the WAGs (Wives & Girlfriends) watch and gossip. No criticism of Liverpool’s weather, but it’s raining as it so often does. As they golf, Ronnie approaches Michael about taking over; he’s currently looking to both expand the business and plan his retirement. He wants Michael to go with him to check in with the Amigos, their European partners, to plan a new strategy.

Jamie also trails along to the meeting and is dispatched to the bathroom to exclude him from the discussion. They want to hear only one voice, and that’s Michael, who floats the idea of buying their product at sea to make entry into the U.K. easier. At the first attempt, a couple of weeks later, when the container truck drives off from the docks unimpeded, it seems to have worked, according to Jamie’s contact there. But Ronnie calls to tell his son that something went wrong, suspecting the Amigos are trying to take control of how he does business. The upshot is that they have lost a truckload of product, and there is nothing that can be done. It all points to a rat in Ronnie’s organization.

Michael and associate Banksey (Mike Noble) drive out to put a bit of stick about, since it seems to be one of their own, Davy Crawford (Stephen Walters), who is responsible. First, Banksey knocks a drug dealer off his bicycle to find where he’s getting his product. A very confusing sequence, mostly in the dark, takes place as they invade a house where a dealer is handling cocaine on the kitchen table. Michael stabs him with a kitchen knife and grabs the drugs.

Ronnie, meanwhile, enjoys a quiet evening at home with his wife, Elaine (Julie Graham). Jamie and his fiancée, Melissa Sullivan (Darci Shaw), will be christening their baby son the next day, a very big deal for the family. He isn’t too pleased to hear Michael’s news that (a) the dealer wasn’t Davy, and (b) who knows if the cocaine was from their shipment. (How would they tell?)

Michael stays that night at an apartment he owns in the city, to which a delivery of a gun-shaped package is made early the next morning. He calls his wife, Diana (Hannah Onslow), the next morning. They’ve recently discovered he’s infertile, and they have started in vitro treatment. So far, so good – her first egg retrieval was successful. They seem deeply in love; Michael’s game plan is to stay in the business for three years and then get out so they can make a fresh start. If there are any characters we might sympathize with, it’s them, except for the, you know, gangster and drug thing.

The two meet up for coffee the next morning, before she leaves for a video call with her mother, who’s in prison. She asks Michael if he’s killed anyone. No, he replies, but only if they deserved it or if he had to ... Somehow, this reassures her, and they plan to meet next at the christening.

There is then one of the first of several strangely overdramatic scenes where Diana enters her house.... but there’s no one there to attack her, and it’s not clear why the show faked us out. While Diana’s at home, Michael stalks Jamie, who hit the gym before the christening. Turns out the gun-shaped package was, in fact, a gun. (Very sneaky.) It seems like he’s debating killing Jamie (I mean, he’s annoying and stupid, but ...) but then Ronnie calls. (See previous unnecessarily dramatic scene.)

Then it’s off to the lavish christening, where the hired singer George Gallagher (his career took off after being featured in the premiere in the U.K.) is warming up with Mack the Knife. How appropriate.

Cheryl (Saoirse-Monica Jackson), Davy Crawford’s wife, introduces herself to Diana. As the post-christening party livens up, Cheryl confesses she drinks too much and advises Diana to leave her husband and the business. Diana doesn’t engage, and Cheryl begs her to call.

Ronnie and Michael talk again that night. They still think Davy is their target and decide to tackle him away from Liverpool at a mansion on the Continent where they’ll meet up with the Amigos. Davy, Cheryl, Michael, and Diana (who believes she’s pregnant) enjoy the luxurious setting, but Michael is concerned that Jamie is there as well. He soon finds out why when Ronnie summons Jamie, Michael, and Davy to the garage to help with something, and Ronnie and Jamie turn on Davy, attacking him.

This City Is Ours: A Crime Family Saga continues with new episodes on Thursdays through April 23, 2026.