Tom Hardy was fired—here’s what MobLand should do with Harry now
With Tom Hardy gone, MobLand must decide Harry’s future fast.
When we last saw Tom Hardy in the season one finale of MobLand, he was slumped on a chair with a butcher knife poking out his chest.
It turns out that more than a few people on the show may have had a reason to leave it there.
Tom Hardy, of course, stars as Harry Da Souza, the reluctant fixer for mob boss couple Conrad and Maeve Harrigan (Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren) in Paramount+’s violent London underworld drama. Or at least he did. Tom Hardy reportedly left the series shortly after it concluded its upcoming second season, citing long-standing disagreements with the showrunners over tardiness, screenplay issues, and arguments over the series’ turn to a more ensemble style. He will not appear in the third season, provided there is one.
This situation presents a challenge for MobLand’s creators: deciding how to handle the character’s departure.
It’s an awkward situation, but television has been here many times before. When a prominent performer leaves a program in the middle of production for reasons such as firings, feuds, contract disputes, health crises, or creative burnouts, the show usually finds a way to continue. Sometimes they simply kill the character by shoving them in front of a train (take a bow, Charlie Sheen); sometimes they pull a Darrin (see you later, Dick Sargent); and sometimes they just send them upstairs never to be heard from again (remember Gavan O’Herlihy?).
Below is a brief history of emergency exits.
Kill ’em and carry on.
When a celebrity causes excessive trouble, the most reliable and satisfying solution on television is to eliminate them. In Two and a Half Men, Charlie Sheen’s character, Charlie Harper, faced a fatal shove in front of a Paris train from his stalker girlfriend. On Valerie, Valerie Harper’s character was murdered in a vehicle accident, and subsequently the show was renamed The Hogan Family, and Sandy Duncan moved into her home. Roseanne Barr’s character Roseanne Conner died of an opioid overdose on The Conners, only five minutes after Barr sent a racist tweet. McLean Stevenson decided that he was too large for M*A*S*. Colonel Henry Blake’s chopper was shot down over the Sea of Japan while returning home from the war after season three. Stevenson went on to star in several failed sitcoms. The show aired eight more seasons.
MEET THE NEW DARRIN.
Then again, murder is not for everyone. The kinder option is to keep the character, replace the actor, and hope that the audience will not notice—or care. Dick York played Darrin Stephens on Bewitched for five seasons until being forced to leave due to a spinal injury and a painkiller addiction; Dick Sargent took over without explanation, a move so blatantly unrecognized that it inspired its TV expression—”pulling a Darrin.” “Aunt Viv did the same thing in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when she switched from Janet Hubert to Daphne Maxwell Reid in the middle of the show.
They went upstairs.
Remember Chuck Cunningham? Nobody else does, either. In a season two episode of Happy Days, Gavan O’Herlihy, who played Richie’s older brother, walked upstairs and disappeared without a trace. No explanation, no farewell episode, no acknowledgement that a human being had vanished from the cast. When asked about it fifty years later, Henry Winkler simply shrugged: “He went upstairs and never came down…a mystery.” Judy Winslow, who went missing after season three, was treated similarly on Family Matters. On The West Wing, Moira Kelly’s Mandy Hampton was a full-time series regular in season one until disappearing entirely in season two.
Who needs stars, anyway?
No matter how actors leave the studio, it often turns out that they didn’t mean as much as everyone anticipated, particularly the stars themselves. David Caruso was convinced he was too big for television and left NYPD Blue after season one to become a movie star. His future film career spanned two films. Jimmy Smits entered the precinct, and many viewers felt they preferred the new setup. The show aired eleven more seasons. Steve Carell departed from The Office after season seven, but the show continued for two more seasons, thanks to the ensemble cast that had been consistently carrying the show. And Grey’s Anatomy has already outlasted so many of its leads—Patrick Dempsey died in season 11 and Sandra Oh died a season earlier—that it has basically become a distinct show with the same name. It’s still on air.
