Last King of the Cross Season 2 review: Sydney crime show returns

When we last saw John Ibrahim (Lincoln Younes), self-styled King of Sydney’s Kings Cross nightclub district, he was doing all right for himself.

His main obstacles in his rise to power, crime kingpin Ezra Shipman (Tim Roth) and his henchman (Matt Nable) had been bumped off – so effectively that they don’t even get a mention in the montage that opens Season 2 – while his bouncer-turned-bikie brother Sam (Claude Jabbour) was off to prison to figure out whether he wanted to work with John or muscle him out of the way.

John’s very-loosely-based-on-a-true story was over: he was getting out of the nightclub business. So this series should just be eight episodes of him lounging on a beach in Ibiza, right?

Well, the Ibiza part’s right. This begins with John sporting some pretty dubious facial hair and working behind a bar, taking the occasional break to have sex with the manager in the storeroom despite a local thug making his displeasure at anyone even looking at her very clear. It’s the kind of foolish short-term behaviour that could get a man beat up and thrown into the local hellhole prison – but then again, a stay in a hellhole might just be what he needs to help him realise where he really belongs.

The first season of Last King of the Cross wrapped things up pretty firmly, with most of the major characters exiting (via a bullet). Even the setting, which played a big part in proceedings, isn’t what it was. When John finally returns to the Cross, only his bodyguard Tongan Sam (Uli Latukefu) and stripclub manager Steph (Heidi May) are left – literally, as the streets are all but deserted. His kingdom is just a bunch of tacky rundown storefronts on a no longer trendy street, and if they’re going to make serious money they’re going to have to look elsewhere.

There’s a few other storylines dangled in front of us early on. Sam is making friends behind bars, though by spending his days extorting pretty much an entire cell block he’s making a lot more enemies in the process. John’s younger brother Michael (Dave Hoey) is using his place to impress the ladies, while last cop standing in Season 1, Senior Sergeant Liz Doyle (Tess Haubrich) is trying to get her bosses to understand that John Ibrahim is back, dammit!

With the police corruption storyline being comprehensively concluded last season, it’ll be interesting to see if she gets more to do than just growl from the sidelines with her new crime taskforce.

The big-name cast members are gone; so is the complicated crime ecosystem that supported them. What’s left is Younes and Jabbour, who both give compelling performances as distinctly different but equally sketchy characters. At least at first, Younes has less to work with, John’s prison ordeal leaving him a fully focused Mr Fix-it. His return is more a whim than anything else; he’s got nothing left to prove, just a feeling that there’s nowhere else to go and if he’s going to stick around he might as well tidy the place up.

It’s Jabbour who stands out as a brutal thug who still wants to do right by his mates, a man who feels like life has backed him into a corner. For him violence is the only way out, and the brief glimpses of humanity he lets through go a long way even as he’s recruiting a gang of hoodlums and goons.

With no obvious big bad to take down or personal issues to explore, this season’s opener is mostly a matter of moving pieces into place for drama down the line. Despite an opening flash-forward to a frantic hospital dash – someone’s been shot, but who? – there’s little menace here, the vibe closer to a return visit from some old mates.

Often this kind of crime series can be so in love with its badass criminals that it forgets to have them actually be criminals. With Sam, that’s no problem: he’s always threatening, even when he’s trying to play nice for the parole board. John finally gets his big moment at the very end of the first episode when, having realised the Cross is tapped out, he takes his crew for a walk up to Oxford Street.

Last King of the Cross built an entire King Cross street to film on, an impressive commitment to detail that added a lot to the series’ atmosphere. They reuse that set for Oxford street, which requires a slightly more muscular suspension of disbelief. What’s more important is that Oxford street, under the rule of Ray Kinnock (Naveen Andrews, this season’s overseas recruit) is thriving, with venues jumping and youthful crowds flooding in.

Against this backdrop, even only for a moment, John and his mob look like who they are; a sleazy pack of washed up predators looking to rip off anyone in sight. Hopefully the series can keep that in mind in between all the shootouts and strippers to come.

Last King of the Cross is streaming on Paramount+, with two episodes available Friday August 30 and then ongoing weekly.