Jimmy McCavern

Jimmy McCavern leads the Billy Boys, a razor gang out of Glasgow, and he arrives in Small Heath as muscle for hire and menace in his own right. Broad-shouldered and plain-spoken, he trades in fear rather than finesse, and he makes no secret of who he hates or who he's willing to hurt to get paid.

Brian Gleeson plays him without any of the show's usual romance — no tailored suits, no clever lines, just blunt sectarian violence delivered with total calm. That flatness is the point: after seasons of stylish gangsters, McCavern feels like an ugly, real thing walking into a myth, and the show lets his plainness make him more frightening, not less.