Raise your game, House of the Dragon. Look sharp, Peaky Blinders. Gangs of London (Sky Atlantic) is surely the most violent show on television. After a 2020 debut run which became Sky’s biggest original drama for five years, the contemporary crime epic now returns for an even more gory second series. Bones crunch. Wounds squelch. Arcs of blood spray. It’s ultra-brutal but utterly exhilarating.

Welsh film-maker Gareth Evans, best known for The Raid franchise, co-created the show and oversees its inventive action scenes. He orchestrates cinematic fights and ambitious stunts which are something of a game-changer for home-grown TV. A highlight of the first series was a bullet-peppered safehouse siege which played out like a Bourne movie in miniature. This eight-part follow-up looks to have raised the stakes (and bodycount) even further.

It’s one year since the vicious turf war which erupted after the assassination of crime kingpin Finn Wallace (Colm Meaney) and ended with the shooting of his heir Sean (Joe Cole). The underworld map of the capital has been redrawn, with string-pulling “investors” filling the power vacuum by aligning behind Pakistani heroin baron Asif Afridi (Asif Raza Mir).

Together they have installed a new chief enforcer in Palestinian psychopath Koba (Baghdad Central’s Waleed Zuaiter) – “a clean skin, no affiliations” – who demands a complete monopoly over London’s thriving drugs trade. Koba makes for a delicious villain: oddly camp but downright terrifying. With his dandyish wardrobe, silvery hair and sadistic glint, he’s a cross between Javier Bardem’s Bond villain, chef Anthony Bourdain and Joe Pesci from Goodfellas.

Inevitably, the existing crime syndicates soon fight back, notably in the hulking shape of Albanian mafia boss Luan Dushaj (Orli Shuka). And the tangled plot and international scope offer up all manner of intrigue.

Paapa Essiedu, surely now the biggest star in the cast, returns as City slicker Alex Dumani – who is now a money launderer for the mob but making moves of his own – while Michelle Fairley (as Finn’s scheming widow Marian) and Lucian Msamati (as shrewd consigliere Ed Dumani) lend acting chops and emotional heft. Sure, the script clunks portentously in places but nobody comes to Gangs of London for subtlety. Dialogue is often merely a place-holder, moving the plot along until the next operatic set piece arrives.

Rooftop terraces overlook shimmering cityscapes. Overhead cameras swoop and glide, while the adrenalised action is shot at viscerally close quarters. This curtain-raising comeback episode is bookended by a pair of drawn-out fights to the death. There’s a fork in the eye and a shock fall from a skyscraper. Gangs of London is back with a bang. Not to mention a crunch and a squelch.

Gangs of London series two premieres on Thursday 20 October at 9pm on Sky Atlantic and NOW. All eight episodes will be available as a boxset