Funland

A prudish couple arrives in Blackpool and checks into Leo Finch's seedy boarding house. Finch's sly, controlling nature hints at the trouble to come. The bleak seaside milieu establishes the mood for the ensuing schemes.

On his first night, Dudley is enticed into a high-stakes poker game run by Finch and loses £3,000. Finch implies that Lola will have to earn the money, pressuring her into a humiliating turn as a stripper at Mercy's club. The couple's precarious finances begin to unravel immediately.

Initially terrified, Lola discovers she is good at stripping and even begins to enjoy it. This shift deepens the power dynamic between her and Dudley and begins to erode their marriage. The transformation foreshadows later conflicts driven by sexual agency.

Shirley Woolf, Mercy's club owner, pressures Lola with a lucrative offer to sleep with him. Dudley stays nearby, watching and hoping to intervene, but his presence highlights the couple's fragility. Lola's calculation about autonomy and money drives the plot forward.

Carter Krantz lands in Blackpool carrying a key and a scrap of paper that names Ambrose Chapel. He suspects his mother's murder is connected to this place, which initially appears as a cryptic link to a church-turned-nightclub. His arrival begins a dangerous pursuit through Mercy and Finch's schemes.

Krantz teams up with journalist Ken Cryer, who claims he can uncover Ambrose Chapel. When Krantz goes to meet Cryer, he discovers Cryer's belongings scattered on the beach and Cryer's head hidden beneath a bucket. The cryptic clue 'Malcolm Carpet' becomes Krantz's grim clue as danger closes in.

Mercy throws a birthday party that obliges Shirley and Connie to attend, and she haunts Shirley with memories of his father drowning. Connie reveals she is pregnant, deepening Mercy's control and complicating loyalties. The party unfolds as a window into the tangled, violent family dynamics driving the plot.

Mercy tells Krantz that his real name came from his mother Frannie Poole, who had a troubled history and left Blackpool after a rape. Krantz confronts Finch about the alleged rape, but Van Kneck counters with a dubious paternal story. The family secrets pull Krantz deeper into Mercy's conspiracy.

Mercy and Van Kneck hire two Finnish brothers to handle Lola, and the first brother targets her for sex. Lola initially agrees to the encounter but mutinies and shoots him when he tries to rape her. To avoid exposure, the conspirators stage the death as a drowning and begin planning the deception.

With one killer dead and the other due, Krantz and Shirley arrange for the surviving brother's apparent drowning to look real. The taxidermist Ambrose Chapfel assists in carrying off the deception, allowing Mercy's schemes to remain hidden. The ruse buys them time but tightens the net around Krantz.

Dudley returns to his home to find an explosion; Connie blames Mercy and urges him to kill her. The blast intensifies the sense that Mercy pulls the strings behind Blackpool's chaos. The incident pushes Dudley further into the orbit of Mercy's influence.

At Blackpool Tower, a gorilla-dress ball becomes the backdrop for a tense showdown over the Bridewell relic. Lola retrieves the tone-dead deed from Mercy’s safe, but the wind scatters it and Shirley is killed when Mercy shoots him. Krantz then traps Mercy in Chapfel's basement and takes control of the situation.

Krantz and Lola walk along Blackpool Beach, the Bridewell deed in their possession after the tower confrontation. Krantz remains tight-lipped about his next move, leaving their future unresolved. Mercy's scheme collapses, but the fates of the other players remain open.