Published Jul 15, 2026, 8:00 PM EDT
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The Westies might well be bringing us a new look at New York’s criminal underground, but it might also find a way to bring back some familiar faces, too. The show comes from Chris Brancato and **Michael Panes, **who also happen to oversee Godfather of Harlem, and the pair have admitted they are open to bringing the two worlds together.
But this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, because The Westies was actually conceived as a storyline for *Godfather of Harlem *before Brancato and Panes decided the material deserved its own series. Speaking to ScreenRant, Brancato pointed to two characters who could plausibly come from the same world as Godfather of Harlem, even though the series never makes that connection explicit, just to strengthen that DNA link.
“There are two characters, Leon and Charlie, who appear in The Westies,” Brancato said, referring to two of the men that the Westies work with on their drug deals. “One could imagine that they come from that world, though we didn’t specify that. But, yes, we’ll continue to look for crossover opportunities wherever we can.”
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Panes acknowledged that any direct crossover would have to work around the timeline, because Godfather of Harlem is set in the early 1960s, while The Westies takes place in the early 1980s. “They’d be much younger in the Godfather world,” Panes said. “Godfather’s the early ’60s, and this is the early ’80s. So Leon and Charlie could be babies in Harlem.”
The timing is especially interesting because Godfather of Harlem is preparing to end with a two-hour series finale rather than a fifth season, and Brancato said he was grateful the team had been given the opportunity to complete the story properly.
“First of all, we were hopeful for some way to cap off what has been a marvelous four-season run,” Brancato said. “Shows don’t usually go into five and six seasons very much anymore, so we’re grateful to MGM and Disney for coming up with the cash to be able to make a finale that we hope will entertain the fans, close off the Bumpy Johnson story, and make the entire 42-episode series have a beginning, middle, and a proper end.”
The Westies stars Titus Welliver (Bosch) as Glenn Keenan and J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) as Eamon Sweeney, alongside Tom Brittney (Grantchester), Jessica Frances Dukes (Ozark), Stanley Morgan (Argylle), Sarah Bolger (Mayans M.C.), Allen Leech (Downton Abbey), Hamish Allan-Headley (Mayor of Kingstown), Vincent Walsh (Saving Hope), and Hilary McCormack (Peaky Blinders).