Bullet Points: Warrior (S2 Ep10) “Man on the Wall”
This will be a bittersweet post. We have come to the end of the road… possibly forever and definitely for Season 2 of Warrior…
- Aftermath: The pre-credits scene finds Mai Ling (Dianne Doan) surveying the carnage from last week’s Chinatown riot. There are dead bodies, weeping survivors and property damage as far as the eye can see… but something has risen from the ashes… on the wall Mai Ling sees a huge mural honoring her estranged brother, Ah Sahm and his nunchaku skills… to say Ah Sahm’s new found folk hero status grinds Mai Ling’s gears would be an understatement… moments later Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji) and Ah Toy (Olivia Cheng) are standing in the exact same spot that Mai Ling was in looking at the mural… Ah Sahm thinks they made his nose too big, but Ah Toy sees the good man she has seen inside Ah Sahm from the start… a man who could be a symbol of hope for all the people of Chinatown.
- Father & Son: There’s a great scene between Young Jun (Jason Tobin) and Father Jun (Perry Yung) where they have a heart to heart and make peace. Father Jun even shares some quality advice that his son is going to need as the head of the Hop Wei. Early the next morning Father Jun quietly leaves Chinatown to begin the next chapter of his life, Father Jun doesn’t even say goodbye to his son, he tasks that responsibility with Wang Chao (Hoon Lee) asking him to keep an eye on his son too.
- You Dropped a Bomb on Me: Mai Ling and Li Yong (Joe Taslim) come to pay their respects to the new leader of the Hop Wei, Young Jun and hope to establish a working relationship with him. But Young Jun is in total hard ass mode during these “negotiations”, no doubt pumped up that he finally received the blessing of his father. And that’s about the time Mai Ling drops the bomb and says she is sick of fighting her brother and Young Jun finds out that his boy Ah Sahm is Main Ling’s brother! The hot head Young Jun does not take the revelation well, Hong (Chen Tang) tries to diffuse the situation, but the seemingly unbreakable bond between Young Jun/Ah Sahm has definitely been fractured thanks to Mai Ling’s manipulations.
- Dream Match: Ah Sahm pleads his side to Young Jun and then gives Young Jun time to process everything… that gives Ah Sahm time to head over to the Banshee and get a drink. Given recent events, having a Chinese patron in the Irish part of town is asking for trouble and it is no surprise that the bar’s owner Dylan Leary (Dean Jagger) sits down with Ah Sahm and the two have a discussion that eventually turns into both men going outside and beating the holy hell out of one another. This is an epic encounter and delivers the type of top shelf fighting action that Warrior fans have come to expect. Ah Sahm is the eventual winner of the fight, although you wouldn’t think so by looking at him… and as he walks away from the Banshee he tells all the Irish laborers who were there rooting on Leary to stay out of Chinatown or that he’ll be back with an entire army.
- Cliffhangers: The rest of the show was filled with cliffhanger moments since the announcement that Cinemax would not be renewing Warrior for a third season came after production of Season 2 had wrapped and there were plans in place to keep the Warrior train rolling … we get two great scenes where Penelope Blake (Joanna Vanderham) confronts the acting mayor Walter Buckley about the death of Jacob. She even goes to the newspaper to tell the full exclusive story, but when the reporter sells out and kills the story after Buckley pays him, Penny does what I have been wanting someone to do for two season, she slaps Buckley right in the face!!! But my euphoria is short lived when Buckley grabs a letter opener from his desk and stabs… HIMSELF! Then the weasel Buckley falls to the floor, screams that Penny stabbed him and in comes his security detail. Buckley doesn’t press charges, but Penny ends up strapped to a bed in an asylum… Richard Lee (Tom Weston-Jones) finally has had enough and quits the police force, despite big Bill O’Hara (Kieran Bew) pleading with him to stay. But by the end of the episode it looks like Bill may have lost his friend, but will his wife and kids return?… Mai Ling visits Mayor Buckley and she brings the incriminating photo she received from the private investigator to blackmail Buckley into helping her with her Hop Wei problem… We also get Dylan Leary deciding to get into politics in a total Dylan Leary way… We see Young Jun on the streets of Chinatown staring up at the mural of Ah Sahm. What does the future hold for these two “friends”? … And last but not least the reveal that Zing (Dustin Nguyen) has not been hung yet and instead he is working on escape plan from San Quentin!
“Man on the Wall” was a fantastic season finale, but it would really suck if it ends up being the series finale. There’s still so much meat left on the bone and hopefully we get one more season of Warrior to tie up all the loose ends on HBO Max.
But if this in fact the end of Warrior, I want to thank everyone involved in the show for creating a series that hooked me instantly and always left me wanting more.
All season long we’ve been wrapping up our episode recaps with some questions, but since the only question that matters at this point is will there be a Warrior Season 3… I have decided to make this an awards filled set of Bonus Bullet Points…
- Biggest Asshole: No surprise here, Langley Kirkwood’s Walter Buckley.
- Newcomer of the Year: Chen Tang’s Hong was the most welcome addition for me in Season 2 of Warrior… he brought an energy and fun to his character and I can’t imagine the Hop Wei without him.
- Best Hair: Hands down this one goes to Jason Tobin’s Young Jun.
- Most Shocking Death: I don’t think anyone could have predicted that Jacob would have killed a three sheets to the wind Mayor Samuel Blake (Christian McKay).
- A Star is Born: Andrew Koji is officially on my action radar thanks to Warrior and even if his Ah Sahm days are over… I am pumped to see him in the role of Storm Shadow in Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins.
