Bullet Points: Warrior (S3 Ep5) “Whiskey and Sticky and All the Rest Can Wait”
Episode 5 marks the halfway point for Season 3 of Warrior and it comes hot on the heels of last week’s big news that the two most prominent tong leaders in Chinatown, Mai Ling of the Long Zi and Young Jun of the Hop Wei, had been arrested…
- Rough Start: The episode opens with Mai Ling (Dianne Doan) being hosed down in her jail cell… a stark contrast to Mai Ling rubbing elbows with the San Francisco elite and Mai Ling being the head of the most powerful tong in Chinatown… Meanwhile Young Jun (Jason Tobin) does not find himself in jail, but instead a deportation center that has been established by the acting mayor (that no good bastard Buckley). Young Jun is set to be put on the next boat back to China, but that’s only if he survives. There are many men inside the deportation center that were wronged either directly or indirectly by the Hop Wei, which doesn’t make Young Jun the most popular guy in the place… but this hatred does lead into one of the more popular features of Warrior, a big fight scene! Young Jun is freaking tough as nails and despite the odds being against him shows no signs of backing down as he fights for his life. And when it appears it is almost over for Young Jun, the guards show up and break as Young Jun passes out… when he wakes up, a very familiar face is there… Father Jun!
- The Council: Mai Ling’s arrest has members of her council no longer trusting in her. Mai Ling invested a third of the Tong’s money with Eliza’s husband and didn’t clear it with the council and now after Mai Ling’s following out with Eliza and subsequent arrest that money is gone and never coming back, so as far as the majority are concerned Mai Ling can rot in prison. But not surprisingly Li Yong (Joe Taslim) speaks up for her and stresses that they need to find a way to get her out of jail… after the meeting Kong Pak pulls Li Yong aside, he mentions how he would never stand against his old friend, but can’t help but wonder what things would be like with a leader who works for the Tong instead of the other way around… Kong’s words must not sink in too much, because Li Yong cashes in the blackmail material they had on Buckley and that gets the ball rolling on Mai Ling’s release… although Mai Ling’s release is not without her having to make some promises to Buckley on her way out.
- No Wei Out: There’s nothing but trouble for the Hop Wei… they have the Secret Service breathing down their necks and their leader is about to be sent back to China. Chao (Hoon Lee) believes he may be able to leverage Happy Jack’s feeling towards Richard Lee dating his sister, to eliminate their Secret Service troubles so they can get back to printing money, but Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji) is going to have figure out the Young Jun situation. Ah Sahm and Hong (Chen Tang) do some recon work outside the detention center… that’s a dead end. They even manage to capture and interrogate one of the guards for some potential insider info… that’s a dead end. Ah Sahm only has one place left to turn… his sister, Mai Ling. Ah Sahm tries to pay for Young Jun’s freedom using counterfeit money… but Mai Ling is too smart for that. Mai Ling does make a counter offer… fifty percent of everything and she and her brother can finally be on the same side. Ah Sahm knows Young Jun will hate this, however it really is the only viable solution and it certainly beats the alternatives for Young Jun, being shipped back to China OR attempting to make a break for it with his father and “going out strong”.
Mai Ling and Ah Sahm being on the same side now is going to have a huge ripple effect on the rest of the season. There already existing tension between Ah Sahm and Young Jun and Mai Ling and Li Yong and her council may be exacerbated… Mai Ling may be able to use Li Yong’s feelings to manipulate him, but she can’t marry the entire council to keep them happy… And what about Father Jun? His attempt to make it outside of Chinatown failed miserably, will he stick around and become another member of Mai Ling’s council OR will Ah Sahm rise in the ranks? Either way the hot head Young Jun is not going to be happy… And what does a united Tong mean for the authorities in San Francisco looking to eliminate the Chinese from the picture? These are all very good questions, but I have a few more to ask in the Bonus Bullet Points…
- Who got to say the title of the episode this week?: That honor went to Young Ju, who upon returning to Hop Wei headquarters after his incarceration and nearly being deported has two things on his mind getting drunk and getting laid! In other words, typical Young Jun.
- Did Big Bill get his family back?: As I predicted in my Episode 2 recap, Big Bill (Kieran Bew) and his new boss Chief Atwood (Neels Clasen) were not long for this world… I said by Episode 5 they would be through and that turned out to be prophetic. Big Bill disgusted by Atwood’s treatment of the innocent people of Chinatown (seeing a mother being separated from her children was Bill’s breaking point), officially quits the force and later in the episode has a happy reunion with his wife.
- Have we seen the last of Nellie Davenport?: It was not a happy time when Nellie returned to Chinatown to visit Ah Toy and Lai… after Nellie tells Ah Toy of her plans of rebuilding her vineyard further north… Ah Toy tells her she’s not going to make the same mistake twice and that is probably best that Nellie doesn’t come around anymore.
- Did anybody else get sick watching Buckley and Miss Archer get it on?: Miss Archer knows what she wants and she is going after it… I wonder if I’ll feel sorry for Buckley if Archer eventually betrays him??
- Will Zing return in Episode 6?: At this point I am going to say no, but I hope I am wrong… he would make a hell of a monkey wrench for the united Tong in Chinatown.
- What happened to Chao!?: Probably the most important question of the week as Episode 5 ends with quite the cliffhanger with Chao setting up Secret Service agents Mosley and Lee to get jumped by Happy Jack and his right hand man… but as the show ends, Happy Jack has his gun pointed right at Chao and he’s not happy!
