Bullet Points: Warrior (S2 Ep8) “All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic”
Last week’s Warrior delivered another fantastic cliffhanger with the shocking murder of Mayor Samuel Blake. Now let’s get into the aftermath, as always SPOILERS are ahead…
- In the Beginning: The episode starts with Young Jun (Jason Tobin), Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji) and Hong (Chen Tang) enjoying a meal. I couldn’t help but notice the traces of blood splattered on their persons as Hong regaled his Hop Wei brothers with the story of a mobster known as The Violin Man… then as the camera continues to pull out, you start seeing the slaughtered members of the Fung Hai and the realization sets in that we are witnessing the aftermath of Young Jun’s first major move as the boss of the Hop Wei. A move orchestrated by Young Jun’s friend/right hand man Ah Sahm. To send a message to the rival Long Zi, the Hop Wei banner is hung outside the Fung Hai building… something that does not go unnoticed by Long Zi leader, Mai Ling (Dianne Doan). Mai Ling almost seems impressed by the move and by her brother Ah Sahm, but you can see the wheels turning in her head.
- The Buck Stops Here: We get a gruesome flashback sequence explaining why Walter Buckley (Langley Kirkwood) walks with a limp… I know this was designed to put some sympathy on Buckley, but I still despise him. After the shocking murder of Mayor Samuel Blake at the end of Episode 7, Buckley is sworn in as the acting mayor of San Francisco and his first order of business is to catch Blake’s killer, Jacob (Kenneth Fok). Buckley orders every available cop to search Chinatown up and down for the manhunt. Furthermore, Buckley imposes a curfew on Chinatown and there are roadblocks set up, so nobody gets in or out of Chinatown without being questioned by the police… Chinatown is essentially shut down until Jacob is in police custody.
- Mayoral Meetings: Buckley has two meetings of note in this episode, the first is when Dylan Leary (Dean Jagger) approaches him with a plan to take some of the members of his union who are looking for work and deputize them to help with the manhunt… Buckley shoots him down. The second meeting is another of Buckley’s clandestine meetings with Mai Ling. Buckley gives Mai Ling an ultimatum, she finds Jacob for him or else the Long Zi will no longer be players in Chinatown’s opium game. Mai Ling fires back with a demand of her own… promising to deliver Jacob, but in return she wants the SFPD to help her crush the Hop Wei!
- After Hours: Thanks to the Chinatown curfew, things are quiet at the usually bustling brothel operated by Ah Toy (Olivia Cheng)… but while Ah Toy is sitting at the bar enjoying a drink, she gets an unexpected visit from her lover Nellie Davenport (Miranda Raison). Nellie heard the news and figured this would be the perfect time for Ah Toy to visit her vineyard in Sonoma for a few days since the brothel was shut down… before Ah Toy can give Nellie an answer, two “cops” show up wanting to search the place, when Ah Toy mentions that Bill O’Hara and the cops were already there earlier, they tell her Bill told them to come back. But it becomes obvious that these two brutes aren’t cops at all… they are actually hitmen and they’ve come to kill Ah Toy. Nellie tries to help but gets the tar beat out of her as a result… the hitmen known as Cleaver and Hammer based on their choice of weapons, also get the better of Ah Toy, thanks in part to the numbers game and the fact that Ah Toy does not have her trusty sword. With the death of Mayor Samuel Blake last week, and Rosalita Vega the week before, I couldn’t help but wonder if Warrior would go for three in a row and kill Nellie and/or Ah Toy… fortunately for Ah Toy, who at this point is bloodied and battered (she took a cleaver to the shoulder!) she manages to get her sword and it is game over for the hitmen at that point. After she barely survives the attempt on her life, Ah Toy visits Patterson, the white businessman she had been dealing with prior to getting in bed with Nellie Davenport in more ways than one and the man she believes hired the hitmen to take her out. Ah Toy brings the severed heads of Cleaver and Hammer and then threatens to kill Patterson’s children if he didn’t sign the papers to bring an end to their business deal.
There are only two episodes left and it looks like it is going to be total pandemonium on the streets of Chinatown next week, but right now it looks like some question filled Bonus Bullet Points are coming your way…
- Why didn’t Young Jun ask Father Jun (Perry Yung) how he would have handled the Fung Hai situation? I’d be curious how you take out a barbaric tong without losing any of your own men.
- Did Ah Toy take the severed heads with her when she left or did she make Patterson dispose of them?
- Have we seen the last of the bad blood between Bill O’Hara (Kieran Bew) and Richard Lee (Tom Weston-Jones)? Lee is not hiding the fact that he thinks the way O’Hara handled the Zing case was absolute bullshit, words were exchanged between the two and things even got physical between the two at the police station before it was broke up. The safe money is on there being one more blow up between the two Chinatown cops before the season ends.
- What will the enterprising Wang Chao (Hoon Lee) do now that Jacob has come to him for help?
