How Sunny got his groove back.
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
Last week's Into the Badlands broke from tradition by cutting Daniel Wu's Sunny completely out of the picture. For the most part, it was a risk that paid off. All the same, it was good to see Sunny front and center again this week in an episode that highlighted just how dark life can be both in and out of the Badlands.
Sunny hasn't exactly been himself this season. Being dragged half a continent away from his family is only part of it. He's a man haunted by the ghosts of the 400 people he's killed (particularly the man he once called "Baron"). Where once Sunny was perfectly happy to kick ass at a moment's notice, these days he only busts out his martial arts moves when his own life is in imminent danger. This week was an important step in his journey, reminding Sunny that his skills can be put to use and that there are still innocent people in the world worth defending. By the end, it felt like our hero made an important step back to becoming the confident warrior he was in Season 1.
Nick Frost's Baijie made a similar transformation in this episode, as it became clear there are some evils even this profoundly self-interested schemer can't abide. I wish there had been more overt focus on Baijie's inner struggle and his ultimate decision to risk his life to help Sunny and Portia (The Hundred Foot Journey's Farzana Dua Elahe), but at least there's a clear sense that this character is evolving from week to week and is more than a mere comic foil to Sunny.
"Monkey Leaps Through Mist" introduced another major player in this remote corner of the world - smuggler and sex trafficker Nos (The Last Kingdom's Marc Rissman). Nos didn't leave quite as strong an impression as Stephen Walters' Engineer from earlier in the season. The problem being that they're both pretty similar characters, right down to their personalities, fashion choices and lack of oral hygiene. But at least Nos is a slightly subtler and more sinister villain. It also looks like he's being set up as a recurring antagonist given the way his confrontation with Sunny and Baijie ended this week. Hopefully that'll pay off. I'm less enthused by the prospect of Sunny and Baijie having new partners on their extended journey. Portia and her daughter were useful in terms of reawakening Sunny's protective side, but neither character was especially compelling on their own merits.
This was, sadly, a pretty light episode when it came to martial arts sequences. The only fight scene of note came when Sunny and Baijie made their escape from Nos' camp. But at least this was a case of quality over quantity. That fight scene offered a nice blend of Sunny's traditional swordplay and acrobatics with the more chaotic, Jackie Chan-esque fights he's been dragged into this season.
Back in the Badlands proper, we saw plenty of fallout from last week's blood-soaked conclave. The balance of power continues to shift as the Widow considers her next move, Quinn scurries back to his bunker and the other Barons crawl into their respective holes. The dynamic between Widow and her new right-hand man, Waldo, continues to be one of the more enjoyable elements of the show this season, particularly now that there's a little added friction between the two.The fact that Widow now wants to form an alliance with Quinn, the man with whom she was at war for most of Season 1, is another promising twist. Though it remains to be seen how much of Quinn's army will be left by the time Waldo tracks him down.
As for Quinn, he's clearly deteriorating rapidly following his tragic showdown with his son last week. In some ways, this half-mad take on Quinn plays to the worst aspects of Marton Csokas' performance. There were a few more cases where his ridiculous accent became almost unintelligible. But as in other recent episodes, there's a raw charisma to Csokas' acting that can't be ignored. He really does fit the bill as a terminally ill man struggling to maintain his grip on reality. That was especially true in the scenes where Quinn confronted Veil and literally held the life of her infant child in his hands. The closer to death Quinn gets, the more dangerous and unpredictable he becomes.
On that note, it was an unexpected but welcome twist to see Oliver Stark's Ryder stick around after death. Frankly, Ryder is a more compelling character as a tumor-induced ghost than he was a living player in the Badlands.
In general, this was a fairly slow episode, which is to be expected as pieces get shifted around the game board again after Quinn's latest attack. The one area where the season really is beginning to drag, however, is M.K.'s storyline. He simply isn't receiving the screen time he really needs. As it is, M.K.'s story is pretty much divorced from everything else happening on the series, and the fact that it's treated as such a minor piece of the puzzle doesn't help. Look at this episode - M.K. made his grand escape, and all we got as a result was a quick scene of him burying a corpse and stealing its clothes.
The Verdict
This week's Into the Badlands was a relatively slower episode, with an emphasis on various characters regrouping and only one significant fight scene to its name. For the most part, that approach worked well. The political strife in the Badlands continues to grow more intriguing, and that one fight scene was certainly fun to watch. But the show is definitely moving too slowly where M.K.'s storyline is concerned, and that's a problem that needs to be addressed soon.
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