Max review: Warrior remains a pulpy thrill in Episode 306

Warrior, a martial arts drama set in San Francisco in the 1870s, began life on Cinemax, where it ran for two awesome seasons watched by far too few people. Eventually Cinemax stopped making original content and the series was picked up by Max, then called HBO Max. That’s where I found it, watched it, and loved it.

Warrior is now halfway through its third season on Max, and since I finally got my hands on some screeners, I want to review the episodes from here until the end. If I get at least one more person interested in checking out this extremely under-watched show, I’ll feel like I accomplished something.

So let’s pick up with Episode 306, “A Soft Heart Won’t Do You No Favors.” All the episode titles are like that, by the way; they’re taken directly from a line of dialogue from the episode. Warrior is weird with titles; the title of the show itself is kinda bland, but the episode titles are often too long and complex to be memorable.

Warrior review, Episode 306, “A Soft Heart Won’t Do You No Favors”

Warrior is a martial arts drama, so when the characters aren’t fighting, we’re always kind of waiting for them to start. When the action does arrive, it’s dependably fantastic, but by this point in the series the characters are deep enough and the storylines mature enough that if Warrior wanted to become a pure drama, it could probably get away with it.

So it’s easy to enjoy the first stretch of the episode, which ticks off boxes as it pushes forward the season’s big plotlines. Young Jun is begrudgingly working with Mai Ling as they combine their operations; naturally, she’s already manipulating him into distrusting Ah Sahm, who has continued his relationship with Yan Mi, the printer who’s making counterfeit money for them. Check, check and check.

Elsewhere, Dylan Leary is a fish out of water as he tries to hob knob with the San Francisco elite. But we can pick up with those plotlines later. Episode 6 is mainly concerned with a pair of field trips.

Lee and Chao go down to Georgia

Some of the best episodes of Warrior have taken us outside San Francisco, whether its Ah Sahm and Young Jun staying at a Nevada saloon in season 1 or visiting Rooker’s Mill  in season 2. The show has been sprawling more of late, so this time we have two trips: on the one hand, Lee and Chou are taken prisoner and transported to Georgia so Lee’s very angry extended family can collect the bounty on his head. Meanwhile, Ah Sahm, Young Jun and Father Jun leave the city to meet some German gangsters in the hopes of trading some of their counterfeit money for silver; the Germans know the money is counterfeit this time, so there’s no chance they’ll get mad and turn on them like Happy Jack did with Chao…well, less chance.

Lee’s trip is the more personal of the two, obviously. We’ve known since the first season that he was wanted for the murder of his cousins in Georgia, so this was overdue. We finally meet his family members and they’re a real pieces of work, especially his aunt, who has been hardened by her lust for revenge, although it’s hard to imagine her ever being pleasant. She’s the ringleader of the family that remains to her, and she intends to see Lee die and die slow.

I don’t know quite why Chao is along for the ride, but I’m glad he’s there. The characters on Warrior may not be spread out physically the way they were on, say, Game of Thrones, but there’s a world of distance between Chao the Chinese arms dealer and Lee the former southern police officer. These two have brushed up against each other but have never spent any quality time together, and it’s entertaining to see them bond, however much they both resist it.

I also loved Chao’s speech about his belief in the power of the deal, which can “make a slave a man, make a man an American.” The fight choreography on Warrior is justly praised, but the writers also know their way around a hard-bitten monologue.

In the end, Lee survives with Chao’s help. Together, they kill Lee’s remaining family members, which is both satisfying and sad. We don’t like any of these people, and we know that Lee only killed his cousins in the first place because they committed a hate crime against the women he loved, but the show doesn’t frame this as triumphant justice. One of Lee’s cousins is a young man who could be a good person, who could break away and leave like Lee did. But Lee kills him all the same, shocking himself. He and Chao bury the bodies together.

The Good, the Bad and the German

Meanwhile, Ah Sahn, Young Jun and Father Jun head to the desert to unload some of the counterfeit bills they’ve been printing. Warrior loves to take field trips to the desert, where it can play out its western fantasies. We have brown-yellow expanses of horizon, gruff men growling threats from under wide-brimmed hats, and long staring contests before explosions of violence. The show clearly loves this stuff, and it’s infectious.

Warrior also has a way of introducing one-off characters who become memorable almost immediately. We already talked about Lee’s bloodthirsty aunt. In this other plotline, we have the German mob boss. He and Young Jun strike a deal to exchange the counterfeit bills for silver, but of course it goes south later, after Ah Sahm and Young Jun catch his men brutally beating a Chinese laborer for a minor infraction. The mob boss defuses that situation, but his brother decides to make a point and kill the young laborer; Ah Sahm and company see his body on their way out of town. After that, Ah Sahm Eastwood has no choice but to ride back and dole out punishment to the evildoers.

That results in a pitched, messy firefight that hits its peak once Ah Sahm makes his way into the church where the mob boss is holed up. The energy is so high at this point that the show gets away with dramatically dollying in on the mob boss’ sweaty face as he snarls, “There is no God!” before Ah Sahm takes out his goons and suplexes him onto the world’s biggest, steadiest crucifix.

That’s what it’s all about! Warrior sets up these action sequences so carefully, and executes them so well, that we’re swept up in the tide and accept what we’re seeing as action bliss, no matter how preposterous it might be. And not to be a snob, but it’s refreshing to see action scenes that depend this heavily on stuntwork, props and sets, as opposed to weightless CGI combat. CGI fights can be great, too, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a visceral quality to the fights on Warrior you don’t often get elsewhere.

Verdict

I was thoroughly entertained by “A Soft Heart Won’t Do You No Favors.” As usual, the show mixes character work, historical detail, and action in a way that’s endlessly fun to watch, as brutal as things can get. Warrior has a way of mixing over-the-top pulp with grounded realism, bringing you the best of both worlds.

I do think the show is spreading itself a thin this season. Not only has the cast expanded since season 1, but they’re all changing; did we ever expect to see Leary at a fancy society party? It takes a lot of narrative energy to move all this stuff forward, and it’s not always distributed equally. Ah Toy, O’Hara and Buckley sit out this episode entirely. I’m hoping the final four episodes of the season bring together some of the disparate plot threads for a satisfying climax.

Bullet Points Won’t Do You No Favors

• Will Chou and Lee just appear back in San Francisco next episode or will they spend an episode or two getting there? And will the trust they formed on this trip last?
• Did we need the scene where Young Jun and the German prostitute slap each other around before having passionate, kinky sex? I dunno, but I’m glad they enjoyed themselves. It was trashy fun in the old school HBO mold. “Come here, my tiny Zeus!”
• Father Jun is wounded in the firefight. He could survive the trip back to Chinatown, but I feel like the show has wanted to write him out for a while now so Young Jun can stand on his own. I suspect he won’t make it. I was kind of surprised the show brought him back in the first place.
• I loved the mother of the murdered laborer whaling on the mob boss’ men during the firefight, saving Father Jun and Young Jun from a rout.

Episode Grade: B

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