Episodes three and four of Warrior season two are the turning point of the season. The ending of episode four is where the shift of the season happens. Everything before that is how the characters get themselves into the situations that lead to that shift.
“Not How We Do Business” is mostly set up for what happens at the end of the episode, but with the introduction of a new character. The new character is Hong, who is a new Hop Wei from China. He falls in with Ah Sahm and Young Jun, even though they find him abrasive to start with. Mai Ling and Li Yong have issues with the Fung Hai, though Mai Ling seems to have less of a problem with them. Chao and Li Yong scheme to get the Fung Hai out of the way. The episode ends with a group of Fung Hai attack Bill in his house, after he stopped working for them earlier in the episode.
“If You Don’t See Blood, You Didn’t Come to Play” is a hell of an episode. It begins with the aftermath of the attack with Bill’s family leaving, with his wife telling him not to contact them. Lee finds out Bill was the cause of his attack and coma, which leads to them having a falling out. The next day Chao tells Bill to hold off on retaliation, which we find out later so that Chao can frame Zing for Ah Toy’s vigilante activity. The Mayor takes a hard stance on Chinese labor, much to Penny’s frustration. We get a tease of a fight between Ah Sahm and Leary in front of Mercery Steel. The crux of what happens is a fight between Penny and Sophie. Sophie’s naïve views of the world and her attachment to Leary cause he to view Penny as the bad guy. The fight causes Sophie to lead Leary through a back entrance to Mercer Steel so that he can blow it up. The episode ends with Mercer Steel in ruins and Sophie unsure of what she’s done.
I had forgotten how annoying Sophie was. Her actions and her naivety are very similar to first season Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones. That’s the best way that I can put it, because they both have very narrow views of the world and how it should function and god forbid anything make them question that before they’re ready. There are a lot of people like that and they very rarely take any form a challenge to that view kindly. The character of Hong is kind of her exact opposite. He was kind of added to give some levity to Young Jun and Ah Sahm, which is very much needed with how their story has been headed all season.
These were incredibly eventful episodes that shape the rest of the season. We got a tease of what has been built for almost two seasons, though we did get a small taste at the end of the first season. We see the political maneuvering that all of the different characters starting to take hold. We also get to see some plans fall apart, and we’ll see how that’s handled in the coming episodes. I give these two episodes 8.5 hatchets out of 10.