Season two of Into the Badlands didn’t catch on at first, but as the story progresses I became more and more interested in what the outcomes of the various confrontations would be. Ultimately, I thought it was an entertaining show with a fascinating story and lore.
I must admit that I am a bit slow to the Into the Badlands train. I should also admit that I went into watching the second season without seeing the first. With all that said I thought that it showed off some immense potential. I may be bold in saying that if the showrunners can capitalize on the tantalizing potential that they may have a product that could reach Game of Throne’s level… I know, I know…That is a bold statement, but let me be clear in saying that I don’t think it is at that level, just that it has the potential to be at that level.On the topic of not having watched the first season I want to say that the second season of Badlands is extremely forgiving to this. They do an excellent job of establishing the characters and plot and who is in confrontation and why, and in doing this you can be engaged as a viewer despite not having seen the first season. Basically, they do a very good job with their exposition to help explain events, which is no east task at all. I’m sure that I have missed at the least a few important tidbits from the first season, but it was nothing that made the second season any less enjoyable.
To fill you in a bit—At least the best I can—Into the Badlands is set in a world 500 years after a great war unleashed a terrible wrath upon the earth. In the ensuing chaos a group of barons has risen to power in an area of earth known as the Badlands, which is located somewhere in the United States. The barons have shunned and banned the use of guns in favor of melee weaponry. Each baron has its own good or service that it is in control of and they train a militia to fight for them. They refer to their fighters as Clippers. Each baron also has a working class, known as cogs, and a prostitute class known as Dolls.
The show itself revolves around the story of Sunny (Daniel Wu), one of the most feared clippers, and his attempt to have a normal life with a family, which is something that a clipper is forbidden to do. The second season opens with sunny having been sold into slavery after an attack on his baron, Quinn (Marton Csokas). Sunny has lost his family, wife and child, and must go on a journey to get to his family and rescue them from the aforementioned Quinn. His companion in this journey is Bajie (Nick Frost), who helps him escape from his forced servitude in the first episode. The two from your typical they don’t talk much at first but by the end of the season have grown to respect and care for each other duo.
While Sunny is on his Odyssey type journey, The Widow (Emily Beecham) is busy trying to change the world of the barons which she sees as corrupt and harmful. She is helped along in this task by her regent—second in command—Tilda (Ally Ioannides) and her advisor Waldo (Stephen Lang). Naturally when a group tries to change the model of power their world is based off there is conflict outside the group and inside as well.
An added element involves that of Sunny’s companion from season one, M.K., a boy with some type of supernatural power, tries to learn to control his power but learns that even those who seem like they are there to help you have their own wants in mind.
All the while there is some very G.O.T like alliances and betrayals. It at times is on the edge of becoming overwhelming, but ultimately the writers do a solid job of keeping their plots and subplots in order. The characters pretty much keep their wants front and center and their plots revolve around those wants regardless of what extracurriculars occur.
There are times though where I feel like the show could’ve done good with maybe killing off a side character but said side character would get away, not once but twice sometimes, and this is something that could either bite them or if they execute something with these characters in the future that serves the show well it might help them, but I personally feel that this can hurt some moments that are supposed to be tense and dramatic. There was one scene where they clearly wanted to set up a will this character die moment and I knew all along that they would survive. One of the pros of killing characters in show like this is that it can clear up some plot lines that could become too dense and give you an opportunity to let other characters shine. Like I said though if they bring these characters through with well executed storylines then it will be a good a thing they were left alive, it is just something I would be wary of.
There were also times in the show where I felt that the acting was a bit to over dramatic. Some lines would come off as cheesy. Also, there were moments in which they were doing things purely for looks and nothing more. There is one fight scene where two female characters are going at it while wearing tight dresses and high heels. I don’t wear high heels or tight dresses, but I assume that they are not the best for martial arts style fighting. Maybe it’s nitpicking a little bit but moments like this happen often in the show and they can lessen impactful moments if our audience is distracted by the fact that a character is fighting in an impractical way. Little things can add up and I would hate for this show to die a death via 1000 paper cuts when it has such great potential it can fulfill.
Back to a positive, I felt that the fight scenes, despite what I mentioned above, were extremely well done and enjoyable. Anytime Sunny was about to face off it was great entertainment and reminded me of scenes from the likes of 13 Assassins. I also did like that they had some badass female characters doing some badass fighting—once again despite the minor negatives.
Overall, I was thoroughly entertained as the season progressed. The show does good on it’s character building despite some minor dialogue problems. It does a good job with some excellent female characters which is always a plus. Based off my watching of the second season I am excited for the third season and hope that the show can continue to fulfill its great potential. If it can iron out some small wrinkles I have no doubt it will. Also, the opening credits are extremely well done and one of my favorite show openings that I have seen. Watch this if you get the chance and you ultimately won’t be disappointed.
