![]() “Chamber of the Scorpion” felt, if anything, more focused than the first half of the season. ![]() ![]() ( Aramis Knight) is still a bit too pouty, but his sense of having been betrayed by Sunny ( Daniel Wu) and given a purpose by Pilgrim feels authentic and the roles of the Widow and the Abbots continue to waver as the Badlands’ status-quo shifts from one threat to the next. Pilgrim and Cressida ( Lorraine Toussaint) don’t seem to have an agenda beyond a genuinely unswerving belief in what they’re doing M.K. But what has always been consistent about it - and what is just as prevalent in “Chamber of the Scorpion” - is how it works in that flexible moral grey area between heroes and villains. At this point fans of the show know what to expect, even if the show itself seems content to reinvent itself either in part or entirely whenever it feels like it. all this, and isn’t always communicated in the best possible way, but whatever. These two have a complicated history but it isn’t worth getting into it in brief, the Master wants to work with the Widow to thwart the upcoming schemes of Pilgrim ( Babou Ceesay), who plans to use the newly activated Meridian Chamber to rebuild the mythical city of Azra by creating an army of “gifted” fighters. But maybe that dread comes from the knowledge that Into the Badlands’ time on the air is about to end when we really don’t want it to.Into the Badlands has always been a show about longwinded, sometimes silly exposition and awesome, sometimes silly action, and “Chamber of the Scorpion” has both in spades - right from the start, actually, as the Widow ( Emily Beecham), perhaps the sexiest character on television, takes on the Master ( Chipo Chung) in one of those floaty wuxia scraps just to let returning viewers know what time it is. It’s an episode overshadowed by self-reflection and a peculiar sense of dread. But it makes sense, since those who are closest to Sunny are often the most dangerous for him.Īs mid-season premieres go, “Chamber of the Scorpion” is a somber one. It’s interesting to see how his connection with Pligrim (as Sanzo) is supposedly more familial than his relationship with Quinn. Sunny, being the lone wolf that he is, refuses to do so, and is either exiled or sentenced to death (or both) as a result. In this perfect world I’m imaginging, “Chamber of the Scorpion” would certainly be cited more than a few times as an example of how Sunny is asked to surrender his individualism to serve someone else’s visions of perceived greater good. If Into The Badlands had been a wildly successful franchise (and I sincerely hope it still becomes that one day soon), I could see a collection of essays about how the show’s storylines relate to philosophy being published. Read more: Into the Badlands: Pilgrim Gives War Speech in Exclusive New Clip Now, after fighting so hard for his freedom in a harsh and unforgiving post-apocalyptic wasteland, Sunny is finding himself once again forced to be an instrument of someone else’s insane will. His bond with Pilgrim and the Thunderdome crew echoes that of his relationship with Baron Quinn, who always considered Sunny as a means to an end for his own delusional machinations. However, it’s ironic that “Chamber of the Scorpion” serves as a better cliffhanger than “Leopard Catches Cloud” did last year, as it puts Sunny (Sanzo?) in more physical jeopardy. This is the level at which I like my TV shows written, so I’m pleased as punch that Into the Badlands feels comfortable aspiring to such great storytelling heights now. Even the big bads this season (Pilgrim and Cressida) don’t feel like villains. Everyone’s perspective is taken into account now, and you can emphathize with almost all of them. Taking this apporach is quite an ambitious and emotionally mature move for Badlandsto take, one that balances out the extreme violence we witness from episode to episode quite nicely. We learn more about “the gift”, the Meridian Chamber, Azra, Pilgrim’s schemes, Sunny’s relationship to Pilgrim, Cressida’s distrust of Sunny, and the detailed motivations of pretty much everyone ever.īut I’m not going to call it long-winded. But in its defense, this episode was designed to be the connective tissue that gives us clarity on a few storylines that didn’t have enough time to gel together during the first half of the season. Yes, “Chamber of the Scorpion” is overloaded with exposition.
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