A Soft Heart Won’t Do You No Favors – As this episode of Warrior begins, Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji) and Young Jun (Jason Tobin) meet Mai Ling and Li Yong to discuss the counterfeiting business. Mai Ling (Dianne Doan) insists the operation has to be run on her territory to avoid being caught. Young Jun doesn’t want to do it and argues that he didn’t make the deal. Ah Sahm tells Young Jun that it is a smart play. Mai Ling checks on Yan Mi (Chelsea Muirhead) to see if they’re up and running. Yan believes she’ll be good to go in a couple of hours. Young Jun tells Mai Ling he hasn’t forgotten that she tried to him Ah Sahm and his father. Mai Ling argues that things are different now and she doesn’t want to be at war with her own people.

Jun doesn’t believe her since he thinks she wants to run this place. He wants her to know that isn’t soft just because he was born into this. Mai Ling agrees she has a complicated relationship with her brother, but she’d never let that get in the way of business. She says they need to keep an eye on him because he has gotten close with their printer. It could become a problem if Ah Sahm becomes too attached. After the intro, Richard Lee (Tom Weston-Jones) wakes up next to Wang Chao (Hoon Lee). Chao says they’re on a train and they’re going where they must to collect the price on Lee’s head. Richard thinks they’re going home. Young Jun and Father Jun (Perry Yung) ask Ah Sahm whether they can trust Mai Ling.

Father Jun believes it is only a matter of time before the deal goes sideways. He knows a couple of Krauts who are sitting on silver claim a couple of hours east. They’ll pay them three times the going rate to have something of real value. Once Father Jun leaves, Ah Sahm asks if he is running things now. Young Jun says he isn’t, but he has always put the tong first. Once Ah Sahm agrees, Jun says they leave tomorrow morning. Hong (Chen Tang) will have to stay and run things while they’re away. Wang asks Richard about the men he killed, but Richard is busy trying to escape. He thinks Richard killed for love so he asks what her name is. They argue about who is to blame. Ah Sahm and Yan Mi talk about this the situation could go bad.

He says she is valuable so no one will touch her. They discuss the possibility of Young Jun and Mai Ling betraying one another. Wang notices that Richard is coming off opium. Chao doubts anyone will miss him. Richard thinks Abigail will try to find him although she won’t know how. Wang suggests she told Happy Jack about the bounty and they shared it. Richard says not everyone is like Chao since not everyone would sell their own child for profit. Chao insists it is the deal that matters. He goes on to explain how having a deal makes a difference. Richard just sees a man who has no loyalties and who stands for nothing. In his mind, that makes Chao a coward. Chao says that makes him free. Abigail (Gaosi Raditholo) speaks to Happy Jack about Richard being gone.

They argue about it before Abigail gets up and leaves. Richard’s cousins open the train and approach him. They think they should let their mom decide what to do to him. Richard is taken to Aunt Violet (Patricia Boyer) who says he will suffer plenty for what he has done once they get back to Savannah. She tells Richard that his mom lost two sons in the war, but he broke her heart worst of all. As for Wang Chao, Violet says his strong back will come in handy. Dylan Leary (Dean Jagger) goes to a fancy event with Douglas Strickland (Adam Rayner). Ah Sahm and Young Jun prepare to meet the Krugers. When asked what it is about, Young Jun shows the guards a bag of money.

Dylan speaks to William and others about his ideas. Douglas reminds him not to bite the hand that feeds. Young Jun and Ah Sahm show the counterfeit money to the Krugers. One of them explains that he had a lot of business with Father Jun back in the day and he killed his dog named Cecil. Father Jun shows them a bite mark on his arm and says the mutt had it coming. Lukas laughs about it and admits the dog was a demon. Then, they come to a deal of four to one. Dylan meets Thayer who agrees to discuss politics at another time. Strickland says Thayer worked hard to make the marriage happen. If the family found out that Anna is damaged good, it would fall apart.

He heard she had a fling with one of the servants. Franklin Thayer (Colin Moss) raised the boy as his own to spare Anna the public humiliation. Once they leave, Dylan asks Strickland why he wouldn’t use that dirt after Thayer wins the election. Douglas says Thayer is an honest man and he has no use for an honest mayor. Ah Sahm learns that the Krugers employ more than 600 Chinese on their claim. They’re invited to stay the night, eat, drink, and sleep with their women. Later, Valentina is told she only has to sleep with the tiny one. Young Jun is worried that she might kill him. He suspects Ah Sahm is getting all the sticky he needs from the printer. They can talk about his judgment later. While Young Jun is with Valentine, Father Jun and Ah Sahm talk about him.

Father Jun says he needs people around him he can trust. Right now, he isn’t sure who that is. He suspects he may have not liked Ah Sahm because he didn’t understand him. Now, he understands him better than he used to. Father Jun thinks it would be difficult to be torn between blood and duty. Ah Sahm reminds him that Mai Ling tried to have him killed. Father Jun believes he cares about his son, but he is a man of chaos. Chaos is first. He was that way previously until he grew up. Young Jun returns and asks for another bottle. Father Jun goes to bed. Young Jun apologizes to Ah Sahm for being mean about cutting the deal with Mai Ling. They find a group beating someone up because they stole from the general store.

Lukas comes over and explains that his brother is a stickler for the rules. They agree to drop it because they’re going to make a crap ton of money tomorrow. The wagon being used to transport Richard breaks down. They’ll have to dig it out. Violet suggests making Wang do it. When Wang’s shirt gets ripped, they see scars all over his back so they suspect he has a history of bad behavior. Richard gets involved and gives Wang enough time to get away. Carter is told to shoot him. Richard tells Cater that he hates seeing him swept up in this because he was always such a good boy. He always figured Carter would leave home and get away from all of this. Carter felt the same until Richard killed his brother.

Richard urges him to get away from her because she turns him into something he isn’t. Violet interrupts and instructs them to fix the wagon. In the morning, Father Jun and the others finish the deal. Before they can leave, they find that the thief has been strung up. Ah Sahm blames himself. Father Jun tells him not to be stupid because the deal will be dead if he goes back in there. Although Father Jun says this isn’t his fight, Ah Sahm thinks otherwise. They go back inside and start trouble with the Krugers. Once they take care of everyone, they notice that Father Jun has been shot. He says he is fine and they need to get away. Richard is whipped while Violet tells him every he did.

Wang returns. He attacks them and frees Richard. They kill the other man when he arrives. Wang says he came back because he needed a horse. When Carter approaches them, Richard tries to convince him to put the gun down. He doesn’t so Richard has to shoot him. They deal with the bodies as the episode ends.

 

Warrior Review

This episode of Warrior was decent although it had a lot of issues compared to the episodes before it. In particular, the villains in this episode felt a bit cartoonish, especially those with the horrible southern accents. Despite being British, Tom Weston-Jones does pretty well in that area. Unfortunately, his relatives did not.

Even Abigail’s accent seemed to switch on the fly, but Richard’s relatives were far worse. Certain aspects of the episode were unbelievable and even slightly annoying, such as the Krugers having so much control and the gang deciding to go back and just slaughter everyone. On the plus side, the episode did a good job of rebuilding relationships so the next one will likely be better.

With ten episodes per season, there are going to be a few throwaway episodes and this was probably one of them. With Richard’s history being taken care of, the simultaneous storylines can hopefully be slimmed down so the show won’t feel all over the place. The episode scores a 6 out of 10. Recaps of Warrior can be found on Reel Mockery here.

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