![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Into the Badlands 1.3
Nov. 30th, 2015 09:31 pmEvery episode of Into the Badlands more heavily incorporates wuxia tropes. sadly, these are the tropes that lead to the lone survivor wandering the hills of ancient China sad and tragic and lonely because everyone he knows died, as opposed to the ones that lead to people having adventures and running off to the hills/an island to grow old peacefully and away from all the people who keep wanting them to fight.
The first episode introduced most of the major players and set the world up, while the second focused on The widow, and explored the conflict she creates. M.K. says The widow is no better than Quinn, but he's wrong in that because, unlike Quinn, she's expressed genuine concern for her people on more than one occasion, and carried out measures to attempt to secure their safety, even at her own expense. Mind you, overall, I'm not sure she's MUCH better than Quinn, but she's definitely the better option of the two so far, despite being the source of many of the current troubles.
The worldbuilding still isn't all that great, but I've spent years with far shakier worldbuilding in various anime and manga, including with Saiyuki. It does better with selling the post-apocalyptic atmosphere and desperation.
The third episode is when the plot really kicks off and we have the various factions preparing for war. Because all the setup is out of the way, we start getting hints about how the Barons and their society work outside of their various territories. A third Baron, Jacoby, is mentioned but not seen. We do know that he's apparently a fairly reasonable Baron, and that his Regent (Captain of his troops, pretty much, for those reading posts but not watching) is a woman, meaning Quinn is the only Baron so far with an exclusively male force. I will say that, as much as I dislike Quinn, the writing and Marton Csokas's acting both do a good job of making him threatening and fairly interesting without giving the audience any room to woobify or stan him (I mean, someone probably does...somewhere...but the show tried hard to prevent it). He's creepy and icky and you really want someone to kill him and save the protagonists, and they do it without making him a rapist/overt abuser of women like so many shows do. (The matter of Jade's consent in their relationship is questionable at best, but that's another matter, and I don't actually have a problem yet with how the show is handling that, though I'm constantly bracing myself.)
More important than the above, with all the setup taken care of, the episode devotes a lot of time to giving Veil, Jade and Lydia more development. I'm pretty sure each had more screentime this episode than all three combined did in the first two episodes. Because a lot of the non-war drama in the episode revolved around saving an injured Ryder, there wasn't much in the way of Bechdel Passing, but we learned a lot more about all three, and how they relate to each other.
The main fight scene in the episode is the opening scene, with Quinn and The Widow's people facing off against against each other, including a duel between the two Baron's. As I mentioned last week with Emily Beecham and The Widow's fight scene, there's a big difference between well choreographed fight scenes with people who learn to fight for a show/movie, and fight scenes with actual martial artists, and it stands out when your show combines the two. That said, Emily Beecham and Marton Csokas still sold the fight, and made it clear that the "You can't kill me, I'm a Baron" wasn't cockiness and or bravado because killing a Baron would start a war, it's that the Barons become and remain Barons because they're better and more brutal fighters than anyone else. (See also: Sunny, the superbadass Clipper, almost literally quaking in his boots at times around the Barons.) This is probably extra true for The Widow, who became a Baron by killing her previous Baron, and holds her own against Quinn (and a bar full of assassins) despite being much younger and less experienced. Sunny doesn't get a lot of action then and his main fight scene later in the episode is shorter and less intense than in previous episodes, but I figure Daniel Wu needed (and earned) a bit of a break. There's also a third, rather one-sided fight scene in which M.K. learns the lesson that all future wuxia heroes must learn, which is that you just don't try to fight the old guy who looks all frail and broken down and like he can't hurt anyone any more.
Side note about M.K. to end the post: I know some people find him annoying and agree he can be, but I find the "cocky young man who thinks he's ready to take on the world (but really knows nothing)" trope MUCH more palatable when portrayed by an actual teenager close to the characters age (M.K. is 14-15, and I think Aramis Knight is 16) instead of by someone in their early twenties like we get so often. It makes normal teen stuff come across as more cocky and petulant and naive than they should when the actor is clearly much older. Having M.K. played by an actor close to his own age also helps with the "total kid" scenes, like most of his scenes with Sunny and/or Veil this episode, and his reactions to all things Veil-related.
The first episode introduced most of the major players and set the world up, while the second focused on The widow, and explored the conflict she creates. M.K. says The widow is no better than Quinn, but he's wrong in that because, unlike Quinn, she's expressed genuine concern for her people on more than one occasion, and carried out measures to attempt to secure their safety, even at her own expense. Mind you, overall, I'm not sure she's MUCH better than Quinn, but she's definitely the better option of the two so far, despite being the source of many of the current troubles.
The worldbuilding still isn't all that great, but I've spent years with far shakier worldbuilding in various anime and manga, including with Saiyuki. It does better with selling the post-apocalyptic atmosphere and desperation.
The third episode is when the plot really kicks off and we have the various factions preparing for war. Because all the setup is out of the way, we start getting hints about how the Barons and their society work outside of their various territories. A third Baron, Jacoby, is mentioned but not seen. We do know that he's apparently a fairly reasonable Baron, and that his Regent (Captain of his troops, pretty much, for those reading posts but not watching) is a woman, meaning Quinn is the only Baron so far with an exclusively male force. I will say that, as much as I dislike Quinn, the writing and Marton Csokas's acting both do a good job of making him threatening and fairly interesting without giving the audience any room to woobify or stan him (I mean, someone probably does...somewhere...but the show tried hard to prevent it). He's creepy and icky and you really want someone to kill him and save the protagonists, and they do it without making him a rapist/overt abuser of women like so many shows do. (The matter of Jade's consent in their relationship is questionable at best, but that's another matter, and I don't actually have a problem yet with how the show is handling that, though I'm constantly bracing myself.)
More important than the above, with all the setup taken care of, the episode devotes a lot of time to giving Veil, Jade and Lydia more development. I'm pretty sure each had more screentime this episode than all three combined did in the first two episodes. Because a lot of the non-war drama in the episode revolved around saving an injured Ryder, there wasn't much in the way of Bechdel Passing, but we learned a lot more about all three, and how they relate to each other.
The main fight scene in the episode is the opening scene, with Quinn and The Widow's people facing off against against each other, including a duel between the two Baron's. As I mentioned last week with Emily Beecham and The Widow's fight scene, there's a big difference between well choreographed fight scenes with people who learn to fight for a show/movie, and fight scenes with actual martial artists, and it stands out when your show combines the two. That said, Emily Beecham and Marton Csokas still sold the fight, and made it clear that the "You can't kill me, I'm a Baron" wasn't cockiness and or bravado because killing a Baron would start a war, it's that the Barons become and remain Barons because they're better and more brutal fighters than anyone else. (See also: Sunny, the superbadass Clipper, almost literally quaking in his boots at times around the Barons.) This is probably extra true for The Widow, who became a Baron by killing her previous Baron, and holds her own against Quinn (and a bar full of assassins) despite being much younger and less experienced. Sunny doesn't get a lot of action then and his main fight scene later in the episode is shorter and less intense than in previous episodes, but I figure Daniel Wu needed (and earned) a bit of a break. There's also a third, rather one-sided fight scene in which M.K. learns the lesson that all future wuxia heroes must learn, which is that you just don't try to fight the old guy who looks all frail and broken down and like he can't hurt anyone any more.
Side note about M.K. to end the post: I know some people find him annoying and agree he can be, but I find the "cocky young man who thinks he's ready to take on the world (but really knows nothing)" trope MUCH more palatable when portrayed by an actual teenager close to the characters age (M.K. is 14-15, and I think Aramis Knight is 16) instead of by someone in their early twenties like we get so often. It makes normal teen stuff come across as more cocky and petulant and naive than they should when the actor is clearly much older. Having M.K. played by an actor close to his own age also helps with the "total kid" scenes, like most of his scenes with Sunny and/or Veil this episode, and his reactions to all things Veil-related.