User Reviews

This episode was slow and not as eventful as other episodes. Its main focus was primarily to build up suspense for the upcoming dual between Ah Sahm and Li Yong, which will be their rematch - and if you think about it, their first true fight. But on a deeper level, its main focus was (also) developing the plotlines of Mercer's cable car track and the war between the tongs, which I partially predicted previously with my comment on the previous episode - that those plotlines would have the spotlight in the final three episodes. And it looks to be likely that in the last two episodes of the season, they'll be what's focused on the most.

I don't quite remember what happens with the tong war plotline, except that Ah Sahm lost. He was winning or doing fairly well, but then he started losing his rhythm or something along those lines, and he lost. It may have been on purpose; I'm not sure. But my recollection of what happens with the cable car track plotline is better. The bits that I remember involves a factory, in which there's labor work going on and the workers are Chinese, not Irish; Ah Sahm is one of them because he was kicked out of the Hop Wei for losing the fight against Li Yong or he ran away, Penelope is at the factory at one point, sees him, and they reconcile, Leary and his men attack the factory, killing the Chinese workers; Ah Sahm being one of them, fights Leary and doesn't do too well, I think, possibly because he's mentally and psychologically affected by losing to Li Yong, presumably the first fight he's ever lost, and then goes back to the Hop Wei after fighting Leary; they welcome him back, the finale ends. Obviously, there are probably gaps in-between those bullet points, but that's the gist of what I remember.

There was another point of interest in this episode. The plotline with Bill and his debt to the Fung Hai progressed a little, and the little development that it had showed us that they're closing in on Bill. We saw that they were watching him in the scene with the Chinatown squad, which I'm assuming that's the reason why Bill went to the Chief of Police begging to be taken out of Chinatown. I think Lee is the aspect to be focused on. Those two Fung Hai hatchetmen saw him with Bill in the first scene - well, with the entire Chinatown squad, but they saw only him and Bill in the second scene. I'm not sure about the first scene, but the second scene would definitely give them the impression that Bill is close to Lee. I bet the fact that Bill beat one of them a little will further solidify that. In the next episode, I'm guessing that they'll go after Lee to send Bill a message. This must be what fills in the gaps of what led to the scene I'm remembering; Lee getting attacked and beaten up by Zing and other Fung Hai hatchetmen.

I'm at a little bit of a loss when it comes to Ah Toy and her plotlines; I don't know what to think. The Chinese swordsman, so the police think, hasn't been a topic of discussion brought up since the second episode. Now, it's been brought up again at the end of this episode and was related to the real-estate plotline with Ah Toy. That plotline, too, is one that I can't quite figure out what its purpose is. There's no way that they'll catch Ah Toy. I guess they could find out who Timmons recently did business with and find Ah Toy that way, but that doesn't seem like something that would be done in this case. It seems like not one but five steps too much. That's something more likely to be done in a show that's set in a modern time.

So, what was the point of showing that final scene? It's not like we really, really needed to know and see what Ah Toy did with the guy's body. It's almost as if the writers are trying to convey that the police are closing in on Ah Toy, maybe. Or that scene may go hand-in-hand with the scene of Lai finding Ah Toy's sword and doing a sequence of movements with it in that she'll be the one tracked down by the police because of the sword. Honestly, I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. The same can be said for Ah Toy's other on-going plotline with her business partner and real-estate.

I wasn't all that interested in this episode. I'm aware that it focused on building up the upcoming dual between Ah Sahm and Li Yong as an extension of the war between the Hop Wei and the Long Zii that's been going on and building up the cable car track thing with Leary and his men being brought back into some relevance because of it, but still; that doesn't make it any better as far as its enjoyment and entertainment are concerned to me. I don't care about Penelope and Ah Sahm's "relationship" and that they've "broken up." I'm not that interested in Ah Toy's business endeavors, and I'm certainly not very entertained by it. Her plot thread with Lai is better, I guess, but I'm not very interested in that, either, at least not at the moment. I definitely wasn't interested in the politics of this episode. I guess Bill and his on-going plotline with his gambling debt to the Fung Hai, and the fact that they're coming after him, was the best part of this episode.

Ultimately, this episode didn't have enough saving graces, so to speak, to complement the slowness and mostly uneventfulness of building up the next episode and elevating the episode as a whole, and because of that, I think it was the weakest episode; I certainly wasn't very immersed. Looking on the bright side, though, the next episode should be better; that is, if the main focus of building it up pays off in a sufficient enough manner.