Con SuiteThe Reactor

Recap: Into the Badlands – Black Heart, White Mountain

By Miclpea

SPOILER ALERT-Do not read if you have not seen season two-episode seven of Into the Badlands.

Quote of the week: “She didn’t understand. I’m going to be just like you.”

The episode opens with Sunny in a coma from Cyan’s devastating blows. In the coma Sunny, without his Clipper tattoos, is living an idyllic existence as a farmer with Veil and Henry. Henry is a rambunctious young man who wants to be a warrior like his father. Their happiness is shattered when they find their pigs mutilated in the barn. Sunny tells Henry it was done by wolves but he knows better. He has been haunted by visions of a dead woman which he intuitively knows are related to the death of the pigs.

Sunny and Veil discuss the mutilation of the pigs. Veil is concerned but Sunny vows to protect her. Later, Sunny goes to Henry’s room. He discovers that Henry has cut himself with a sword while practicing to be a warrior like his father. The sword is Nathaniel Moon’s sword. Henry explains that Artemis, a girl in the forest, gave him the sword. Sunny warns Henry to stay away from her as he takes the sword from Henry. Nathaniel’s sword represents so many things to Sunny. It clearly speaks to his past as a deadly Clipper as well as to Nathaniel’s curse that death will follow Sunny and those he loves.

Sunny’s ideal existence has gone dark. His real health is influencing his life in his dreams. As his health worsens, his life in the coma becomes more threatened.

Daniel Wu as Sunny and Hazel Doupe as Artemis 

Sunny wakens from a nightmare within his coma to hear cries of pain from Henry’s room. Henry’s back is bloody from Clipper marks etched onto his flesh. He tells Sunny that Artemis did this in retaliation for Sunny taking the sword from Henry. Veil tells Sunny to get hot water. In the kitchen, Sunny is attacked by Artemis, who begins to choke him.

Meanwhile, MK has been doing his best to take care of Sunny. He shows Bajie the marks on Sunny’s chest made by Cyan. Bajie identifies the marks as the Hand of Five Poisons. He tells MK that Sunny is doomed. MK refuses to give up. He believes The Master must have a cure in her many scrolls. He wants to go back to the Monastery and find the scroll to save Sunny. Bajie, of course, believes the idea is ludicrous.

Aramis Knight as M.K. and Nick Frost as Bajie 

MK adamantly refuses to back down. He tells Bajie that Sunny risked his life to save him, so MK will do everything in his power to save Sunny. Bajie reluctantly agrees to accompany MK to the Monastery to steal the scroll.

As MK and Bajie race to the Monastery, Bajie tells MK why he left the Monastery. He had a young novice called Flea who was small but deadly. She accompanied Bajie and Cyan on a mission to find one of the gifted. They found him imprisoned in a cage. The horror of the slave camp drove Flea to cut herself. She killed everyone in the camp, including the people they were there to save. When they returned to the Monastery, Flea’s gift was removed. As Bajie relates the story, Sunny’s condition worsens. Artemis is choking him in his coma, while the Hand of Five Poisons is making it impossible for him to breathe. MK finds some type of breathing device in the glove compartment, which he puts on Sunny. This helps him to breathe. MK yells at Bajie to go faster.

When they arrive at the Monastery, Bajie tells MK there is an old door below the waterfall that they can use. They will break in during the dinner meal when everyone is eating. It will give them about a 30-minute window to find the scroll and get out. At the last minute, Bajie decides he can’t go inside. In order to convince him to help, MK tells Bajie why he left the Monastery. He tells Bajie that Sunny is the only person to care for him and he needs Bajie’s help to save Sunny. This is what Bajie needed to hear to strengthen his resolve. They go to steal the scroll.

Inside the Monastery, Bajie tells MK to look for a leather satchel while he searches for the scroll. While looking for the scroll, Bajie sees the compass that MK said would lead him and Sunny to Azra. MK finds the satchel which has a set of needles which the Abbots had used on his friend. Bajie finds the right scroll but MK wants to grab Sunny’s compass. Bajie tells him it is long gone but he has secretly taken it. As they leave, they are surprised by The Master who delivers two powerful blows. These blows knock them through closed doors into the dining room.

In the dining room, Bajie and The Master verbally spar. Bajie opens by commenting about her age, which he guesses is about 135. The Master tells Bajie that he is her greatest disappointment. She says she sent her three best after them. MK tells her that Eva is dead. The Master tells MK not to trust Bajie. As they prepare to fight, Bajie tells MK to cut the novices as they will attack the Abbots. This strategy works as the Abbots have to defend themselves against the novices instead of attacking MK and Bajie. MK and Bajie manage to escape in the ensuing chaos and return to the car with Sunny.

Sunny, who has been left the car as Bajie and MK searched for the scroll, continues to worsen. In his coma, Veil tells Sunny that she is taking Henry and leaving Sunny. As she explains this to Sunny, the ghostly apparition appears and Sunny chases it out into the yard. As he is yelling for it tell him what it wants, he hears a scream inside the house. When he rushes back into the house, he sees that Veil is dead. Her body is a bloody mess on the floor. He follows bloody footprints from the body to the barn where he discovers Henry covered in blood. Henry murdered Veil to prevent them from leaving! Henry tells Sunny that he wants to be just like him. Sunny grabs the sword and charges into the forest to hunt a taunting Artemis.

In the forest, he finds Artemis but he also finds his deadly past. All his prior kills come back to haunt and attack him. All of his tattoos reappear as he battles his past in his coma nightmare. At the same time in the car, his health continues to deteriorate as his tattoos bleed in reality. Bajie and MK use the information from the scroll to stab the needles into Sunny. They save his life.

While Sunny’s life has been saved, Jade’s is in jeopardy. The Widow and Quinn overrun her mansion and take Jade prisoner. Quinn has another one of his talks with a prisoner but this time he does not give her the dagger. Quinn tells The Widow that his men will escort Jade to the border and then she is on her own. The alliance of The Widow and Quinn has disposed of one Baron.

We learned a great deal during this episode. Because of the heroic efforts of Bajie and MK, Sunny is alive and well. Quinn and The Widow seized Jade’s lands and exiled her from the Badlands. Bajie retrieved Sunny’s compass from The Master but he has not told Sunny or MK that he has it. The Master is over a century old.

The great aspect of this show is that all the characters continue to grow as we learn more about them. Sunny just went through Hell and appears to be stronger because of it. Bajie continues to surprise on the upside but he obviously still has secrets. The Master is clearly older than her appearance of someone in their 30s. What other secrets does she have? MK has shown that he is willing to put his life on the line for Sunny, which shows a maturity we had not previously seen.

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Miclpea

I love going to conventions around the US and Canada. I'm an ardent fan of all things science fiction and especially The Expanse. I'm a senior writer for Friends of CC and I have co-written a science-fiction script called Punctuated Equilibrium.