Apparently, the journey has only just begun.
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow.
As Into the Badlands’ season finale, “Hand of Five Poisons” didn’t resolve much, but it did successfully set up what’s to come in future installments. For Sunny, this meant confronting Quinn about what he’s really been up to, while also coming to terms with who he is and his relationship with Veil. Throughout the series, we’ve seen Sunny struggle to do the right thing, but as other characters have noted, he’s too far gone at this point to have a normal life — especially now that we know Sunny had a pendent of his own when Waldo found him.
On that front, “Hand of Five Poisons” was slightly disappointing since we learned nothing more about Azra. In fact, the only major revelation seemed to be that M.K.’s powers derive from the Abbots’ culture. But we still don’t know who the Abbots are and what they mean to the overarching narrative.
One storyline that I thought worked really well here was the Widow kidnapping Veil to heal her wounds. In addition to giving Veil something to do other than keep waiting around for Sunny, it offered Tilda some clarity in her loyalty to the Widow — though we still don’t know whether she poisoned her mother or not. That said, it could be that the Widow’s own “special” nature could counteract the toxins.
As always, the Quinn family stuff was among the weaker content this week. The idea that Jade poisoned herself to get rid of Lydia was a clever twist on that subplot, but I thought the prolonged followup with Lydia was unnecessary. Honestly, her character has gone about as far as she can go at this point. I would have rather seen some closure (e.g., getting clipped) to her storyline instead of the setup we got with her and her father, which was easily the most boring part of the finale.
Meanwhile, Quinn’s sudden interest in M.K. felt pretty cartoony, especially in light of his conflict with Sunny. That’s not to mention Quinn’s apparent demise, which seemed abrupt and all too easy for Sunny to carry out. I was hoping for more of a skirmish between them. Luckily, there was still plenty of action for both M.K. and Sunny this week, as they fought Jacobee’s men and the Abbots respectively. The latter sequence in particular was amazingly shot and choreographed. I’d say it even rivaled Sunny’s big warehouse fight a few episodes back.
In the end though, “Hand of Five Poisons” did more to set up Season 2 than resolve anything from this season. (Ryder’s takeover, for example, kind of fizzled out once M.K. got involved.) But like other episodes, there were still some cool set pieces, and the finale moved along at a steady clip. It also left the characters in some dynamic tight spots. I just thought there would be more to it in terms of mythos reveals and paying off some of its storylines. It’s clear now that Into the Badlands is playing a much longer game than first suspected.
Until its last few minutes, Into the Badlands’ season finale didn’t feel all that different from previous episodes, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sunny’s final confrontation with Quinn led to some great moments, including a couple more gorgeous action sequences. Same goes for Veil’s scenes with the Butterflies, which cued up a tense decision for Tilda in the second season. Not surprisingly, Quinn, Lydia and Ryder’s scenes bogged down some of the momentum — especially Lydia’s. Overall, “Hand of Five Poisons” delivered some interesting twists and turns, though we still know very little about this world. As M.K. noted, “the journey has just begun.”
