As the second episode of A Thousand Blows begins, a young Hezekiah runs up to his father who is with a group approaching British soldiers. In the present, Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) gets ready to fight Sugar Goodson (Stephen Graham). Goodson gets hit good once and seems shaken. He grabs Hezekiah and bites his arm at one point. Then, he unloads on him and knocks Hezekiah to the ground. Hezekiah remembers his father being wounded. He gets back to his feet. Hezekiah gets the better of Sugar until someone outside the ring trips him. Sharkey Devenish (Elliot Warren) stumbles around outside. He goes to the motel where he yells for Mary Carr (Erin Doherty). Lao (Jason Tobin) goes outside to try to calm him. Hezekiah leaves the ring. Treacle Goodson (James Nelson-Joyce) asks Mary who he is. She says he’s a lion tamer and no one is anything to her. Sharkey continues spiraling.
Leo tells him there’s more to him than this. Sharkey continues being an annoyance until he gets run over by a carriage. The audience begins yelling that the fight was fixed. Hezekiah finds Lao sitting next to Sharkey’s body. Mary comes outside moments later. She tells Hezekiah he forgot to college his winnings and he had Sugar beat. Mary tells he should be his only concern. She tells them what Sharkey would’ve preferred. Lao refuses to touch the body because that would bring misfortune. Mary and Hezekiah dispose of the body together. She tells Hezekiah that he got her attention tonight and that’s worth more than a night’s taking at the Blue Coat Boy. Mary says she needs him because he’s the last chess piece for her strategy. She says the job would pay him 100 pounds in English paper cash. Hezekiah questions why he should trust her. Mary says London only promises to kill you the first chance it gets. Hezekiah knows all about cruelty because that’s a commodity her people saw fit to share with the world.
Mary says she’ll be in The Green Dolphin Hotel when he’s ready to talk. Hezekiah goes back to Alec (Francis Lovehall) who tells him about the whisky he’s been drinking and the man he met. Hezekiah tells him about his fight with Sugar. Alec admits he’s almost glad that he came. Belle Downer (Jemma Carlton), Esme Long (Morgan Hilaire), and others talk about their night. Anne tells them what she did last night. Eliza and the others don’t believe she has 100 gold coins. Mary joins them. Treacle tells Sugar that Mary is downstairs and it sounds like the ladies are going to the West End to cause a bit of bedlam. He also tells him about Hezekiah and Alec. No one knows where Hezekiah learned where to fight like that and that’s the problem. Sugar says Mary held his hand. Treacle reveals that Peggy Bettinson (Ziggy Heath) visited him. Peggy is setting up legitimate fights for belts and he’s taking rooms up West. Hezekiah says he wants to fight the Jamaican again. He doesn’t think Peggy will ever make money.
Hezekiah says he wants to fight him again without anyone getting involved and with Mary watching. Sugar watches Hezekiah who receives gratitude from the people around him. Alec takes Hezekiah to meet Jack. Hezekiah worries that his friend is a cheat. Jack arrives and tells Alec he’s glad he came back. Jack MacAllen says they’re all talking about Hezekiah who is the savior of the common man. Hezekiah decides to leave because he believes Jack Mac (Gary Lewis) is lying about everything. Eliza, Mary, and her girls rob a jewelry shop. A woman they harass tells them she wants to be an Elephant. Hezekiah gives Lao money for three more nights. Lao tells him that everyone knows he had Sugar beat. He thinks that’s unfortunate for Hezekiah. Lao thinks he should take his coins and leave. Sugar can’t stand to lose. It is rumored that Sugar saw his father beaten to death in an alley when he was seven. He fought in the workhouse every day to protect his little brother from flogging or worse.
Lao says Sugar is protecting his family in every fight. He also knows there are two of them down there, but he will only charge for one. Sugar spends his time training. Hezekiah enters and finds Punch (Daniel Mays) at the bar. Punch tells him this is not a good place for him to be. Treacle tells him to give him a drink on the house. Hezekiah learns that Sugar wants a fair rematch. Once Punch is out of the room, Treacle tells Hezekiah he can earn more if he loses. He will give him five pounds and he can walk away for good if he agrees to lose. Then, Hezekiah gets Sugar’s attention and tells him what Treacle did. Sugar tells Hezekiah he asks his brother to make arrangements because there are devils pulling the carriage he rides. He promises him a fair fight and fifty pounds if he wins. Sugar warns him he won’t stop until he’s dead and his body will be sent back to where it came from. Hezekiah asks why he’d want him dead when he’s just a stranger to him.
Sugar says it’s like looking in the mirror and there can’t be two of them. Mary takes the material to a man and says they want him to make something of it. She shows him a picture of the type of suit they want. Lao will be wearing it. Mary admits he doesn’t know he’s going to be wearing it yet. Eliza says she’s going to stay. Mary tells her to stay and have sex with him, but not to believe what he says. Treacle helps Sugar prepare for the upcoming match. Treacle worries that his brother has slowed and he’s not fast enough anymore. He says the lion tamer would’ve killed him if they hadn’t pulled him off of him. Treacle says nothing will change by Saturday. Sugar doesn’t want to hear it. Eliza attempts to leave Saul Woolfe’s shop but she’s pulled back in. Saul (Eddie Toll) thinks Eliza should tell Mary that it’s more. Eliza questions what Saul and his friends are plotting in the shadows. Eliza explains that Mary saved her from the bad man she used to be with. She told Mary what he did. Three days after Eliza left, he was found at home with a butcher’s knife in his throat.
Eliza knew Mary was somehow behind it. She says he believed in his cause and she believes in Mary. Meanwhile, Mary meets the new girl, Alice Diamond (Darci Shaw), who gives her something from the Harrod’s Department for Sporting Gentlemen. Mary tells the girl to find Sugar Goodson. If she can convince Goodson to meet her at Hell’s Gateway in an hour, Mary will have a bigger job for her. Sugar meets Mary at Hell’s Gateway. He says he’ll be calm there, but he asks her not to do anything that will stop him from being calm. Mary shows him a pair of boxing gloves and asks him to put himself in the hands of Piggy. She says the fighting men don’t die. Until he wears gloves, he is East End scum. If he wears gloves, he’ll be engaged in a sport for gentlemen. Mary says that’s where the money is. Sugar throws the gloves into the water. He says there’s something wrong with both of them. As for the thing wrong with him, he can punch it and he can feel that he’s hurting it.
Sugar believes the thing wrong with Mary is a hole and she can’t feel it. He claims he’s seen it. Sugar asks Mary to be there on Saturday night and watch him kill Hezekiah. Mary walks around her room while Hezekiah trains. Mary visits him downstairs and asks about her perfume. She says taking his hand has caused a problem, but she’d do it again because she reads fortunes. Mary says his prospects appear to be poor. Mary worries he’ll be killed if he loses. If he wins, Sugar will have him killed. She breaks his finger. Mary thinks he’ll be healed by the time the Trans-Siberian Express arrives with the Chinese delegation. She insists she just saved his life.
A Thousand Blows Review
The second episode of A Thousand Blows continued the same path with many concurrent storylines. Mary is setting up her biggest theft to date. Alec is just hanging in there at this point. Sugar is upset with Hezekiah and wants to get revenge by beating him in the ring in a fair fight.
Through two episodes, the most sympathetic characters are probably Alec and Lao although neither has become very relevant at this point. Treacle could potentially be a likable character as well. Sugar could be better if the character wasn’t written to be so cartoonish. The character’s motives are pretty weak and his dialogue is often harebrained.
The writers obviously thought Sugar’s dialogue would be deep, but it really comes across as being as silly as the characters’ pearly whites. Stephen Graham does what he can with it, but the dialogue really leaves the character being one-dimensional.
The motives aren’t really explored well at all. Why have Mary and her friends turned to crime in the first place? Where is the unflinching poverty that was so rampant in London during this time? The Hezekiah character brings nothing new to the table unfortunately, but the same can be said about the series since it’s exploring the same themes.
Despite so much crime occurring in this episode, we haven’t seen any type of law enforcement presence. Based on A Thousand Blows, 1880s London really doesn’t look much different than today and that’s a serious problem. Where is the poverty? Where is the sheer desperation that drove individuals like Mary into crime in the first place?
Now, Sugar’s story is beginning to develop tones similar to The English Game, but the latter actually touched on some of these issues. As for A Thousand Blows, it’s superficial with a real lack of depth. The episode scores a 5 out of 10. Check out the remaining recaps of A Thousand Blows here. Find out how to support our independent site at this link.
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