Hand of Five Poisons

Took a while to get this posted even though I watched it live. No real reason for the delay except for it aired during the week of Christmas, so I was busy getting some last minute Christmas gifts, wrapping them, and doing other miscellaneous things before the special day arrived.

Since this is the last episode, I figured I would hide it behind a link to prevent spoilers. So if you want to read my ramblings about the season finale, click the link below (or the title of this post).

For Sunny’s ticket out of town, he presents the River King with a bag that holds the head of the person he believed slaughtered his cogs, but as we expected Sunny presented him with the head of someone else other than M.K. Call it a convenience that M.K. accidently killed a jerk that’s around his age while he was in his berserk state. So all Sunny needs to do now is get Veil and M.K. and all will be well. But unfortunately, luck wouldn’t be on his side as everyone decides to act now on their plans now.

At the fort, Quinn expels Lydia for poisoning Jane as he found the evidence hiding in her makeup box. But it was Jane who planned this setup, so Lydia, with nowhere to go walks back to her father’s place and decides to go back into their religion. We see her being “baptize” during a ceremony, so I’m figuring she’s there to stay.

While on topic, about this religion, one of the followers hiked his way to a temple and informed monks there about M.K., which they jumped in a pickup truck and hauled-butt to the badlands. I wonder what is the connection between Lydia’s local religion and the monks at the temple. It seems like the temple is incredibly far from where they are and the monks dress differently than they do.

In addition to banishing Lydia, Quinn suspects Sunny as a trader and captures him. At this point, Sunny no longer has a home to go to so his option of staying has been eliminated. However, even if he wasn’t captured, he wouldn’t have been able to get Veil as she was taken away by Tilda to save the Widow, who was injured by Sunny when they last dueled. But acting as a butt towards Veil, she turns the tables by placing three bottles where two are poisoned, but one with tincture to help with her injury. This was used to help Veil escape as she would only tell Tilda which ones are the poison bottles after she is let go, but she leaves Tilda with the option of using the poison on the Widow, killing her and letting herself go free. For me, I doubt that she will poison her. There seems to be too much emotion tied to the Widow for Tilda to go forward with it. And as a surprising event, it seems like the Window is the same as M.K.!

And the same for Sunny, too! Waldo sets him free and reveals to Sunny that he is the traitor and that Sunny was found with the same pendant as M.K. when he was an infant. Sheesh, for as many people who have come from this “magical city,” you’d have figured the secret for where it is would have been known by now.

Quinn takes in M.K. and goes into town as a celebration of sorts when he accepts Quinn's offer to work for him so to spare Sunny's life. The party is cancelled as Ryder and his alliance with Zypher show up with Baron Jacobee. Quinn, knowing M.K.’s power, cuts him to awaken his powers so he can fight of the trio, which he does. But while hiding in an alley, Sunny shows up and stabs Quinn, killing him and I guess bringing an end to Quinn’s reign. Ryder will more than likely take over as he escaped M.K.’s attack.

I was bummed out that Quinn was killed, as I liked him as a villain. He was always close by so Sunny had to walk on egg shells all the time to make sure he never found out about Veil being pregnant with his child, M.K.’s powers, and his plans on escaping. I also liked Quinn’s southern dialect ;-)

But while Sunny was trying to stop M.K. from killing Ryder, the monks show up and quickly stop M.K. by taping a few pressure points on his body. Sunny tries to stop them from taking M.K. but they revel they also have the same powers as M.K., so Sunny didn’t have a chance. They lock M.K. in the same box he was found during the first episode and leave back to the temple. Sunny soon after is captured by the River King. He knows Sunny lied to him about killing his killer so he ties him up in one of his ships and leaves the area where he plans to sell him. The cheesy part about this is when Sunny screams out “NOOOO!” in the same style as Darth Vader.

Looks like AMC did it again and has a new hit show on their hands. I doubt the next season will be more than six episodes though. For next year, it will probably be a filler during the mid-break for The Walking Dead, keeping viewers tuned into AMC. But I’m fine with that as I prefer an incredibly awesome but short season of a show than a longer 13 episode season that has a lot of fluff in the middle. With a Kung Fu/martial arts back on TV, I wonder when the last time we had this type of show was on television?

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