Warrior: They Don't Pay Us Enough to Think
June 6, 2019 12:01 PM - Season 1, Episode 8 - Subscribe

The Hop Wei and Long Zii consider a novel way to end hostilities. Ah Toy and her real-estate business partner, Leonard Patterson, find a new obstacle to their latest land purchase. After promising jobs to Leary's Irish workers, Mercer toasts Crestwood at a fundraiser, while Penny struggles to hold her tongue. Mai Ling warns her brother against waging a battle he may not win.

Partial recap from Spicy Pulp
Picking up mere moments where we left off in Episode 7 of Warrior, Episode 8, They Don’t Pay Us Enough To Think, begins with some full-on fists of fury action as the hatchet men of the Hop Wei and the Long Zii go to war and it’s a frightening sight.
But Why Tho Podcast has a longer review/recap, rating the episode 10 out of 10.

End credits listed by Tunefind
posted by filthy light thief (8 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
This was a pretty fantastic episode, from the crazy beginning fight, to the duel to the near-death, and then there's Penelope Blake's interjection into the White Male Elites Party.
Penelope: You compare the Chinese to the Indians, and I can't help but wonder how the Indians viewed the arrival of our own ancestors turning up on their shores in droves.
Senator Robert Crestwood: We brought with us God and civility.
Penelope: You mean because we murdered them by the thousands with bullets instead of tomahawks and spears? I imagine they would have wanted to enact an Exclusion Act all their own where we were concerned.
Followed by this exchange:
- I guess you lost her vote, Senator.
- Oh-ho - If she had one.

If this is set in a semi-historic setting, it's in or before 1880, because the (fictional) Senator Robert Crestwood is planning to run for president, and it's President Chester A. Arthur who signs the Chinese Exclusion Act on May 6, 1882. Arthur won the 1880 election.

Assuming Penelope stayed in California, she could vote after 1911 CA Prop 4 passed, 9 years ahead of the national ratification of the 19th Amendment.

On the other hand, the Chinese Exclusion Act was by-and-large in effect until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (the Magnuson Act of 1943 ended the Chinese exclusion, but this act supported the continuation of the ban against the ownership of property and businesses by ethnic Chinese, and capped the immigration at 105 Chinese per year), and it wasn't until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that really wiped clean many racist laws prohibiting ownership of land.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:38 PM on June 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


Another good episode. I really liked how they picked up right were the previous episode ended and gave us the fight they dangled in front of us without cheaping out and just showing the aftermath.

I like Ah Toy more and more each episode. Her and the guy who plays Young Jun are the standout actors in my opinion.

Thanks for picking these back up, I really like this show and it seems like nobody is watching it. Maybe it's because it's on Cinemax?
posted by Sphinx at 6:26 PM on June 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


I think there are a few others who watch it, but it does seem to have a limited distribution/ access.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:20 AM on June 7, 2019 [1 favorite]


Young Jun is the best. He's got childlike enthusiasm... for fucking and killing. And he still has a naive, good-natured side.

I hope to see Wang Chao (Hoon Lee) get more to do. He's already killing it on the dual accent thing. And if you haven't seen Jonathan Tropper's previous Cinemax show Banshee, he was terrific in that as Job.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:49 PM on June 10, 2019


I'm a big fan of Officer Bill (as a character, not a human being) but his storyline is bullshit. Hallucinating the man you killed as a bloody spectre? Really? That is some played out malarkey right there.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:52 PM on June 10, 2019


Crestwood's speech on Chinese immigrants as "animals, criminals" was pretty on the nose Trumpery. And I mean that as a compliment to the writers for being unafraid to go there.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:00 PM on June 10, 2019


I'm reminded again that the Hop Wei and Long Zii outwardly express their philosophy differently.

Long Zii maintains traditional clothing and hair (the queue), which is a Northern (Manchurian Chinese) custom that was resented by Southern Han Chinese. The Southernmost Han were relatively much more open to adopting/ forgiving foreign customs (blending in, when not on home territory), generally.

I know it's, basically, (modern) gang mentality, but it's kind of weird for a Long Zii captain to stick with Southern styling (short non-queue hair) but wear Northern dress (if of a much higher quality), or that all the Hop Wei members down to their footsoldiers could afford a (rather nice) Western-style dress ('Sai Jong') that they'd deign to rumble in.

I totally acknowledge that it's a visual style thing for TV, but still, a choice is a choice.
posted by porpoise at 9:46 PM on June 13, 2019


re: Young Jun

The character kind of rings true.

So, my family relocated us from HK to Vancouver (Canada) in the mid-80s when I was 5. My parents socialized with the Chinese community and I got to meet a lot of different people from lots of different strata of society when the Chinese community was still a rather small community and consisted mostly of 2nd and 3rd generations.

It's inconceivable to me that any generation born in local (native - by definition) soil not learning English as well as anyone else. Granted, this is when mandatory public school is a thing, but even the ruralmost kids made friends with English speaking neighbours.

The show is 1890-ish San Fran, but Old Jun couldn't have been stupid enough to isolate his native born son to actively prevent him from learning English. Maybe the gang thing/ superiority thing/ self-isolation thing that prevented him from mastering English. Maybe there really was that level of (self) segregation.

The prevalence of non-English (or other local language) learning is mostly in older individuals who migrate to enclaves that are predominantly composed of their first-language speakers, leading to the dismal ESL uptake/ proficiency because they don't need to to get by.

However, the kind of arrogance and insulation that the show's Young Jun is exhibiting - even remotely - in Chinese kids I grew up with, especially those adjacent to crime, met very bad ends. Mostly suicides, but the rest are incarcerations/ violent death. Many of all of those are secondary to substance abuse.
posted by porpoise at 10:00 PM on June 13, 2019


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