In what hopefully is the sign of a nature healing, A Thousand Blows, like The Pitt, returns for a second season within a year of the first one ending. It is as close to the old-school release schedule television always promised us, and I'm so happy to see streamers finally catch up with the 90s.
Even better is the fact that like the first season, A Thousand Blows concludes with an equally good and emotionally satisfying second half that wraps up the storylines in thoughtful and surprising ways. If this is all we get, it's a terrific run for Steven Knight's spiritual cousin to Peaky Blinders.
Season 2 picks up a short while after the first one, which saw the entire cast hit their lowest points in the midst of the power struggle between The Forty Elephants, Sugar (Stephen Graham), and Hezekiah (Malachi Kirby). The former champ and big bully on the block, Sugar, is now out on the streets, abandoned by those he betrayed and menaced in the past. His brother, Treacle (James Nelson-Joyce), has withdrawn from the world after their brutal fight, and even Mary Carr (Erin Doherty) keeps her distance. Hezekiah, meanwhile, mourns the loss of his brother, Alec (Francis Lovehall), as he plans his revenge.
It's a setup full of promise for bloodshed and uproar, so it's surprising that most of the second season is less bombastic and more about mending wounds than tearing apart old ones. In a world where every exchange is transactional in some way, the greatest surprises come in acts of altruism. Similarly, it's in the relationship between Mary and Hezekiah where A Thousand Blows finds its real depths, as the two move to confront both physical and emotional barriers they've set for themselves in a final showdown that reveals who they really are.
Doherty and Kirby are the highlights once again, both bringing immense nuance and empathy to their complex anti-heroes. Doherty's Carr is just as wonderfully complex here as she was in season one, both unscrupulous in her well-earned desire for something better in this world, but also how she deals with the unexpected hole in her armor as she realizes her relationship with Hezekiah might not expect anything in return.
Graham and Nelson-Joyce prove equally compelling as the two brothers torn apart by their inability to communicate through anything but violence. Sugar's journey to the bottom and back into a semblance of humanity could easily be a season of its own, and Graham's immaculate performance fills the room every time he's on screen.
If there are complaints, it's that season two packs so much into its plotting that it feels rushed at times. Almost as if this was intended as a longer series, and now we're seeing what they could work with in the given time. The final scenes are as perfect as can be, culminating in an early contender for best finale of the year, yet getting there has a sense of taking a shortcut rather than the long, scenic way around.
This is, of course, a complaint about wanting more of a good thing. A good film or a series is never as long as you'd want it to be, and a bad one is never short enough. In the case of A Thousand Blows, two seasons feels far too short. There is more history to uncover and more time we could have spent with this crew.
But if this is it, to borrow a boxing term, what a knockout it is. Like Hezekiah, it's a series nobody saw coming, and nobody will forget any time soon.
