Into the Badlands 310 – Raven’s Feather, Phoenix Blood
The back end of Into the Badlands’ two night season premiere event opens with everyone’s favourite ass-kicking widow taking on a clan of ninjas. Seeing the Widow battle multiple foes is nothing new but this time there’s an added wrinkle: she’s got her old powers back!
While the Widow readies herself to fight alongside the Master, Pilgrim and Cressida must deal with a setback. Their wonderful gift bestowing machine is on the fritz, courtesy of Pilgrim’s ‘brother’, Sunny and they are none too happy. Pilgrim’s particularly spicy with his chief technician who is short on answers regarding how to fix the device. Cressida corrects Pilgrim and says it’s Sunny’s fault and when he reminds her that Sunny is dead she lets him know that he can’t be sure. Cressida is one smart lady and has obviously seen her share of genre shows to know that unless you’ve seen a body there’s no guarantee that someone’s dead.
Speaking of Sunny, he washes up on shore some distance from where Pilgrim laid a smack down on him. Bleeding and battered he’s tasked with evading a search party led by Nix and finds himself in Pilgrim’s crosshairs again when one of the search party doesn’t return. Determined to track Sunny down Pilgrim enlists M.K. to round up the Harbingers to find him. There’s dissention in Pilgrim’s ranks however and when the circle tightens around Sunny an unexpected ally lends him a much needed hand.
Raven’s Feather, Phoenix Blood bends the mind a little particularly where the Widow’s storyline is concerned. Apparently in a new reality, the Widow clad in red and bearing a scorpion as her crest, tries to reconcile what’s happening before her eyes. According to Gaius, this version of the Widow has been having blackouts, is trading in cogs and discovers that one of them is Tilda.
Back in reality some of the players are starting to reunite and join forces. Bajie, Gaius and Tilda run across each other and catch up on some recent events before heading over to see Lydia. With Henry now in Lydia’s hands Bajie sets off to recruit more allies for the coming war.
Raven’s Feather, Phoenix’s Blood is the Widow’s episode. While the narrative touches most of the main players the bulk of the spotlight is on the Widow. Her two fight sequences bookend the episode with the final one providing the platform for the reveal of her true nature. Standing at her own personal crossroads the Widow is able to peer inside herself and choose the correct path. Her journey is not unlike Pilgrim’s in the episode and with both of them refocused for the task that lies ahead the stage is set for the upcoming war to begin in earnest.
