Series premieres, even of very very good shows, often suffer from what I call “pilot-itis.” It’s a tendency to go a bit big and broad in hopes of catching and capturing the audience’s attention. Right from its resumption mid-cliffhanger, with Jamaican immigrant Hezekiah Moscow preparing to face off against Sugar Goodson in the boxing ring, A Thousand Blows shakes free of the “newcomers in the big city” clichés that marked its opening act.
With poetry-of-the-gutters dialogue that owes a lot to David Milch’s Deadwood — Sugar even presides over the square from his perch on a balcony, lest you thought writer-creator Steven Knight was trying to hide his influences — this episode follows the fallout of Sugar and Hezekiah’s big fight. It’s a nasty three-round sprint filmed in lurid detail, with little of the back-to-the-camera punch-hiding or fast editing the first episode used to dull the impact of Alec and Treacle’s bout.
I reviewed the second episode of A Thousand Blows for Decider.
Tags: a thousand blows, TV, TV reviews