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.

The first thing we see Mary Carr do is lie. In front of Jamaican immigrants Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby) and Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall) — two fresh-faced but not necessarily wide-eyed newcomers to London, capital of the empire that rules their home with an iron fist — she pretends to be a pregnant woman giving birth on the street. Even as a crowd of lookie-lous gathers, though, her henchwomen are busily picking their pockets. When someone says a cop is on his way to help her, she just gets right up and vanishes, her minions along with her. Unless you knew exactly where to look you’d have no more luck finding her than locating a single specific rat. She’s a creature of the streets. 

A Thousand Blows, the new period piece from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight, stars Erin Doherty as Mary, Queen of the Elephants. (More on that sobriquet in a moment.) Doherty is interesting casting, because she has an interesting face. Most lead actors on TV shows have beautiful faces, and Doherty is certainly no exception there. But Doherty’s face has the long, curvilinear structure of a Modigliani portrait. When Mary’s temperament grows dark, her face becomes inscrutable and frightening and hard to maintain eye contact with. When it warms up, whether over money or men, you’d be hard pressed to look away. Doherty and her imposing performance instantly level A Thousand Blows up.

I’m covering the fine period piece A Thousand Blows for Decider, starting with my review of the series premiere.