Season 3 of AMC’s post-apocalyptic martial arts drama, Into the Badlands, is here.

Some of you may know how much I enjoy this show. For much of Season 2, I was live-tweeting my thoughts on the episodes as they happened via @whistlekick. I’ve come to really enjoy elements of the production, but there is always room for improvement. This past Sunday I sat down to watch the Season 3 premiere of Into the Badlands. I came away with some thoughts and figured I’d share them here.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This post is a bit of a review of the first episode, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be reviewing every episode. In fact, it’s likely I won’t post anything about Season 3 again. My goal here is to give an honest opinion of where the show is, and where it might go.

I have a bit of a connection to this show, in part because of my connection to the cast. I won’t pretend I know these folks personally, though I was fortunate enough to interview both Daniel Wu and Emily Beecham as part of the Season 2 promotion. (You can find their episodes on whistlekick Martial Arts Radio.) That insider-vibe has kept me returning to the show, given me a bit of motivation to stick it out through some of the rougher patches, and maybe even evangelize it a bit. I know I’m not a typical viewer or fan, and that’s OK.

One of my favorite things about this show, and S3 continues to display, is the complexity of Beecham’s character, Minerva aka The Widow. She’s dark, seemingly selfish, but yet in a very likable way. She has a bit of an anti-hero vibe at times, which has me confused whether she’s “good” or “evil” in the realm of the show. I suspect that’s intentional, and I appreciate it.

I also greatly appreciate that the show has taken an attractive woman and resisted the pull of turning her into a sex symbol. Beecham is beautiful, that’s no secret. Hollywood has certainly given us plenty of attractive, butt-kicking women in the past, but this is different. She’s just as likely to be fully covered up, wearing robes, as she is to wear anything remotely flattering.

It’s a martial arts show, and I’m a martial artist, so you best believe I’m dissecting each and every fight scene. Sometimes I pause and rewind sections if something warrants a second look. Overall, we get this beautiful blend of true, martial arts brutality with elements of fantasy and impossibility. These scenes remind me of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which is one of my favorite martial arts films.

I’m also impressed with the level of gore. I appreciate the need to use violence, and even blood and guts, in telling stories. But so many shows and movies seem to be in a race to one-up each other with the disgusting levels of violence that I find myself turning away. (I’m looking at you, The Walking Dead) Not so here. Blood is used to accent the story, not shock you out of it. Usually.

Daniel Wu is amazing. A legitimate martial artist, starring in a major television show about martial arts. Yes. I’ve been saying since season one that we need to support this show, else it will go away. If we want martial arts on tv, we need to show tv that we care about the martial arts they’re putting on.

I can’t think of a better guy to star in this show. As we all know, not all martial artists can portray their expertise on screen. Nor can most actors give any sort of martial arts performance credibility. Wu falls in the rare intersection of that Venn Diagram and, with the exception of a handful of martial arts actors working today, no one could do what he does.

I’ve enjoyed watching his character unfold and, if the first episode of S3 is any indication, it seems Sunny is growing a bit more backbone. Another conflicted character, we might be seeing more of the anti-hero side of Sunny in the coming weeks.

And let me just say that whoever gave Daniel Wu that terrible role in Tomb Raider needs to be flogged.

I was excited to see Nick Frost cast for Season 2, but a bit nervous. The guy’s a solid actor, and he was clearly brought in as comic relief, but would he be able to hang with the rest of the cast in the fight scenes? I was surprised and pleased to say yes, he was. It seems that the writers are finding better use of him this season because he didn’t jump out to me as an addition in the premiere the way he did last season.

If I am going to criticize the show, it’s in the complexity of the storylines. There are so many characters it can become easy to forget what’s happened from week to week. I’d love to see a bit of a simplification in the story, and maybe fill that time with some more martial arts. 🙂

Give it a shot if you haven’t. There’s very little good martial arts on television, and this is the best I’ve seen.