A Thousand Blows Season 2 Review – Erin Doherty is so good it’s hard to think of anything else | Historical drama (TV)

TThe problem with having Erin Doherty star in a TV drama is that it makes it very difficult to know whether she is good or not. The 33-year-old is more than just an impressive performer, she has an engaging presence, and is able to sell the idea that she In reality He is Her character in a way that few others can (a particularly impressive accomplishment given her breakthrough was playing Princess Anne in The Crown). As such, Doherty’s involvement in a series could elevate the premise, plot and screenplay in a slightly disconcerting way. While watching the first few episodes of Steven Knight’s late-Victorian thriller A Thousand Strokes, I wasn’t sure whether to truly enjoy the show or simply marvel at Doherty’s enthusiastic turn as the scheming and cruel pickpocket queen Mary Carr.

The second series makes it easy to spot the difference. While the first film suffered from its share of violent exposition, the story of an East End boxer (played by Doherty’s “Teenage” co-star Stephen Graham) whose local dominance is undone by a savvy Jamaican fighter (Malachi Kirby) was propulsive and witty, and the presence of the Forty Elephants – a real-life all-female crime syndicate – was a surprising narrative. The rivalry between Henry “Sugar” Judson (old-school, bare-knuckled, wounded on both shoulders, somewhat deranged) and Hezekiah Moscow (young, cheerful, good-hearted, and ready to cash in on the aristocratic west London boxing scene) was a framework that provided room for commentary on colonialism, racism, tradition and class. Add to that Mary and her feisty classmates, and you also have a compelling exploration of women’s empowerment, poverty, and the psychology of risk and reward.

This time, the event became less exciting and fun, and more frustrating, really. Granted, we left things on three lines last time: Hezekiah was basically an outcast, having inadvertently killed white New York boxing champion Buster Williams in the ring; Sugar was desolate, having beaten his brother Edward “Treacle” Judson (James Nelson Joyce) into a paste for a perceived insult; And Mary was persona non grata, having led the elephants on a perilous wild chase after some worthless silver talk and being rejected by Hezekiah after he realized she knew more than she told him about the murder of his best friend.

However, things could always be worse. And in the opening series they are. Sugar is now drunk, rolling across the Wapping gravel. Hezekiah turned to fighting in the underground barge boxing scene in front of openly racist crowds. Mary is in the service of her cruel mother, Jane (Susan Lynch), who in turn is in the service of her brutal boss, Indigo Jeremy (a deeply disturbing Robert Glenister). It’s all so bleak.

But you can’t keep a morally ambivalent woman down, and Mary is soon up to her old tricks; Bank robbery here, bait and switch there. Instead of a neat story involving Sugar and Hezekiah, it is Mary’s planned theft of Caravaggio with a magician named Sophie Lyons, one of her father’s New York associates, that forms the narrative backbone of the series, convincing her ragtag band of thieves to reunite.

Hezekiah’s return takes a little longer. He spends much of the series training the unfortunate Prince Albert Victor in the art of boxing before returning to the ring himself. However, the Judson brothers aren’t very flexible: with the previously sensible Black Honey transformed by a sugar-induced head injury, the tag team pairs parental problem-solving with alcohol obsession – it’s frankly hard to keep up with the hesitation of slabs of sugar and getting off the wagon.

On the surface, there’s a lot going on – several villains are after our three heroes (bad guys too), and people get hurt along the way – but it doesn’t seem like there’s much at stake. At times, Sugar’s aimless confusion seems to seep deep into the show itself. Hezekiah’s quest to establish himself in Britain while haunted by the violence he witnessed in Jamaica gave the first series depth and direction – yet the boxer’s disillusionment is so profound that his victories now seem hollow. While Mary can still pull off a cunning plan, her joy in improving those better than her also crumbles. Instead we get glimpses of what haunts her: an unhappy childhood; The possibility of a poor future and a lonely death. Doherty takes these fleeting thoughts and turns them into a psychological drama that leaves a lasting impression. But that says more about her talent than the muddled quality of this second outing.