Mary’s lavish robbery gets underway with surprising results. Here’s our A Thousand Blows episode 4 review.
There are few things more satisfying in a film or TV show than a well executed robbery. Directors like Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Nolan and Michael Mann have served us some of the best heist sequences in cinematic history. It’s a special kind of satisfaction we get from watching people play Robin Hood and steal from the rich and give to… well, themselves, but you get what I mean.
A Thousand Blows also offers us quite the heist in episode 4. Erin Doherty’s Mary has been planning an elaborate robbery as the Chinese Emperor and his party arrive in London and are hosted by the Earl of Lonsdale. Naturally, there will be lavish gifts for the Emperor, from the Queen herself, and that’s exactly what Mary has her eyes set on. The robbery isn’t just about getting the silver, it’s about Mary proving herself to be a worthy head of the Forty Elephants, of making her own mark in the history of the gang.
But before we get to the robbery itself, A Thousand Blows episode 4 spends some more time in the boxing ring. Mary introduced Hezekiah to Peggy Bettinson (Ziggy Heath), a promoter who can fighters into stars, in the last episode, and the young Jamaican is now making his debut in the West End boxing scene along with Alec. The men immediately impress the audience with their fighting skills. Alec instructs Hezekiah to turn his opponent’s idea of him – brute force, no skills – against him and suddenly, the future is looking bright for the two young men.
Unfortunately for Hezekiah, Sugar makes an unwelcome appearance just as he’s crowned the winner of his first fight. Sugar is like a fish out of water at the fancy boxing club which is miles away from his grubby ring at the pub, both figuratively and literally. Sugar is a dangerous man, but there’s no denying he’s a good boxer and has all the potential of making a name for himself in the West End, just as he has in the East. If he can adapt to this new style of boxing, with gloves, he could be the next star of the scene. But will Sugar ever bend and admit the world has moved on from what he knows?
If not enough happened in episode 3, episode 4 is almost too full of action. It’s also where things finally get more exciting. The first three episodes of A Thousand Blows have felt like writer Steven Knight was holding something back, but episode 4 fixes all of that. It now feels like we’re getting somewhere, finally.
The robbery, then. It has been teased for three episodes now, but the wait was definitely worth it. The Earl is hosting the Chinese gentlemen who are communicating via a translator, Mr Lao, who has his own plans for the evening. The heist is a thrilling sequence of events and the women, together with Lao and Hezekiah, work together like a well-oiled machine. It’s not all smooth running, but half the fun is watching them figure out how to get away with the crime.
But it’s the episode’s final five minutes that steal the thunder from everything that came before. The credit for that goes to Jason Tobin. His portrayal of Mr Lao so far has been reserved and slightly pulled back, but episode 4 gives him a chance to go further and give us more of an insight into the character, injecting him with a deep sense of grief and fury. It’s potent stuff and gives A Thousand Blows an edge I didn’t know it had, but one that it definitely needs.
Episode 4 is the first episode that made me immediately excited to press play on the next episode after episode 1. So far, A Thousand Blows is a little uneven and perhaps not quite Knight’s best work as a writer, but it’s certainly getting better as the narrative moves on. Now, the question is, can it go from good to great in the final two episodes?
All episodes of A Thousand Blows are available on Disney+ on 21st February.
