Into the Badlands (TV Series) Chapter XXIV: Leopard Catches Cloud (2018) User Reviews

Holy Cow that was freakin Awesome! subtle spoiler

[skip-98756 · 10/10 · 18 June 2018]

Just wow! had me riveted all the way through ! The Masters appearance and whats ahead for the Widow! I wont say what it is but I have been hoping the show would dare to go in this direction for what will make for an epic insane meeting unstoppable force meeting its equal... I just Love this show and All its characters,they just rock like no other shows cast...I am partial to beautiful women who can hold their own with any man and this show has the creme of the crop! the fight choreographies are eye candy for those who have an appreciation of, or a background in fighting..yes there is wirework and unrealstic physics at play, but the actors portray their skills with a grace and beauty thats a pleasure to behold..I Love the whole Dark Force theme and where its going...Ive wanted to see this play out this way and all i can say is fasten ur seatbelts ..People with extraordinary abilities are about to go off the scale!

Lack of character depth

[klier_leon · 5/10 · 11 September 2021]

Unfortunately, M. K. doesn't get any depth of character. When he sees Sunny, who was in a lot of ways his father figure, he immediately goes into killing mode without a trace of hesitation. He found out that his father figure killed his mother, and without any struggle decided that he should kill Sunny. And when he actually confronts Sunny, there is still no internal struggle, no opposing feelings, despite Sunny being one of the only people in his life that cared for him and did not use him for his own agenda. But all of that goes over M. K.'s head. I really think that would be an interesting concept to explore, especially because of their relationship of a colt and his teacher, and the need to prove himself as a better fighter than the best clipper in the Badlands. But on the other hand, Sunny saved his life multiple times, and as I've already pointed out, was one of the only people who didn't try to use him. None of that gets explored.

Same thing could be said about Sunny, he just agrees to everything Pilgrim tells him. Again, we don't see any sign of second guessing his decision. He just agrees with everything Pilgrim says without questioning it because the kid who just tried to kill him told him that he can trust him, despite all of Bajie's warnings. I don't necessarily have an issue with him putting Henry's life before everyone else's, but to make that decision so easily and with so little thought is just bad writing in my opinion.

The second issue I have with this episode is the presence of unnecessary romance plots.

Firstly, I would like to focus on the romance between Minerva and Gaius. I think that Gaius' feelings for Minerva make sense. I have no issue with him liking her. I actually don't even mind her having feelings for him, but I would probably prefer for her not to have them, but it's fine if she doesn't act as she does on them. After her experience with her past husband I feel like she wouldn't let another man get to her that easily. Another reason i feel like this romance is unnecessary is because Gaius is a relatively new character, and we don't actually see him do anything that significant. We aren't really invested in his character because he's this new character who is just kind of there, not really doing much.

But Lydia's and Nathaniel's romance is even worse. It feels really forced, like the writers wanted another romance plot, and didn't know who else to pair. It also comes out of nowhere, they are talking about how she's always preparing for tomorrow, and than all of a sudden Nathaniel drops his "You are wonderful, but a warrior knows that every night could be his last." And then she responds with "Than we should plan for that too." and then they just start shagging. What? Truly awful writing, the dialogue is so unnatural, forced and nonsensical.

And it's a real shame, because there is some actually good things in this episode. M. K. Turning the shovel around after Sunny telling him that he doesn't want to hurt him to reveal his gift and his control over it, backing up his response: "You won't." Nathaniel's fighting sequence was also really cool looking, Bajie's jokes were funny, and I liked it when Chau confronts the Widow with beautiful shots of Chau and the huge Leonidas At Thermopylae by Jacques-Louis David in the background, and Chau says "You're almost as predictable as my brother. That's the thing about family, you can always depend on them" I think that was kind of clever.

But than that sentence is immediately followed by "Tell me, has he slept with you yet?" Like come on, really? Is this what we're going with? And then, apparently, Magneto from X-men comes and saves The Widow from dozens of crossbow bolts, deus ex machina style. Just as Sunny was predictably saved by Professor X, and just as Nathaniel was predictably saved by Lydia.

Every half decent moment in this episode is followed up by a truly awful one, and every opportunity to give characters some amount of depth is immediately thrown out of the window and replaced by emotions that will further drive conflict. I really think this series had potential, but was held back by lazy writing in later seasons.

I think it's bad/lazy writing

[matttalks · 5/10 · 4 September 2021]

This show had the potential to so much better then it was. There are times all throughout it where characters choices and actions are just like "c'mon man". Look at sunny this episode. He just walks around literally blind to the things going on right in front of him. He's ready to just sacrifice Bashi to these strangers over nothing. When he gives them the ability to use the machine, and he doesn't get the responses that he should have gotten he still is walking around and acting like he's not sure of the fact that he just made a huge mistake. I'm just saying, he's the lead of this show, they could have made he come off just a tad bit more intelligent and intuitive. He's like super ninja 5000 but past fighting and everything related to it, it's like he oppresses with the capability of a child. It's Just disappointing bc I feel like if the writers would have pushed themselves a tad bit more and held themselves to a higher standard this series would have been a lot more renowned. Stupid lazy useless people.