17 hours ago
10
The problem with having Erin Doherty star in your TV drama is that it makes it extremely difficult to tell whether it’s any good or not. The 33-year-old is more than an impressive actor – she is a magnetic presence, able to sell the idea that she actually is her character in a way few others can (a particularly impressive feat considering her breakthrough was playing Princess Anne in The Crown). As such, Doherty’s participation in a series can elevate the premise, plot and script in a slightly confusing way. Watching the first few episodes of Steven Knight’s late-Victorian thriller A Thousand Blows, I wasn’t sure whether I was genuinely enjoying the programme or simply marvelling at Doherty’s effervescent turn as wily, tough-as-boots pickpocketing queen Mary Carr.
Series two makes it easier to spot the difference. While the first outing suffered from its share of heavy-handed exposition, the tale of an East End boxer (played by Doherty’s Adolescence co-star Stephen Graham) whose local dominance is undone by a smart Jamaican fighter (Malachi Kirby) was propulsive and slick, and the presence of the Forty Elephants – a real all-female crime syndicate – was giddily novel. The rivalry between Henry “Sugar” Goodson (old school, bare-knuckle, chip-on-both-shoulders, mildly deranged) and Hezekiah Moscow (young, fun, good-hearted, and willing to cash in on the gentrified west London boxing scene) was a framework that allowed room for commentary on colonialism, racism, tradition and class. Throw in Mary and her mischievous colleagues and you also had a compelling exploration of female empowerment, poverty and the psychology of risk and reward.
This time round, the action is less punchy and amusing, and more just really, really depressing. Admittedly, we did leave things on a three-pronged downer last time: Hezekiah was essentially a pariah, having inadvertently killed white New York boxing champ Buster Williams in the ring; Sugar was desolate, having beaten his brother Edward “Treacle” Goodson (James Nelson-Joyce) to a pulp for a perceived slight; and Mary was persona non grata, having led the Elephants on a perilous wild goose chase after some worthless silver-plated tat and been rejected by Hezekiah after he realised she knew more than she’d let on about his best friend’s murder.
Still, things can always be worse. And in the series two opener, they are. Sugar is now a drunken down-and-out, rolling across the Wapping cobbles. Hezekiah is reduced to fighting on the barge-based underground boxing scene in front of openly racist crowds. And Mary is at the beck and call of her ruthless mother Jane (Susan Lynch), who is in turn at the beck and call of her brutal boss Indigo Jeremy (a deeply unsettling Robert Glenister). It’s all very grim.
But you can’t keep a morally ambivalent woman down, and soon Mary is back to her old tricks; a bank heist here, a bait and switch there. In lieu of a neat storyline involving Sugar and Hezekiah, it’s Mary’s planned robbery of a Caravaggio with a mesmerist named Sophie Lyons, one of her father’s New York associates, that forms the narrative backbone of this series, and persuades her dispersed band of lady thieves to reunite.
Hezekiah’s comeback takes a little longer. He spends much of this series unhappily training the puny Prince Albert Victor in the art of boxing before returning to the ring himself. Yet the Goodson brothers aren’t so resilient: with the formerly sensible Treacle transformed by the head injury Sugar inflicted, the pair tag team between patriarchal problem-solving and alcoholic mania – it’s honestly hard to keep up with the frequency Sugar boards and disembarks the wagon.
Ostensibly, there is plenty of action – various villains are after our trio of (also villainous) protagonists, and people are hurt along the way – but it doesn’t feel as if much is at stake. At times, Sugar’s aimless bewilderment seems to seep into the bones of the show itself. Hezekiah’s quest to establish himself in Britain while haunted by the violence he witnessed in Jamaica gave series one depth and direction – yet so profound is the boxer’s disillusionment that now even his wins feel hollow. And while Mary can still execute a cunning plan, her joy in bettering her betters also crumbles. Instead we get glimpses of what haunts her: an unhappy childhood; the prospect of an impoverished future and a lonely death. Doherty takes these fleeting insights and turns them into a psychodrama that leaves a lasting impression. But that says more about her talent than the quality of this muddled second outing.
