Summary
The third episode delivers a surprising amount of tenderness for Warrior, but this only makes a brutal last-minute rug-pull all the more affecting.
This recap of the Max series Warrior Season 3 Episode 3, “No Time For F*cking Chemistry”, contains spoilers.
Warrior isn’t an especially romantic show, but it’s certainly romance that comes to the forefront of “No Time For F*cking Chemistry”, the title of which obviously isn’t a coincidence.
But, typically, the primary function of the romance here is to torment the characters in various ways; to show them lives they’re not allowed to live, love that is forbidden, homes that can’t be preserved. The final third of this season’s three-episode premiere, this is where Warrior really brings down the hammer on both the characters and the audience, making it very clear that nobody’s getting off easy.
Warrior Season 3 Episode 3 Recap
The Hop Wei, with the help of Yan Mi, are printing money at an alarming rate. They use it to pay off their debts and secure their merchandise, but Young Jun also gets carried away throwing it around.
When Ah Sahm confronts him about it, we’re reminded once again of their somewhat fractured relationship. Ah Sahm assumes, understandably, that Young Jun is just balling out instead of investing their new money wisely, recruiting more soldiers to fight against the Long Zii. But Young Jun is smartly washing the currency through legitimate businesses, so the forgeries get mixed in with the rest of the bills. He resents the accusation that he’s as dumb as he often acts, but beyond this, he hasn’t supplied much evidence to the contrary.
Who gets together in Episode 3?
The relationship between Ah Sahm and Yan Mi also progresses, though it hasn’t quite crossed the line of outright romance just yet. The same can’t be said of Hong, though, who beds the cabaret musician who caught his eye earlier in the season and seems right at home in the bed of an artist with no connection to the Tongs.
Hong has been violent since his debut, and is often used for comic relief, but this tenderness is a new and welcome component for his character.
Who is Douglas Strickland III?
In Episode 2, we saw how a railroad baron named Douglas Strickland III was trying to strong-arm Nellie out of her vineyard so he could construct a railway through the land. As a former friend of Nellie’s late husband, he tried the polite approach.
Here in “No Time For F*cking Chemistry”, he tries the less subtle tactic of threatening to expose Nellie’s relationship with Ah Toy, as well as suggesting he might report to the authorities that the abundance of Chinese workers suggests she’s running a brothel.
Strickland also proposes a business arrangement with Leary, who is initially sent to threaten him but is impressed by his wiles and his being self-made.
Warrior Season 3 Episode 3 Ending Explained
Since Nellie has enough money and legal representation to tie Strickland up in court for years, more drastic matters need to be taken. So, the vineyard is attacked and burned, several of the workers are killed, and both Ah Toy and Nellie are injured in the struggle.
This is an incredibly tragic end to the episode, and one of the first times this season where the show’s action isn’t trying to be “cool”, but instead horrifying and inevitable. Ah Toy and even Lai are forced to pick up their blades again in the vineyard’s defence, but even though they fight off their attackers, it’s obvious from the damage and trauma left behind that their utopian ideal has been irreparably destroyed, and another war is brewing for them all.
You can stream Warrior Season 3 Episode 3, “No Time For F*cking Chemistry” exclusively on Max.
