Summary
Fightland continues to move along at a lightning-fast clip, but crucially, it isn’t overlooking important character-building details that help to ground the world.
Fightland isn’t coming up for air any time soon, and Episode 2, “Brick by Brick”, proves that the premiere’s pacing wasn’t a one-off. Importantly, though, despite the near-constant onslaught of action and tension, the show’s still careful to include small scenes of grounding and character development that help the world to feel lived-in and the drama to have stakes. It isn’t Shakespeare, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a bit more cerebral than it perhaps could be, which is a good thing (as long as it lasts).
The cliffhanger we left things on is dealt with fairly adroitly. Duke is able to talk Lazaro out of shooting him and Jay, but that means Jay is now complicit in his revenge mission. Luckily, he has his uses, since Duke needs to blame the theft of Kingsley’s drugs on the Albanians, which means planting the package in a shipping container. It also means justifying his own quest out loud – notably, he neglects to mention that Kingsley ordered the hit on him because he was sleeping with Joy, not because he planned to move to another promoter.
It’s fair to say that Duke has a slightly more well-rounded criminal mastermind skillset than your average boxer probably should, but he has been honed by eight years in prison, and more to the point, his plans still don’t come off without a hitch, sometimes for quite mundane reasons. Case in point: On the way to the docks, Jay’s driving gets them pulled over, and the cop recognises Duke from his fighting days, which means they miss their window for planting the drugs. That means the bulk of “Brick by Brick” has to become about finding a new opportunity for framing the Albanians.
This, of course, ropes Jay into the plot more, since his status as a well-known London debt collector can get him closer to the criminal gangs. It’s him who comes up with a new opportunity to frame the Albanians, but that also goes wrong, leading to another fight and a murder. Duke reckons they can still pin the whole thing on CeCe and Zeek, but when every step of every plan is this fraught with difficulty, it’s virtually guaranteed that things are going to go irreparably wrong sooner rather than later.
This would be true if the organized crime plot was happening in isolation, but it isn’t, and Fightland Episode 2 reminds us of this constantly by sneaking in scenes fleshing out the various interpersonal dynamics that are at play. CeCe and Zeek are still trying to run their father’s company in his absence – which remains mysterious and unexplained – and still clashing on the best approach, especially given their starkly opposing personalities and skillsets. CeCe is much more equipped, business-wise, but Zeek likes the limelight more. It becomes very clear throughout this episode that he’s out of his depth, though. His efforts to fix Kareem’s fight with an Irishman are obvious enough that Duke notices and has to bail him out, and then when the Irish guy’s associates want some payback, it’s Duke who again has to step in and save Zeek’s bacon.
Zeek seeing Duke as a loyal protector will, of course, allow for Duke to get closer to the inner circle, making it easier for him to take down the operation in the “Brick by Brick” fashion that forms the title. But outside of wildcard potential, Zeek clearly isn’t the Big Bad here. CeCe is much more aware of what’s going on, and much more likely to cause Duke serious problems. Her testy relationship with Joy, and her outright refusal to allow her to dismiss her driver, Langston, so she can clandestinely meet up with Duke, are early warning signs that while Zeek is hogging all the limelight, it’s CeCe who’s going to cause the biggest issues for everyone.
I do suspect we’re going to see Duke in the ring at some point. His comeback is supposed to be a bit of a ruse, but in a brief scene with his father, it’s reiterated that there’s plenty of money to be made in him knocking out influencers – how very current – and his dad is right that he needs to find something that makes him happy; if it makes him rich, too, then that’s an upside. There isn’t much point in having a champion boxer as a protagonist if he’s not going to do any boxing. And if nothing else, it’ll fill time until Kingsley’s inevitable return, which I imagine will happen closer to the end of the season, when all of the other dynamics have been properly fleshed out. For now, Fightland isn’t really missing him, but it’ll have to end with some major payoff that’ll require his presence.
For now, though, there’s plenty going on – perhaps, arguably, too much – to occupy the audience’s attention. We’ll have to see whether subsequent episodes slow down a touch, since it’s unlikely that this pace can be sustained throughout. Then again, though, you can never quite tell.
