SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Fightland Season 1, Episode 4.
The fourth episode of Fightland shifts the Starz show’s focus to its female characters, just in the nick of time. With the exception of Cebella Marshall, the women in Fightland have been waiting for their chance to fully break out. And “Protect Yourself at All Times” is that episode, where most of the action revolves around either Cebella, her stepmother Joy or Kim Harper.
Audiences can suss out the plot beats well before they happen, but that only somewhat blunts their effectiveness. Cebella continues to be the one driving the action, passing off the bombing from Episode 3 as a “gas leak” while she tries to wrangle her reckless brother Zeek. But if she remains a formidable force, this episode is a backslide for him. Being the reckless one is one thing; Episode 4 makes him look downright clueless. From the pre-credits moment of him taking off his balaclava to taunt Sergei, to seeing him avoid the end-of-episode brawl by fleeing out a secret door, Zeek is made to look like a complete pretender. And that makes him a lot less interesting as a character, because he loses any credibility.
Elsewhere, Joy goes on an emotional roller coaster here that actor Deborah Ayorinde is wonderful at navigating. The writing doesn’t always match the level of her performance, however. Joy is pushed into full meltdown mode very quickly after previously being a pretty measured character. The most obvious example of this is when she turns up to see Duke, telling him that she and Aiden are leaving town and telling him he needs to go with them. Her desperation makes more sense given the last-second plot twist, but in the moment, the scene feels disjointed. Even if Duke was just an ordinary guy, it’s a lot to expect him to drop everything when they’ve literally just rekindled their relationship, and then to lash out at him for saying no. He’s not a bad guy in that conversation, and there’s a way to write that scene where it’s more nuanced and less abrupt.
Speaking of that last-second plot twist, Aiden being Duke’s son is meant to be a shock to the audience as well as him, but it’s not. Viewers likely guessed that from Aiden’s initial appearance earlier in the season. The same goes for Kim and Duke hooking up, as well as Gary being stabbed. All of these things are major in the lives of the characters, but all of them are telegraphed. Gary making up with his son is very obvious foreshadowing that something is going to happen to him. And Kim’s approach to Duke is still not subtle, although it is nice that Fightland doesn’t jump immediately from the club scene to the sex scene. The conversation that happens in between is more interesting than the characters hooking up.
“Protect Yourself at All Times” lacks many of the layers that have made Fightland successful to this point. There’s still plenty of action and the plot twists are still coming almost too fast, but those character moments that give all of that frenetic chaos weight are mostly underwhelming—except for Gary, Kim and Duke around the kitchen table. This is another instance where one wonders that if this show had a longer season, would it be able to take a breath and draw some of these ideas out?
But the biggest plus is a very important one: the female characters get to have some significant development. Cebella has done a lot of work so far, yet Joy has mostly been defined by her relationship with Duke, and Kim’s arc turned that way when she started flirting with him. Fightland Episode 4 reveals a little bit more about all three ladies, and gives all three stars their own moments to shine. This episode may be the least impressive on its own but it sets Cebella, Joy and Kim up to become bigger players in the rest of the season. And Fightland will be better off because of that.
Fightland airs Fridays at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on Starz and streams on the Starz app. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Starz.
Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.
