SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Fightland Season 1, Episode 7.
As Fightland prepares for what’s hopefully its first-season finale, the Starz series is letting all its drama hang out. “Without Me, There Is No You” delivers the scene that viewers have been waiting for since moment one. And that’s not the only beat that hits home.
Since Nicholas Pinnock returned to the show, he’s done a fine job of playing the villain who has zero redeeming qualities. Kingsley Marshall continues to swan gracefully through this episode, delivering speeches and threats as easy as some people order takeout. But Pinnock does his best work in the one scene where he breaks that mold: the moment in which Duke is able to corner Kingsley at gunpoint. Pinnock plays up vulnerability as Kingsley tells Duke that he wasn’t actually responsible for Calvin’s death—a plea that falls on deaf ears, and turns out to be a complete lie. But in those moments, when it’s just Pinnock and Howard Charles in a room, this is Fightland at its core. The audience doesn’t know if Kingsley might be telling the truth, yet they still want Duke to pull the trigger.
Much like The Westies earlier this season, Fightland has a choice to kill off its patriarch and shies away from it. Even moreso than the MGM+ show, Fightland could survive without Kingsley Marshall. His absence from the whole first half of the season proved that the series doesn’t need him to fill the antagonist role. And if there is a Season 2—which this show has very much earned—the writers have to move on from the Duke vs. Kingsley arc anyway. That’s very much a one-season emotional story. But “Without Me, There Is No You” chooses the safe option, while playing up the contrast of Kingsley and Gary as parental figures in Duke’s life.
Speaking of Gary, it is a relief to see Richard Pepple back in action (of sorts) again, as Gary and Duke have a long overdue conversation in hospital. It’s a good thing that Gary wasn’t just treated as cannon fodder to give Duke more motivation, and also both smart and tragic that the talk between father and son doesn’t go better. The audience at this point wants them to mend fences, and if there’s any time to do it, it’s after one of them almost died. But instead, Episode 7 makes the opposite choice—to fracture their relationship further, undoing the goodwill they’d managed earlier, as Duke calls out his father for the sins of the past. The writers deserve credit for defying expectations, but at the same time, from an emotional standpoint the viewer can’t help but want that scene to be predictable. The fact that it isn’t actually makes that exchange hit harder than Duke and Kingsley later on.
Elsewhere in “Without Me, There Is No You,” Kim Harper spends almost the whole hour butting heads with her boss Patricia Miller. This is as close to traditional “cop stuff” as Fightland has come, and it’s honestly the weakest point of the episode, purely because Miller is a one-dimensional character who exists only to antagonize Kim. It’s particularly interesting that she’s a woman, because were it a male boss who threw out the line about Kim only getting the undercover assignment because “you look good in a two-piece bikini,” this subplot would be entirely different. The scenes between the two are honestly cringe-worthy, but they serve the functional purpose of moving the plot along, because Kim eventually tells Miller that Duke is her confidential source.
Another disappointment, albeit much more understandable, is that the continued focus on Kingsley limits the screen time for both Cebella and Zeek. The latter is essentially put in the corner, while at least Anita-Joy Uwajeh has one strong scene when Cebella confronts her father about seeing his children as employees instead of family. But that one scene is another example of how much of a spark plug Uwajeh is for Fightland, so it’s sad that for now she has a little less to do. At least it’s refreshing to have her state so clearly that she wants to go legitimate; again, it would be easy to just characterize that scene as a power squabble. But it’s about Cebella beyond the Marshall criminal enterprise.
Speaking of family, one cannot discuss Fightland Episode 7 without talking about the scene between Duke and Joy, which doesn’t even happen face-to-face. Joy tells Duke that she lied about Aiden being his son, simply to get him to rescue the boy from the Russians. Audiences can decide whether or not they believe her. But it’s another great scene for Charles and Deborah Ayorinde, and it’s a big gamble for Fightland. If the writers wanted viewers to get invested in Duke and Joy’s relationship, that feels pretty much off the table at this point. Even if one takes the most favorable stance that Joy is misleading Duke to protect any combination of people (him, her and/or her son), then she’s still turned on him twice now. And for someone who values trust as much as Duke seems to, it’s hard to see how he’d forgive her. Even if she is the love of his life, would this really smart character look foolish if he gave her another chance?
Yet with one episode left to go, everything should be about to become clear. And with all of these pivotal scenes so well-executed, Fightland has set itself up for a finale that’s not just exciting from a crime drama standpoint, but it actually has a lot more to offer from an emotional standpoint. If it can stick the character landing as much as whatever next shootout or confrontation is around the corner, this really will be a worthy companion to Power.
Fightland airs Sundays at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on Starz and 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.
