Awesome / Warrior (2019)

The moment you never realized you were waiting for.

Season 1

The Itchy Onion

• Ah Sahm stomping three racist immigration officers in his first scene. Then beating down the Long Zii who try to grab him in Ah Toy's brothel.
• After seeing all that, Li Yong's introduction has him fight thus far unstoppable Ah Sahm to a standstill, proving that badass as he may be, Ah Sahm is far from the only one.

There's No China In The Bible

• Ah Sahm, Young Jun and Bolo raid a Long Zii opium stash, with Ah Sahm and Young Jun clearing out half the mooks Bolo clears out the other half. Yes, by himself; Young Jun is suitably impressed:
  Young Jun, seeing Bolo casually having a drink amidst all the carnage he'd just got done creating: God DAMN, Bolo.
• Two racists harass Penny and Jacob. Ah Sahm intervenes. No points for guessing how the fight goes.

John Chinaman

• The judge presiding over Ah Sahm's trial for the events of the previous episode scuttles Buckley and Leary's plan to have Ah Sahm swing for murders committed by Ah Toy by flatly refusing to indict Ah Sahm just because he's Chinese; when the two guys who got their asses whooped by our hero fail to turn up in court (having been, uh... persuaded not to make an appearance), he lets Ah Sahm go as there is no case to be made against him. After several episodes of various whites abusing the Chinese just because, this minor character is a welcome breath of fresh air.

The White Mountain

• Mai Ling inviting the leader of the Fung Hai to a meeting, only to poison him and sit there calmly as he struggles to attack her.
• Bolo's backstory as the "Yellow Demon", a fighter on the Transcontinental Railroad that white bosses would take bets on.

The Blood and the Sh*t

• Ah Sahm and Young Jun taking on a bunch of outlaws armed with guns.
  • Wen their leader, Finch, returns with the rest of his gang, Ah Sahm appears to be alone in the bar. Finch deduces that the rest are probably upstairs and tells them to come down. Ah Sahm gives him a counteroffer to just take the money and leave the bar, and in turn, he won't kill them. Finch laughs it off and prepares to execute him... only for Ah Sahm to shoot up, grab Finch's gun by the barrel, and tear out his throat.
• The Badass Preacher's prayer/Rousing Speech. "May the Devil cut the fucking toes off our fucking foes, so that we may know them by their limping." Not quite what Billie had in mind when she asked them to bless their upcoming defense from Harlan French's outlaws, but he still gets a round of hearty amens.
• The saloon owners and the stagecoach passengers defeating the outlaws in a gunfight.
  • Two of said passengers are a very prim-and-proper married couple... except that the wife proves herself to be a crack shot with a rifle, and apparently has no particular qualms about blowing the bad guys away. Crosses into a Funny Moments when the husband goes slack jawed upon witnessing his wife's skill and she just kind of shrugs it off:
  We've all got our secrets.
• When the rest of the gang is dead, the treacherous coach driver who alerted the outlaws in the first place shows up and tries to gun down Young Jun and Wankeia, who saved him moments prior. Before he can do anything though, he takes a bullet through the neck. Then the Badass Preacher steps through the doorway, pistol in hand, having snuck around front.

The Tiger and the Fox

• A bounty hunter shows up and confronts Bill with the revelation that Lee killed two of his cousins before fleeing to California. Bill confronts Lee over this seemingly in private. Lee reveals he killed them for raping and murdering his fiancé for being a free black woman. One with the same murder weapon (a sickle). After this revelation, Bill calls in Chinatown Squad and the bounty hunter, resulting in a standoff, with Lee believing Bill sold him out. Bill then orders the squad to pummel the bounty hunter to the ground and threatening him to never return to San Fransisco.
  Bounty Hunter: This ain't gonna end how you think it is, boy.
  Bill: You're right, it's not.

Chinese Boxing

• Li Yong and Ah Sahm duke it out over the Long Zii and Hop Wei share of the opium trade - the two beat each other into mincemeat, using every technique they know and pushing themselves to their absolute limits, with Li Yong at one point looking for all the world like he willed himself back to life after taking a particularly nasty blow from Ah Sahm. Bill and Lee, who happen to be in the audience, are suitably impressed:
  Bill: I don't know what kinda boxing that is, but if they all could fight like that we'd be fucked.
• Bill and Lee's Big Damn Heroes moment when Li Yong is about to kill Ah Sahm. Lee rushes to the stage to stop the match while Bill fires off a "Shut Up!" Gunshot to stop the match.

If You're Going to Bow, Bow Low

• The brief teaser we get of Ah Sahm vs Leary. Ah Sahm kicks the collective asses of his men and Leary gives him a run for his money. The two end up in a standstill that gets interrupted by the arrival of the police. But it's clearly not over. Leary just found what could very be his Arch-Enemy.
  Leary: I'm gonna find you, chink.
  Ah Sahm: I hope so.

Season 2

If You Don't See Blood You Didn't Come To Play

• Leary vs. two Hop Wei hatchetmen guarding the secret opium stash at Mercer Steel. The hatchetmen are tough, skilled, and armed with, well, hatchets, yet Leary still makes relatively short work of them. At one point he gets slashed in the neck and all it accomplishes is pissing him off.
• Young Jun hears a new recruit mocking and belittling Hong and making various crude homophobic jokes. He shuts it down immediately by bashing the recruit's head against the table repeatedly until he's knocked out cold. He then warns the other recruits to never mess with Hong again, or he's messing with him and Ah Sahm too, and that will not end well for them.

To A Man With A Hammer, Everything Looks Like A Nail

• Ah Sahm takes out Dolph Jagger (played by the former UFC MW champ Michael Bisping) with a single kick. The show actually goes to some lengths to show that, for all that he's a Jerkass with a big mouth, Jagger is very much not a pushover - in fact Vega outright tells Ah Sahm that if the fight goes on for too long Jagger's size and strength will tell - which just makes it much more impressive.

Enter the Dragon

• When the Irish mob descend on Chinatown in retaliation for Mayor Blake's death where they proceed to beat up and kill any Chinese they can find, the Hop Wei and the Long Zii temporarily join forces to protect their community and fight back against the racist Irish mob. Cue thirty minutes of ass-kicking action.
  Young Jun: I think we spend every day living in their world but today, they're gonna die in ours.
• The first cop at the scene is none other than Richard Lee, who wastes no time bashing the head of every rioter unfortunate enough to come within the reach of his billy club. He's also the one who takes out Tully, the instigator and leader of the riot.
• Mai Ling might not be the fighter her brother is, but she's definitely as brave as him; even with Chinatown getting torn up around her, and some rioters breaking into Ah Toy's brothel, she shows no signs of discomfiture - she merely places her gun somewhere easy to reach and keeps stitching up Ah Toy's wounds.

Man On The Wall

• The showdown 20 episodes in the making, brief scuffle in season 1 notwithstanding - Ah Sahm and Dylan Leary square off. It's every bit the drawn-out, grueling, bloody, yet skillful, affair the viewers could have hoped for, with Ah Sahm displaying his speed and vast assortment of techniques, and Leary showing just how much of a tank he is by taking everything Ah Sahm dishes out and returning it with interest. Ah Sahm wins, and wins convincingly, but it's clear by the end that he's been in a fight of his life.
  • There's also the conversation between the two before the fight. Leary tries to call out the Chinese for invading on their earned land, only for Ah Sahm to spit back that the Irish and Chinese are not as different as Leary is trying to rationalize them to be.
    Ah Sahm: Your people came here for the same reason we did. The cupboards were bare. People needed to feed their children... Do you have any children, Leary?
• Loathsome prick he might be, but Buckley's Wounded Gazelle Gambit to get one over Penny impressively showcases his resourcefulness, unpredictability, and just how far he'll go to crush his opponents.

Season 3

Exactly The Wrong Time To Get Proud

• The Long Zii are setting up an opium den in the Hop Wei territory; cue Ah Sahm swaggering in, making a few smart-aleck remarks to the tune of "you guys took a wrong turn somewhere" and then opening a jumbo-sized can of whoopass; all before the opening credits even roll. The same scene also gives us a brief foretaste of a possible Ah Sahm vs. Li Yong rematch with the two fighting to a standstill before the brawl is broken up by the cops - and even that brief tussle is great.

Anything Short of a Blow to the Head

• Edmund Mosely gets one when Benjamin Atwood tries to shut down his request for assistance from the Chicago PD in looking into the forgery ring he's investigating (members of which killed his partner not long prior). He immediately goes ballistic on Atwood, stating that he was only even talking to him as a courtesy, and that he will give him everything he needs to complete his investigation unless he wants Mosley to go over his head and take it. He also adds that he'll just commandeer Atwood's office and relegate him to an office in the basement if he keeps being so difficult. It's incredibly satisfying seeing the smug bastard taken down a peg.
• After Leary fires two Irish brothers for fighting with Chinese coworkers on the clock, they come looking for revenge. He has a boxing match with both brothers at the same time and wins.

Gotta Be Crooked to Get Along in a Crooked World

• Lee, Chao confront Happy Jack in Abigail's bar after he sold them out.
  Jack: Comes a time when every man's gotta answer for his shit.
  Lee: I reckon that goes for you too.
  Jack: What the fuck are you gonna do about it, cop?
  Abigail: He's not gonna do anything. (shotgun blast)

You Know When You're Losing A Fight

• Atwood gets a long overdue shit-kicking, and who delivers it? Bill O'Hara, likely the last person anyone in- and out-of-universe expected to actually do it. Not only does he beat the crap out of Atwood, he finishes the fight with an awesome belly-to-belly suplex. Leary, who saw the fight and who thus far seemed to just barely get along with Bill, is suitably impressed:
  Leary: Now there's an Irishman.
• Mixed in with a big helping of Tear Jerker, but Li Yong's fight with Kong Pak, who confronts Mai Ling after barely surviving her purge of the elders, is yet another clash of two martial arts powerhouses the series does so well.

All of Death is Coming Home

• Leary is in top form in this episode - after Strickland tries to renege on his promises to employ more Irish in his construction business Leary retaliates by blowing up a bridge he'd built, verbally tearing Strickland a new one and then brutally dispatching five of the latter's goons sent to teach him a lesson. Even by the series' liberal standards the gore and brutality are pretty shocking, and Leary caps the fight off with a Battle Cry that's downright bestial.
  Strickland: The gangster emerges.
  Leary: You've never met the gangster.

A Window Of Fucking Opportunity

• The previous two season finales were absolute bombshells and season 3's no exception:
  • When Young Jun announces his intention to send a hit squad after Mai Ling, Ah Sahm finally decides to pick a side; which is to say, he beats the dozen or so Hop Wei goons in the room into bloody lumps before engaging Young Jun and Hong in a knockdown-dragout brawl for the ages. It's a massive Tear Jerker considering how close the three of them were but the sheer spectacle and intensity is awesome to behold.
  • For her part Mai Ling finally sheds her Faux Action Girl status, blasting all the Hop Wei goons coming after her with her revolver like a 19th century Distaff Counterpart to John Wick; she takes several wounds in the process, and is left a shivering sobbing mess once it is over, but it just goes to show yet again that she's every bit as brave as her brother when it truly counts.
  • Non-action one for Dylan Leary who, in the wake of his falling out with Strickland, shows that he's actually learned a thing or twelve about playing the political game after all by bullying his way into becoming a "partner" to another wealthy industrialist who clearly doesn't like it but doesn't want to pass up the chance to gain the city contracts Leary's connection to Buckley can potentially bring him. He might not be quite in The Chessmaster territory, but Mr. Leary is clearly proceeding in the right direction.0
  • In The Stinger half a dozen or so Long Zii soldiers confront Li Yong... and promptly drop their gang colors, acknowledging him without a word as the one they truly want to follow. The last shot of the episode is Li Yong and his guard of honor strolling through Chinatown as if they own the place, which they well might at this point.

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