This past week’s #IntoTheBadlands has tons of action, a little bit of romance and enough betrayal and back stabbing to make Judas smile.

Two Tigers Subdue Dragons first sees Tilda playing a damsel in distress so her mother, The Widow can kill some unsuspecting mooks and make off with their gold. We later see Tilda and some of the other girls supposed to be cleaning out some of the rooms in the hideout their stuck in now. They find some old entertainment stuff including a record player that they don’t seem to really know what it is. They figure it out and listen to the music for a moment before starting to dance with each other and laughing. It’s a sweet little scene of showing girls being normal girls. It feels like a rare moment for them too.

The Widow of course immediately puts a stop to such a frivolous thing and takes away Tilda’s command, dresses her down and when questioned on why they’re doing all of this (which is an important question, good for you Tilda), is given a huge guilt trip. We find out that the old Baron was not her father (or I really, really hope not) because they alluded to him taking Tilda into a dark place and having his way with an innocent girl. This at least puts into perspective why Tilda goes along with these plans and is loyal to the Widow. She doesn’t want to see what happened to her happen to other little girls and the Widow ‘saved’ her. While I don’t doubt the Widow did save her, I feel like she’s using this to get what she wants out of Tilda. Not cool.

We get some scenes where Sunny is trying to help MK with his wrathful-I-hate-paper-cuts state he goes into whenever he bleeds and explains to him that there is always a balance. Good and evil. Light and dark. That MK needs to find something inside him to combat this darkness, something good and perfect that only he knows. We also see Sunny speaking with Waldo again about his problems. It’s nice to see Sunny actually speaking with someone on equal terms. I feel like while we’re slowly getting somewhere with him and MK and Veil that he still feels they need protection more and so doesn’t put them on the same level as him. Waldo guesses that Sunny has gotten someone pregnant and tells him it’s no big deal. Sunny admits to being in love though and Waldo gives him the best combo Dad sigh and look ever. He gives him a toy green army man to give to the River King and that he’ll help Sunny out. Sunny doesn’t want to take it from him, but Waldo tells him that if he ever wanted to leave he would have done it before now. Plus he never had anything worth it. He gives Sunny a very pointed Dad look and Sunny takes the toy.

The plot between Jade and Lydia gets some attention this week too. They snip back and forth at each other and Jade finds out that Lydia poisoned one of Quinn’s old wives. She is shocked by this because somehow she hasn’t realized she lives in the badlands for her entire life. Ryder mocks her for her naivety, which is hilarious as he is his own special brand of naivety.
How so? Well we get a scene where Ryder goes behind his father’s back (yes you’re finally doing something Ryder!) and meets with who he thinks will be Jacobe, another Baron to make a deal with him to help bring his father down. He is blindly taken somewhere (not smart) and soon realizes that Zephyr, who is supposedly loyal to Jacobe, is working with the Widow. It’s her there instead and after some arguing they all come to an agreement to take out Quinn and let Ryder be baron.

Oh Ryder, darling, if only you’d use that brain of yours! I don’t think Veil messed it up when she drilled that hole in your head. I don’t know how Ryder can be (wait for it) NAÏVE enough to think the Widow is really going to let him live, let alone become Baron. She already tried to kill him once and Zephyr already lied about who he was going to meet. Come on man, you can’t be that trusting. You and Jade are going to have rough learning curbs if you keep being this way.

Now Jacobe does end up meeting with Quinn. We see Sunny picking out people to go and he purposely leaves MK out. The kid is of course upset by this slight even though I assume it was done because Sunny already knew it was going to be bad and didn’t want MK involved. The kid doesn’t see it that way though and the two argue again. They do a lot of that. I hope they can get it together soon and make an escape plan.

MK of course follows the group anyways and when Sunny finds out he is quite angry, but downplays it in front of Quinn and the other clippers. He makes MK go be a lookout (again sending him away from the main action). Quinn meets with Jacobe who is a thin black man with smartly fitted clothing. He speaks with a southern accent, but not an overly done one. He is also pragmatic and straight forward. I like him already.

Quinn tries to schmooze with him at first, reminding Jacobe that he and his father were good friends. Jacobe immediately sets him straight that his old man did not like Quinn at all and only went along with him because their interests were aligned. He also mentions that he doesn’t know if that’s the case with him and Quinn anymore. He doesn’t want war and Quinn seems set on it. It makes the meeting much tenser than it already was with twenty bodyguards glaring at each other.

MK meanwhile has been watching the scene unfold instead of doing his job of being a lookout. He finally turns around and sees a dark hooded figure slowly walking towards the group unawares. Does he immediately yell out about it? Nope, he watches instead and sees that it’s Tilda and she is carrying a massively sized pick axe. MK finally calls out that warning when he sees she’s going to throw it. Worst lookout ever.

The axe is thrown and luckily due to MK’s warning everyone is able to dodge it. This immediately sets off a fight though as Quinn’s side thinks it’s Jacobe and Jacobe’s side thinks its Quinn. No one thinks that maybe they should go see who threw it and have a positive ID on who did it. My annoyance melted away though as this led to one of the best choreographed scenes so far in the entire show. Everyone was going at it all at the same time. There were more flips and sword fights than I could count. Seriously, if for no other reason, you should watch this show for its choreography. Every actor and stuntman knows their stuff (especially Daniel Wu aka Sunny), and they know it well. I thought I’d get tired of these fight scenes, but so far Into the Badlands has been able to up the fights in every single episode.

When Tilda sees that her plan has failed she flees, but MK is after her. She throws a shuriken at him and it cuts him. He goes into that strange black eyed state he goes into when he gets any kind of small wound (I’d hate to see what happens when he gets a serious injury) and goes after Tilda with a vengeance. She is taken back as she not only realizes he is the boy her mother told her about, but also that he’s seriously trying to kill her. Her shuriken was only meant to get him off her trail, but MK is out for blood now and Tilda can only go on the defense trying to get away from him.
Sunny at this point has the battle handled and realizes MK is in trouble. He finds him trying to take Tilda’s head off and watches as she starts pleading with him. MK has her cornered and his fist drawn back and she’s begging him not to do it. Sunny is astonished to watch as not only does MK hesitate but he suddenly goes out of his state and passes out in front of Tilda. To add another shock he watches as Tilda checks on MK and doesn’t try to kill or kidnap him. When she realizes Sunny is there she throws a few shuriken at him and runs away.

Sunny lets her go and instead gets MK and shows the shuriken to Quinn and Jacobe. They now know it was her who had set all this up and vow revenge. It’s interesting to watch Zephyr leave with Jacobe knowing she’s a traitor to him too. Sunny, Quinn, MK and any clippers left leave back to the fort and realize when they get there that something is wrong. Actually only Sunny notices, seriously what would Quinn do without him? They realize that none of the workers are out. They search the poppy fields and find that while the workers are there, they’re all dead. Not only that but they find a large amount of dead clippers too. They search some of the nearby homes, all of which are empty or have dead people in them, until they find one that has a woman and her kid alive and hiding.

She tells them it was the Widow and that she offered them a better life and pay and gave them gold. She gives Quinn the piece she had and continues that anyone who opposed her was killed off. She didn’t want to go and hid. The Baron gives back the gold (for her loyalty) and tells her thank you. I half expected him to kill her, but that is the success of this show making Quinn so unpredictable and awful.

I wish we had got to see the Widow storming the front of the fort and taking down tons of clippers and I was a bit mad that we didn’t, but the shock of finding out with Sunny was good. I see why it was shown that way. Although I’m wondering about Ryder and Lydia as they were sort of in charge while Quinn was gone. Did they fight? Were they hurt? Is Quinn going to make them pay? I don’t know, but I hope we get to see something of it in next weeks episode.

We end the episode with Sunny going to the River King. He seems to run a bunch of boats out of the badlands and why we’re only now finding out about him I don’t know. I think that’s the first man I would have run to if I wanted out. The River King makes a deal with Sunny. Tells him that he wants the head of a boy who killed an entire ship full of people and if Sunny delivers he’ll take him and anyone else he wants out of the badlands. He hands Sunny the wanted poster (they have wanted posters in this universe, I love it) and its MK’s face.

So now Sunny finally has a real dilemma on his hands. To get out he has to betray MK. Not only betray MK but murder him. Will he do it? Will he even consider it? He is a clipper, but as several people on the show have stated his heart doesn’t seem to be into it anymore. Sunny’s loyalty is at stake as well. He keeps trying to be loyal to everyone and that’s not going to work out for him. He is loyal to Veil and trying to get them out and refusing to murder her parents which hurt his standing with Quinn. He is loyal to Quinn who saved him as a boy and taught him what he knows, but also makes Sunny do terrible things while soon probably starting a war. He is loyal to Zephyr who has already been shown to be a traitor. Now he is loyal to MK and their deal to get each other out of the badlands and to this strange place they both seem to somehow come from. Sunny can’t be loyal to everyone and it’s finally came down to him having to choose. Who will he choose?

Perhaps we’ll find out in next weeks episode, Snake Creeps Down. It’s on AMC at 10:00PM/ET December 13th. I hope everyone watches this show because it’s serious fun so far and the closer we get to the finale the faster the action goes. The ratings took a big hit last week without The Walking Dead on, but still had solid ratings. We need to keep this show around for a long time, six episodes isn’t enough!

Did you like this past weeks episode and want to tell us about it? Tweet us at @thenerdygirlexp or me at @quietlikeastorm. We love hearing from you guys and we can talk about this show and others all day, every day. Finally here’s a preview for next weeks Into the Badlands episode.