I am one who always gets excited for new shows. I love a good story, meeting new characters and being transported to different places and times. AMC’s Into the Badlands is visually appealing with its beautifully designed sets and its steampunk flair.

The shows begins telling you that there were once wars that no one remembers. Evil ruled until the time of the Barons, “7 men and women forged order out of chaos”. People fled to the Barons for protection but were instead put into servitude. The strongest boys are colts trained to become Clippers, warriors that fight for their Barons using martial arts and swords due to the banishment of guns.

Daniel Wu plays Sunny, an orphan taken in by Baron Quinn (Marton Csokas) when he was young. Baron Quinn saw something within him and trained him to become a  Clipper. He was trained to kill in order to defend and protect the interests of his Baron. Over the years Sunny has now become a Regent, the Barons very skilled and deadliest warrior.

Sunny finds a young boy named M.K who was captured by nomads who were paid by The Widow. The Widow considers herself a Baron after the death of her husband (who Baron Quinn believes she killed). M.K wears a pendant that resembles a compass that belongs to Sunny.

Sunny has a lover named Veil, who tells Sunny she’s pregnant. He immediately tells her she can’t keep the child, due to the punishment of death for either Sunny or Veil, it doesn’t specify. She tells him they should run away, and find a new place so they can all be together, but Sunny fears the consequences of leaving his duty to the Baron.

M.K gets attacked by one of the Colts in the bathroom and something possesses his body and he takes down the colt pretty quickly and almost supernaturally. Sunny witnesses the transaction, and tells M.K this must be why the widow is seeking him out. Sunny shows M.K his compass, and M.K tells Sunny the design on it is from his home, Azra.

No doubt with babies on the brain, Sunny may be thinking of finding Azra. He heads to Veil’s home only to be confronted by the Widow’s mercenaries. After a pretty cool fight scene we briefly meet The Widow. She tells him to bring M.K to her, he declines and she leaves, saying he doesn’t just kill for his Baron, and if he changes his mind to let her know.

M.K is caught trying to get back the pendant the Baron’s son Ryder took from him only to be caught and put in jail. Sunny frees M.K telling him to find his mother and his home. Lydia the Barons wife sees Sunny freeing M.K.  She was also there when M.K was caught trying to get his pendant back, and when she saw the pendant there was a look of familiarity on her face.

A Baron can have multiple wives and his new young bride seemed innocent enough in the beginning, but at the end of the show she is sleeping with Quinn’s son, Ryder. Oh and what’s with the ugly tattoo on her hand?

There is definitely room for growth with this show and I pray more dialogue. It’s only the first episode so hopefully by the second or third I will be pulled more into the story.

What are your thoughts on the first episode?

Catch Into the Badlands on AMC Sunday night after The Walking Dead