A Thousand Blows, the latest British historical drama from Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), ostensibly tells the story of the Forty Elephants, an all-female London crime-syndicate who specialize in shoplifting but are aiming for a larger score. I say ostensibly because that is only one portion of the overstuffed story being told, with the other segment telling the tale of Hezekiah Moscow, newly arrived from Jamaica, who makes a name for himself – and, of course, enemies – as a rising star in the nascent London boxing scene. Oh, and there’s also bits of the story of Sugar Goodson, a real-life boxer in London at the turn of the 20th century, who factors into the tale in fits and starts. So, there’s an awful lot going on, and not nearly enough time to make any of it resonate the way it needs to in order for the story’s dramatic beats to hit.
The six-episode series (it concludes with a promise of more to come – along with a trailer, so the next portion appears to be filmed if not already completed) attempts to weave together the three main story arcs, with both Sugar and Hezekiah’s stories intertwining with those of the Forty Elephants and their self-appointed queen, Mary Carr (Erin Doherty, one of the best things about seasons three and four of The Crown, and very good here, when she gets a chance to do more than plot and stare angrily at other characters). But with such a short number of episodes to not only introduce a host of characters, explain the heist plot central to the Elephants’ arc, and teach us all we need to know both about racial tensions in London at that time and the advent of boxing in the city, well, there’s just not enough time to do it all. And, unfortunately, the piece that suffers is character development.
A Thousand Blows has a hell of a cast. In addition to Doherty, Hezekiah is played by the excellent Malachi Kirby (who was just incredible in the Roots remake several years back) and Sugar is portrayed by Stephen Graham, who offers a soulful performance. But these three are hamstrung by the condensed nature of the storytelling, which prevents any of their characters – each of whom could fully anchor a series on their own – to develop beyond the most basic of outlines. Hezekiah is the outsider, dealing with a new country that looks down upon him for the color of his skin and his pedigree, who can only make advances within society by using his body as a boxer. We see snippets of flashbacks to his childhood and life in Jamaica, but they are so brief we only get a taste of the, mostly generic, trauma he suffered at the hands of the British soldiers who attempted to keep order on the island. We’re told about Sugar’s past, but again, it’s a fairly generic set of experiences that the writing does nothing to embellish or craft to his personal life. It’s this arc, in particular, where I really wished Knight – who wrote all episodes – had a chance to get deeper into just what shaped Sugar into who he became. As for Mary, well, her past was a bit confusing. We eventually meet her mother, Jane, a high-ranking member of the underground crime network, who we are told is formidable and terrifying, but again, we don’t see it. So much of what makes these three tick is told to us or hinted at in passing, but we never get to see how these past actions shaped the characters. None of them truly change or grow beyond who we meet in the pilot episode.
When we’re told that Mary cannot connect to those around her on a deeper level, as she fears emotional attachments will make her weak, well, we know she’s eventually going to slip up and do that – even though, shocker, it doesn’t really make her weak or slip up (it is, in fact, her own ego that does that). Then there’s Hezekiah, wanting a place in this new society but being rebuffed – violently at times – at every turn, yet still finding a ways to continue to rise up.* As for Sugar, well, he’s perhaps the least developed of all, prone to anger, fiercely loyal to those who show the same loyalty to him, and a seemingly dangerous enemy to have. But we learn next to nothing about how he came to be that way. Sure, the writing lists out what happened in his past and his need to protect his younger brother, but we don’t see who he is and why. It’s a classic case of telling us and not showing us. Which is such a shame.
*There’s a minor subplot that involves a Black woman who has managed to find her way into the upper echelon of London society through her entertainment career, whose path crosses with Hezekiah’s at a few points in the series. However, much like with all the other supporting characters in the series, we learn next to nothing about her, despite her presence serving as an intriguing juxtaposition alongside Hezekiah. It’s a missed opportunity to drive home some of the crucial points the series feints at regarding the racism of England at the time.
Had A Thousand Blows been, say, an eight-episode series, there might have been enough time to get a true feel for each of our three central characters while still allowing the main narrative arc enough time to truly breathe. But as it currently stands, the storytelling is rushed (a heist is planned and executed in a couple of episodes, the breadth of which it would take months to truly pull off at this level), the characters are thinly drawn, and even a stellar cast can’t turn this into the complex series it’s trying to masquerade as. There might be some interest here if you were a massive Peaky Blinders fan and are looking to get more out of that type of storytelling, but if not, this is a skip for me.
A Thousand Blows premieres on February 21 on Hulu/Disney+. All six episodes were provided for review.
-
Writing
-
Acting
-
Direction
