REVIEW: ‘Warrior’ Season 3 Episode 10 — “A Window of F*cking Opportunity”

Warrior Season 3 has been an emotional roller coaster filled with action, intrigue, and growth for every single character. Now, with Warrior Season 3 Episode 10, “A Window of F*cking Opportunity,” it comes through with an emotional sledgehammer across the audience to close out the season. As the Warrior season finale, Episode 10 doesn’t pull any punches all while presenting an ending that feels complete but leaves the door open to continue if Warrior Season 4 is a possibility.

Describing Warrior Season 3 Episode 10 is simple. It is the culmination of the choices made across the series, ramifications for harm done, and with startling violence, this season finale captures the weight that the series caries in the genre space. For Mai Ling (Dianne Doan), she begins the episode in charge, powerful and terrifying as she gets back at the woman who put her in prison only to wind up broken on the floor, betrayed by her Tong, the Long Zi. Ah Toy (Olivia Cheng) gets her revenge for Lai’s murder. It’s thrilling and cathartic, but it leaves her hollow. Ah Sahm’s (Andrew Koji) plan of betraying the Hop Wei for his lover is a choice that has layers, putting Mai Ling in harm’s way and breaking his bond with his brothers Young Jun and Hong. And finally, the events ripple across the Pond as Leary comes into focus and under the attention of the Bill who has become police chief.

It’s hard to capture the depth of a story in one episode, the intricacies where stories overlap are sometimes ignored. That said, with every season finale the series has had, Warrior tightly winds each character’s choice into the relationships around them. Every moment of growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum; instead, they leave fingerprints on Chinatown and on those around them. The dynamic chemistry between each character comes from their kinetic stories connecting and Warrior Season 3 Episode 10 captures this.

For Mai Ling, her trajectory in this episode alone is fascinating, due in part to the duality of being the one in control and the one in danger in one episode, but executed perfectly because of Dianne Doan’s performance. While I’ve praised Doan’s performance across Season 3, her intensity and desperation in Warrior Season 3 Episode 10 is a true test of Doan’s depth as an actress. In one moment, she’s a burning type of cold, unbothered by making a woman shake and cry out of intimidation. She is able to be malicious, and she is able to feel rage, but it’s how Doan portrays that silent power in even speech, with small inflections that never amount to yelling that creates a chilling effect.

Still, later in the episode, it’s clear how that determination to wound someone else lest she be wounded herself comes into play as she tries to survive a brutal attack from the Hop Wei, abandoned by her men. She is desperate, she is scared, but she is focused on surviving in any way she can. In the opening of the episode, she makes it clear what she’s promised herself and that she would rather die than become a subject of a man again, and as she fights for her life, it comes through in an erratic grasping to survive. While Mai Ling switches from stoic to furious, Ah Toy (Olivia Cheng) is the inverse.

The women of Warrior have carried a disparate share of traumatic violence in the series, especially in Season 3. While action defines this Western, as many others, with revenge as a central point in many of the character’s stories, Ah Toy has specifically had her body broken more times than anyone else. But each time, she has come back a brutal and vengeful force. And while that happens in Warrior Season 3 Episode 10, with a stunningly cathartic fight against Strickland (Adam Rayner), it’s the aftermath that pulls her journey throughout the series into perspective. She is hollow.

It’s not Strickland. It’s all of the men around her who constantly wound her, shame her, and force her into a form of traumatic survival. She got her revenge, but when Nellie asks her how she feels, there is a stillness behind her eyes that speaks volumes. All of the resiliency she’s demonstrated over the course of the series has left her with a hole in her heart, a traumatic emptiness, and loneliness that she can’t escape. It’s heartbreaking to see, terrifying even. Ah Toy, a vision of strength, can’t outrun her spiritual exhaustion even when she wins against Strickland.

But the emotion of the Warrior Season 3 finale isn’t only contained in the silent moments delivered by the actresses. It’s also captured through bodies moving, hurting each other, and doing so from a place of betrayal. In the best-choreographed fight of the season, we see Ah Sahm deal with the US Marshalls fall apart but more importantly, his love for his sister comes through. Ah Sahm versus Hong (Chen Tang) and Young Jun (Jason Tobin) is an emotional sequence that once again highlights the strength of violence to create emotional tension in a story.

The fight scene itself features multiple weapons and nods to Bruce Lee’s iconic fights, but most importantly, from a visual standpoint, we see a one-inch punch. Andrew Koji once again showcases his physical ability to move quickly, move precisely, and do so with a flare that oozes charisma. But unlike many of his fights, Koji doesn’t visually overpower his opponents here. Instead, Jason Tobin and Chen Tang hold their own, demanding attention and showcasing a diversity of fight styles that captures the depth of action ability in the Warrior stunt coordination and direction team. Add in that each actor is able to fight while visually falling apart from the reality of hurting their found brothers, and it’s a recipe that captures an action skill that’s unmatched in other television series out.

An anxiety-ridden episode, no one is okay at the end of it. Relationships are broken, and the choices made throughout the season have come back with a fierce bite. That said, if the series ends here, Warrior Season 3 Episode 10 is a gorgeous and painful end to arcs started in Season 1 while still allowing for a trajectory towards a future. As a finale, there is nothing stronger, and as Ah Sahm holds his sister and the rest of the cast have their lives and futures up in the air, the season ends on a perfect yet painful note.

Warrior is available now on MAX (formerly HBO Max) and Netflix.