Now, after watching its third season premiere, I am strangely proud to say that the show has finally become a can’t miss spectacle, the kind it aspired to be from the get-go. I was eager to see where the series was heading then, and especially curious to see where the series would take its Azra-centric mythology, as that had always been a big draw for me.

The second season finale was one of Badlands‘ best, delivering an operatic end to a few major storylines with a sense of refined grace and an impressive sense of artistry. Having gone through a trial period of two seasons that felt like one insanely long pilot episode, the show had begun to crystallize into…something. By the end of it, Into the Badlands finally felt as though it had found a distinct identity. As the action ramped up, so did the pacing. Season two was when the show began to own its identity as a post-apocalyptic martial arts extravaganza, incorporating more Mad Max-ian set pieces into its East-meets-West kung-fu fusion. The second season of Into the Badlands wasn’t perfect, but it was a huge step up from its predecessor, a calmer affair that was heavy on talk and light on action. I’ll always recall the shock I felt when our beloved warrior girl was kicked so hard in the head by her “mom” that I actually thought she had died. Also, it had Nick Frost, a buttload of ambition behind it, and action sequences that I will never forget. (Mostly because, I admit, I am a shameless fan of that movie.) Yes, it was still Mortal Kombat-y, but in a more flattering sense of the comparison. Even then, the world was a different place – and so was the series that I had once likened to Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Then season two debuted much later, in 2017, long after I had forgotten the show existed. Season one was an adequate introduction into the world of the Badlands, but was it a spectacular one? No. The fight choreography was a close second, but there simply just wasn’t enough of it spread out across those six brief yet drawn-out episodes. I found the subtle efforts at world-building to be the most intriguing aspect of the show.

The seeds of a fantastic show were there, but its identity wasn’t fully formed. The handful of episodes that made up the first season of Into the Badlands didn’t impress me much at all, even though I genuinely appreciated (and grasped) what executive producers Millar and Gough were trying to do with the platform.

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