The White Mountain

**The White Mountain** is the fourth episode of the first season of the Cinemax original martial arts crime drama *Warrior*. It premiered on April 26, 2019. The series has since been acquired by Max.

## Synopsis

Big Bill finds himself compromised by his gambling excesses, but discovers a possible solution after an opium-den raid. Penny reveals the circumstances that prompted her to marry Mayor Blake, who's determined to show voters he won't tolerate San Francisco's "Yellow Peril." After meeting with leaders of the Fung Hai tong, Mai Ling offers Ah Sahm a way out of a protracted — and bloody — tong war.

## Plot

While at the Fung Hai gambling den, Bill runs into an old colleague, Jack Damon. He left the force to work in Chicago but returned in the fall. And when Flannagan didn't have a position for him, Damon ended up working security for the Fung Hai. Unfortunately for Bill, by the end of the night, he's lost everything he came in with and then some. Damon helps Bill outside and beats him. He informs Bill that the Fung Hai believe that they're direct descendants of Genghis Khan. The Mongols came riding out of the plains like demons, pillaging whole cities. To better understand their enemy, the Chinese emperor sent scouts out to the Mongolian Plains. In the distance, they saw an entire mountain of bones. And that's who Bill is dealing with. When a Chinese gambler owes them money, they can simply go after them, but when an Irishmen runs up a debt and tries to flee before paying up, that's where Damon comes in, as he can go where the Fung Hai can't. With that in mind, Bill has three weeks to pay his debt or else Damon will kill him.

Ah Sahm is still very much sore from his beating the night before, but nevertheless, he joins Young Jun and Bolo at the breakfast table. Bolo grabs a railroad spike as if from nowhere and stabs it in the table, explaining that it reminds him of where he's been, having used to work on the Transcontinental as a coolie in Utah. About ten years ago, word spread of a giant Chinaman fighting on the Transcon circuit. There was no one he couldn't take down, and they called him "the Yellow Demon." Father Jun had to see it for himself and traveled all the way to Utah to get a better look, where he watched as Bolo killed men with his bare hands. It was just another game for the ducks that bet on them. The fighters were paid double for kills, and the Yellow Demon always got that bonus. Father Jun couldn't stand the fact of some duck getting rich off Bolo's back and bought him.

Mr. Buckley pays Chief Flannagan a visit regarding Ah Sahm's release. They have a very angry constituency demanding justice. From times to time, their courts can fail to deliver true justice. And when that happens, it's up to them to pick up the slack. With violence in Chinatown on the rise, Buckley explains that the mayor would like to send a message.

Mai Ling and Li Yong begin recruitment to build their ranks, but Li Yong is not impressed with the so-called warriors that arrive, making quick work of them.

Ah Sahm and Young Jun smoke some molasses. He only rolls them on special occasions, the occasion here being the beating Father Jun gave Ah Sahm last night. Young Jun's was worse, though. Father Jun broke two bones in his own hand while skinning him in. He didn't want to show favoritism. Young Jun then questions why Ah Sahm is even in San Francisco to begin with. Ah Sahm reveals that he came looking for a girl, but he discovered that she's dead.

Mai Ling asks Chao to set a meeting with the Fung Hai, but Chao is reluctant, reminding Mai Ling that they built the great wall to keep out savages like the Fung Hai, but Mai Ling isn't interested in his advice and tells him to set the meeting.

Lee shows up at Bill's home after he neglected to come in for work. Lucy welcomes him inside and explains that he was beaten half to death by coolies. Lucy is very much upset, noting that the head of the squad shouldn't have to work the night shift and asks where was Lee, who backs up Bill's claim to have been working the night shift. Lee then helps Bill put his socks and boots, as he is too injured to do so himself.

Jacob takes Ah Sahm to see Penny but warns him that no good will come from it.

Buckley finds Mayor Blake at Ah Toy's whorehouse, which just so happens to be the target of a raid by the police department. Harrison, McLeod, and Stone see the Irishmen out whilst Bill and Lee head upstairs, where they cross paths with Blake and Buckley. When one of the male worker grab a hatchet, Stone shoots him in the head without a second thought and then pees on him.

Bill informs Ah Toy that he has orders to shut her down and place her under arrest for running a brothel. However, Ah Toy claims that she runs a boarding house and then pays Bill off, which doesn't go unnoticed by Lee.

Lee silently judges Bill, who's had enough of his righteousness, explaining that taking a little money isn't the problem. The entire bust is the issue. They're all just pawns in someone else's game. Lee asks about right and wrong, which Bill has long stopped caring about, but since Lee is so concerned with Bill's business, Bill asks Lee why he came all the way out to San Francisco to simply be a cop. When Lee doesn't reply, Bill makes him a deal to stay out of his business so long as Lee repays the favor.

Jacob brings Ah Sahm to Penny's apartment, specifically to a room filled with her paintings. She explains to Ah Sahm that her father owns the building and that she simply wanted to apologize for their last encounter, in which she rushed him out. She recalls him previously mentioning his American grandfather, who was a sea captain that sailed the trade routes for a tea company. One year, he got sick and couldn't make the trip back home to America. Chinese merchants put him up with a young nurse who cared for him through the winter. They fell in love and moved to a small farm. Ah Sahm's grandmother died when he was a baby, but his grandfather lived on the farm with them until he died when Ah Sahm was 13. He taught both Ah Sahm and his sister English and filled their heads with stories about America. Penny then asks why did he agree to come and meet her. He replies for the same reason she asked him to come. The two then proceed to have sex.

As requested, Chao has arranged for a meeting between Mai Ling and Li Yong with the Fung Hai. Pai, the leader of the Fung Hai tong, doesn't seem very interested in speaking with Mai Ling, a woman, who he thinks less than of. She figured as much, which is why she's already killed him, having poisoned his meal. Pai begins to bleed from his eyes and slowly die as he attempts to get to Mai Ling on the other side of the table. Meanwhile, his lieutenant, Zing, has double-crossed him and takes out the Fung Hai guards. Zing, having now taken leadership of the Fung Hai, is willing to at least hear out Mai Ling's proposition.

Chao confronts Li Yong over Pai's assassination. He doesn't like that they went behind his back and killed him after Pai agreed to attend the meet that was arranged by Chao, as it's bad for his reputation.

Penny questions how Ah Sahm learned to fight so well and remarks that he doesn't seem like someone who would be a gang enforcer. Ah Sahm explains that he didn't have a lot of options and that joining the Hop Wei was his best chance at finding his sister, who, as it turned out, didn't want to be found. Penny confides in Ah Sahm that she married her husband to save her father's company. Her mother died when she was young, so Penny practically raised her sisters, and when the business started to fail, she couldn't just let that happen to them. With the Blakes being one of the wealthiest families in San Francisco, she saw an opportunity, as Samuel was already a friend of her father's, who visited a lot after her mom died. He always had a smile and hard candy for her. And as she got older, his smile changed, becoming something else. But the city contract was all that stood between her family and financial ruin, so she offered herself to him, having sold herself in a similar fashion to Ah Sahm.

Mayor Blake and Buckley follow the officers back to the police station after the raid, where they reveal to the press that this raid will be one of many as part of the Chinatown initiative. The mayor and Buckley then get a photo for the newspaper with the Chinatown squad and Chief Flannagan, as they cut off the queues of the Chinese men they've arrested.

Ah Sahm exits Penny's home to find Mai Ling waiting in a carriage. Mai Ling recalls telling him to leave and hands him a ticket home via steamboat. Ah Sahm tells her to come back with him, but she refuses, reminding Ah Sahm that she was nobody in China, whereas he's nobody in Chinatown. There's going to be a war between the tongs, and if Ah Sahm's on the wrong side, she won't hesitate to kill him. Ah Sahm admits that she was right. He never should've let her marry Sun Yang, and he's never going to make that mistake again, ripping up the ticket as he exits the carriage.

Lee arrives at the Banshee and finds Bill getting drunk. Lee came to apologize for questioning Bill's authority earlier. Bill remarks that Lee's a good kid and that he'll be a fine cop. Eventually, they'll be reassigned out of Chinatown and hopefully go off to do some real police work. Until then, Bill advises Lee to keep his head down and simply survive. Bill then takes the money he got from Ah Toy and gambles it away.

## Cast

* Olivia Cheng as Ah Toy
* Jason Tobin as Young Jun
* Dianne Doan as Mai Ling
* Kieran Bew as Bill O'Hara
* Dean Jagger as Dylan Leary
* Joanna Vanderham as Penelope Blake
* Tom Weston-Jones as Richard Lee
* Hoon Lee as Wang Chao
* Langley Kirkwood as Walter Buckley
* Christian McKay as Samuel Blake
* Perry Yung as Father Jun
* Joe Taslim as Li Yong
* Brendan Sean Murray as Jack Damon
* Emily Child as Lucy O'Hara
* Dustin Nguyen as Zing
* Kenneth Fok as Jacob
* Hon Ping Tang as Pai
* Robert Hobbs as Stone
* Jacques Bessenger as McLeod
* Nicholas Pauling as Harrison
* David Butler as Russell Flannagan
* Ryan Kruger as Gareth
* Rebecca Makin-Taylor as Miss Carlson
* Phoenix Hodgkinson as Davey O'Hara
* Raven Hodgkinson as Michael O'Hara
* Jacques Theron as Banshee Dealer
* Carl Van Haght as Bossman
* Boswell Maloka as Pit Fighter
* Nelson Menell as Photographer
* Martin Munro as Reporter
* Alistair Davis as Addict
* Gaosi Raditholo as Nora

## Trivia

* The episode title, "The White Mountain," refers to a mountain of bones in the Mongolian plains.