Relationship Spotlight: Veil & Sunny (Into the Badlands)

On Into the Badlands, Sunny and Veil’s relationship is somehow central and understated at the same time – a better, safer life for him and Veil is the goal that drives much of Sunny’s actions, and because of his clipper status, the very fact that they have a relationship puts them both in danger, and yet there isn’t a huge amount of drama mined from them as a couple.  It’s like they have the plot relevance of a main-character romance as well as the more low-key portrayal of a supporting-character romance, both of which are good things in my book (a few spoilers.)

One of the first things the show does right with Sunny/Veil is having them already in an established relationship when the show starts.  “Celebrated clipper with 404 kill tattoos” and “gentle doctor who helps even her enemies” is quite the opposites-attract pairing, which gives it dramatic potential, but it’s also the sort of dynamic that could tip very easily into “‘bad boy’ (ugh) redeemed by the love of a good woman (ugh!)” territory.  If we’d opened on a will-they-won’t-they instead of an established couple, showing their polar-opposite approaches to life and death while their physical chemistry inevitably brings them closer and closer together, I feel like that dynamic might have been hard to avoid.

As it is, though, we don’t see Veil trying to understand how “she could ever be attracted to a man like Sunny” or Sunny wrestling to bite back his feelings because “deep down, he knows he doesn’t deserve her.”  There’s no, “What are we doing?”, “This could never work,” “A person like you,” and so on and so forth.  Whatever brought them together – we don’t know the details, but since Veil is a doctor and Sunny is in a wildly dangerous line of work, I bet some level of patching-up was involved at some point – by the time we meet them, Veil and Sunny are already comfortably, beautifully together.

I love the softness of their first scene in bed:  the soulful companionship, the easy sensuality, the clear sense of deep trust between them.  Lounging in bed together in comfortable states of undress, Sunny works at his literacy (Veil has been teaching him to read,) and they both smile as he tosses the book aside and declares that The Cat in the Hat was better.  It’s not that they’re rock-solid, because genuine, substantial conflicts arise between them at different points, rising organically from the different ways they respond to the often-perilous trials of living in the Badlands.  But even when they fight, they talk to each other and the mutual respect comes through.  They feel like a real couple that just happens to be in an impossible situation in a post-apocalyptic world rather than a “TV couple,” and I like that.

They balance each other out quite nicely.  Sunny can protect them with his sword and glorious fighting skills if necessary, but Veil can remind him that that’s not always the optimal method of problem-solving.  Veil’s tendency toward hope can counteract Sunny’s toward pessimism, helping spur him to think of ideas rather than accept that nothing can be changed for the better.  Sunnny’s eye for strategy recognizes the smart plays, and Veil’s knowledge can help put them into action.  And Veil’s quiet diplomacy can open many doors, while Sunny’s guarded nature keeps her vigilant as well.  Just a great pairing all around – this season has had them apart from one another, and although it’s interesting to see how each reacts to challenges when they’re so far from the other, I can’t help but hope it doesn’t take too long to bring them back to each other.

Relationship Spotlight: Sunny & Quinn (Into the Badlands)

From my view, if you’re going to talk about Into the Badlands, you really have to get to the relationship between Sunny and Quinn at some point, and I can’t help doing it sooner rather than later.  So fascinating, so twisted, and infinitely watchable (a few major season 1 spoilers.)

When you first look at Sunny and Quinn’s relationship, it’s easy to think of Sunny as Quinn’s number two, his regent and most trusted clipper.  Quinn values Sunny’s input on matters of strategy and frequently seeks out his opinion on next moves, and it’s obvious that Ryder, Quinn’s own son, is jealous of Sunny’s favor/respect in Quinn’s eyes.  And in Quinn’s (very twisted) way, he does kind of view Sunny as an heir of sorts, as his pride and joy, his greatest success.

But there’s one thing you can never forget:  a clipper may have more perks and a great illusion of autonomy than a cog, but Quinn owns Sunny.  Sunny is Quinn’s slave who’s been trained to kill for him since he was a child, and it’s usually in the moments when you almost get lulled into thinking of them from a father/son perspective that Quinn asserts his ownership and you remember that Sunny is actually the property of a madman.  When Sunny is doing as he’s told and proving his value, Quinn is all smiles and conviviality, but the second Sunny tries to argue, he’s put in his place in the most devastating ways.  Quinn butchers the parents of Sunny’s secret lover with Sunny’s own sword when Sunny refuses to follow orders and do it himself, and he then forces Sunny to torch their house with the bodies inside.  When Sunny is out of Quinn’s favor, Quinn takes a malicious delight in breaking him down to remind him just what the dynamic is between them.

As a viewer, this can seem crazy.  By this point, we’ve seen what Sunny can do, and even though Quinn is a very talented fighter as well, it seems like a foregone conclusion that Sunny could wipe the floor with him (and even if things went the other way, it’s tempting to believe that Sunny would rather die trying than serve that monster a minute longer.)  And to be sure, season 1 is in large part about Sunny breaking from Quinn once and all, about the stakes raising to the point where Sunny can go against Quinn in a big way, but the stakes have to be insanely high before Sunny is prepared to make this move.  And this is what gets me most about their relationship:  Sunny’s often subservient, seemingly unshakable loyalty to Quinn despite how obviously terrible he is. 

It is more than just fealty to a baron in exchange for the benefits/protections that comes with.  Again, Sunny’s abilities in a fight are almost superhuman at this point, and he could easily protect himself and Veil from whatever might come at him.  I get that there are barriers to leaving the Badlands, and Sunny’s ultimate goal for them would be freedom rather than living in hiding, but that’s not really why it takes so long for him to pull the trigger on trying to leave, even more so on facing Quinn in a real fight.  Instead, it’s about Sunny’s genuine, self-destructive devotion to Quinn.  After all, when Sunny refuses to kill Veil’s parents for him, Quinn holds a blade to Sunny’s neck and Sunny doesn’t move a muscle.  At that point in the series, Sunny won’t follow this order, but he also won’t raise a hand againt Quinn, in defense of Veil’s parents or his own life.

That’s seriously messed-up, and it’s all rooted in Sunny’s many years under Quinn.  Like I said, he was “rescued” in the wastelands and brought to Quinn as a child, where he was groomed to become one of the greatest clippers the Badlands has ever seen.  And along the way, all that time, there was Quinn feeding him lies about how he saved Sunny, cared for Sunny, took Sunny from an unwanted nobody and fashioned him into the formidable man he is today.  From the outside looking in, it’s clear that these are all ludicrous lies, but Sunny has had a steady diet of this BS ever since he was a kid, and that changes a person.

It helps if you try to view it as similar to the dynamic between Agu and the Commandant in Beast of No Nation.  Even though the Commandant is a disgusting, manipulative human being who conscripts children into his “army,” that’s not how Agu sees it because the Commandant is a master at controlling the narrative, and so is Quinn.  You were lost and I found you.  You were left to die and I saved you.  You were powerless, defenseless, and I gave you the tools you need to protect yourself from any foe.  You’re like a son to me, more so than my own son, and I’m the only one who cares about you.  In light of how much I love you, you’ll fight for me, won’t you?  After all I’ve done for you, don’t you owe it to me?  That’s a powerful, heady stream of lies to fill a vulnerable child’s head with, and in a way, it’s just as disturbing to see to long-term effects of that manipulation when the child has long since become a man who would be more than skilled enough to break free but has been conditioned to the point that he can scarcely imagine such an idea.  That’s what I see when I look at Sunny and Quinn.

Favorite Characters: Sunny (Into the Badlands)

And so it begins.  I’ll try to pace myself (kind of,) but expect a lot of these in the coming weeks.  Digging in deeper with Into the Badlands, there’s a lot to love.  For me, though, everything starts with Sunny (a few spoilers.)

From what I can gather, Sunny has little to no memory of his life before training as a clipper.  Other characters reminisce about when he was found and brought to Quinn as a child – of the potential they saw in him even then – and he’s kept his compass with the symbol of Asra on it all these years.  He hides the compass, so he knows there’s something to it, but it’s hard to say what happened to him between then and now that gives us the man he is today.  Not just the lethal, incredibly-skilled clipper (we’ll get to that later,) but how entrenched he is in his life in the Badlands under Quinn.  Sure, he has his small rebellions that he conducts in secret:  his tender relationship with Veil when clippers are allowed sex but not love, his gradual journey toward literacy.  By and large, though, he seems to buy into what Quinn is selling, at least to the point that he never seriously considers defying him or leaving, not until M.K. shows up also carrying Asra’s symbol.  Was Sunny too young when he came to Quinn to hold onto memories of Asra?  Did the harsh brutality of his training make him bury thoughts of it, or maybe convince himself that Asra is just a fairytale he made up?  Did something horrible happen to him there that he’s blocked out, or somewhere between Asra and the Badlands?  Is it just that he had no way of getting back, so he decided not to dwell on it?

We can’t answer these questions, because we don’t get a lot from Sunny.  Some might call Sunny a rather stereotypical “stoic” martial artist, all glorious fight scenes and no character development or emotional connection, but I don’t get that at all.  While Sunny is certainly serious and taciturn, it’s not because he doesn’t feel anything, and it’s definitely not because there’s nothing going on under the surface.  Rather, Sunny keeps a lot hidden, unspoken.  This is partly due to pure safety.  Secrets can be dangerous in the Badlands, and not all of Sunny’s affect only him – he has Veil to think of as well.  And beyond secrets, as a clipper, even emotion can be a danger.  No matter how he came by it, most of his life has been about serving Quinn, and that means he always has to unshakeable.  Regardless of whatever doubts, guilt, or disagreement he might have, he can’t let on for a second.  But Sunny’s guardedness is out of more than survival instinct.  It’s also a reflection of all he’s seen and done, and what he thinks of himself as a result of it.  It’s easier to slaughter at Quinn’s behest if he shuts himself off from thinking of them as people, from thinking about the blood on his hands, and while he doesn’t really acknowledge it, he has a tendency to want to hide the darkest parts of himself from Veil.  So he keeps secrets.  He pretends.  He brushes things off.  He insists on doing things himself.  He wears a mask of cold apathy to fool others, and himself, into thinking that what he does can’t touch him.

For me, Sunny doesn’t come across the least bit blank.  I always feel what he has stirring beneath his calm, even voice and his set expression.  Daniel Wu is great at letting the smallest hints show through the cracks, whether it’s worry, remorse, aggravation, affection, shock, amusement, or fear.  It’s been interesting to see him in a different situation in the episodes so far this season, without the usual trappings he employs to distance himself.  He still tries to maintain the strong-and-silent thing, but it’s not nearly as solid – I think we might be getting a better look at who Sunny is when he’s not being Legendary Sunny the Clipper.

Speaking of?  Holy hell, can that man fight!  Within the first few episodes of the show, I thought it was stretching credibility that he’s only racked up 404 kills (how long has he been a clipper – six months?)  He is the absolute man in combat.  For me, it’s sort of like the martial-arts equivalent of listening to the deductions on the first couple seasons of Sherlock:  stunningly-perfect aptitude that’s completely on its own level and frequently leaves my jaw on the floor.  I don’t know if there’s any truth to the speculation that anyone with a connection to Asra has similar qualities as M.K., but either way, Sunny can’t be matched, and not just in his flawless execution.  I love the details that the fighting shows about Sunny as a person.  At various points when he fights, we see his ingenuity, determination, desperation, fury, and even playfulness (this can be a heavy show, and virtually every laugh is somehow tied to something Sunny does while he’s fighting.)  It’ll be interesting to see how if new circumstances – and new perspective – will change how he fights at all, for better or worse.