This show is full of surprises. With a one-year time jump, the relocation of a major character into a whole other world, and the introduction of perhaps the most major character of all, Chief of War has once again shaken itself up from one episode to the next. What impresses me most isn’t that it keeps introducing new wrinkles to what is at heart the simple story of a noble exile and an evil king, but how artfully it’s done.
Take the cold open, which begins with that ONE YEAR LATER title card. Suddenly we’re in the snowy mountains of Alaska, where Ka’iana has become a rifle-toting, hide-wearing mountain man. Quickly, though, we make a striking jump back to his wife, Kupuohi, thousands of miles away. The cut connects the two, making it clear their thoughts remain of each other.
The dreamlike editing continues weaving back and forth from the village in Hawaii to the ship in Alaska. While English castaway John Young teaches the Hawaiian children English. Black sailor Tony (James Udom) teaches Ka’iana the names of rifle parts. Elsewhere in the islands, King Kahekili begins festooning his fortification with the bones of his enemies, which is indicative of both the state of the war and the state of Kahekili’s sanity. As Ka’iana takes aim on a hunt in the snow, the show cuts between his quarry and the king; when Ka’iana pulls the trigger, we are pointedly never shown whether his bullet found its mark or not.
Working from a script by Doug Jung and co-creators Jason Momoa and Thomas Pa’a Sibbett, directors Anders Engström and Brian Andrew Mendoza ably maintain the expert and expensive look of the series, even as the action shifts beyond Hawaii. In what is now the Philippines and was then a part of the so-called Spanish East Indies, Ka’iana and the crew of Captain Meares arrive in the bustling port city of Zamboanga. Ka’iana makes quite an impression in his colorful chief’s crest and cape, but the whole place is teeming with soldiers and civilians from all over the globe. He’s unusual, but not that unusual.
He does, however, catch the eye of one of his countrywomen. Now in charge of a tavern, Vai (Sisa Grey) is a fluent speaker of English and Spanish, and she’s got a plan. In the rest of the world, sandalwood is a hugely expensive commodity, but in Hawaii there are forests of it. However, no one else knows exactly where the islands are. With a loan from Captain Meares, who’d she take in as a partner, and help from Ka’iana, whose rank and renown could help her convince the chiefs to give the plan their approval, they could open and control a brand-new sandalwood trade.
“You see the world like a Paleskin,” Ka’iana scoffs at first. “You should too,” Vai says. She notes that he’s now seen what the white man’s world is like, what it does to places like Zamboanga. Hawaii’s only hope, she argues, is to beat them to the punch.
Ka’iana ends up agreeing to participate, but that’s because he has his eyes on a different prize: buying enough guns to take down King Kahekili. “I made a mistake,” he tells her. “I must fix it.
“With guns? It must have been a big mistake,” Vai replies. It’s big, alright. Wait till she sees the bone sculptures!
But there’s depravity everywhere you go. Even as King Kahekili forces an enemy chief to watch his wife and son be force-fed poison, Marley (Charlie Brumbly), the big-bearded shitkicker on Captain Meares’s crew who shot at Ka’iana, plans to lead an invasion force back to the islands. He also aims to sell Tony into slavery the bargain, brutally beating the good-hearted sailor when he uncovers the plot.
Back in the Kingdom of Hawaii proper, we meet a man who’s going to be shaking the islands to their foundations soon enough. Kamehameha (Kaina Makua) is a handsome, incredibly strong young chief we first meet when he clowns all his buddies in a combined underwater weightlifting/footrace/breath-holding competition.
Ka’ahumanu is still no happier about her arranged marriage than she was a year earlier, though, despite the fact that her betrothed is a big slab of beefcake. It’s not that she dislikes or distrusts him, though it’s not clear if she knows him well at all — it’s the prediction of the prophetess last episode that she’ll never bear the man the heir he desires. If that’s the case, she’ll just be one wife of many, serving him but otherwise forgotten about. It’s no life to lead.
Her father Moku, who arranged the marriage, needs it to work — not for political advantage, but for the prophecy that’s been guiding everyone from the start. Moku was present at Kamehameha’s birth, the very night the prophesied comet streaked across the sky. That celestial omen wasn’t meant to mark the rise of the king who would unify the islands, Moku says, it was meant to mark the birth of one.
Now the “rise” part has come at last. Moku says he has seen in a vision that Ka’ahumanu is destined to be by the great man’s side. With the rest of the townspeople, he watches through the translucent canvas of the wedding tent as Kamehameha and his daughter consummate the marriage, in hopes of producing an heir Ka’ahumanu believes will never come. Moku, however, has given her strict instructions to never tell Kamehamea about the prophetess’s prediction.
At any rate, our new hero has more immediate problems. The King of Hawaii, Kalani’ōpu’u (Branscombe Richmond), does not have long to live. Even though King Kahekili has been bogged down in O’ahu for longer than expected — much to the chagrin of his (gay) son, Prince Kūpule, who’s uncomfrotable with his father’s brutality — he’ll be on Hawaii’s shores before long. When Kalani’ōpu’u dies, his brusque son Keoua (Cliff Curtis) will take over, and his battle plans involve a glorious showdown in the sands at the foot of a volcano, where he of course will inevitably triumph.
Kamehamea’s counterargument — they should forget battle plans for a minute and worry about having enough edible food in storage to survive any attack — impresses the king and pisses off the prince. He’s strong, he’s sexy, and he’s wise? This guy is clearly destined for great things, unless he’s stopped along the way. (If you know the history of Hawaii, you know how that goes.)
Though this episode lacks the combat gore and high-energy fight and chase scenes of its predecessors, it’s got that same epic feeling. Like many memorable works of historical fiction, the vastness of the landscape is used to suggest both the grand sweep of events and the outsized emotions of the individual human beings swept up in them. The design of Zamboanga makes it feel like a market town straight out of a fantasy novel. And what it lacks in violence it makes up for in sex, from Kamehamea and Ka’ahumanu’s bed to Kūpule and his lover-adviser’s.
Meanwhile, the use of contrasting color — Ka’iana in red, Ka’ahumanu in pink — against brown and green backdrops is striking and engrossing. And Jason Momoa makes for a terrific fish out of water in his imposing noble robes, in the furs and hides of a trapper, or even just in the everyday clothes of a sailor. (Sadly, this means he wears pants the entire time.) Like everything else about this show, he’s big and bold and watchable as hell.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.