The Kingdom of Hawai’i, Ka’ū District. The windswept, ocean-darkened beach sands. Keōua, newly crowned King of a divided Hawai’i, kneels before a fire. His mother (Kekuhi Keali’ikanaka’oleohaililani), a formidable singer and one of his chief advisors, brings him his father’s mahiole, the trademark Hawai’ian helm. It was a symbol of his wise father’s rule, but he has no use for it anymore. “I no longer fight to preserve his kingdom,” Keōua says, tossing his father’s legacy on the flames. “I will live to build my own.”
My notes at this point read simply “THAT’S INCREDIBLY BADASS. THIS IS JUST A BADASS SHOW.”
And it is! Though Chief Of War is other things as well. It’s a beautiful show, one that defly employs the lush greens of the Hawai’ian landscape and the bright reds and yellows of the era’s clothing. It’s a well-acted show, with the entire cast conveying nuance and depth across a language barrier — an experience audiences are increasingly primed for by everything from Squid Game to Shōgun to House of the Dragon and its Valyrian conlang. But on a fundamental and unignorable level, it’s just full of a lot of really cool shit.
Kahekili, for instance, is a delightful antagonist. The man has halluciongenic-fueled visions of slitting women’s throats, stakes his enemies out alive to die a slow and agonizing death, selects a certified whacko to lead his invasion force rather than his respectable son, and uses human bones as building materials. The king is fueled by the death-worshipping madness that only a few short months ago might have read to audiences as cartoonish and over-broad. Amazing what being ruled by nakedly nihilistic, bloodthirsty lunatics will do for your appreciation of a good old-fashioned supervillain!
Kahekili’s psychotic confidence is immediately distinct from the failson-with-something-to-prove energy of his new ally of convenience, Keōua. Convinced by his mother that teaming up with the monster of Maui is the only way he can defeat Kamehameha, Ka’iana, and their cache of the Paleskins’ “red-mouthed weapons,” Keōua travels to Kahekili’s fort on conquered O’ahu unannounced and unarmed, an act of bravery that impresses the mad king.
Keōua’s pitch is, frankly, a sensible one. Whether he comes out on top of his conflict with his cousin Kamehameha, who was gifted his late royal father’s war god, or whether Kamehameha triumphs, the Kingdom of Hawai’i will be united one way or another. And even at the height of its powers, much less while it’s bogged down in the conquest of O’ahu, Maui has never defeated a unified Hawai’i. In exchange for the loan of some of Kahekili’s troops to defeat Kamehameha, Keōua vows to stay out of Kahekili’s way as he chases his dreams of prophecy. Keōua believes in no such messiah at any rate. He sees no harm in making a deal with this devil.
However, Keōua doesn’t know Kahekili like we do — or like his son, Prince Kūpule, is starting to. The moment the Hawai’ian monarch leaves, the Maui conqueror sets his assassination in motion. The man he elects for the task is ‘Ōpūnui (Keala Kahuanui-Paleka), a wild-eyed killer who makes his weapons out of human bones and who already harbors a grudge against Ka’iana. Kūpule is aghast, and even his own warrior boyfriend, Lima (Ioane Goodhue), has begun making statements of rebellion. But those who conspire against Kahekili are marked for death. Would it matter if the conspirator were his own son?
Ka’iana faces the opposite problem: His chief is too slow to war, not too quick. At least, that’s his estimation. But Kamehameha says he learned a valuable lesson the night he rowed into a village wearing his chief’s garb and immediately got his ass kicked by villagers who assumed he, like all chiefs, was there to steal. Rather than punish these people, he’s instituting a new law in their honor: The Law of the Splintered Paddle, a total prohibition of lethal force except in immediate defense of life…under penalty of death.
It’s with this ethos in mind that Kamehameha sides with his wife, Ka’ahumanu, and Ka’iana’s wife, former Hawai’i resident Kupuohi, and tries to broker a truce with Keōua. But even as the unsuccessful meeting takes place, Ka’iana’s shipmate Tony is training Kamehameha’s men in the use of guns. Kamehameha may be a man of peace, but that doesn’t make him a sucker.
As the episode ends, there are ominous clouds on the horizon. Moku warns his daughter Ka’ahumanu that the alliance she’s brokered between Kamehameha and Ka’iana looks good now, but she’ll be the first to be blamed if it goes bad. Marley, Ka’iana and Tony’s evil old shipmate, is on his way with a crew full of buccaneers.
But there are green shoots as well. Ka’iana and Kupuohi’s relationship seems to have stalled out, but his brother Nāhi and her sister Heke are really hitting things off if their wrestling lesson in the forest is any indication. The scene is accompanied by deliciously romantic music by Hans Zimmer and James Everingham — in the same episode where you see people performing various tasks using human remains as materiel. A “civilizing” influence may have snuck into Ka’iana’s life via his conservative European trousers, but it hasn’t hit Chief of War. It remains one of the wildest, most wondrous shows on television.
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.