In politics, sometimes it just doesn’t pay to be right. Few of the voices shouting loudest about the dangers posed to the country by fascism, for example, wound up hired by prestigious outlets in order to capitalize on their insights when their warnings proved true. The opposition leaders who presided over this debacle remain in charge of the opposition party. People in power hate to be proven wrong.

So it is on this week’s Chief of War. After a grisly opening chronicling the carnage in the village attacked by the departing Paleskin ship, it’s abundantly clear that Ka’iana was right about the nature of these men, that Ka’ahumanu was right to support him, and that her husband Kamehameha and father Moku were wrong to ignore him. You’d think this would lead the two chiefs to turn to our hero and heroine and say “We’ve made a terrible mistake. What now?”

Instead, Ka’iana is kicked out of the Chief’s council when he makes a scene at a meeting, in a rage about the massacre. Ka’ahumanu’s sympathies for Ka’iana are noted by both Kamehameha and Moku, who approaches his daughter alone to tell her that her advice is no longer welcome. This state of affairs lasts the bulk of the episode. 

Isn’t that an asskicker? The two people who were righter than anyone about the threat are pushed to the sidelines by the people who were wrong.

It gets worse. It’s not just European and American sailors Ka’iana is worried about, of course, but the threat of the two warmongering kings, Kahekili of Maui and Keōua of Hawai’i. With all these threats on the way and Kamehameha refusing to accept the help of Ka’iana’s “red-mouthed weapons,” the chief of war sees no choice but to flee with his family in tow.

But his wild-haired brother Nāhi and his sister-in-law Heke disagree and head off on their own. Out in the jungle, in a scene that’s romantic even by this very romantic show’s standards, they make love for the first time. 

And the last. Nāhi and Heke have the misfortune of overhearing the desecration of a sacred grove by King Keōua and the psychotic Maui warrior ‘Ōpūnui. Nāhi decks the king and nearly beats his face in before getting pulled off by guards, but Keōua confidently calls them off to let the fight continue now that he’s prepared to face his opponent. The result is a beatdown that’s brutal, even humiliating, in its one-sidedness, as Keōua makes mincemeat of the larger, younger man. After shattering his windpipe and breaking his neck, he crushes his skull with a huge rock while Heke is made to watch, screaming.

Heke is then brought back to Kamehameha’s territory to deliver this “message of war,” but not before a journey with ‘Ōpūnui that leaves her washing blood from between her legs while sobbing, a devastating metonymy for unseen sexual assault. She delivers the message, then becomes so despondent she can’t eat. When she does finally venture out of her house, it’s to collect poisonous flowers. Is she planning to kill Keōua, or herself?

The murder of Nāhi and the ritual sacrifice of the sacred grove’s overseer — Keōua literally drops him into a pit of lava to feed his gods — forces Kamehameha’s hand at last. It’s Kupuohi, of all people, who finally convinces him to see reason. As an experienced fighter herself, she can vouch for the superiority of Maui’s forces. She’s not there to plead for her husband, she’s there to plead for Hawai’i. Only with the guns can the hope to defeat Keōua and Kahekili’s combined forces.

A brief aside here: A side plot reveals tension in the Kahekili’s court, with Prince Kūpule leading a conspiracy to overthrow the increasingly mad king. Watching his father attack the pillar of bones he’s constructed while ranting and raving about the need for fresh corpses to build a new one proves too much for the prince at last. He attacks, but his father wheels and stabs him. In a scene that revokes Ilya Repin’s unforgettable painting of Ivan the Terrible realizing with horror that he’s murdered his own son, Kahekili cradles Kupule in his arms, saying “my son, my son” over and over and calling for the healers to help save his life.

But none of this is known on Hawai’i. What is known at last is that without Ka’iana and the guns, Kamehameha’s cause is lost. Both men express humility when they finally meet: Ka’iana wonders if he really should be the leader of his family, given all the pain he’s led them to, while Kamehameha wonders if he was so busy listening for the voice of his father’s war god that he missed the fact that he speaks through the red-mouthed weapons.

So the next morning, Ka’ahumanu wakes to the sound she’s long wanted to hear: gunfire. Taking turns, Kamehameha and Ka’iana practice firing while the other chiefs and warriors watch and learn, and she and Kupuohi smile.

Not for long, though. A volcanic eruption miles away sends an omen to both sides: Keōua’s volcanic deities have chosen a side. “The gods speak for Keōua,” Namake says simply and ominously as he, his brother, and their chief stare off into the distance. Far away, Keōua stands and smirks triumphantly, believing that he will soon prove all his doubters — from his father to Kamehameha to ‘Ōpūnui — dead wrong.

It would be one thing if all this episode did was make the astute, timely point that prophets of doom are rarely rewarded for being wrong, ever since Cassandra made it her whole thing. It would be another if all it did in addition was provide a showcase for its actors to dig up their most embodied, ensouled emotions and detonate them like nail bombs all across the screen. Jason Momoa in particular impresses as Ka’iana in this episode, whose tears and screams of grief mark Momoa as the rare musclebound action hunk whose expressions of vulnerability feel genuine and dredged from an actual place of emotion. He’s got what Stallone used to have.

But in a way, it’s the women’s episode. Luciane Buchanan, Te Ao o Hinepheinga, and Mainei Kinimaka all face a similar challenge to the one posed to Anna Sawai for her Emmy Award–winning work in Shōgun: How does a woman in a rigidly patriarchal society live when a large percentage of her life is not her own? How can they work around this limitation to employ their intelligence and exert influence anyway? The results can range from successfully convincing a prophesied messiah to follow your advice to having your sexual assault used as a grotesque declaration of war. It’s up to those three actresses to convey how hard it is to live under these circumstances, but to still live, as these women had to. 

I think the work that impressed me most this episode is that of Cliff Curtis as Keōua. This deeply insecure man has to come across as nevertheless completely confident in kicking the ass of a guy who’s got like five inches, fifty pounds, and twenty years on him, not to mention chanting a ritual song before tossing a priest into a volcano and grinning like a real smug piece of shit when the volcano erupts. He’s also the subject of some of the show’s most interesting shot compositions, which is really saying something — a framework around which director Brian Andrew Mendoza drapes near-psychedelic lighting or stunning images of the sky. (This episode is full of that kind of thing.)

Folks, I could go on like this all day. It’s that kind of show. Chief of War is one of the biggest and best television surprises of 2025.

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.