Warning: SPOILERS for A Thousand Blows season 1.Hulu’s historical crime drama A Thousand Blows may have started as a miniseries, but it was renewed for a second season before the first even aired. Boasting a talented cast which includes Malachi Kirby (Devils), Erin Doherty (Adolescence, The Crown), and Francis Lovehall (Death on the Nile), the series tells the stories of boxers navigating the world of underground fighting rings in 1880s London. A key faction in the story is the Forty Elephants, an all-female crime syndicate, which was a real operation at the time.
A Thousand Blows was a hotly anticipated project, not least of all because it was made by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight. Knight is a beloved storyteller who may be best known for his historical dramas, but whose work also extends to spy thrillers (The Veil) and science fiction (See). For A Thousand Blows, however, Knight had to not only tell an emotionally satisfying and consistently exciting tale, but also respectfully adapt true historical events.
ScreenRant’s Joe Deckelmeier spoke with A Thousand Blows creator Steven Knight about his work on the series. Knight reflected on some of season 1’s key moments and how his conversations with Disney about a season 2 evolved. Plus, Knight shared some fun tidbits about what audiences might expect from A Thousand Blows season 2.
Steven Knight Did Not Expect A Thousand Blows’ Renewal
He Credits One Amazing Set For Encouraging The Decision
A Thousand Blows was renewed early on in the development process, reveals showrunner Steven Knight: “I set off right in the first series believing we would be doing the first six episodes. I think we were into shooting episode three when Disney made the leap of faith, which was great, to say, ‘We think this is definitely going to work.’”
Knight believes that part of the reason was the show’s set: “They built this incredible set on the banks of the Thames, so it’s not far out of Central London. It’s an abandoned brewery turned into 1880s London, so they’ve built this incredible set that is a real place. You can walk down the street, go down an alley, walk into the pub, go up the stairs, and go to Sugar’s bedroom to look out the window. It’s all there … I do believe part of [the renewal decision] was having that amazing set.”
Hezekiah Will Have Surprising Season 2 Motivations
Even His Thirst For Revenge Is Not What You Think
Image via Hulu
A Thousand Blows teased its second season with Hezekiah leveling a gun at a man and saying “My name is Hezekiah Moscow, and today you will answer to God.” When asked if Hezekiah’s vengeance will focus on Indigo Jeremy, Knight responded, “It runs deeper. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but the revenge that he’s talking about is quite unexpected, I hope. But it’s rooted deeply in his past and in his character.
The moment marks a more general change in Hezekiah as well, who has transformed significantly throughout the course of A Thousand Blows. “It’s not quite what the audience is expecting,” Knight said about Hezekiah’s shifting moral compass, “There’s something else going on, deeply rooted in Hezekiah’s backstory, which you will see. Hezekiah is the product of where he is from, and the experience he’s had. It’s exactly the same as Mary Carr or Sugar Goodson. They’ve all had incredibly tough lives and they’re incredibly tough people. I think Hezekiah, in particular, doesn’t forget.”
Mary Carr’s Historical Record Informs Her Season 2 Transformation
It Helped Knight “Build Up A Backstory” For Mary
“Tantalizingly, with Mary, there are long periods of nothing, and then you get a court case where she’s accused of something,” Knight said about the character of Mary Carr, “What I’ve done is sort of build up a backstory around that.” Still, the showrunner added, “She’s always elusive. She’s always changing.”
He elaborated: “She’s always tough, she’s always strong, and she’s always got the ostrich feathers, but she’s doing stuff that suggests compassion [and] suggests feeling. At the beginning, I wanted to create a character that does not trust love, does not trust love, does not trust sympathy, [and] who is hard as nails, and then gradually break that down.”
Thanks in part to a series of betrayals kicked off by Mary’s mother in the A Thousand Blows season 1 finale, Mary will also change in another way in season 2. “The emphasis on control takes a bit of a backseat,” said Knight, “She’s concerned about herself and the changes that have occurred as a consequence of meeting Hezekiah, but it’s a hard world, and the world is not going to sit back and let you be melancholy and sentimental. You’ve got to carry on, so she has to strap those guns back on.”
Knight Hints At Mr. Lao’s A Thousand Blows Season 2 Return
“We’re Not Going To Let Somebody Like That Go”
Jason Tobin’s Mr. Lao was a highlight of A Thousand Blows for many, which made it a relief for viewers when the character escaped the events of the season 1 finale unscathed. When asked if the character would return, Knight said the following: “You’ll see. We’re not going to let somebody like that go. Don’t worry. Jason Tobin is so good. That face is incredible. It tells you everything and nothing at the same time.”
More Is To Come For Alice Diamond
“I Wanted To Plant Alice Diamond Quite Early”
Knight also spoke about Darci Shaw’s Alice Diamond, revealing that he always knew she’d become a much larger character throughout the series. “This one’s sort of dictated by history, but I wanted to plant Alice Diamond quite early. Alice becomes very important,” Knight said. He even credited streaming for getting to introduce her the way he did: “With streamers, rather than movies, you get a lot of hours of screen time. You can introduce a character that seems quite small, but gradually … you start to understand what they’re going to be. Keep an eye on Alice Diamond.”
A Thousand Blows’ Fight Scenes Were Key To The Show’s Storytelling
“How No One Got Very Badly Hurt, I Will Never Know”
Image via Hulu
“My job was to tell the story of the fights,” Knight reflected about the show’s realistic combat scenes, “We’ve got the best people on the planet, and the fight coordinators did such a fantastic job. How no one got very badly hurt, I will never know, but they tell it so well.” He continued: “I think a fight is a conversation, in a way. If it’s between characters that you know, they’re having this conversation with their fists and telling that story.”
There are even more layers to the fights in 1880s London than viewers might expect, revealed Knight: “At that time in the East End, the working class were fighting bare-knuckle, and in Convent Garden, they were introducing gloves because they were trying to turn it into a more gentrified sport. There, you have the class division symbolized in a pair of gloves, which is really useful.”
A Thousand Blows Could Go Beyond Season 3
“I’ll Just Keep Telling It As Long As People Want To Hear It”
Image via Hulu
“I always believe that we will continue,” Knight responded when asked if he had a larger overall vision for A Thousand Blows. There’s even a historical precedent: “Remarkably, the Forty Elephants were still around in the 1950s, after the Second World War. They were still a unit, even as the queens come and go and the people who are part of it come and go. They’re still around. So, this is a story that will run and run, and I’ll just keep telling it as long as people want to hear it.”
The Peaky Blinders Movie Is Raising The Stakes From The TV Show
“People Don’t Know If They’re Going To Live Until Tomorrow Morning”
The Immortal Man is set to conclude one chapter of the Peaky Blinders saga in feature film fashion. It comes years after the final season of Peaky Blinders was released, and Knight has used that in part to tell a story set in a world at war: “It’s set during 1940 when Birmingham was being carpet-bombed every night by the German Air Force. So, obviously, the stakes are higher. People don’t know if they’re going to live until tomorrow morning.”
That affects how characters behave, revealed the filmmaker, saying “There’s a lot of hedonism, there’s a lot of fatalism, and you’re throwing into that Tommy Shelby who was having his own existential crisis. The stakes are all much higher.”
Knight also hyped up the cast and everything he has from the show so far: “The budget’s bigger, and that helps. The cast, I think, is the best British cast that we could possibly have gotten into one place. They are all at the top of their game. I’ve seen rushes and assemblies, and I’m seeing the first cut in a couple of weeks. It is phenomenally good.”
A Thousand Blows is streaming now on Hulu.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
