It’s official, y’all: Stephen Graham’s hit Hulu series A Thousand Blows has been renewed for a second season, and according to the announcement, we can expect a season 2 debut sooner than we expect.
The gritty crime series is a gem of a period piece that sucked audiences right into its narrative of ambition, violence, organized crime, and desire. Created by Steven Knight, of Peaky Blinders fame, A Thousand Blows is a bloody boxing drama set in mid-1800s London that is completely flawless and purely entertaining. While it may have started as a miniseries, it was renewed before the first season even aired, and season 2 was shot back-to-back with season 1.
Inspired by the true-life stories of a group of characters battling for survival in the brutal underground of Victorian London’s East End, the series follows Jamaican immigrants Hezekiah Moscow (Kirby) and Alec Munroe (Francis Lovehall) as they navigate the harsh world of bare-knuckle boxing and organized crime in London.
A Thousand Blows casts a spotlight on a very different kind of gang than what we saw in Peaky Blinders, as it gave us a premiere look at the Forty Elephants, the first organized, all-female crime syndicate in London, and yes, they really existed. The series also explored the rise of legitimized boxing as an actual sport – a massive change from the bare-knuckled brawling that used to reign supreme.
Boasting a ridiculously talented cast that includes Stephen Graham (Adolescence), Erin Doherty (The Crown), Malachi Kirby (Devils), and Francis Lovehall (Death on the Nile), A Thousand Blows not only tells an emotionally satisfying, consistently exciting, utterly engaging tale, it also respectfully adapts true historical events.
Season 1 left Hezekiah Moscow shattered. His controversial bout resulted in the death of Buster Williams, his best friend was murdered, and his relationship with Forty Elephants leader Mary Carr (Doherty) was left in ruins after he discovered her gang’s connection to Alec’s murder. As a result, the “lets run off into the sunset together” love they shared ended when he told her, “You are dead to me.” Furthermore, Mary now faces some dark months ahead after her Elephants abandoned her since she made an enemy of the dangerous Indigo Jeremy (Robert Glenister), the man who ordered Munroe’s death.
Season 2 is likely to follow Moscow’s relentless pursuit of justice for Alec, but will his quest for vengeance consume him? Can he rebuild his boxing career while carrying this grief? There’s also a chance the new season will incorporate real events, such as Sugar Goodson’s (Stephen Graham) infamous prize fight in the chapel, a controversial 1882 fight stopped by police that led to multiple arrests and disrupted accounts of what truly happened.
Will Moscow and Mary find their way back to one another? Can they survive in the merciless London underworld alone? Where did the Elephants go? Will Mr. Lao (Jason Tobin) cross paths with Hezekiah again, even though he escaped to Liverpool to start a new life? And what about that brutal beating Treacle (James Nelson-Joyce) got from his brother? Their sibling rivalry is sure to continue in season 2, especially with Sugar prepared to sign over the deed to the pub to his brother. With so much slated to happen, it’s safe to say we can expect some intense, new plots to play out as characters resurface, along with new enemies and new hostilities.
When asked if he had a long-term plan for the show, creator Steven Knight replied, “As long as it works, to keep it going, as long as it works. The thing that’s moving is the world that exists. And therefore, people will probably hop on and hop off, but the actual story is the world of boxing, the world of the underworld, the world of the East End, the world of the class differences, the world of the British Empire and the people who live in it. So for me, that’s the thing that’s moving forward.”
Currently, there is no release date for season 2, but since it was filmed back-to-back with season 1, chances are we’ll be seeing it later this year, depending on post-production’s time frame.
A Thousand Blows season 1 is currently streaming on Hulu.