'Warrior' Season 2 Episode 7: Is Ah Toy fooled into making Nellie a business partner or is her charity real?
Nellie Davenport and Ah Toy's love story in 'Warrior' Season 2 is born out of an understanding of what it means to struggle for a place where one can feel as if they belong. Ah Toy for the longest time had believed that her way, the way of providing her girls a safe way to earn a living was the right way to go about ensuring safety for people while providing them with a place to belong as well, was right. However, after meeting the rich white widow Nellie Davenport, Ah Toy realizes that there is another way. She is invited by Nellie over to the vineyard where Nellie has employed women who have been rescued after being forced to work at brothels in San Francisco. The first time Ah Toy lays her eyes on this piece of land that is far away from the dirt and struggle of Chinatown, she realizes how Nellie has built something that must be cherished.
It is during her visit that things get intimate between Nellie and Ah Toy and the resulting romantic relationship has changed Ah Toy. Not enough to let her give up the sword, but just enough to realize that there is another way, a better way to help women who travel across mountains and seas and arrive in America for a better life and work opportunities. Of course, at first glance, the operation that Nellie has been running is beautiful and worth appreciating, but fans have noticed an air of unease around Nellie which has become more nuanced in the episode titled ‘If You Wait By The River Long Enough’.
When Ah Toy narrates how she came to be in America and the heartbreaking story of her loving husband getting killed on-board, the sympathy on Nellie's face is strangely shallow. Of course, it is possible that this strange feeling is just in our head, but warning bells have begun to ring when Ah Toy ends up revealing how she runs her business and how she had managed to own land with the help of a white male partner. Ah Toy expresses doubt about this partnership and how she has little trust when it comes to dealings with him, and Nellie is quick to suggest that Ah Toy uses her instead. Nellie also reveals the location of one of the brothels that she was unable to rescue women from using the law so Ah Toy uses her sword to get things done instead. She hopes that these women who were forced into the sex trade find a way to live a better life.
Ah Toy also ends up leaving her assistant Lai behind at Nellie's vineyard and at that moment, we wonder: Has Ah Toy let personal feelings influence her business relationships and if this will come to bite her later?
'Warrior' Season 2 episodes will be aired on Cinemax every Friday at 10 pm ET.