'Warrior' Season 2 Episode 7: What is Chao's game? He tips Ah Sahm about Fung Hai and welcomes him to shadows
From the very beginning, Chao has been street smart and has used his knowledge and resources to carve a path for himself amid the tension that ensues in Chinatown as a precarious balance is struck between the four Tongs that make this town. With Mai Ling taking Long Zii over and allying herself with Fung Hai, Zing, the leader of the latter ended up taking too much for granted and made enemies for himself and Chinatown as well. He ended up sending men to kill a cop's family when Bill decided to put a stop to working with Zing as a debt collector for some extra cash.
Zing's moves were anticipated as hurtful for all the tongs in Chinatown leading to Chao taking things in his own hand. He approached Li Yong and the two came up with a plan to take Zing out while keeping peace within the tongs. Of course, Chao is not doing this because of the goodness of his heart. He is doing it to ensure that the Fung Hai do not attain enough power to force Chao to work solely with them and monopolize the business. He also wants to help Ah Toy if possible and clear her of any suspicions in the case of the sword attacks that have been taking place across the city. This way he earns two favors from two powerful people within Chinatown while being able to do business with all the tongs.
This ploy proved to us that Chao is more a strategist than Mai Ling could ever be and that is the reason why we are extremely curious of his game when it comes to Ah Sahm. Before Young Jun had taken the seat from his father, Chao had insisted that Ah Sahm would fail and bring upon destruction and wrath of the Hop Wei by pitting father against the son. However, now that Ah Sahm has helped Young Jun gain power without bloodshed, Chao tells Ah Sahm that people like them work the best when they live in the shadows. He wants Ah Sahm to join him in this world where change is transient and he welcomes Ah Sahm to take part in playing the kingmaker. Ah Sahm acts as if he has no idea what Chao is talking about, but here's the thing. Despite Ah Sahm helping his friend Young Jun gain power over Father Jun at Hop Wei, he believes that things would be run with him setting the rules from the background.
This is also something that Ah Sahm had indicated would be case very early on in the season when he had met with Mai Ling to tell her that she will regret ordering his death. So does Chao want to align himself with Ah Sahm or does he hope that the two of them can control Chinatown from the shadows? After all, he did tell Ah Sahm that having a friend for company while working from the sidelines and shadows would be very useful.
'Warrior' Season 2 episodes will be aired on Cinemax every Friday at 10 pm ET.