Sanctuary

Season

1

Episode

5

Series

Kung Fu

Air date

May 5, 2021

Writer

A.C. Allen

Director

R.T. Thorne

Episode guide
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Sanctuary is the fifth episode of The CW series Kung Fu. It premiered on May 5, 2021.

Synopsis[]

SEEKING JUSTICE - An officer-involved shooting in Chinatown sends shockwaves through the community. Mei-Li (Kheng Hua Tan) and Jin (Tzi Ma) are forced to revisit a traumatic experience from their past. Nicky (Olivia Liang) and Henry (Eddie Liu) make a startling discovery about the weapons. Shannon Dang, Jon Prasida and Gavin Stenhouse also star.^[1]

Plot[]

After outsmarting Zhilan Zhang to recover the missing scabbard of The Sword of Liang Daiyu, Nicky and Henry, who capped their latest mission with a passionate good night kiss in Henry’s car, have gained a second wind. Not only have they gotten one step closer to finding one of the eight mythical weapons, but they are also spending a lot of time together.

At the Chinese Community Center, Nicky and Henry are meeting up for an early training session where the pair trade blows while unabashedly flirting. When Henry teases that Nicky is going easy on him and that she could have ended the fight already, Nicky quips that you “can’t blame a girl for wanting to make this last longer.” Not to be outdone, Henry fires back, “I’m all for a marathon session, but I’m just saying … you don’t have to hold back. I know you can kick my ass. I think it’s hot.”

Nicky pulls off a classic move and ends up on top of Henry, essentially straddling him when she goes in for a kiss. But as fate would have it, they are interrupted by two other gym goers, who were already scheduled to use the studio space.

After awkwardly grabbing their stuff and freshening up, Nicky and Henry take over the library and begin their quest to find one of the magical weapons. When Henry suggests that there was likely a time that all eight weapons were used together, Nicky remembers reading an ancient legend about a small band of Chinese warriors who won a battle with magical, green-glowing weapons. She recalls that the sword that Zhilan stole also glowed green, but beyond that, she also remembers being inexplicably drawn to the sword and seeing a mysterious woman in a hooded robe who disappeared after glowing green at the monastery in the Yunnan Province.

As Jin and Mei-Li buy groceries for the family restaurant somewhere in San Francisco, they observe that hate crimes targeting Asian Americans are on the rise. Nicky and Henry run into their own troubling incident in Chinatown, with an unarmed Black teenager named Andre shot by the police after being mistaken for a robber, dying the next day from his wounds. In the wake of protests against police brutality across the neighborhood, Mei-Li is horrified when the restaurant's storefront is vandalized. While Nicky and Jin initially give activists passing by bottled water, the protests turn chaotic when riot police are deployed, employing tear gas to disperse the crowd.

As the Shen family opens up the restaurant to allow activists a place to shelter from the police's unrelenting response, internal pressures between the family begin to form. Althea has concerns of her own, torn over telling Dennis about her past trauma enduring workplace sexual abuse from her former boss, with Nicky urging her to tell her fiancé as her sister's stress over keeping the secret becomes noticeable. Ryan's boyfriend Joe is then identified as a person of interest by the police for allegedly inciting the crowd, but Nicky's ex-boyfriend and assistant district attorney Evan gives her the heads up that the police intend to search the restaurant for him.

While Joe prepares to willingly surrender to the police, Nicky leads her family, which surprisingly includes Mei-Li in standing up and being volunteered to be arrested instead. However, as the police prepare to call for reinforcements to bring everyone in, Althea shows video evidence disproving police reports that Joe incited the crowd. Realizing their case won't hold up in court, the police depart empty-handed. Mei-Li confesses that her hardened response to the protests was that the shooting and vandalism of the restaurant triggered traumatic memories of the family being harassed by racists when the Shen children were young. Later, Mei-Li visits the street-side memorial to Andre alone, sharing a quiet moment with Andre's mother.

In the aftermath, Ryan and Joe privately decide to take their romantic relationship to the next level, with Joe especially impressed by how much Ryan and his family stood up for him.

Meanwhile, in the library, Henry and Nicky are both still a little shaken by the protests, but they get their first lead from one of Randall’s sources, who has sent a video confirming the existence of an unidentified weapon in South America that also glows green.

Cast[]

Main[]

Recurring[]

Bradley Gibson as Joe Harper^[8]

Co-Starring[]

Miranda Edwards as Nia
Jesse Irving as Amon
Henry C. King as Andre Durant
Chloe Pun as Young Nicky
Ian Butcher as Watch Commander
Devon Kenzo as Bystander
Mariam Barry as Protestor #3
Amira Anderson as Injured Woman

Trivia[]

On May 5th, 2021, it was revealed that early numbers showed that this episode was watched by 970,000 viewers in the United States.^[9]

Quotes[]

Pei-Ling: You are changing, Nicky.

Nicky: I am?

Pei-Ling: I have seen you with the other women here, listening to their stories, appreciating the simple joys of practice, of being. You want answers about what you think you saw, all I can say is there are mysteries in the world Nicky, unknown to most people. Energies. Presences.

Nicky: You're not talking about Shaolin anymore, are you?

Pei-Ling: Do not look for logic, where logic cannot live. Open your mind to the unknown.

Nicky: Pei-Ling told me something, and it goes beyond physics, beyond facts, and history. I didn't really believe her until now.

Henry: What do you mean?

Nicky: The unknown. Look in every illustration of the sword we found, the handle is smooth, when Pei-Ling showed it to me it was smooth When I grabbed it? Smooth. No markings, nothing. So how did this happen. The weapons glowed green. Well, I saw the sword glow, and this scabbard, it's inlaid with obsidian, like the sword. Black as night. Now if the weapons glowed green, and the sword glowed green, and this scabbard belongs to the sword... then... Henry! There are greater forces at play here. I think the magic is real.

Police Officer: I have a warrant of the arrest of Joseph Harper, please come forward.

Nicky: Arrest Me.

Jin: Nicky! What are you doing?

Nicky: Taking his place.

Police officer: Cute miss, but we're for mister Harper. For him.

Nicky: I did it. Arrest me. Read me my rights.

Ryan: Arrest me!

Joe: Wait. Thank you, but I cannot let-

Jin: Arrest me!

Mei-Li: Arrest me!

Mei-Li: Do you remember your father's story? The one about the dragon?

Althea: You mean our favorite bedtime story?

Nicky: You and Baba said a dragon came all the way from China to visit us. Ryan remind me how old were you again when you realized wasn't real? Was it 16?

Ryan: Shut up.

Mei-Li: You may have grown out of believing that story, but it's time you knew what really happened. That word. That one hateful word.

Jin: When you called me back from the house, even when we were driving home, your hands were still shaking.

Mei-Li: I was so hurt, and so scared. I actually wanted to close the restaurant. But do you remember what you told me?

Jin: Yes I remember.

Mei-Li: You said: don't give them the satisfaction of giving up. That we should stay and put in roots so deep that no one could tear them out.