‘Kung Fu’ Recap: Season 3, Episode 7 “Villains”

Kenedi
14 Min Read
Justine Yeung/The CW

This week on Kung Fu, secrecy and betrayal run rampant in the wake of last week’s reveal that none other than Bo was The Harvester. Read on to see what happened in “Villains.”

Seb and Mei-Li

Both Seb and Mei-Li have been down in the dumps since Carrie forced Seb out. Seb has been avoiding family dinners — and Mei-Li has been avoiding the restaurant. It seems she’s not too happy with Carrie either, as shown by her getting upset by a potential brand deal that involves her as a cartoon on the logo (Mama Shen’s Frozen Dumplings — they have a certain ring to them). Ryan drags a depressed Seb — who is day drinking and not applying to other restaurants, despite his high demand from the profile — to help with the Pei-Ling situation. He proves to be quite helpful.

After Mei-Li witnesses Jin’s conviction of winning the election by being himself in his meeting with the campaign manager, she finds the conviction to stop hiding and go back to the restaurant. She’s ready to fight to get her restaurant back under her control. 

Jin Shen, Rising Politician

Jin’s campaign against Anthony Chen is up and running with his name officially on the ballot — though he’s got some serious work to do if he hopes to beat him. His campaign supervisor wants him to go on a popular podcast where the host speaks to politicians in order to get his name and message out there. Jin initially has trouble sticking to the script that she writes for him, but eventually tells her he needs to speak from his heart and off the cuff to come off genuine; the people of Chinatown know him.

Evan and Althea on the Case

Evan’s business is steadily beginning to grow, leaving Evan and Althea busier than ever — much to the chagrin of Nadia and Evan’s schedules (and Althea who is watching the whole thing go down). One case takes them on a journey to get a woman who believes her ex is stalking her a restraining order. The two visit the woman’s home to gather evidence and notice that cameras are being put up in the trees. Althea distracts one of the workers putting them up by claiming a special bird’s habitat is being disturbed and chats up the worker, who turns out to be an avid bird-watching enthusiast. This buys Evan time to take a peek in the man’s van in hopes of finding out more about what’s going on.

After figuring out the client isn’t being stalked by their ex, Althea and Evan link the mysterious camera equipment to a company with the acronym CZI. Evan wants to stay all night and figure it out, but Althea pushes him to go see Nadia. She wants him to be happy considering how good of a guy he is and his poor track record with Nicky and Sabine. He takes her advice but also takes the time to reassure Althea about Dennis, who’s away at a meeting with his parents that she encouraged.

Nadia finds out that CZI isn’t a company, but a government initiative that’s headed to the mayor’s desk  — the Crime Zero Initiative. Nadia comes to eat dinner with Evan at the office, and he finds out she connected everything; Delta Security Endeavors is the one who filed the patent for CZI. That, Ordinance 11, everything is connected. The excitement gets to them and they shut the blinds and the lock goes on for some ahem alone time. 

Jail Break

With one of The Harvestor’s swords in the gang’s possession, Henry and Zhilan realize they can use the sword to lure The Harvester to them using the sword as a siren call to its twin blade. The sword in the team’s possession is the one that reaps souls but the sister sword is the one that channels them. Nicky deems this too dangerous, but the team realizes they can possibly free Pei-Ling from Xiao’s occupation by using the reaping sword. Bo worms himself into the plan with ulterior motives afoot — and let me tell you, Henry is NOT a fan (in the words of Olivia Rodrigo, “jealousy, jealousy”).

Pei-Ling is confident that if she goes into a deep meditative state, she can leave her mind completely blank and not give Xiao anything to latch on to, therefore giving the team time to purge her from her body. However, she’s concerned she won’t be able to achieve that deep level of focus because of the unresolved conflict between her and her sister. Nicky sends Zhilan to talk to Pei-Ling, and Zhilan launches into a tirade about how she doesn’t deserve forgiveness. However, Pei-Ling interrupts her and asks Zhilan for forgiveness, apologizing for making the choice to leave her the night their father died. The two can finally reconcile.

The team settles in to extract Xiao after hours when everyone is gone from the community center. Bo charges the sword, which begins to glow — along with Pei-Ling. However, as soon as Xiao’s spirit leaves Pei-Ling, the power blows and she escapes into the community center. 

Nicky realizes Xiao must have hidden inside one of them. Ryan and Zhilan were the closest to Pei-Ling when Xiao escapes, marking them as likely candidates. Nicky rules no one should leave the building.

Nicky and Ryan pair off to try and figure out a way to test who Xiao is. Ryan realizes that while he tested Pei-Ling for medical abnormalities, he didn’t test for magic. He thinks that using the Jyu Sa and The Source (which they still have some of each), they can test to see if anything will show in Pei-Ling’s last blood draw. Using Nicky’s blood as a control, Ryan pours a mixture of Jyu Sa powder into Pei-Ling’s blood, which begins to bubble. Nicky’s doesn’t, eliminating her as a candidate for possession by Xiao.

Back with the group, Ryan goes to test everyone’s blood. Right before his turn, Henry accuses Bo of trying to destroy a wall sigil. Bo’s test comes up negative, and Henry’s positive. They got to tie him up but Henry insists it’s not him. Ryan notices the Petri dish labels were switched before Seb swings on him. Seb has been possessed by Xiao. 

The team splits off to try and subdue Seb/Xiao and get the breaker back on to charge the sword. Henry and Nicky finding of the sigils intact, only to have Xiao come after it with an ax. The two fight with Xiao, but she breaks the rune by throwing the ax, forcing them to dive out of the way. 

Xiao disappears, but its Pei-Ling and Zhilan that she confronts next, protecting another sigil. But it’s not the sigil Xiao’s after — it’s Pei-Ling. When Bo funneled the souls of the Guardians and Warriors to Xiao, Pei-Ling’s body absorbed some of it and she wants all of the power. United in combat for once, Zhilan and Pei-Ling tag team Xiao. She manages to subdue Zhilan by exploiting her spinal injuries and offers to trade her life for Pei-Ling. Pei-Ling agrees, and Xiao’s soul starts to enter her. Henry barges in and throws the charged sword to Nicky, who also entered while ZHilan was being held hostage, who then traps Xiao in the sword with some impressive sword work.

Back at home, Seb is seriously shaken up. While Xiao had him trapped, he could feel all of her violence and anger — as well as the violence he was inflicting upon Ryan. It felt too familiar to him, and he feels like he can’t be around Ryan right now. 

Back at the Shen household, where Pei-Ling and Zhilan have been invited to dinner, Pei-Ling is helping Mei-Li prepare the food. However, while she’s chopping vegetables, that eerie blankness that Pei-Ling had when she was taken over by Xiao reappears. She slashes Mei-Li’s arm, who starts violently bleeding and licks the knife, saying she knew she sensed something special in her blood and needed to understand it. Jin hits Xiao over the head with a household item but she knocks him down too, slamming him into the cabinets. Nicky runs in and the two begins o fight, Pei-Ling armed with a knife. Nicky disarms her with the knife inches away from Xiao’s skin, but can’t do it. Xiao taunts that she told her Nicky’s connections make her weak before running off. 

Beau, Good Beau No Mo

After the big reveal last episode that Bo is the Harvester, the hits just keep on coming. In this episode, it’s revealed that Bo’s shifu is… Xiao?!? Despite his seemingly genuine feelings for Nicky, Xiao has Bo using the trust he’s built with her against her to help free Xiao from the confines of Pei-Ling’s mind after he discovers that Pei-Ling is alive and well — as well as Nicky’s shifu.

Bo, though having been standoffish for the past couple of weeks, integrates himself back into Nicky’s life, offering to help the team with the plan to expel Xiao. Once the team discovers they can charge the sword with regular old electricity (thanks Seb), Bo offers to help rig the building’s electricity so that they don’t blow the power. However, during the process of drawing out Xiao, that’s exactly what happens. The sword depowers, and Xiao escapes out of Pei-Ling and into the ether — the ether being the rest of the building, as Zhilan had the foresight to ward the building with the same symbols on Xiao’s cage so she couldn’t escape.

Bo goes to destroy one of the sigils that Zhilan carved in a wall, but a suspicious Henry catches him before he can do it. Henry urges him back to the library after a shaky excuse on Bo’s part, saying Nicky wants them to all stay close together. Henry definitely clocks the symbol on the wall.

Bo splits off from Ryan under the guise of holding Xiao back. However, he tells her that they’re trying to trap her again. She tells him that she only needs Seb for a while and that she won’t hurt any of the group (feels like a bold-faced lie, but okay). She hits Bo on the head with the blunt end of an ax she got out of an emergency box on the wall, saying that they need to believe they fought.

With Xiao trapped and Bo injured, Henry seems to somewhat trust Bo more, especially after he allegedly confronted Xiao alone. Bo offers to hide the sword across the bay while Nicky and Henry search for a way to destroy it without releasing Xiao. 

At home, Bo extracts a piece of stone from the reaper sword that is glowing with Xiao’s soul. He raises the sword as if to crush the stone and set Xiao free. 

You can catch Kung Fu on Wednesday nights in its new time slot at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on The CW. As always, make sure to stay up to date with all of our coverage here, and stay tuned for more updates!

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By Kenedi
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Kenedi is a college student with her sights set on attending medical school. When she isn't hard at work, Kenedi enjoys reading, watching her favorite shows, and listening to music. Some of her favorite fandoms include Supernatural, One Tree Hill, Bones, Abbott Elementary, Percy Jackson, and Scrubs.
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