Throughout the series, Into the Badlands has portrayed the lost city of Azra as a beautiful, Utopian civilization, but the show’s penultimate episode of its final season has revealed the ugly truth regarding Azra’s legacy. As it turns out, Azra was never the perfect place everyone believed it to be.
Long ago, Azra was a safe haven for Dark Ones, and the home of Sunny (Daniel Wu), Kannin (Eugenia Yuan), and Pilgrim (Babou Ceesay). Azra prospered for a while but was eventually destroyed by the Black Lotus after Sunny helped Magnus (Francis Magee) avoid execution. Sunny and Pilgrim survived Azra’s fall and escaped, but Kannin was taken in by Magnus and trained to become a deadly assassin for the Black Lotus. Ever since, Pilgrim has been devoted to restoring the glory of the lost city by creating a new Azra.
In Into the Badlands’ latest episode, “Requiem for the Fallen”, Kannin tries to convince Pilgrim to put an end to his conquest of the Badlands by revealing that the true legacy of Azra is genocide. According to Kannin, Azra’s leaders were interested in doing far more than just spread the Gift all over the world. They wanted to kill everyone who didn’t have it. Kannin hoped this would dissuade Pilgrim from pursuing his goal, but her words had the opposite effect on Pilgrim. The revelation only serves to reinforce Pilgrim’s opinions. Pilgrim explains that his destiny is to “fulfill the dream of Azra” by wiping out mankind if they refuse to live peacefully with Dark Ones.
Azra’s true intentions sheds new light on the city’s fall. As evil as Magnus was, it appears that he was actually right about the danger Azra posed to the world. Also, this means that Sunny’s decision to listen to Magnus wasn’t such a terrible mistake after all. If Sunny hadn’t allowed Magnus to escape, Azra would have continued to thrive, and if Kannin is correct, the rest of civilization would have suffered for it.
The dark truth about Azra clearly delighted Pilgrim, but it may have come as an unpleasant surprise for Cressida (Lorraine Toussaint), who appeared to be unsettled by the news. Kannin tries to make Cressida see that following Pilgrim is a mistake, but it’s hard to say if Kannin was able to get through to her. Cressida later has a vision of Pilgrim’s “new Azra,” an ugly place filled with death and destruction. It’s possible that the truth about Azra and Pilgrim’s continued devotion to fulfilling its legacy may finally shake the faith of his most loyal ally.
More: Into the Badlands: Magnus’ Death Makes Pilgrim’s Defeat Possible
