The Underrated Stephen Graham TV Series You Need To Watch After Adolescence

This year, audiences were swept up in the raw and unflinching one-shot drama series “Adolescence,” led by Emmy-winning Stephen Graham. However, another show arrived even earlier in the year and shares much of the same creative talent as “Adolescence.” In addition to Graham starring and serving as co-producer, as he did on “Adolescence,” the series was also created by “Peaky Blinders” mastermind Steven Knight, which helps explain its similarly hard-hitting tone.

“A Thousand Blows” is another period drama from the man who brought the Shelby family into the spotlight, only this time stretching back further through history into the East End of London. The show follows the story of Jamaican immigrant Hezekiah Moscow (Malachi Kirby), who, after touching down in London Town, stumbles into the underground world of bare-knuckle boxing. As with most classic underdog stories, Moscow’s biggest challenge is the undisputed champion — a muscle-bound Stephen Graham as Sugar Goodson — who sees a genuine threat in the young upstart. What truly elevates the show, however, is a parallel storyline running alongside the main event that proves even more compelling.

Cast your mind back to “Adolescence,” and you’ll recall that one of the best episodes of the series saw Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) have a sit-down with psychologist Briony Ariston (Erin Doherty). While only appearing in a single episode, it was a performance that drew immense praise from critics, and thankfully, Doherty has a lot more than that to offer in “A Thousand Blows.” In Graham and Knight’s drama series, she plays Mary Carr, the real-life leader of the all-female criminal gang The Forty Elephants, who roamed 1880s London as highly skilled pickpockets.

Graham and Kirby might well be making big swings as the two opposing fighters in the series, but Doherty takes the skills of her character and steals every scene she’s in. Compared to Knight’s earlier works like “Peaky Blinders” and “Taboo,” it is refreshing to see a female character serve as a central force rather than a secondary love interest, even as romance brews with Hezekiah. With such compelling characters and interesting stories in another corner of British history, there’s no better time to step into the ring of “A Thousand Blows.”

It’s always encouraging to see a show that arrives with enough confidence and ambition to warrant a follow-up season almost immediately. After months of anticipation, Season 2 of “A Thousand Blows” officially premiered on Hulu and Disney+ on January 9, delivering another action-packed chapter that leans even further into Stephen Graham’s portrayal of the battered but unbreakable Sugar Goodson. 

Now that “Adolescence” has earned the awards recognition it so clearly deserved, Graham’s other bruising, hard-fought series may finally attract the wider audience it missed during its initial run. That lack of attention was never a reflection of the show’s quality. “A Thousand Blows” remains an impressive period drama, blending brutal fight choreography with grounded performances and a gritty sense of time and place.