Kung Fu: Olivia Liang Talk’s Pei-Ling’s Return and the Real Stakes in Season 3

Kung Fu returned for its third season Wednesday night on The CW and brought with it a major shakeup for Nicky. While the Season 2 finale saw a woman who looked an awful lot like Pei-Ling, Nicky’s deceased shifu, emerge from the woods after the events with Russell Tan and the Source Realm, the season premiere “Shifu” saw Nicky encounter this woman and indeed, it is Pei-Ling. But there’s more to her surprising return and something just isn’t quite right. According to Olivia Liang, Pei-Ling’s return presents a major mystery for everyone close to her to solve — and it could have major stakes this season.

“We all wish that someone who’s taken from us too soon, we had more time with them,” Liang told ComicBook.com. “And Nicky’s… it’s a very emotional reunion because this person who Nicky cared about so much who taught her so much and then who she was avenging for an entire year is suddenly in front of her. But knowing everything that she knows and knowing what we know with what happened in Season 2, is it really h er? Nicky really wants it to be her, but is it her? And like you said, it is too good to be true Something is up and so you can’t really relish that joy and the moment of reunion knowing something bad must have happened or something bad is going on for this to be possible. So, we’re just going to see Nicky rope in all of her family to try to figure this out and we hope that everyone survives at the end of it.”

Liang also said that one of the things she loves about Kung Fu is that the show has real stakes and real consequences for the characters, even with stories containing elements of magic.

“I love that our writers always go there because I think when there are real stakes, there’s so much magic in this show and you have to suspend your belief in a lot of ways,” Liang said. “But making the characters that we love go through real consequences because of this magic, I think just helps the audience in that world and believe even harder. I think it just lends to the storytelling that our writers are willing to go there and show that this is what happens when this crazy magic does stuff to your family. You can’t come out unscathed.”

Kung Fu airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on The CW.