By the time we get to the end of Marvel’s The Defenders, that word (“defenders”) has never been used. It’s kind of fitting, really, since the original comic book version of the Defenders were a so-called “non-team” featuring a rotating and inconsistent cast, and the team was never really formalized or set.
In that same vein, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage never really become a formal team. Hell, the “team,” such as it is, isn’t really just those four, as Claire Temple, Misty Knight, and especially Colleen Wing are important components of the fight, too.
And that is what makes The Defenders particularly strong, as the characterizations of all its players, big and small, is superb.
If only the plot was stronger…
SPOILERS for The Defenders season 1.
Probably the most impressive feat of this series is that it manages to pick up and tie together so many threads. There’s a serious juggling act going on here, as all of the following storylines get play in The Defenders:
- Wilson Fisk’s dodgy real-estate consortium, specifically Madame Gao’s role in it, from Daredevil season 1
- Jessica Jones recovering from her battle against Kilgrave in her show’s first season
- Luke Cage getting out of prison and trying to continue his role as Harlem’s hero from his show’s first season
- The Hand, Elektra’s role as the Black Sky, and Stick’s war against them from Daredevil season 2
- Also from DD season 2, Matt Murdock trying to get away from the double life that is driving him away from those he loves (and got Elektra killed)
- Danny Rand’s guilt over failing to save K’un Lun in Iron Fist season 1
- Colleen Wing’s guilt over not realizing that the Hand was evil in that same season
- Claire Temple’s general role as the glue holding all these folks together in all of the above
Not only that, but some of these are bits that didn’t work particularly well before, but stand out quite well now, starting with the Hand. In DD season 2 and IF season 1 they were a cultish force, kinda, with lots of ninjas, but not really focused. In The Defenders, we finally find out what they are—and also why they seem inconsistent. The Hand are actually five people who rejected the teachings of K’un Lun and rebelled against them, getting their hands on a substance (called, prosaically, “the substance”) that enables them to come back from the dead. The five of them—they’re the fingers of the Hand—include the previously seen Gao and Bakuto (the latter introduced in Iron Fist, and seemingly killed by Wing), as well as Murakami, Sowande, and Alexandra.
The latter is played by Sigourney Weaver, and she is as superb as ever. Alexandra has a grace and meticulousness and calm that comes of living a very long time. Best of all, she doesn’t have an explosive side. That was honestly starting to get repetitive in the Netflix MCU series, as we had Fisk, Kilgrave, Cottonmouth, Mariah, and Harold Meachum, all of whom were generally calm and reasonable but with explosive tempers that could lash out at any moment. So it’s a welcome change to have Alexandra not be like that. She takes everything in stride, from Rand having unexpected help from Murdock, Jones, and Cage to the other four members of the Hand expressing major issues with her plan to a simple annoyance like a record skipping on a scratch. Even when she has her biggest triumph, when Elektra brings Rand to her, thus enabling their plan to go forth, and she bitches out the (surviving) other Hand members, she’s completely calm, and only a little angry.
Of course, that’s followed by her biggest failure, as Elektra kills her. There are two things Alexandra didn’t anticipate. One was Rand having so many skilled allies, including three with super-powers. The other was Elektra’s betrayal. Alexandra was convinced that Elektra was only the Black Sky now, but Elektra’s original personality did come to the fore. However, she still wants access to the substance—which is apparently in a chamber that only the iron fist can open. And appears to be made of bones. Maybe dragon bones?
Removing the substance will destroy the city above, which the Hand has apparently previously done in Pompeii and Chernobyl. It’s not clear how removing dragon bones (or whatever) will destroy a city or why, in a world filled with super-powered beings (including two in this very series) it has to be the iron fist that breaks into the chamber that holds the substance. I mean, Cage or Jones or the Hulk or Spider-Man or anyone with a fancy-ass exoskeleton like Iron Man or the Vulture could do it just as easily. (EDITED TO ADD: As has been pointed out in the comments, Gao told Alexandra after the earthquake that the wall was warded against a physical attack, and only the mystical power of the iron fist could get through. In the words of Luke Cage, “My bad!”)
And this is the overall problem with The Defenders. The threat is vague and undefined—we keep being told the city is in danger, but aside from one earthquake, that danger never really manifests. I don’t expect aliens attacking Grand Central Terminal (Disney doesn’t give them a big enough budget for that), but there should’ve been something a bit more concrete to threaten the city than “we’re digging a hole and taking bones out.”
It doesn’t help that the show doesn’t have the same feel for New York that the previous series did, particularly Luke Cage and Daredevil. The city in general and the neighborhoods of Harlem and Hell’s Kitchen (however fictionalized those neighborhoods are for the sake of the stories) forms the texture for Murdock and Cage’s stories. Even Jessica Jones and Iron Fist integrated the city into the background, at least. But The Defenders never really feels like it’s taking place in New York the way the others do, and considering how much hype there was about the “battle for New York,” the inability to embrace the location with the same verve that its predecessors managed is a disappointment. (There’s also some geographical hilarity, like putting a seedy bar on 11th Avenue in the 40s, an area that is mostly car dealerships, not bars…)
On top of that, for all that Elektra killing Alexandra was an effective end to episode 6, it also really took the wind out of the sails of the finale. Elektra and Murdock do get to indulge in their banter and self-destructive antics that kept her half of DD season 2 from being a complete disaster, but Elektra has none of Alexandra’s powerful charisma. She’s a tormented mess—that’s what Elektra has always been, both in the comics and onscreen—and she doesn’t have anywhere near the gravitas that is required to lead the Hand.
And while Gao provides pointed commentary to Elektra about how important Alexandra’s resources and relationships cultivated over the centuries are to the Hand’s success and how Elektra can’t just assume those because she killed her, there’s no time to really dig into it, because there’s the big-ass climax. The surviving Hand folk need to get at the substance regardless of who’s in charge—as it is, two of their number are dead (Sowande having been killed by Stick, and seriously, guys, you had to kill the black guy first? nice job of tone-deafness, there…)—so they go along with it.
That big-ass climax does work superbly, though. With the notable (and glaring) exception of Iron Fist, the Netflix MCU has done excellent work with action scenes, and that continues here. Finn Jones still doesn’t move like the living weapon, but he’s marginally better than he was in IF; both Mike Colter and Krysten Ritter move with the same casual fighting style that we saw in both Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, Jones as the irresistible force and Cage as the immovable object. And both Charlie Cox and his stunt double remain magnificent. Plus we have the added bonus of Jessica Henwick’s Wing getting another swordfight against Bakuto, and winning somewhat more permanently.
(By the way, there’s a delightful Easter egg early on. We see Rand and Wing in the latter’s dojo, with Rand lying on the floor, using a couple of Wing’s books as a pillow. On top of the pile is the very distinctive cover of Karate-Dō: My Way of Life by Gichin Funakoshi, the father of modern karate, and a book I strongly recommend to anyone who’s interested in martial arts in any form. By putting the book there, the set designers showed more knowledge of martial arts than anyone involved with Iron Fist’s first season…)
But while the plot doesn’t entirely cohere, the characterization truly shines. Murdock, Cage, and Jones were already strong, complex characters before the series started, as are Temple and Wing and Knight, and their arcs all continue along and intersect and take odd detours. Jones and Murdock’s banter is a delight—I particularly like when she uses the info she dug up on him to help interrogate her client’s daughter—and Cage and Rand have three different, brilliantly written and performed conversations over the course of the series that presages a future series pairing up the two of them. (Will I finally, after thirty years, get the Power Man & Iron Fist TV show I’ve been dreaming of?)
I didn’t list Rand as a strong, complex character above, but Defenders makes that work, too. In Iron Fist, Rand was a whiny, arrogant, twerp that the script kept trying to crowbar into a hero. In The Defenders, Rand is a whiny, arrogant twerp that the script comes right out and acknowledges is a whiny, arrogant twerp. It makes the character a whole lot easier to take, especially given how often the other characters call him on it. (Best line of the whole series belongs to Stick, speaking for the entire audience: “The immortal Iron Fist is still a thundering dumbass.”)
Best of all, the show doesn’t skimp on its supporting characters. Foggy Nelson and Karen Page are trying to move on with their lives while trying to keep Murdock from going back to being Daredevil, though Nelson winds up enabling him. Murdock’s slice of The Defenders is very much an addiction story, with Nelson and Page acting exactly like the friends the addict has alienated with his behavior, and Murdock treats the suit exactly like a hit from his drug of choice. It’s brilliantly written, down to the very end when Murdock is believed to have been buried alongside Elektra and Gao (my money’s on all three, not just Murdock, surviving, though DD is the only one we see at the end). The scene where Cage, Jones, and Rand all arrive at the police precinct to meet up with their loved ones, but Nelson and Page are left standing there watching an empty doorway waiting for Murdock to arrive, which he never does, is brutally effective.
Wing and Knight get their moments in the sun, too. Wing is frustrated by Rand marginalizing her and then finding new playmates, and she pretty much forces herself on the team in the end, and she’s the one who provides the C-4 that stops the Hand once and for all. She also gets some degree of closure by confronting Bakuto again, and killing him for realsies this time.
As for Knight, she’s torn between her duty as a cop and how much she trusts Cage and Temple. In the end, she risks her job in order to dive into the fray with the rest of them, helping Wing and Temple against the Hand, and losing her arm for her trouble. (So Netflix, she’ll get a bionic arm, right? And then we get a Daughters of the Dragon series with Jessica Henwick and Simone Messick kicking ass every week, right? Right?)
Jones’s sidekicks get less to do, though Trish Walker’s radio show does play a small role in the story, and Malcolm’s almost puppy-like loyalty to Jones is always a delight.
Cage and Jones have the least connection to the overall plot—the Hand has been Murdock and Rand’s thing—but it’s made up for in other ways. Cage is both the common sense and the conscience of the team; in the end, he’s the one who’s only on board if they can guarantee that no one who isn’t a member of the Hand will get hurt. He’s also the one who actually captures Sowande, and it’s his plan of attack when he, Jones, and Murdock go down the big hole to rescue Rand. Meanwhile Jones—besides providing the best smartassery—is the one who actually does the most to figure out what’s going on, reminding us that, besides being super-strong, super-obnoxious, and a super-drunk, she’s also a damn good private investigator. Tellingly, she’s the only one to reject the team-up Rand practically begs for when the four of them all are thrown together; just as tellingly, she rejoins them when she does legwork and realizes that the people they’re after have been around since at least the 19th century. Jones and Cage also get the rapprochement that Kilgrave’s manipulations kept them from having in JJ season 1. One hopes that they’ll appear in each others’ respective second seasons, as the pair of them have settled into a friendship that will, one suspects, be good for them both.
In the end, Murdock asks Rand to tell the others to protect his city after he’s gone, since he expected to die with Elektra in the end. There’s no indication that they’re going to officially team up, but at the very least, they’re likely to help each other out when needed.
For all that I’ve slagged the plot, The Defenders is still absolutely worth watching. With the notable exceptions of Ramon Rodriguez, who remains pretty and lifeless as Bakuto, and Jones, still the weak link as Iron Fist, the cast is stellar, the characterization is superb, and ultimately, it’s a story about heroes. They all start out reluctant in some way—whether it’s Cage not wanting to take credit, Rand too focused on his guilt, Murdock trying to stay away from the violence, or Jones just wanting to be left alone in her bottle—but they come together in a big way and it’s a joy to see.
Bring on The Punisher…
Keith R.A. DeCandido writes “4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch” for this site every Tuesday. He has also written about Star Trek, Stargate, Batman, Wonder Woman, Doctor Who, and other Marvel Netflix series. In addition, he’s the author of a metric buttload of fiction, most recently the Marvel “Tales of Asgard” trilogy featuring Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three, three Super City Cops eBook novellas about cops in a city filled with superheroes, the Orphan Black reference book Classified Clone Report, and short stories in Baker Street Irregulars, Aliens: Bug Hunt, Nights of the Living Dead, TV Gods: Summer Programming, The Best of Bad-Ass Faeries, and Stargate SG-1/Atlantis: Homeworlds.
“One was Rand having so many skilled allies, including two with super-powers.”
In point of fact, all three have superpowers. DD just doesn’t have super strength, like JJ and LC. But I don’t think there’s anyway to classify being able to smell cologne through three floors of apartment, and reform the way the air flows over your skin and what you hear into a picture your brain can interpret as anything other than a super power.
Now, if you are implying that Alexandra only know that two of them had super powers, and didn’t know who the mysterious third person with a scarf around his head was, ok. That was probably true.
Back to reading the review now!
For those interested, here’s a screen grab of Iron Fist using Funakoshi’s book as a pillow:
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I enjoyed the series, though it wasn’t the best. The 6 person fight in episode 7 angered me. With 6 people who all have distinctly different fighting styles going all at once, it should have been the best scene in the show. Instead we got extreme close ups, quick editing, and an inability to tell what was even happening on the screen. Very disappointed.
Anthony: Derp. Good point. I’ll fix that….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
One thing that I did also like that I forgot to mention in the review is that I like how the series at various points uses Murdock as a lawyer, Rand as a corporate CEO, and especially Jones as a private investigator.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
“The scene where Cage, Jones, and Rand all arrive at the police precinct to meet up with their loved ones, but Nelson and Page are left standing there watching an empty doorway waiting for Murdock to arrive, which he never does, is brutally effective.”
Agreed. Even knowing he was alive (DD3 was greenlighted last October), this was the most powerful moment in all 6 seasons Netflix has given us.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but overall I’d only give the show a B-. Rather than try to go through the whole thing, here’s a quick “good and bad”:
The Good; JJ, MM, Colleen, Claire, Electra. I liked Misty, too, though not quite as much. Trish should’ve had a larger role. All in all, if they do Daughters of the Dragon, or something just called The Sidekicks, I’d be excited.
JJ and MM worked very well together, which isn’t a surprise since I think they’re the best characters.
Some nice individual scenes, including JJ’s last conversation with Luke.
The Meh: The Hand generally, and Alexandra in particular. I liked her understated menace in the first 3 episodes, but there seemed to be nothing more to it and I got bored. The fact that she was killed made her seem insignificant.
The writing was ok, good in parts, but not as sharp as it should have been. It’s too bad Drew Godard wasn’t more involved, because I think he’s the best writer on the crew.
The Bad: Danny Rand. Sorry, but he’s just a bad character, self-centered, rude, whiny, and stupid.
I also have a pet peeve: when the story is written so that a character should die, s/he should die. It’s a comic book universe — bring him/her back if necessary (having Electra resurrect DD would be great). But it’s a copout to show us an impossible escape with no explanation (getting one in DD3 won’t really count).
I mentioned my few complaints in the previous thread but now I finally get to talk about my biggest complaint.
I hated Sigourney Weaver going out with a whimper. She was such an engaging villain, I wanted to see her go down fighting (figuratively) not stabbed in the back. I wish they could have come up with something more diabolical for her to do before her ultimate demise. Other than that and the previously mentioned quibbles, I loved it and can’t wait for more JJ and DD.
I enjoyed it. I REALLY enjoyed it until Elektra killed Alexandra. At that point, I had a sneaking suspicion that the plot would go off the rails… because that’s exactly what happened in LC and Iron Fist. These bad guy reversals… ugh. Why spend all this time building up the villain, then… nothing? At least with Iron First, it got reversed again, but that was so clumsy…
Anyway, I also don’t think ANY of them died down there because…
The Japanese Finger implied that getting beyond the door would allow them to not just get the substance, but return to K’un L’un. Like, it was a separate entrance to that dimension. Don’t know what to make of that…
Also, Rand seemed to think they were desecrating Shou-Lao the Undying… But, he didn’t kill that dragon to become Iron Fist, right? That dragon is eternal, or something, otherwise, how could there be more Iron Fists?
It was pretty explicit in the conversation between Iron Fist and Madame Gao that those are indeed dragon bones. They may not say “dragon,” but Danny mentions them disrespecting Shou-Lao the Undying (or something along those lines), so they are clearly talking about dragons. And the bones are shaped exactly like the Iron Fist tattoo.
Also, it is clear why only the Iron Fist can open the door. The Hand surely has resources that would pack a punch as strong as anything that any MCU characters can throw (with the exception of the Hulk, probably), and the earthquake was likely caused by them attempting just that. The door is magically warded–I believe that it is specifically referred to as a ward–and only the Iron Fist can open it because a former Iron Fist created it.
Yeah, this is the second time they’ve killed a good villain too soon. Both Alexandra and Cottonmouth deserved better. One of the best moments in Daredevil season 2 is seeing Fisk and Castle interact in prison, a moment we’ll never get with Alexandra or Cottonmouth, which is a pity.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
The “Substance” mixed with the blood(?) used to revive Elektra, was ashy, so I’m betting that it’s Dragon Bone Dust. They were clearly taking away cross sections of dragon ribs for later use. As for why the dragon bones’ removal would destroy the city, I think (they were intending) that it was a structural issue. The large dome structure underground was being supported by the dragon’s rib cage (apparently), so without those support beams, the dome collapses creating a large earthquake/sinkhole/what-have-you underneath NYC that eventually causes the whole city to collapse, and the only reason it doesn’t is because the wreckage of the Midland Circle building fills in the hole before it can. Not that that actually makes any sense, but it’s the only thing I can think of that comes close to explaining anything.
That said, considering that Matt, Elektra, Gao (and Murakami, come to think of it) were surrounded by the very substance that brings people back to life as an entire building dropped on their heads, I fully expect all of them to return in some form or other.
Speaking of, if The Hand’s “resources” were depleted by resurrecting Elektra, how does Bakuto come back to life? For that matter, was Harold Meachum revived (after faking his death by actually killing him) using the “substance” as well? If so, how did he come back after Ward kills him?
Also, if Alexandra was dying, why didn’t she just kill herself and use the last of The Substance on herself instead of reviving Elektra?
And another thing, I thought Nobu (you know, the guy DD killed in season 1, whom they brought back to life in season 2, only to kill him again, then revive him again, and then kill him one more time) was one of the founding members (or “fingers”, but that sounds SO stupid) of the Hand (at least his comic counterpart is), so who the hell is Murakami? Or Sowande for that matter? Would have been nice to see Sowande pop up as one of Cottonmouth/Diamondback’s financiers, if only to give it that much more impact when Luke finally brings him down, or have it make more sense when he starts recruiting Harlem youngsters in the void of their absence.
I liked Alexandra in the first half of the series, but the more desperate she got, the less threatening she seemed, and then she went out like a chump. I think I would rather have had Gao be the Big Bad the whole time, as “subservience” isn’t a good look for her. (I’m also still holding to my belief that she’s secretly Fin Fang Foom.)
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the excellent use of color in the first two episodes (as you did in your previous article), which I still think is fantastic, and I’m sad that they dropped it.
@12:
This can be explained by Iron Fist happening at the same time as DD S2. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but they’ve been very lax with giving specific details on what happened in relation to when.
The revival of Elektra happened prior to her diagnosis. There was a scene heading that said “many months earlier” for Elektra’s backstory episode.
They said in the show that Murakami was Nobu’s boss. Nobu was running Murukami’s branch of the Hand for him, because apparently Murukami doesn’t like to engage directly. I think it was stick who explained this in the restaurant infodump.
Brian: I didn’t mention it because I already discussed it in the previous piece, and I had bigger fish to fry. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Anthony: except Iron Fist season 1 explicitly takes place after Daredevil season 2, thanks to the presence of Claire Temple, who refers to what she went through in DD season 2 when she appears in IF.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I don’t think they totally dropped the color grading. Jessica in particular retained the blue hues whenever she was the main player in a scene. But when they were together, it was a normal color grade. Even when it was her and Matt going to speak to the Architect’s daughter, the blue hues were present, especially outside the building.
By the way, those grades were all present in the solo seasons as well. Especially at night. The highlights were all graded red, blue, gold and green respectively in the solo seasons. It was all amplified in the first few episodes of Defenders, however.
@13: I’m not 100% sure, but I think she resurrected Elektra long before her terminal diagnosis which started the series – the Elektra scenes were flashback. At that time, she might have known she was ill, but thought it would keep long enough for the slow version of the plan to go into play… her diagnosis (and the knowledge they didn’t have enough of the substance left) is what caused her to order them to accelerate.
The others, you’ve probably got a valid point with, though, though maybe there are obscure rules like the longer you’re dead the more you need, and Elektra was dead enough to require a lot of it, while the others were only briefly dead and just needed a little top-up.
It’s not Daredevil we see on that rooftop at the end, it’s Danny in a new outfit.
<i>Also, if Alexandra was dying, why didn’t she just kill herself and use the last of The Substance on herself instead of reviving Elektra?</i>
Because then the last of the substance would still be gone, and she and the rest of the Hand would have been out of luck next time they needed it. She was gambling that they would be able to get more of the substance with Elektra’s aid–a huge gamble and the reason the others were so unhappy with her, but it did technically pay off, even if not the way she’d hoped.
Death in comics is… complicated. If you don’t see the body, they aren’t dead. And even if you do see the body, it was probably a clone. Or a robot. Magic. Divine resurrection. It was all a dream. Alternate timeline/reality. Shape changer.
Overall I loved the series – even whiny Danny. All three of the other characters had vastly different lifestyles and those lifestyles allowed them to mature into adults. Danny never had that. – he never got to do the sex, drugs, and rock n roll as a teen, the others did.
I am looking forward to seeing where this can go. I feel though that Claire’s character has done as much as it can in all of these series arcs, always being the person to fix injuries. While I am happy her and Luke got their coffee, I really want him and JJ to go the vein of the comics.
In regards to the resurrection plot hole: Perhaps you only need one dose of the substance for many resurrections as seen with Harold merely healing the wounds that killed him. Alexandra was said to have every major organ on the brink of failure which would take quite a bit of healing compared to stabbey wounds
“It’s not clear… why, in a world filled with super-powered beings (including two in this very series) it has to be the iron fist that breaks into the chamber that holds the substance. I mean, Cage or Jones or the Hulk or Spider-Man or anyone with a fancy-ass exoskeleton like Iron Man or the Vulture could do it just as easily.”
That was made very clear. It wasn’t about physical strength — the Hand detonated a big enough bomb down there to cause a citywide earthquake and it didn’t have any effect at all on the wall. That’s because the wall was mystically sealed by the chi of an earlier Iron Fist, and so only the chi of the current Iron Fist could unseal it. The chi was the key (which would be a more direct pun in Japanese).
“and seriously, guys, you had to kill the black guy first? nice job of tone-deafness, there…”
True… but on the other hand, they kill the white woman second, and the last survivor is the Chinese woman.
My thoughts from my daylong binge, posted before reading any other coomments:
I think Danny was still an arrogant, entitled, self-centered fool, but the story needed him to be. His insistence on going it alone put him at odds with the others, which led to him being captured, and then when fighting Elektra, he was too dumb to realize he was playing right into her hands. Maybe that’s the reason he didn’t outgrow his arrogance in his own show — because it was still needed for this one.
I was upset with them bringing in Sigourney Weaver to be the big bad when Madame Gao should’ve been the one, but it turned out to be kind of a fakeout. I guess I should’ve known they couldn’t afford Weaver for all 8 episodes, but it was still a huge shock what happened to her. And it turns out that Gao is the last Finger standing at the end (because if Matt got out, then she could’ve too). So she comes out on top after all.
I was kind of wondering for a moment there if they’d really kill off Daredevil. It seemed unlikely, but it occurred to me they could proceed with a Heroes for Hire team-up with Power Man, Iron Fist, and the Daughters of the Dragon, with Jessica as a no doubt reluctant ally. I guess not, though. Anyway, I’m disappointed we didn’t get more Misty/Colleeen interaction to parallel all the Luke/Danny stuff. But at the end there, it looked like Danny might be on the path to adopting a mask and costume to follow in Daredevil’s footsteps.
It surprised me that we never got a Claire-Matt interaction to speak of. He’s the one who got her into all this to begin with. And I thought the fact that all four of the leads happened to know her already would be noted and remarked on at some point, just for what a coincidence it was.
Was I the only one repeatedly distracted by the fact that Stick’s “amputated” right forearm was much longer than his intact left one? That’s got to be the most unconvincing stump prosthetic I’ve ever seen. I know these shows don’t have movie-level budget, but today’s digital effects should’ve made it fairly easy to erase a hand. They did it with Misty’s whole arm in a few shots. At least they could’ve done the camera angles better to make the fakery less obvious.
I am looking forward to Power Man and Iron Fist, too. Danny Rand is by far my favorite character in these series. And your comment about the first Finger to die IS pretty tone deaf, so why did you say it?
I enjoyed The Defenders. It was good fun. Plus, that ending. I hope that means Born Again storyline for DD season 3.
Bring on The Punisher.
Bobby
My interpretation for why Alexandra needed more of “the substance” to prolong her life and Harold Meachum apparently spontaneously regenerated is simply that “the substance” bonded to a person’s body works a number of times before it loses efficacy — like it keeps them alive for a few hundred years before they need a new dose.
But do you understand why they did that in The Defenders? Because so many people – yourself included it seems – didn’t/don’t understand the point of Rand in Iron Fist Season One. He was supposed to be a whiny, arrogant twerp. He was a spoiled rich kid who was raised by monks, trained hard, and was granted super powers. Of course he turned out that way. And article after article, comment after comment, was written about how awful that show was because Rand wasn’t instantly the great hero everyone expected.
He’ll get there. He started on that path a bit toward the end of his first season, made a lot of headway in The Defenders (especially at the end when he selflessly takes up Daredevil’s role as protector of the city) and we’ll see even more progression in his Season Two.
Stick had to spell out what a “thundering dumbass” Iron Fist was because the audience apparently needed it spelled out.
Is the audience happy now? I hope so. Because Rand is a good character with a lot of potential. Give the character time to grow.
krad@17:
True. I had forgotten that. But that doesn’t mean the stinger of Elektra being resurrected happened immediately. That could have happened after Bukato.
As far as Sowande being killed first. I’m sure that has more to do with him being the last Finger introduced (since Murukame is obviously a stand in for Nobu, they probably couldn’t secure the actor) than anything else. They were closing off plotlines parenthetically. Last in, first out.
My thoughts, in no particular order:
I was not happy that Sowande was the first finger to bite it. Leaving the Black Dude Dies First trope aside for the moment (and you’re right, Krad, it was spectacularly tone deaf), he was actually menacing. Bakuto wasn’t, Murakami was Diet Nobu, and Alexandra wasn’t properly utilized. Seriously, you get Sigourney Weaver as your villain, and she doesn’t get to fight any of the Defenders? Waste. At least Madame Gao was awesome, and almost certainly still alive.
I think people complain too much about Jones’ portrayal of Danny. It’s not like the writing gave him a whole lot to work with. He has good chemistry with Henwick, Dawson and Coulter (and hopefully Missick as well), and he and Dhawan (Davos) played off of each other very well, and that is all promising. Hopefully Iron Fist’s new showrunner fixes the problems.
I definitely hope that the Defenders will pop up in each others’ shows now. The interplay is one of the best things about the show, and that should continue.
I am very curious as to how Matt’s arc will continue from here. Will he be able to go back to trying to just be Matt Murdock now that he knows Elektra’s alive? He won’t be a jackass and not spread the word of his survival, will he? Will Fisk’s actions force him back into the life? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
If there’s a second season, which I hope there is, then I assume it will focus on IGH. That would reverse the dynamic where Matt and Danny have the connection to the plot and Luke and Jess are just sucked in.
@29 Daniel
A show can have all the explanation you want for why a character is terrible but that doesn’t change the fact that the character is still terrible. In order for that character to stop being terrible, you have to SHOW us that he’s not terrible anymore. They haven’t done that to Danny yet. They seem to be getting there, moving in that direction but until he changes, he’s still just annoying.
P.S. I’m not one of the haters, just someone that understands why he is hated.
Elektra pretty much explicitly stated that she was the one who killed the monks outside K’un L’un. True, she could be lying to get under Danny’s skin to make him use the Fist on the Wall, but if any one in The Hand could kill a handful of KL Monks, it’s the Black Sky, and, really, it isn’t until after they resurrected her that they were finally able to defeat The Chaste.
As for the Timeline, I don’t think there’s any concurrency going on, as evidenced by Claire. In DD Season 2, she quit her job in the hospital (where she was still working when she first met Jessica and Luke, said meeting also referencing her meeting of Matt in DD1) after which she moved back in with her mother in Harlem and reconnected with Luke. At the end of LC, we see her find a flyer for Colleen’s dojo, which is where we find her in IF (which also references Luke currently being in jail).
Either way, with apparently only a short amount of time between Bokuto’s “death” and Danny’s return to KL, Elektra had to have been resurrected before the start of IF. (Unless she’s lying, but, again, I don’t think she is.)
Ah, well, it wouldn’t be a comic book adaptation without numerous plot holes. I still enjoyed it (although half the fun is actually pointing out the plot holes).
P.S. I, too, was disappointed with no Matt/Claire scenes, or acknowledgement that it’s weird that she happens to know all of them.
Daniel: Actually, there’s no “of course” about it. In fact, I’d expect someone who was raised in such an ascetic lifestyle by monks who trained him hard in the ways of kung fu to be the exact opposite of what we saw in Iron Fist season 1. In fact, you know what I’d expect him to act like? The guy in Marvel Premiere #15-24, Iron Fist #1-15, and Power Man & Iron Fist #48-125 back in the 1970s & 1980s……
Danny Rand wasn’t “granted” super powers, he earned those super powers after a lifetime of training and discipline. If the people who wrote and produced Iron Fist actually understood anything about martial arts, they’d have gotten that. Hell, if they’d actually understood the comic book character they were basing it on, they’d have gotten that. They didn’t.
Martial arts in general and kung fu in particular teach you a respect for life, a centering of yourself, an awareness of mind and body and spirit, a sense of discipline, precisely zero of which is in evidence in the Danny Rand of the MCU despite him having been utterly immersed in that lifestyle from ages 10-25. I’ve watched kids who grow up taking martial arts in my dojo turn into selfless, good, kind, strong adults, and they’re just taking classes a couple times a week at a dojo that teaches a version of martial arts that is significantly watered down from what Rand was studying in an ancient city buried in another dimension for fifteen years.
Everything in Iron Fist’s background indicates that he shouldn’t have to go on the journey you describe. Instead, his journey is in assimilating back into Western civilization (which is the journey the comics’ version of Danny Rand has been going on since 1973). Instead, he adapted pretty much instantly to modern NYC and instead, learned absolutely nothing from the background he is stated to have had.
Steven Barnes, also a martial artist, and a great speculative fiction author, had a great rant on the subject on his blog:
Here’s the whole thing:
https://stevenbarneslife.wordpress.com/2017/08/21/finally-figured-out-my-reaction-to-iron-fist/
So please don’t tell me that I don’t understand the point of Rand in season 1 of Iron Fist. I understand it fine. Well enough to know that it was completely wrongheaded.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@35/krad: But does every martial arts student gain the same insight? I mean, there’s always a bell curve. Isn’t it possible that the occasional student could somehow learn all the techniques but still miss some of the most important parts? I’m reminded of a high school classmate of mine who, after three or four years of Spanish class, had a pretty good grasp of the vocabulary and grammar but had learned exactly nothing about how to pronounce the language, reciting the words exactly the way an American English speaker who didn’t know a word of Spanish might read them phonetically. (Which was grating for me to listen to since I was the opposite — the pronunciation came far more easily to me than the rest.) Sometimes it’s bewildering what people fail to pick up in the course of an education. Or what habits they’re simply too stubborn to unlearn.
Of course, it is hard to believe that someone who missed the point to that extent could excel enough to attain the Iron Fist.
Christopher: but he wasn’t just an occasional student of martial arts. Sure, plenty of martial artists miss the point and the discipline and other lessons don’t take, but those people rarely get very far. I’ve seen plenty of people who couldn’t get that part, but they didn’t stay very long in the dojo. They certainly don’t rise to the pinnacle of an entire city utterly dedicated to the martial arts and earn their greatest prize. This wasn’t just a class he took a few times a week, this was his entire childhood. Sure, it’s possible that the lessons wouldn’t take, but then there’s no fucking way he’d become the immortal Iron Fist.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
For centuries old mystical warlords, the leaders of The Hand (with the exception of Madame Gao) sure aren’t very impressive.
I know it’s probably just bad writing, but I have to wonder if maybe Danny wasn’t supposed to become the Iron Fist? He seems to be ignorant of a lot of stuff about his purpose, about his powers, about the Hand, that a properly trained Iron Fist would know.
I could see an argument that the Hand arranged for Danny to be orphaned in Kun-Lun, then become the Iron Fist, but be so ill-suited that he’d bring the power to New York, where the Hand need him to be, and where he has no support from the rest of Kun-Lun, while at the same time leaving Kun-Lun undefended. That requires some serious Long Game planning (which the Hand specializes in), but also a very unlikely series of coincidences, but…comics, everybody!
Krad, do you recognize the Martial Arts styles Danny and Matt were using?
Overall I liked the series, but there were two glaring problems. The first is that all the individual shows are different genres which lead to some bad tonal clash at times. Keeping a character from a superhero show, a feminist noir, blacksplotation, and 80s martial arts all pointed in vaguely the same direction and acting in ways to move a superhero plot forward barely, and sometimes didn’t, work. Second is that a big appeal for the Netflix shows is the secondary characters and except for Claire and Colleen they were sidelined. Trish was in one fight scene and never even threw a punch. Personally I think the series might have benefited from having an episode between six and seven that was just the side characters comparing notes, drawing conclusions, and coming up with the final plan from inside the 29th. Not a plan they can execute on their own, but a plan.
Also while I like some of the new status quo introduced in the epilogues there were too many of them. It was like watching Return of the King again and praying that the next ending would be the last. Also while I want Misty to get her cyberarm and team up with Colleen that also means there is no friend on the force character for the next season of Luke Cage. For all I like Luke his show needs that character to keep him out of jail and cover for the fact that he is not a detective.
Finally, I’ll cop to kind of liking Iron Fist. It was far from the best of the series (still better than second season DD, but not by much) and it was poorly structured. Putting the boring corporate stuff that Danny sucks at in the front of the season left a bad taste when it shifted to its proper genre in the back half. (Kind of a reverse of Luke Cage’s problem where the back half of the series was Diamondback the uninteresting cliche villain.) It would have helped that series immensely to have more goofy Danny and less angry angst-driven Danny.
@41/tarbis: But part of the fun of comics is the way characters from radically different genres can cross over and team up and clash over their contrasts. Look at the founding Avengers in the comics — a tech-suited billionaire, a Norse god, a horror-story monster, a pair of sci-fi shrinking heroes, and a WWII super-soldier. Or the Justice League — an alien, a pulpy detective, an Amazon princess, an underwater adventure hero, etc. Heck, in the comics, Luke Cage and Iron Fist have been a team almost since their creation, a deliberate choice to mash up two ’70s film genres and play them against each other.
And that’s the fun of this as well, seeing how these characters react to each others’ genre conventions. Jessica can’t take Daredevil’s costume seriously, nobody can take Danny’s chi powers seriously, Luke’s street-level concerns clash with Danny’s focus on an ancient mystical battle, Misty thinks it’s weird that Colleen walks around with a katana, etc. It’s a feature, not a bug.
@42: It can be a feature, but it can also be a bug. Except for the Hulk all of those classic Avengers characters came from the superhero genre and its conventions at the time. (Dual identities, costumes, general concern for the public good, larger than life threats, rogues galleries, and a public that knew they existed.) You’ll also notice the Hulk’s tenure with the team was short because a horror character did not work there. If you have a small enough group, say two, then clashing genres aren’t a problem especially if the story isn’t trying to fit a particular genre. Just like you can have one or two characters from outside of the genre in a team of six or more without issue. Unfortunately in this case it was a bug, you ended up with a superhero show that had one superhero (and based on the ending maybe a proto-superhero), but darn it that was going to be the show’s genre no matter what kind of plot contortions were needed to keep it on track.
@43/tarbis: The point is that what we call the “superhero genre” is itself an eclectic mashup of different genre influences, from pulp adventure to science fiction to fantasy. What made the Marvel Universe so distinctive in the ’60s was that it was folding in elements from the horror and romance/soap-opera comics that had been Marvel’s bread and butter in the ’50s. The Fantastic Four was essentially a sci-fi horror comic in its first two issues, not becoming a superhero comic until issue 3. There are “superheroes” whose genre origins are fantasy and the occult (Zatanna, Dr. Fate, Dr. Strange), horror (the Demon, Blade, Man-Wolf), Westerns (Jonah Hex, Vigilante), jungle adventure (Ka-Zar, B’Wana Beast), etc. as well as the usual sci-fi and pulpy crime stuff. Nick Fury originated as a character in combat adventure comics (set in WWII but published in 1963) before being reinterpreted as a present-day superspy (though that started only 7 months later). Heck, Patsy Walker (Trish Walker in the shows) was a starring character in Marvel’s teen-romance humor comics (in the vein of Archie) for over 30 years before being incorporated into superhero comics as Hellcat.
So superheroes are to genres what English is to languages — a chaotic mashup of mismatched elements from countless different sources, somehow managing to function as a cohesive whole.
Besides, you’re dead wrong to say that Daredevil is the only superhero. Being a superhero isn’t just about wearing a costume or using a code name. The most obviously heroic character in the group is Luke Cage. He’s basically the Captain America or Superman counterpart here, the most straightforwardly noble and heroic member, the one who most strongly wants to do good, the one who’s an admired role model in his community and brings out the best in the people around him.
@44: We’re going to keep talking past each other here.
From my position a genre is a collection of tropes, markers, and story forms. Where those markers, forms, and tropes originated is not the definition of the genre, but how they are blended forms the basis of the genre. Superhero stories as a genre is not defined by character origins but by the story forms and genre markers they interact with. Similarly a character could act in a superhero universe without being in the superhero genre. For instance Dr. Strange acts as a superhero and embraces some genre markers, but avoids a number of genre markers such as dual identities making him an edge case.The comic book version of Luke Cage started out in the superhero genre and has drifted back and forth depending on the writer for decades. Jonah Hex’s only superhero genre marker is a couple recurring villains making him clearly a Western, Horror, or Science Fiction character depending on the publication period.
Concerning Luke Cage’s heroism I would never declare the television version to be unheroic. But that would not make him automatically part of the superhero genre. Fiction is full of characters in every genre who are heroic, but unless the character leans into the forms and trappings of the superhero genre they are not a superhero. Even through their conduct and goals are no less heroic for being in a different genre.
@45/tarbis: You’re trying too hard to build walls between genres. Comics have been gleefully smashing and ignoring those walls for 80 years. Again: the whole point of this miniseries was to take these four very different characters and worlds and see what happened when they were mashed together. The Avengers was the same way. Joss Whedon said that a large part of what attracted him to the project was the fact that it was a team made up of people who, by all rights, should never have been on the same team. The mismatch is the point.
I think Danny was still an arrogant, entitled, self-centered fool, but the story needed him to be. His insistence on going it alone put him at odds with the others, which led to him being captured, and then when fighting Elektra, he was too dumb to realize he was playing right into her hands.
While that second part is entirely on Danny, I felt like the first part was on everybody–on Danny, for insisting he had to be on the front lines; on the others, for deciding that the best way to handle that was to make him easier to kidnap by tying him to a chair; and most of all, on Stick, for creating a situation where he was the only person who could stop Elektra and then failing to do so. I feel like it was a general failure of teamwork, appropriately for Marvel’s non-team.
My overall impression of the show is that it was fun, it had some great moments, was never dull for more than a few minutes at a time… but it was never excellent or riveting. It was okay, and that’s all.
@3 – Perene: I agree, that final fight was meh, dark, and quite confusing.
@5 – krad: It doesn’t use Danny as a corporate CEO, just as a rich kid with connections to the company. He doesn’t do anything CEOish.
@7 – Sophist: I’m torn between B- and C+.
@9 – Anthony: I agree, Alexandra is underused.
@32 – Wizard72: I think DD3 will start with Matt believed dead by the world, and Daredevil operating from the shadows.
@41 – tarbis: That’s right, I would have liked to see Trish throw a punch or two.
Some of my own thoughts, I scribbled them down as I watched the show (preparing my review for my podcast):
* Great intro.
* God, no, Danny hallucinating in planes again.
* The change of photography, music, etc, between characters in the first episodes was a bit jarring. I didn’t really like it.
* Slooow first episode.
* Danny is still an idiot, but I like him.
* DAT POWER MAN AND IRON FIST JOINT POSTURING!!! AT LAST!!!
* Get Danny a costume, dammit, the Iron Fist actually has a costume in this world!
* Better Danny fights, good.
* Secondary characters were good, but I would have liked to see Trish throw a punch or two.
* Am I the only one that noticed that Alexandra mostly wears Iron Fist colors? (Mostly the newer white uniform, but also green and yellow at one point).
* I was a bit disappointed that Alexandra wasn’t a previously existing Marvel villain, but I’m glad that good she’s doesn’t have the epxlosive fury Fisk or Harold had
* In the end, she gets shortchanged
* Danny repeats “Immortal Iron Fist” a lot, along with Alexandra’s “I’m very old” overt hints, totally telegraphing the Hand’s endgame.
* Around episode 5 or so, there’s an episode where a large part of the time is taken up by characters having conversations in the police station. That was a bit boring.
* Really liked the subway scene.
* LOVED Luke and Jessica staring at costumed Matt.
* DANNY YOU IDIOT, DON’T PUNCH THAT WALL!!!
* The final fight in semi darkness and close shots made it hard to see what was going on, and having it intercut with Colleen’s fight with Bakuto didn’t help.
* How the hell is Bakuto bullet proof? We’ve seen the other Fingers take damage from swords (don’t remember bullets) and punches, and even if he doesn’t feel pain (recent resurrection has him in overdrive?), why didn’t the three shots he took to the chest at least throw him to the ground?
* Elektra reasserting her name (over Black Sky) and then taking control of the Hand makes little sense.
* That scene with Foggie and Karen waiting for Matt while everybody sees their loved ones come in is brilliant, even though we know he’s not dead.
* Sister Maggie!
Anyone else bothered by the extraneous explosions when the building came down? It seemed pretty clear that the team only got one bomb set so why wasn’t there only one explosion? It’s not like the audience doesn’t know what it looks like when a building collapses from a single point of failure.
I would have like to see more of Luke Cage just ignoring fancy martial arts moves. They could have made a point that the Fingers and/or Hand minions needed to adapt to his super power since his body just doesn’t react the science of beating people up expects. They played it for laughs in his fight with Danny but don’t do much more with it.
I’m not sure if I would have been happier to see Danny if I’d made through the first episode of Iron Fist but I’m probably going to skip his scenes on re-watching. Poor tragic billionaire, is he actually good at anything? JJ is a good PI, MM is hinted at being a good lawyer, Cage is a good hero but Danny just fights. He didn’t seem notably good at it, either.
ETA @48 Foggy and Karen watching an empty doorway is going on my list of metaphors. It was a good way to get us to care for an obvious not-death.
I’m hearing some people complain about Alexandra not being a strong enough villain, but I like the fact that she was basically a red herring. It bothered me that they put a white woman in charge instead of going with Madame Gao as the big bad. It felt like they were succumbing to pressure to cast a prominent white actress. So I liked it that it was basically a Janet-Leigh-in-Psycho fakeout, and that she was tossed aside so that the two established Asian actresses, Wai Ching Ho and Elodie Yung, could emerge as the real lead villains that they’d been set up to be all along.
Indeed, I noticed a similar theme on both the hero and villain sides — Danny and Alexandra being the voices of white privilege, asserting leadership roles and pushing everyone else to do things their way, but facing resistance from the rest of their diverse groups and finding out they weren’t as automatically in charge as they assumed.
Did anybody else initially think something went wrong with your stream when the sudden, intrusive hip hop music started during the fight down in the hole? Took me a few seconds to realize that was part of the sound track and it totally ruined the rest of the scene for me. It made absolutely no sense.
Austin: Yeah, that music cue kinda fell down. It didn’t actively ruin the scene for me, but it was jarring.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I enjoyed the series. There were several plot holes/inconsistencies. One that bothered me is the varying “power-level” of the leads, specifically Jessica and Luke. I started to go into detail and stopped. In general, it seems like those two in particular were more powerful in their own series than they are here. Which, comics, I guess.
This series actually made me much more “OK” with the portrayal of Danny Rand. I don’t see him so much as a “spoiled rich kid,” but rather an arrogant “everything they teach in K’un L’un is better” guy. He’s a martial arts mystical hipster. “I was training to fight the Hand before it was even cool.” He’s still an idiot for getting manipulated into punching the wall.
I disagree with a few things in your article, Keith, but I’m not going to debate them – I feel like they my disagreement is all opinion-based as opposed to fact-based (and the one item that is fact-based – that it was made perfectly clear why it had to be the Iron Fist that opened the wall – has already been pointed out), but I sure am glad you posted it. A great read, much like the rest of your articles – and one of the few things I still come back to Tor.com for.
@53/Kalvin: That’s interesting, because I was thinking that they seemed to increase Daredevil’s powers. He was sensing things happening hundreds of meters down at the bottom of an elevator shaft, smelling things a dozen blocks away, etc. It went beyond enhanced senses to virtual clairvoyance at times.
And I don’t think they decreased Jessica’s powers any. I mean, she held up a whole elevator with one hand for about a minute. That’s pretty amazing. I don’t remember her doing anything on quite that level in her own show. I also liked the bit at the end of episode 4 where the SUV smashed through the front of the restaurant, and I expected Jessica to get out of the driver’s seat, but then she came in from behind it — she’d shoved it up to that speed rather than driven it. That drove home, no pun intended, what a powerhouse she was.
@54 – Which reminds me; can Jessica fly or not? It seems they love to hint about that rather than just showing it. We’re suppose to infer that was how she got behind Matt when he was following her, right?
Whenever Trish was on-screen (all of twice, I think), I kept mentally referring to her as “Hellcat” in the hopes that it would nudge her to get involved in the action. Didn’t work.
@49 – noblehunter: I just loved Luke being a human shield for bullets several times.
@54 – Chris: I loved Jessica shoving that SUV, I too was expecting her to be driving.
@55 – Austin: I don’t think TV Jessica can fly, I think she can only leap really well.
@56 – Brian: As with Danny’s costume, I think Patsy as Hellcat is being reserved for the individual series (in her case, Jessica’s, of course).
@55/Austin: The comics’ Jessica can fly, but she’s gotten rusty at it since she retired from being a superhero. I think the show’s version can just jump real good. Since she never made any real effort to become a superhero, maybe she has the potential but never developed it. Or maybe she just doesn’t have it.
@daniel 29:
He was supposed to be a whiny, arrogant twerp.
I’ve seen this idea bandied about a lot since Iron Fist and sorry, but it just doesn’t add up. It’s clearly the angle the Defenders writers took, after the fact, and that was fine since it was the best way to clean up the mess. I suspect that’s the same reason why fans have taken it up, as well.
But if you look at the writing in the actual Iron Fist series, it’s clear most of those writers don’t realise that Danny’s behaviour is that of a whiny, arrogant twerp. They think it’s fine. You can tell, because the other characters don’t react as if he’s being a jerk. Best example: Danny’s behaviour towards Colleen is that of a creepy, entitled asshole. The writers have her react by falling in love with him. Either they’re writing Colleen as an idiot or they didn’t see Danny’s behaviour as wrong. Since Claire never tells Colleen that she must be out of her mind, I’m opting for the latter.
Again, I stress that the Defenders writers clearly decided that the best thing to do was go with ‘arrogant twit’ as a characterisation, so that’s certainly what we got here. But we did not get that, at least not intentionally, in the Iron Fist series.
@Christopher Bennett, 54: I found the characters’ power levels varied according to the plot. Taking the example of DD, yeah, he did some impressive stuff, but equally he completely missed Sowande noisily freeing himself about five feet from where Matt was standing. OK, he was distracted, but that hasn’t mattered on other occasions.
@59/NumberNone: “You can tell, because the other characters don’t react as if he’s being a jerk.”
Oh, I disagree. My favorite parts of Iron Fist were seeing Colleen and Claire put Danny in his place and call out his rich white male privilege for what it is.
There’s also the fact that most of the problems in IF’s whole first season are Danny’s fault for blindly bulldozing forward and demanding that he get his way in everything. Here’s what I wrote in my comment on Keith’s review of the season:
And yes, I think I also wondered why Matt didn’t notice Sowande freeing himself.
@60 He’s still a Macguffin in this series.
@60, Christopher Bennett: Oh, I disagree. My favorite parts of Iron Fist were seeing Colleen and Claire put Danny in his place and call out his rich white male privilege for what it is.
Sure, they offer one or two such comments – that’s why I added the qualifier ‘most of the writers’.
But that’s part of my point: there’s simply no consistency in the writing of Danny in that series. At other times, the same two characters treat very similar behaviour by Danny with tolerance or even with positive responses, as if he was right. They defer to him. They accept what he’s saying and doing as good and worthy. Colleen, as noted, even lets him into her life as a romantic partner, for no really obvious reason: she should be running away from this dude who invites himself into her life, refuses to respect her boundaries and makes grand gestures (designed to show off his wealth and power) that she never asked for. But instead the show has her fall for Danny.
(The inconsistency doesn’t stop there, because Danny himself has very little consistent characterisation. He’s not even consistently an asshole.)
I take those comments you refer to, which really don’t go any further than snippets of dialogue, as the episode writers commenting on the poor characterisation by the showrunner and the main writers. I guarantee you, Scott Buck thought that Danny as written was a heroic character, not a commentary on white privilege.
Christopher: Yeah, I’m with NumberNone on this — as I indicated in my review above — and I honestly think your reading of the criticism of white privilege in Iron Fist is swimming upstream against the total lack of such criticism that’s in 90% of it.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Well, note that what I said was that “I think it kinda works as an implicit commentary on… privilege,” which is not the same thing as saying “I think the writers intended it as a commentary.” What the audience can read into a story isn’t necessarily what the creators thought they were putting into it. Sometimes that’s a bad thing, because they completely miss the intended point of the work, but if the work is flawed, sometimes it inadvertently ends up as a critique of the very thing it’s trying to promote. In this case, even if they intended to portray Danny as the hero, what they ended up with instead is a story where he’s more a Macguffin and a catalyst for the problems that the other characters have to cope with.
There’s also an Easter Egg for fans of the anime Bleach. As Elektra inspects the weapons she can choose from, the very distinctive but useless in RL weapon of Bleach’s MC is on a rack in the background.
@65/Kate: If you’re talking about an oversized sword, weapons of that type are common in manga/anime (including many works significantly older than Bleach) and are based on a real type of sword that dates back a thousand years or more. So I doubt they were referencing that specific production.
Yeah, it’s not like they had a Klingon bat’leth there.
@20 Estnyc:
Not sure what your point was? Had you assumed we thought DD was alive because of this scene? If so, I suspect you had not watched till the end of the final episode. Or were you pointing out that IF seemed to have a hero costume? Or what?
@35
I think that this is a very clichéd and one dimensional view of the martial arts. People practice martial arts for a broad variety of reasons and so far I have not found a correlation between the proficiency level a person can reach and their chosen purpose to do so. I have seen excellent martial artists that train with single minded dedication to self defense or sport competitions as well as the more “philosophical” mindset you describe. Naturally, the particular skills and strengths of a martial artist will be defined by the chosen focus in training, but I would not say that the people that practice the style you describe show more dedication or become better fighters.
Kah-thurak: Yeah, but anyone who’s as immersed in it as Rand is supposed to have been would, at the very least, have a strong sense of self-discipline and control, of which there is zero evidence in this version of Daniel Rand.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@69/Kah-thurak: That may be, but Keith’s point is that K’un Lun is a culture that’s very, very dedicated to the spiritual side of the martial arts. If Danny had grown up taking weekly lessons in a New York City dojo like the one where Keith is an instructor, it’s possible he might’ve had the strictly physical focus you describe; but it’s hard to see how someone raised from childhood in a society of ascetic warrior monks could’ve been so out of touch with the spiritual and philosophical side, certainly not if he excelled enough to pass their ultimate test and become their champion.
This is the privilege problem in a nutshell. Lots of American fiction, including Iron Fist and Doctor Strange, involves white men going to Asian cultures, mastering their arts and customs better than they do, and thereby becoming their chosen champions, embodying the implicit assumption that white people are intrinsically better at everything. But in this show, Danny is manifestly not better at the spiritual and cultural insights than someone like Davos, is clearly less qualified in personality and temperament for the role of champion, and yet he still won the role anyway. And that sense of automatic entitlement, of expecting to get everything handed to you without needing to earn it, is the very essence of class or racial or gender privilege. Which would be bad enough if it were just Danny’s personality (which it is — he assumes he’s entitled to get everything he wants and gets angry when it turns out reality doesn’t work that way), but the problem is that the show’s universe accepts the premise, by giving him the Iron Fist when it’s totally illogical that he could’ve been worthy of it.
@70
Self-discipline and control can be applied differently under different circumstances. It is not exactly unthinkable that someone might master bodily self control to a very high degree but still be a selfish and arrogant person and assumes everything he wants is his due.
@71
But if you follow the internal logic of the show, this might be exactly the reason why Dany abandons K’un Lun and is so easily goaded by the Hand – he is able to learn to fight and to master the tests at K’un Lun, but, maybe because he is an outsider, never really got what they were trying to teach him beyond that. In fact this is the only way in which the character makes sense… so if you want you can see that as a criticism of the exact thing you describe.
@72/Kah-thurak: Yes, that basically is how I see it, but it doesn’t really resolve the fundamental paradox that Danny could master such a spiritual calling without having any understanding of spirituality. After all, his power comes from harnessing his chi, his spiritual energy. It is, by definition, not a strictly physical skill. It requires inner balance, calm, and insight. So it’s paradoxical that he could master it to such a degree without reflecting any understanding of the principles behind it. It’s the equivalent of the show’s other main problem, that Finn Jones fails to demonstrate anything like the physical skill that his character is alleged to have.
@73
Perhaps he simply gained that skill by mastering the final test at K’un Lun. Or, more likely the show does not care for such details ;-)
Concerning the physical skills of Finn Jones… For me personally the fight scenes in Daredevil, Iron Fist and Defenders are too sophisticated anyways. I know that the premise of these shows make this necessary, but my personal believe, that an efficient fighter who uses relativly simple techniques will beat a showy acrobatic fighter more often than not makes me tolerate these scenes more often than I enjoy them ;-)
@74/Kah-thurak: “Perhaps he simply gained that skill by mastering the final test at K’un Lun.”
That’s pretty much exactly backward — you can’t pass a test if you haven’t already mastered the skills required to pass it. That’s what tests are for — to prove mastery, not create it.
“Or, more likely the show does not care for such details ;-)”
Which is exactly the thing we’re complaining about.
The weakest character in the ensemble for me was Jessica Jones. The actor did a fine job, but her role as the apathetic antihero just didn’t gel with the rest of the group. Matt, Luke, and Danny are driven by their convictions (even if Danny’s are usually misguided); Jessica’s character is driven more to avoid convictions. She doesn’t stay out of the fight, but it takes her guilt a bit of time to force her into the action.
Maybe next season she can be more of a foil for the team. Maybe she’s convincing Matt & Luke to sit on their hands, at least until they all have to go off and rescue Danny from whatever trouble he’s brought on himself.
Maybe they just need to bring the Punisher into the team. He and Jessica can hang back, convincing themselves they don’t care … then rush in at the last minute to save the day.
Can’t wait to see what they do next!
Apart from all of the other plot holes surrounding “the substance”, how is it that a in centuries-old group of immortal super villains, that lead a global criminal organization, not ONE of them thought, “gee, maybe we should find more of this stuff that’s keeping us immortal BEFORE we totally run out”? I am glad that at least someone on the writing team seems to have seen Highlander this time though, Coleen really should have known how to kill an immortal the first time…
Colleen didn’t know Bakuto was an immortal before.
@77/Jade Phoenix: But four of the five Fingers explicitly did think that. They were angry at Alexandra for squandering the last of their supply on the Black Sky/Elektra before they could obtain more. She believed the payoff was worth the gamble, but the others didn’t agree.
@73:
Jeez. I thought the whole point was he really, really sucks at mastering his chi in Iron Fist, and he seems to have not gotten much better at it since. He can’t even call the Fist to him at will in the first show, and he loses control of it twice, and can’t call it at need, in Defenders. I thought in the show, Danny was forbidden from trying to get the Iron Fist, that his friend was supposed to go, and Danny snuck in and “stole” it. This highlights his selfishness, and the issues Danny has controlling himself throughout this run. That seems well done to me, and far more interesting. Its a commentary in and of itself on cultural appropriation. The exact opposite of how this usually goes, where the white savior masters the foreign culture. He basically “appropriates it.”, and as a result, that entire culture is destroyed. That commentary seemed very implicit to me as the first season of IF came to a close.
@77, 79:
Not to mention, they had been working on that plan to excavate the dragon’s bones for centuries. Not sure why it took that long, but Jessica’s investigation revealed that the Hand had owned that property through shell companies as far back as the 1860s, and maybe longer.
@80/Anthony Pero: The point is, chi is something that exists in all of us (according to Asian and Marvel mysticism), but it takes years of training and inner discipline to be able to summon it as a tangible energy force at all. So by all rights, Danny should’ve mastered himself better than most people before he could’ve summoned the Iron Fist to begin with, whether or not he used it well.
I agree with you about his appropriation of the IF, but it’s inconsistent that he was even able to take the power without first mastering the basics of spiritual discipline. I mean, yes, there are people who can master martial arts and turn to evil — for instance, Madame Gao appears to have her own chi powers — but Danny’s problem isn’t that he’s evil, just that he’s childish and undisciplined. That’s the inconsistency.
Seeing Luke Cage and Danny Rand engage in pissing contest after pissing contest throughout the season and end up not becoming good friends was weird to me, having those characters in my head since childhood as bros for life. Then it hit me. Could it be that hip-hop music will be the bridge that will make these two become friends later on? They made such a fuss of Danny’s love for hip-hop in Iron Fist, that I expect it to pay off in some way.
On the other hand, I liked the final shot of Danny Rand with his new Bruce Lee-inspired outfit taking up Daredevil’s job. It was a nice, if somewhat indirect, callback to the comics when Iron Fist posed as Daredevil to convince the public that Matt Murdock wasn’t the “Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.”
@82
Unless the whole philosophical model used for the “Chi” by the Monks in K’un Lun is bogus and the only thing required is the bodily self discipline and control that Rand actually does have – and maybe putting your fist in the molten heart of a dragon.
Personally I think that this inconsistency is much easier to overlook than the question why Luke Cage does not win any fight in the whole Season within 3 seconds simply by people trying to hit him breaking their hands/feet and bouncing of off him.
CLB@82:
While I won’t claim to know chi from chai, there are many paths people believe in towards this same sort of inner peace and centeredness, and I am familiar with some of them. And it is not at all uncommon for someone who has suffered a trauma like Danny has to bury part of themselves while learning these techniques, and create for themselves a false identity.
Danny in particular, seemed very “calm and centered” the first few episodes. In control of himself. Then, after being forced to confront things about his past that he had previously buried, he started coming unglued, lost control of himself, and hasn’t ever really regained it.
I read Danny as severely PTSD, and he hasn’t fully dealt with all of that yet. In his time in K’un L’un, he created a new identity for himself, and that identity subsumed Danny Rand the child. This cray-cray Danny is the result of these two Danny Rand’s trying to reintegrate with one another. Two worlds colliding. I found it very interesting. It was the actual plot of IF that I didn’t care for.
@83–Which is interesting, because I was really pleased with the Luke & Danny stuff in Defenders. A lot of it, I know, is that I was worried that as they’d been established in Netflix a friendship just wouldn’t be believable, so my expectations were low, but all the same things like Danny saying that he’d prefer to fight with Luke than against him (and then offering him the last dumpling), the “so cool” “kind of cool” exchange, and the two of them sharing stories while Danny was tied to the chair made me happy. Not to mention how, when Luke tears into Danny at the beginning, Danny listens to what he says, realizes he has a valid point, and changes his methods in response.
Obviously they aren’t the forever friends of the comics, but I thought it was a good start. And sharing musical tastes can’t hurt!
I wasn’t as taken by the series as KRAD is, mostly because of it’s unevenness (such a waste of a villain, again), but also because they were saddled with the worst version of Iron Fist I’ve ever seen. Sure, they did what they could given the baggage from the terrible IF series, but it didn’t redeem him.
Specifically in response to @29/Daniel:
It’s not some sort of natural law that Rand turn out whiny. If anything, I’d think he would be just the opposite. Anger issues once he found out what really happened to his parents, maybe, but 15 years in a magical monastery should have altered his attitude significantly. Hazy memories of the good life would likely burn away in that type of upbringing.
I still say the IF writers missed a bet by not having Danny completely indifferent to the wealth of his former life. Instead of making him spoiled, life in K’un-L’un should’ve made him centered and zen. That way he would’ve baffled the Meachums by no longer desiring what they crave more than anything. Then only have him get involved with Rand Enterprises once he discovers their involvement with The Hand, and become actively engaged and enraged once he learns the truth of his parents’ demise.
To my mind THAT would have been a far more interesting story, and it would have avoided half the problems with the Iron Fist solo series.
As it was, they kept having to work uphill against all that dumb stuff.
The other thing I didn’t buy was Luke’s constant disbelief in the Iron Fist and Danny’s talk of dragons. I mean, the guy lives in the MCU. How is a dragon different from what fell out of the sky when the Avengers fought Loki?
It was good the series was only 8 episodes instead of the typical 13-ep slog, but it still had a lot of the same problems. Jessica Jones saved it, for me. I give it a C.
I’m less enthused about The Punisher after the hit-or-miss quality of the previous Netflix Marvel shows. Also, the fact Castle has been co-opted by white supremacist Trump supporters takes the fun out of the character. The Punisher logo goes hand-in-hand with Trump bumperstickers here in New Hampshire, and it’s a drag.
Well met! I thoroughly enjoy the various Marvel series on Netflix, even the Iron Fist. I’ve never read the comics and so just enjoy the content as stand alone content.
1. The thing that I will to continue to watch otherwise bad content for the most is good casting with large ensembles. A Universe of primary and secondary characters is my TV nirvana. I really really like the cast of characters and the universe feel of it. Well met!
2. I’m glad they did not go the Deadpool route. After the Deadpool there was a lot of speculation that the industry would take a shift towards the ‘R’ rated, obscene humor route. Deadpool made a lot of money at little expense. Fortunately we have not seen that with Netfix. Hooray! Don’t get me wrong, I loved Deadpool, but too much ‘R’ rated camp happens quickly. Speaking of camp, this leads me to my next topic…
3. Hack writing. Where’s the humor? I’m thinking of the original Batman TV series with the over-the-top camp. Trace a line from that to Netflix. All the tortured souls like Dare Devil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Electra gets old without hack writing. It gets depressing. Luke Cage is a welcome respite but is just as humorless. Madame Gao is great every time she’s in a scene. Her campy, over-the-top, arguments for trying to “hypnotize” people into agreeing with are make me smile. Her sneaky, “always has an angle” presence is fun. I never watched the original Superman because it had little humor. Batman has lost its way for me with the latest movies in that it is all just tortured souls looking for their Mother now. Sooo, perhaps Netflix can spice it up a bit with some hack writing and maybe even some Sin City style comic book graphics feeling. The author mentions New York not being the set, but I also feel that ‘comic book’ is not on set either except of course the super powers and lore. I’d like it to feel a least a little more like a comic book: campy and Matrix type graphic book layering of not quite reality.
@85 – Anthony: Actually, that is a perfect explanation for why Danny is why he is. I totally agree. You’ve fixed it. Thank you. May I quote you elsewhere?
@86 – Greenygal: Yes, completely. They’re just getting started. Hopefully, they can each show up in the other one’s next season and keep on building that friendship.
@88 – Mybrid: You’re conflating “comic” with “campy”, when not all comics, and not even all superhero comics, have to be or are or were campy.