Marvel's Iron Fist - Episode 5-10 Review

And so Marvel's Iron Fist Season 2 is over. And not an episode too soon. Really. One wonders how anyone made it through the first season with its thirteen episodes. Season 2 only had ten episodes, and it seemed to go on. And on. And on.

The first question is: did Finn Jones improve as Danny Rand? Sure. There was really nowhere to go but up. It looks like Jones got some martial arts training between seasons, as his fight choreography was better. And the creative team tossed in more fights to show it off.

Although this led to a rather odd climactic battle. Danny ends up fighting Walker while Colleen fights Davos, the "big bad". I'm not sure if they pushed Danny to a lesser role because Jones could handle the extended fight choreography, they wanted to do something different, or they were trying to push the Colleen Wing spinoff series.

Maybe it's just me, but most of the Netflix/Marvel properties seem to run the same way. The main character has something major happen to them, and they go off on their own after undergoing some change. Luke Cage becomes a Harlem crime boss of sorts, and Danny becomes... a yellow-handed gunfighting super-marksman. Daredevil's fate got delayed a bit to Defenders, and he ended up dead but not really.

The plot of the last six episodes boils down to Davos crippling Danny. And Danny convincing Colleen to train him back up to fighting speed. Except she really didn't need to, because Danny decides Colleen should get the Fist instead of him. Even though he has something similar at the end of the season.

Davos tries to train a gang to become his students. Two of them turn against him, and both end up dead. Although Joy gives Davos some good advice about marketing his message in a friendlier manner, Davos grows impatient and kills a restaurant owner. Danny and Colleen try to strip the Fist power from Davos, but he escapes halfway through.

Colleen confronts Davos while Walker goes after Davos and ends up fighting Danny. Misty is along for the ride and along with Danny, takes down Walker. Who is also Mary. Who is also a third "alter" personality. Davos and Colleen poke their fingers at each other's heads, trying to take the Fist force from the other. Colleen finally proves triumphant (although they both use at least part of the Fist during their fight), and Davos gets taken away by the police.

In the final wrap-up, Danny and Colleen have a rather enigmatic conversation about where they do or don't stand. Danny finds the Dragon symbol on the back of the family medallion that Colleen eventually learned belonged to her mother. That somehow leads him to Japan to track down the supplier of the corpse Davos used to gain the Fist, and Danny takes Ward along for the ride. They end up in a bar in Japan and Danny demonstrates his new (presumably) Fist-powered shooting abilities.

Before Ward goes to Japan with Danny, he learns Bethany is having his baby but she doesn't want him involved with her.

Mary eventually reverts back to Walker, and Walker goes to Joy and demands her cooperation as she builds a new life for herself and explores the possibility she has a third "alter" personality: the one that freed her in Sokovia and is apparently even more vicious than Walker is.

Colleen has the full power of the Dragon, and channels it into her katana to become a street vigilante.

Overall, the second season was entertaining enough. Being only ten episodes helped, and even then it seemed awfully padded. There seemed a lot of time dedicated to Davos killing Triad members, and Danny realizing that he was basically addicted to the Fist's power.

Tom Pelphrey is the MVP of the season. He brought a welcome sarcasm to the entire proceeding. Simone Missick did her part, but Pelphrey was on-screen all ten episodes and had the lion's share of the attention. He went to NA, dealt with alcohol addiction, had his sister Joy reject him, and basically went through a lot of shit. More than Danny, arguably, and it was a bit more relatable. Ward is a rich asshole, as he cheerfully admits. But his problems seemed more... human than Danny's.

Getting drunk and having your family reject you, after being forced to shoot your father dead repeatedly (as Ward himself points out in episode 9, in an encounter with recurring Netflix/Marvel character Turk), is something we've all been through. Okay, maybe most of you haven't, but in general terms, it's a bit more relatable.

I'm not sure how I feel about Joy. She gets beat up pretty badly and ends up stuck with Walker. Joy never seems that sympathetic. She serves an important part in the story, helping Davos get what he wants. But her motivation is a bit unclear, particularly toward Danny. Okay, she doesn't like Ward and Ward concealed the continuing existence of Howard from her. But Danny was barely in town and there was a lot of stuff going on involving Howard and the Hand. Yes, he didn't tell Joy Howard was alive but that hardly seems worth her teaming up with Davos to strip Danny of the Fist.

So Jessica Stroup did what she could with the part. But there just didn't seem to be much there.

Sacha Dhawan and Alice Eve were both good as the relative newcomers. Mr. Dhawan had already appeared in season 1 as a main star but only in the last part of the season, and he was front and center in season 2. Davos comes across as a bit more sympathetic than in the comic books, even if he's basically portrayed as righteous jerk. Like Joy, he seems to be all about the overreaction. Yes, Davos had a lousy childhood and Danny kinda/sorta stole the Fist from him. But Danny really didn't, and eventually Danny decides he doesn't want it anyway. As Danny tells us again. And again. And again.

Alice Eve as Mary Walker was a much more interesting character. They stripped her of her comic book super powers (telekinesis and pyrokinesis) and turned her into "simply" a dangerous mercenary with a third alter lurking in the background. Eve bounces back and forth between "Mary" and "Walker". I wouldn't have thought the Typhoid Mary of the comics was a good fit for Iron Fist. But thanks in part to the adjustments they made to the character, she works here as a sometimes friend/sometimes enemy to Danny.

Simone Missick wanders in and out (mostly in) as Misty Knight, in six of the ten episodes. Her presence isn't necessary for the story to move, and the creative team seemed to be primarily interested in pushing the Knight/Wing spinoff series they apparently have in mind. Yes, Jessica Henwick and Simone Messick go well together and I'd like to see a Netflix series that deals with them as partners. But sheesh: the creative team push it again and again and again, to the point where it sometimes seems like it's the only reason Simone Missick is on Iron Fist. Let it develop organically folks, like it seemingly did for The Punisher.

The gang never did much for me, sorry. I liked Fernando Chien as Chen Wu, a Triad soldier who ended up on Davos ' side and paid the price for it at the hands of Walker in episode 9. Oddly, I also liked Andrew Cao as Liu, Mrs. Yang's security chief. Yes, he's a fictional character. Still, you have to be impressed by a guy who doesn't take shit from super-types in the increasingly superpower-filled NYC of the Netflix/MCU.

Another problem with Iron Fist is Danny seems curiously low-powered. The series is basically a martial arts TV show. It's nice the Fist got more play, and Davos showed it off killing people. But we seemed to get a lot of scenes of Danny (and then Davos) punching the ground and doing Hulk-like shockwaves. And that's the problem with the concept: is a martial artist with a super-strong glowy fist better than a martial artist without a super-strong glowy fist? It was never quite clear, which meant the stakes were never quite clear. Does Danny need the Fist to beat Davos? Or can he outfight Davos without it? The general attitude seems to be that Danny can't beat Davos, but he does pretty well for himself in their fight in episode 9. Even though Danny limps because Jones remembers to do it since his leg was shattered a few episodes back. Or maybe he was just trying to convince Davos he was weaker than he really was. They never say.

So overall, we ended season 2 with Danny and Ward on a quest to find Orson Wendell, who those who have read the comic know is an earlier Iron Fist. Danny is using the Fist (somehow) to be really good at shooting guns. Walker is hanging out with Joy. Colleen is using her glowing katana to fight street crooks and presumably waiting to form a partnership with Misty. Since they're presumably doing a season 3, it could be interesting to see where they take all this. Heck, I'd watch a Mary Walker Netflix series.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?