The Good, the (Mostly) Bad, and the Ugly: Iron Fist

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By the grace of Shou Lao or some other mystical being, I made it through the raggedy Iron Fist. Like Tisha Campbell, I am also #steelhere.

Anyways, let’s get into the review.

The Good

1. The women of Iron Fist. Amazing how there’s only one female driven Marvel property so far and yet no matter the thing, the women are always the best part. Joy Meechum, played by my 90210 fave Jessica Stroup, stole the pilot from right out under Finn Jones and never looked back. Her corporate and familial struggles felt genuine and Stroup was up to the challenge. It was great seeing Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing, whose presence made all the difference in scenes with Danny. She was bad ass and vulnerably bad ass in any moment. Claire proved really useful. Madam Gao was prob my favorite though because she dragged the hell out of everyone multiple times and continues to stir the pot, even when captured.
2. Davos. Davos doesn’t pop up until episode 10 but he brings a jolt of much needed energy and understanding to this world. More than just enjoying him drag the hell out of Danny, Davos’ righteousness about their duty and calling was nice to see. He also has a fascinating relationship with Danny because Davos wasn’t chosen to be the Iron Fist, as compelling a backstory as any of these characters. Watching him wrestle with his feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, and anger was thrilling. He also had incredible chemistry with Rosario Dawson. Kudos to Sacha Dhawan for giving such a compelling performance.
3. Bakuto. He was a distraction tbh from the main journey, but his version of the Hand was interesting to see. Plus it’s always great to see Ramon Rodriguez on screen.

The Bad

1. The directing. How on God’s green earth did this show manage to be so poorly directed? Every other Marvel show has good direction of actors and superb/definitive action scenes, and the show about a hero with martial arts is just visually uninteresting. I mean the first episode had several major moments and all of them looked silly, and it didn’t get much better. Even in the fights that are more interesting (the close quarters fight and the big brawl in ep 10, the fight in the rain in 12) prove to be shot so poorly that I couldn’t get much enjoyment out of them.
2. The Hand. So…there are two Hands one evil in name and action the other just in name? I laughed out loud when I found out Bakuto and Colleen were a part of the “good” Hand. I also think it’s silly to have this org be so damn powerful that it can never be taken down and not have your characters realize this and deal with it accordingly.
3. The (male) Meachums. I cannot believe that Iron Fist was a family drama masquerading as a superhero show and these fools were at the center of it. Listen, I loved Joy, and if this were an actual show about a capable daughter dealing with fucked up male family members in business, I’d be all for it. Unfortunately this is not, and the show is dragged down by their stuff. Ward and Harold are devoid of any kind of nuance, there’s nothing likable about the actors or their performances, and they just felt like stand ins so the show could make the Hand battle personal for Danny, which it already was given his Iron Fist duties.
4. The Love Story. I get that Danny would be infatuated with Colleen and given his vow of chastity that he’d be raring to go, but I am not sold on Colleen’s feelings. This show rushed the development of their relationship to try and justify some plot twists later in the series.
5. The World-mention heroes and they don’t show up

The Ugly

1. Danny Rand’s garbage characterization. I don’t think I have ever watched a TV with a main character as epically stupid as Danny Rand. Like some billionaire Frankenstein’s monster of Scott McCall and Clary Fairchild with a dash of stupid on top, Danny continually made piss poor decisions. What kind of training did he receive in Kun Lun? This man got back to New York and immediately started telling everyone he was the Iron Fist, shook up his company without a plan, and made choice after choice that more resembled a child than a trained warrior. Where’s the discipline? The foresight? Danny is a hothead one minute, a child the next, the Iron Fist the next, and my spirit was weary by episode 3…and there were 10 more to go. And how did he not recognize Harold’s deception from moment one? Just awful.
2. Danny’s journey. I know people have dragged this show for being white privilege-y but in all honesty, it wasn’t enough of that. They gave us just a dash of each of Danny’s lives but didn’t go in depth into any of them. Only once in this series did I feel like Danny was given a challenge befitting his character, the fight with the Spider Woman in episode 5. That blending of one of his weaknesses (chastity) was brilliant, but they abandoned that.
3. Flashbacks to Kun Lun/plane crash. Awful, just awful.
4. Theme. Thinking about all the other Netflix shows, one of the reasons why they were varying degrees of successful, was because they had strong central themes. Having watched 13 episodes of Iron Fist, I couldn’t tell you what the hell the theme of this show was or how anything that happened contributed to his journey. Everything felt so surface level and boring.
5. WHAT IS THE POINT OF HAVING A CHARACTER LITERALLY EXPLAIN HOW TO KILL A HAND MEMBER AND THEN NOT HAVE OUR HEROES DO IT? UGH, THEY NEED TO CALL PUNISHER TO HANDLE SOME SHIT CAUSE THESE FOOLS ARE GARBAGE.

Marvel/Netflix Rankings

1. Daredevil Season 1
2. Jessica Jones
3. Daredevil Season 2
4. Luke Cage
5. Iron Fist

About Post Author

Terence Johnson

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