It’s finally here. This is what we’ve spent a few years of building up to in the Netflix section of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s taken Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Daredevil again, Luke Cage and Iron Fist to set everything up for this. The big question is now that it’s finally here, and we’re half way through, was it worth the wait? Well, I’m purposefully pausing at the half way point to think that through, reflect on where we’re at, and discuss everything about the series so far. Here are my Talking Points.
Just for your information, this will likely be FULL of spoilers. Wouldn’t be much fun having talking points about something if I couldn’t actually talk about it, would it?
Picking Up Where We Left Off
So, with five separate seasons of build up to this, and each being very individually built up with no existing relationship (bar Luke Cage in Jessica Jones), where do we begin?
I did wonder how things would start, after all we left things in interesting positions for most characters. Matt Murdock had lost Electra and defeated the Hand and was basically on the verge of hanging up his tights. Danny Rand had found that the gate back to K’un-Lun was closed and the Hand had clearly been there. And, of course, Luke Cage was being taken to prison. In fact, the only character who seemed like she was in a place where a team-up would come at a good time was Jessica Jones, whom we left on the verge of potentially finding out about how she got her powers. I was worried, therefore, that Defenders wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense when it started out and… it… kind of did? Danny’s involvement made sense at least. He’s been hunting the Hand for the last few months, it seems. Matt’s off being a lawyer, with his supporting cast enjoying their new jobs, and Foggy even being the reason that Matt met Jessica. But they chose this moment to release Luke from prison? How long was he even in there?!
The explanations – or lack thereof – for how all the characters’ solo stories ended up were a little less than satisfying, but then if we got too bogged down in that I guess we’d never get to the actual teaming up part, would we? I won’t say that it took too long to get there either, but it did take a while. When it happened however it was more satisfying that we’d had some build to it. It worked like the Avengers uniting worked in the movie. We got reintroduced to the characters – which I guess is useful if you didn’t watch all the solo series, and is useful to remind you what happened at the ending of each – and then they went about their business, each somehow getting mixed up in the same situation. But we’ll get to that. Overall, I’ve got to say I quite liked the way we were reintroduced to things, I’d just have liked some more explanation for what happened at K’un-Lun and why it was that Luke Cage was being released at that particular moment.
The Villains: Old Faces With Something New
What can be a big enough threat to unite four heroes who’ve had nothing to do with each other so far? It’s the Hand, of course! They’re back (again)… but this time with a slight twist.
I can imagine a few people being unimpressed by the fact that the Hand are the main villains. We’ve seen them before, after all. They’re not new. They’re not particularly fresh. Yet they do make a LOT of sense! They were the major villains for the second season of Daredevil. They were the major villains throughout Iron Fist. They’re one of the most infamous sets of villains in Marvel history (says someone who’s read too many Wolverine comics). Plus… what else is there? The thing about the villains for this series is they need to be big enough to be a legitimate threat to the characters we’ve seen introduced while not being SO big that you’ll be sitting there wondering when Iron Man is going to show up with whoever is left in the Avengers, because if the entire city was under threat by some all-powerful threat then why WOULDN’T the Avengers get involved? No matter what Tony has been through in Captain America: Civil War it’s more than obvious that he’s still doing Avengers stuff. We saw that in Spider-Man Homecoming. So, the Hand fit the criteria here. They’re more than threatening enough, without being so evil that someone’s going to get on the phone to Stark.
They’ve done enough with the Hand here that they’re interesting again as well. We’ve got a little less mystery to them this time. Admittedly this has come because of a bunch of exposition, but then how else do you explain it? We’ve been introduced to Alexandra, the apparent leader and one of the five-fingers of the Hand. We’ve learned how the Hand came about, and how they’re connected to K’un-Lun, which was more than we got throughout Iron Fist. More importantly though we’ve seen Alexandra’s secret weapon, and found that clearly, she was pulling the strings behind the scenes in Daredevil Season 2, as we’ve got the return of Elektra, resurrected with no memory of her past as the perfect killing machine for the Hand. The villains are set up well for me. Their plot I’m less enamoured with, mostly because I’m not entirely sure what it is they want quite yet. They need Iron First for some reason that’s connected to K’un-Lun, so I’m looking forward to seeing exactly what that’s about. What is he the key to unlock? I guess all will be revealed…
The Players: How Do They Fit Together?
So, we picked up where the individual series’ left off, but how do the characters come together, and how do they fit together? The answer to that is “in a satisfying way”.
I was eager to see them get to the point that the four of them unite. I was. But if they’d just all met up in the first episode then I can’t see how that would have made much sense. They decided to draw it out a little, give each character their own path and their own motivations that followed on from the solo series’ and that worked for me. After all, these are characters that don’t exactly fit together. You’ve got a blind ninja lawyer who’s trying all he can to give up the ninja side of his life and refocus himself on his career, helping people in the more traditional sense and using his brain, rather than his fists. You’ve got an ex-con who’s just trying to do right by his neighbourhood and the kids in it. You’ve got an angry, somewhat petulant billionaire who’s still adapting to being back in the world. And you’ve got a very bitter detective who’s far happier just being left alone and didn’t want to be involved in any of this. These people aren’t “super heroes” in the traditional sense. They don’t have bright costumes or signals you can shine in the sky for them to rush into action. They’re four very individual people with their own sets of problems… and the beginning of the series leading up to their unification told that in a brilliant way.
Now they are together the question is how do they fit together, and the answer is “not well”, which is what makes it satisfying. There’s a thing in comic-books about superhero team-ups. You see it all the time. More often than not it’s two characters who shouldn’t really be best buddies but who randomly know everything about one another enough that they can work flawlessly together as best buddies and hug and want to be friends. Hell, remember in Batman vs. Superman where, after spending the whole movie wanting to murder him until he found out his mum’s name, Bruce claimed he was “friends” with Clark? I do. It still makes me sad to this day. I do NOT need a repeat of that. And we haven’t gotten it. There’s the pre-existing relationship between Jessica and Luke hanging over them both at this point which has been referenced without being explicitly talked about in depth but makes their interactions friendlier than the others while at the same time like there’s definitely that difficulty hanging over them. There was the original clash between Luke and Danny which, along with showing how bad-ass Luke Cage is, also gave them reason not to trust one another until they found out their respective girlfriends are friends. And then there’s Matt, who just doesn’t want to get involved in any of it and for good reason, as he said himself that the last time he was involved with the Hand it didn’t work out well for him.
It makes these four individuals feel very much like four individuals who are forced together by circumstance, not who are just crossing over with one another and becoming best friends. Will friendships come of it? I kind of hope not, or once again when something happens to one, why would they not immediately call on the others? It’s the same argument that you could make for the movies, which has been handled well in the movies. Right now they’re not friends, but like it or not they all need each other. Jessica already chose “not” and decided to go back and do her own thing, only to get dragged back together with them again when she found out her client was now being watched and there was zero chance of that ending unless she did something about it. Matt’s been roped in too, despite his objections, because of Elektra’s involvement, because of Stick showing up, and because while he’s resisting the urge he’s still Daredevil and he can make a difference. Meanwhile Danny and Luke have gone from butting heads to sitting at the table and talking, both wanting the same thing for different reasons, with Luke especially seeing how future for them beyond that. It’s all been well handled to this point, and it feels true to the characters we’ve seen so far, and not just “another team up”.
The Story So Far
We’ve already talked a little about the story in the first half, but let’s go into a little more detail. What IS the story, and is it good enough?
We’re introduced to the big bad. She’s not got too much of an explanation when we meet her, just that she’s apparently dying, which I guess sucks for her? Her impending death however has pushed up the plans she had with everyone’s favourite Hand leader Gao, but what they’re plan is exactly hasn’t been explained in detail. I’m ok with that though. So far we know it has something to do with K’un-Lun and something to do with Danny Rand being the “key” to what was originally called a “wall” but which Alexandra views more as a “door”. That’s intriguing. What is it exactly? Is it something she needs BECAUSE she’s dying? The Hand’s whole thing is about wanting to be immortal after all, so perhaps she thinks if she can get hold of whatever this is it’ll stop her from dying? However she’s going about it she clearly has Elektra to help her. The Black Sky has been reborn, and is an ever intriguing part of the plot, especially when it came to her fight with Matt. Did she hesitate? Is that why she didn’t kill him? Does she remember him? Is she the merciless killing machine that Alexandra thinks she is? Does she remember her past? She went and picked up the sai when she had a room full of weapons to choose from… so does she still have a link to who she used to be?
Then there’s the continuation of the solo stories. The relationship between Misty and Danny, the relationship between Claire and Luke, the friendship between Claire, Misty and Danny leading to the first proper talk between Luke and Danny, and how simply Luke laid things out for Danny, thinking of him as a spoiled rich kid and kind of having a point. Matt’s continuing his life, he’s clearly still pining for Karen, while Foggy is now giving him work to keep him out of the costume. And Jeri Hogarth is one of his bosses, leading to a connection between Daredevil and Jessica Jones that was very cool to see play out through their supporting casts. The connection to Midland Circle as well, previously mentioned in Daredevil and Iron Fist, was a nice link between them, with Matt warning Jessica to get out the moment she walked in, blissfully unaware of what was about to happen between Danny and Alexandra upstairs, while Luke was there to get answers of his own. The way everything has tied together, and their encounter and then fleeing from the Hand, followed by their uniting with Stick at the restaurant that they’re trying to hide out in – and Jessica just walking out on them – has all been entertaining. I’ve enjoyed the story to this point, even if the plot of Alexandra and co is still a little vague. Still, it’s the Hand… whatever they want can’t be good, right?
The Costumes… or Lack Thereof
I spoke about these being individual people with their own problems and not “superheroes” ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. And they’re not. They don’t even have costumes. And… that kind of makes me a little sad.
Full disclosure: I loved the first season of Daredevil, and when he got the costume toward the end I had goosebumps on my goosebumps in excitement. It was such a fantastic moment to see that, and his donning the costume in the second season was so damn fun. The others don’t have that. I mean, Luke Cage/Powerman doesn’t really have a costume even when he’s in the Avengers. Well, he has something he’s known for wearing, but it’s not really a bright shiny costume. Neither does Jessica Jones. But Iron Fist does, and Daredevil does, and so far they’ve purposefully shied away from putting them in their costumes. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. The WORST thing they could do is adapt the costumes too literally from the comic books, after all what works on the pages of comics doesn’t always work in real life, and green and yellow spandex for Danny would make us all extremely sad. But… it’d be nice to see SOME kind of costumes for them all, especially Daredevil. He’s not exactly “the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen” without it, is he?
We got a glimpse of his costume in the crate where clearly he wanted to leave it. Still, I’m hopeful it comes back. I’m also hopeful that Danny ends up in something that’s in some way related to his days in K’un-Lun – even if the others mock it, but especially if Jessica mocks it – which he says is to do with his training. I don’t want green and yellow spandex, but some kind of shirt with the logo on it (rather than it just being on his chest) would be nice. And I’d love to see Luke end up in something akin to his best known attire from the comics. Again, I’m not talking an exact copy of it, but just something to pay tribute to it. They’re NOT superheroes, they’re just people with special abilities who’ve managed to get themselves caught up in a really bad situation, but it’d still be nice to pay tribute to where they came from with some kind of nod to the comics outfits. After all, what’s worng with a little fan service now and then?
Fan Service: It’s Not Always A Bad Thing
It’s really not. Too much of it can be. Having huge plot holes because you’re expected to have insider knowledge based on comic books is just bad. But a little fan service gives the fans that little extra something to squeal about, and while we haven’t gotten costumes yet we’ve got some very nice fan service…
The bits I’ve particularly smiled about was Elektra in a red outfit, and so much of the conversation in the restaurant between Danny and Luke. The outfit they’ve put Elektra in was a nice touch. It’s not too in your face, it’s not mega “superheroine”, but it’s a nice nod to where she came from in the comics and that’s exactly what I’m hoping for when it comes to Iron Fist in the future. Her reaching for the sai was another. Yes, it’s also a call-back to Daredevil, and quite possibly an indication that she remembers more than she’s meant to, but it was also a nice touch to see her reaching for something that she’s used in the past to such iconic effect. I really can’t imagine Elektra without them, and while she was kicking all kinds of ass with the other weapons while she was training earlier it was still damn nice to see her reaching for the classics. It’s fan service like this which gives the fans something extra to buzz about while also not doing any harm to the show or the story or the characters that we’ve got on screen.
The same is true for the conversation between Luke and Danny. Them sharing food, chatting, talking about them working together, and seeing Claire and Misty bringing them together, was all just fantastic. It made me hope that RATHER than doing a Luke Cage season 2 or an Iron Fist season 2 we’ll get a “Heroes for Hire” season in the future, and why not? I can see these two working together, I really can, not least of all because in their first proper conversation Luke got into Danny’s head and made him realise he has more options available to him than kicking and punching. The Danny we’ve seen in his own series and this series so far NEEDS someone like Luke to help him. He’s got incredible power, and incredible skill, but this version of Danny Rand is not a schemer, he’s not come up with the greatest plans, and he needs someone with the kind of “street-smarts” (for lack of a more appropriate term) that Luke has in abundance. A little fan service here can go a long way, and seeing them become more sociable as the season goes on is not something I’ll object to in the least.
The Good, The Bad & The Excelsior
There’s been some things about the show I’ve not been crazy about, but there’s also been a lot that I’ve liked so far. Overall though I’d have to say there’s far more positive than negative.
One bad point is that it very much relies on you having watched the solo series. If you didn’t watch Daredevil then you don’t really need to know his story to understand Matt Murdock, but when Stick was first revealed then that would have been a completely pointless reveal for anyone who hadn’t watched the previous seasons of Daredevil. Another is, as much as I’ll say I enjoyed the build up to it, the pace of the first half. It definitely feels like there’s a lot still to happen in the second half of the series, and perhaps the first four episodes could have done with a slightly faster pace. It would likely have meant cutting back on the individual story element a little, but perhaps that could have worked? Did we need to see as much as we did? It did feel like a continuation of the past series, which is good, but it could have still felt like that if they’d picked up the pace and potentially ended episode 3 in the same place as they ended episode 4. I think both Luke Cage and Iron Fist suffered with pacing problems as well, and Defenders unfortunately seems to have inherited that thus far.
There’s a lot of good to counterbalance that, however. Most of that good for me has come from Matt Murdock and Jessica Jones, with emphasis on the latter. Seeing her cast return – including Trish, who I’m still hopeful for turning more into her comic counterpart in the future – was nice as it feels like entirely too long since we’ve seen those characters. Seeing Matt’s struggle, and knowing that Foggy may have moved past their partnership but was still willing to reach out and help Matt in the only way he could figure out, was very cool as well. Having Foggy take the order from Hogarth, who’d previously warned Jessica not to get involved, to protect her when the cops took her in was even cooler, and the best “first meeting” between the characters for me. In truth the dynamic between all the characters has been a high point for me. They haven’t rewritten these characters to fit a team-up. They haven’t lost their individual charms by being thrown in together. I was a little worried that a different team of writers would have that effect (again, as you see in the comics so often), but it really hasn’t.
Another good has to be the fight scenes thus far. The first meeting between the four of them, and Matt’s subsequent battle with Elektra, was one of the highlights of the first half of the season. I absolutely adored that scene in the first season of Daredevil where Matt goes to rescue the kid and we just see him brawling with so many of the hired guns in the hallway. The scene in season two, which led to an amazing fight through a building and in a stairwell, was superb as well. Defenders has kept that going. It would truly have sucked to not have seen that same level of intense fight scene now that there’s four characters to work with and yet this scene didn’t try too hard to show what they were all doing, it used the characters for their individual strengths just perfectly. Danny hiding behind Luke as the hail of bullets came his way was a great moment, for example, and them all retreating into the elevator to escape was great as well. Scenes like this are one of the things I’ve loved about the Netflix series over the MCU movies, and if they deliver more like this in the second half then I’ll likely be including them on the Episodes 5-8 blog as well.
As for the Excelsior though? Oh, for that I’ve dedicated a whole section…
“Are You On Lithium?”
It was either that quote or “Am I the only one left who doesn’t know karate?” for the title of this section to talk about the thing I’ve enjoyed most in the first half of Defenders so far: Jessica Jones!
Jessica’s individual series was my favourite of the lot, even surpassing what were an incredible two seasons of Daredevil which had me compulsively watching both. Jessica Jones is the only one of them that I had to genuinely go without sleep to continue watching, that has the rewatchability and still gets me excited to talk about and think about, and her role in Defenders so far has felt so very much like Jessica Jones season 1.5. I guess that was the intention, that the individual bits leading into their team up would feel like continuations of their individual series’, but for me the Jessica Jones bits have just been flawless. Everything from her waking up at a bar in the early morning having passed out drunk the night before to the fact that her door STILL isn’t fixed from her own series put a smile on my face. Seeing Trish helping her out, and inspiring her, also put a smile on my face, and then her interactions both with the Hand and with the others so far have just been perfect. I just love how much she scoffs in disbelief as she learns about the Hand and their story, and can you blame her for not buying into it immediately?
Danny and Matt have been through it already. Luke seems surprisingly accepting of it, even if he was questioning of it at first (especially when Danny mentioned a dragon). But Jessica, who’s problems were all created by Killgrave in her own series, who’s entire show felt grittier and darker than any of the others (bar possibly Daredevil), just walking out on them because she doesn’t have time to deal with their nonsense just felt true to the character. She doesn’t want to be involved. Why would she? She didn’t want to take the case in the first place! She doesn’t even want to take ANY cases really, does she? So, what I’ve enjoyed most is how she’s been sucked into this, how little choice she’s been given, and how in spite of her attitude she’s still trying to do the right thing and THAT’S why she’s there. She’s not there to fight an ancient evil. She’s there because she took a case, it went horribly wrong, and now she’s just trying to do right by a woman who’s already lost her husband, and a kid who’s just lot her father. Plus, she’s had the best lines in the show so far by a long way!
My Hopes For The Second Half
Those were my Talking Points for the first half, but it’s onto the second half now, and I already know what I want to see from the second half… I think.
I want to know what the Hand have in store, and what it is they need the Iron Fist for. I have a feeling it may end up being something a little cliché, but isn’t that what comic books are all about? Why shy away from that when you can play into it in the right way? I hope it won’t be that they want to murder half the world’s population, or rule the universe, or anything dumb like that. Honestly I’m hoping it’s related to K’un-Lun, because if it is then that not only gives us more excuses to find out more about the original Five Fingers of the Hand, but it also gives us a lead-in for Iron Fist season 2, which in spite of the pacing problems of the first season I do really want to see (or the aforementioned Heroes for Hire series, with Luke and Danny teaming up). The mysteries surrounding K’un-Lun from the first season of Iron Fist are still unresolved, and anything that they can do to give us answers to that will be more than appreciated from me. On top of that I also want to see the founders/leaders of the Hand together, hopefully striking a very imposing presence and making the Hand even more of a threat than they’ve been previously.
I also want to see where they’re planning to go with Matt and Elektra. I’m hoping that she’s not as mindless as they think, that she ends up remembering more than she does right now, but a big part of me hopes that she doesn’t just immediately switch sides without a good build and payoff. I can’t stand plots that have that simplistic “nope, I’m good now” moment in them, and I think if she ends up dying while remembering then it’ll drive the potential Daredevil season 3 in one direction, whereas if she ends up fleeing at the end having had some part to play in stopping the Hand then it’ll drive Daredevil season 3 in another direction and give Matt a quest to find her and help her, which could make for a very good season (or at least half-season, with them reunited at the mid-way point to then face the big-bad in the second half).
Finally, I’m hoping that the series ends with the four of them on the same page, but still headed in different directions (with the only exception being Luke and Danny agreeing to work together in the future). That’s because if they end the series with the four of them being BFFs and exchanging phone numbers and decoder rings then there’s no chance that when Matt has a problem in the future he won’t just pick up the phone and call someone who’s bullet-proof or who can punch through walls. Why wouldn’t you? And future seasons of Daredevil don’t need to have to keep explaining why he DOESN’T just do that. He needs to stay independent, and so does Jessica. While I’d love to see her reunite with Luke, I don’t think either one of them is ready for that just yet. Luke is with Claire right now, and Jessica has to go a long way toward figuring out her own problems before she can have any kind of long-term relationship with Luke. I’m hopeful we can see that relationship rebuild in the future, but for now I’d rather Jessica go one way, Matt go another, and Luke and Danny agree to stay in touch. But we’ll see, won’t we?