Netflix’s most derided Marvel Cinematic Universe show is back for season 2 with a new showrunner and a new strategy: sidelining its problematic protagonist
At the end of year 1 of Netflix’s Marvel collection Iron Fist, Rand Enterprises partner Joy Meachum (Jessica Stroup) and master martial artist Davos (Sacha Dhawan) sit down to talk about the superhero Iron Fist, aka their mutual acquaintance Danny Rand. Danny (played by Finn Jones) views both characters as his siblings. Joy is your childhood friend from New York who he wished to reconnect when he returned home after spending a decade training in the mythical city of K’un-Lun. Davos is the brother, who gave him his fondest memories through his harrowing time being forged into a fighting machine by monks that are abusive. Despite those relations, Danny has abandoned both characters . He’s partly accountable for the destruction of the town and the departure of Joy’s dad Davos and he vowed to protect. While they have little else in common, Davos and Joy foreshadow the fundamental conflict of the second season by coming together to explore the fact that their lives are a lot better without Danny in them.
Raven Metzner, who took over as showrunner following the widely panned period 1 of Iron Fist, seems to be in their own side. The first six episodes of season two goal to turn the show by highlighting the supporting cast of the show and stripping Danny of his tools. Iron Fist remains a mess of comic book and kung fu clichés, however, the episodes of the next season show its potential to tell a story that is good.
After the events of this one-shot miniseries The Defenders — a crossover event between Iron Fist and Netflix’s other Marvel Cinematic Universe Collection Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Luke Cage — Danny has pledged to defend New York in Daredevil’s lack. He’s mostly centered on Chinatown, where master martial artist and former member of the Hand Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) have turned her down into a snug apartment for her and Danny. The Hand’s destruction in The Defenders has left a power vacuum and crime syndicates are trying to fill it. Watching Danny play the fantastic hope negotiating with Asian crime bosses is painful because it reinforces his white savior function and due to Danny childish incompetence.
Colleen’s efforts to flip her mentorship skills from recruitment for the Hand to rehabilitating a band of young group members lacks the racial problems of this Danny plot, but it seems just like a side story from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which parodies the Hand through the wicked ninja of the Foot. It’s admittedly entertaining to see teens but it is hard about getting their lives on course to take Colleen’s talks badly. The struggle to bring peace between criminal associations worked in Luke Cage period two, when the groups had aliens that were strong, and they weren’t just being used as explanations for battles between hatchets and knives.
Fortunately for the show’s momentum, that storyline takes a back seat to a far larger threat in the form of Davos and Joy punishing Danny by stripping him of his Iron Fist power through a mystic ritual. Danny remains fairly oblivious to their scheming until it’s too late, resulting in a hilariously embarrassing scene in which he invites them over for a housewarming dinner party. (Since Danny would likely know that Davos’ moral code involves not drinking alcohol or eating meat, isn’t he the real villain here since he is serving Davos spaghetti with meatballs and red wine) That apart, the dinner is part of a sitcom-style plot for Joy and her brother Ward (Tom Pelphrey) to reconcile after he spent years maintaining Joy from understanding their father was really living. By trying to become everybody’s buddy, Danny reinforces why so many of the show’s characters and viewers hate him. He desperately needs to be loved, but his efforts to assist other people are often and prone to backfiring.
The face-heel turn of joy is marked with a change in apparel. She started out sporting conservative and colorful small business attire, but now, she’s vamping it up in black dresses and furs. She was an character in year , with regularly shifting motives and loyalties that appeared to be a consequence of writing than capriciousness. That hasn’t changed in season 2; she plays a second fiddle to Davos. He is full of barely contained rage which he periodically releases angry diatribes about the decadence of New York and in highly kinetic fight scenes where he shows the outcomes of his intense devotion to instruction. The worst of his venom is reserved for Danny, who he considers left his responsibilities -Lun to return in the usa. Davos believes that he deserves than Danny, and he does. Both figures have decided that K’un – Lun and the Hand’s devastation signifies that the Iron Fist should be used to resist evil in the world, but they fundamentally disagree on just how that should be done.
Davos and Joy’s plot against Danny involves hiring Mary Walker (Alice Eve), who spends the year’s first few episodes mostly demonstrating the ability to be off-putting like she displayed in the Dark Mirror incident”Nosedive.” Much like Typhoid Mary, the comics character she’s based on, Walker is a mercenary with dissociative identity disorder. That storyline would function a lot better if Jessica Jones season 2 did center on a character with episodes. Like the similarities between Iron Fist and Luke Cage’s criminal plots, this issue probably is due to this source material’s basic tropes. But it’s an unfortunate event, since the shows will attract the exact same audience, and Iron Fist seems derivative by coming afterwards.
Additional floor in season 2 comprises Danny’s struggles regarding how impact he appears to create, with frustration, mirroring the issues Luke Cage dealt with in his next season. Like the seasons of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, Iron Fist chapter concentrates on family conflict. Joy’s brother and former business partner Ward has joined Narcotics Anonymous and feels like he desires Joy’s forgiveness to move forward, but she only wants to start over. Colleen has dropped her family in the Hand, but finding a box on it with her family crest contributes her to hope she might be able to find her mother. Flashbacks in K’un-Lun show how Davos and Danny grew up as brothers, but they also reveal that Davos had an extremely fraught relationship with his mother, who viewed him as a loser for letting Danny maintain the power of the Iron Fist. These plots change in the quality of implementation. Davos reveals what forged him such a dangerous villain, while Colleen’s shows Metzner’s struggle to determine what to do with the character, beyond labeling her “Danny’s girlfriend.” But regardless of quality, they feel very comfortable.
Besides borrowing topics, Iron Fist year 2 also brings in Luke Cage character Misty Knight (Simone Missick), who further solidifies the anti-Danny Rand opinion by showing up to shout at him for ruining a police bust which was in the works and landing an undercover agent in the hospital. She and Colleen had great chemistry into their barroom brawl and that continues through if theyteaming up to kick against yakuza ass or’re speaking about Colleen’s new role on earth. Misty’s no-nonsense, take-charge mindset is a refreshing change from previous perpetual guest star Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), who’s traditionally just provided medical help and moral support for superheroes in need of both. Misty brings energy to every scene she is in with her combination of bravado and wry humor. After having to kill his dad twice in season 1, Ward has marginally lost his role as the voice of reason, and Misty takes up the job of pointing out how absurd Iron Fist’s plot is.
Ward may use more to do in year two, but it’s a small price to pay for the elimination of this boardroom drama which made the worst parts of season 1 up. The CW’s Arrow and various variations of Batman have managed the billionaire-vigilante-businessman trope better than Iron Fist, therefore season 2 abandons that ribbon to bring Danny down to exactly the exact same street-level fighting the remainder of the Netflix MCU shows. After giving up his bet in Rand Enterprises, Danny is making a simple living working for a moving company. There’s lingering battle between Ward and Joy, who is trying to put up her own company, but that fodder for more scenes with no Danny. The Defenders minimized Danny’s effect by treating him more like a MacGuffin compared to the usual personality and by publicly letting his fellow heroes laugh in his absurd, out-of-place posturing. Iron Fist seasons 2 finds ways to have Danny is orbited by events without actually turning him around.
Iron Fist remains the weakest of their Netflix MCU portfolio, but its founders are attempting to improve a bad situation by acknowledging their season 1 issues and modeling their story after better demonstrates to the level they could without entirely losing their much-maligned name character. Burdened by an unlikeable protagonist and problematic idea, the series may never have the ability to achieve greatness. While Jessica Jones has a career as a private investigator, Daredevil and luke Cage equally have neighborhoods they’ve sworn to protect. By comparison, Danny left his obligation , then managed to make it insignificant. Now, the character and show lack a definite direction. Having Danny sub in for Daredevil provides him a point, but that will end when Daredevil season airs in October. After that, it will be up to Iron Fist’s founders to locate their name character a new way to become a hero worth watching.
