Iron Fist Episodes 7-13

[Handsome men don't lose fights]

It is an entirely different show with different aims, separate story structure, and different themes. These necessarily require different approaches to the series. Not all comparisons are bogus, but the most common ones make little sense.

For example comparing fight choreography is unfair. Daredevil uses a mixed style so the training can focus entirely on what the actors and stunt doubles are capable of. The premise of this Iron Fist series is a character that has learnt a pure sttyle--,

Boring is boring. If I'm not interested in what I'm seeing on the screen, then the production team has failed. Iron Fist had a showrunner who clearly wasn't up to the task; they should ditch him and get someone with a better feel for the material.

[kidfresh512]

I just finished it and I have to say 6/10 being generous. Danny is just all over the place literally. It is his show he is the Iron Fist and honestly I just don't really like him. Some people have mentioned maybe its the actor himself being miscast. Possibly, first of all isn't he kind of scrawny to be a "warrior" in training living his life for 15 years being honed into a weapon? A couple of the scenes where he is shirtless I am like damn someone find him some food. To contrast the approach taken by say Steven Amel in Arrow. He trains and builds himself up. To look like he was training and preparing to be a vigilante warrior. Looking the part is only one aspect. You still have to work with what you are given. The script has several miscues for the character.

They want to make him a novice Iron Fist, basically I trained for 15 years got the fist and ran after a week on the job when I decided it was boring. So they don't prepare the initiates or at least have them read up on Iron Fist history? Tell them what it can do beforehand? Recharge times, healing, how to refuel your chi? That just isn't very believable to me. It seems they did it for story reasons in the way they wanted to introduce Bakuto and make Danny fall for yet another manipulation. He literally got manipulated by everyone on the freaking show at some point. Its a case of making the main character so easily manipulated to boost up other characters and make them more menacing. Those decisions hurt Danny's character. Its a tv show you only get so much time to impress an audience that isn't die hard. Can you imagine if this was the first Netflix Marvel show and we didn't know about Defenders?

So right now Danny will be the most naïve of all the Defenders clearly. The youngest, arguably the least interesting character as he is now. But, he has the most potential. They need to fast forward training for him somehow. Either do it in Defenders or somehow speed it up in a second season. K'un L'un is a huge trove of potential and clearly they don't have the budget to go there right now. The way it was done with Daredevil is the approach they should have started with for Danny. Start him out way more advanced in learning and start from there.

spoilers:

Personally I would have preferred they actually let him get to K'un L'un at the end and do the quick training brush up before his next appearance. I want to see it but, if you have budget concerns just freaking use it to juice up your main character real fast correct the training issues.

end of spoilers

Colleen had a bad second half of the season as well and that was annoying. She was the best part of the first half to me until
spoilers:

As soon as she and Danny had sex she literally turned into the fawning Ill do anything for my man but oh yeah I am part of the Hand, but the good Hand! I would have preferred they just flirt. She had her redeeming fight with Bakudo, but after that meh.

end of spoilers

I don't mind Claire learning to fight. That actually makes sense the amount of super powered people running from the law and nefarious drug lords, and evil criminal organizations she encounters. But she seemed a bit shoehorned into the series. I actually would have liked to see less Claire and perhaps make room for Misty Knight here. That could have been a complicated character bit that Danny needs to be more interesting.

[Ronin705]

I just finished it and I have to say 6/10 being generous. Danny is just all over the place literally. It is his show he is the Iron Fist and honestly I just don't really like him. Some people have mentioned maybe its the actor himself being miscast. Possibly, first of all isn't he kind of scrawny to be a "warrior" in training living his life for 15 years being honed into a weapon? A couple of the scenes where he is shirtless I am like damn someone find him some food. To contrast the approach taken by say Steven Amel in Arrow. He trains and builds himself up. To look like he was training and preparing to be a vigilante warrior. Looking the part is only one aspect. You still have to work with what you are given. The script has several miscues for the character.

They want to make him a novice Iron Fist, basically I trained for 15 years got the fist and ran after a week on the job when I decided it was boring. So they don't prepare the initiates or at least have them read up on Iron Fist history? Tell them what it can do beforehand? Recharge times, healing, how to refuel your chi? That just isn't very believable to me. It seems they did it for story reasons in the way they wanted to introduce Bakuto and make Danny fall for yet another manipulation. He literally got manipulated by everyone on the freaking show at some point. Its a case of making the main character so easily manipulated to boost up other characters and make them more menacing. Those decisions hurt Danny's character. Its a tv show you only get so much time to impress an audience that isn't die hard. Can you imagine if this was the first Netflix Marvel show and we didn't know about Defenders?

So right now Danny will be the most naïve of all the Defenders clearly. The youngest, arguably the least interesting character as he is now. But, he has the most potential. They need to fast forward training for him somehow. Either do it in Defenders or somehow speed it up in a second season. K'un L'un is a huge trove of potential and clearly they don't have the budget to go there right now. The way it was done with Daredevil is the approach they should have started with for Danny. Start him out way more advanced in learning and start from there.

spoilers:

Personally I would have preferred they actually let him get to K'un L'un at the end and do the quick training brush up before his next appearance. I want to see it but, if you have budget concerns just freaking use it to juice up your main character real fast correct the training issues.

end of spoilers

Colleen had a bad second half of the season as well and that was annoying. She was the best part of the first half to me until
spoilers:

As soon as she and Danny had sex she literally turned into the fawning Ill do anything for my man but oh yeah I am part of the Hand, but the good Hand! I would have preferred they just flirt. She had her redeeming fight with Bakudo, but after that meh.

end of spoilers

I don't mind Claire learning to fight. That actually makes sense the amount of super powered people running from the law and nefarious drug lords, and evil criminal organizations she encounters. But she seemed a bit shoehorned into the series. I actually would have liked to see less Claire and perhaps make room for Misty Knight here. That could have been a complicated character bit that Danny needs to be more interesting.

I legit spent the entire series waiting for Misty to appear

[JKtheMac]

Boring is boring. If I'm not interested in what I'm seeing on the screen, then the production team has failed. Iron Fist had a showrunner who clearly wasn't up to the task; they should ditch him and get someone with a better feel for the material.

I am not trying to convince you that you should love the show. But many, including myself don't recognise this criticism. I don't often binge watch 13 episodes. I was never bored. I didn't love everything but the same can be said about any of these shows. Overall the team on this show met the goals they set out to meet. There were some exceptional performances, the stand out being
Pelphrey as Ward. There was some great thematic work which is entirely the show runner's responsibility, and some interesting questions asked that could be developed later.

[JKtheMac]

...basically I trained for 15 years got the fist and ran after a week on the job when I decided it was boring. So they don't prepare the initiates or at least have them read up on Iron Fist history? Tell them what it can do beforehand? Recharge times, healing, how to refuel your chi? That just isn't very believable to me.

You seem to be putting a lot of spin on this and then believing your own spin. For a start we do get some hints as to why he left and it wasn't because he was bored. That was part of a single scene's dialogue and it isn't representative of his outlook as a whole. In the very same scene we learn that Danny is driven by his perceived destiny, he isn't making rational decisions he is making heart felt ones.

spoilers:

The core to his decision making and his lack of training is still veiled, but ultimately tied-up with his encounter with the dragon. Because we don't see this, we can only interpret his 'its not what I expected' line (forgive me if I misquoted that I haven't rewatched it). We are lead to believe this may have been a mistake. That Danny maybe shouldn't have pushed to become the Iron Fist, then we watch as he tries to redefine his notion of destiny, self justifying his battles in New York as being his true destiny. These are dramatic poles pulling him in different directions. On the one hand he wants to know the truth about his parents, and on the other he wants to fulfil his destiny as the Iron Fist. He is left questioning his priorities. As to his trainers, they didn't foresee his desire to leave. Perhaps that was a severe oversight, but understandable given that they have never had an outsider become the Iron Fist before, and certainly not one with so much unresolved baggage.

end of spoilers

[kidfresh512]

How am I 'spinning' anything? The scene with Devos when they are on guard duty and he tells him basically "this is the rest of your life". I am sorry he came across there as regret and boredom.
Mommy dreams
spoilers:

Yes it was mildly deeper than that explaining dreaming and hoping no matter how outrageous that maybe his mother survived? He said sometimes he thought he could hear her and he tried to escape so many times.

end of spoilers

If he was driven by his destiny he would have stayed. He flat out told us the Hand to them was like a fairy tale. He didn't know they were In New York or active in the modern world. His 'destiny' as it was drilled into him was to stand at the pass and Iron Fist the hell out of anyone that came to the gate like the Fist of the 40s did

He may have a new destiny now of his own making after learning things aren't so black and white as they were in K'un L'un but that's after the fact.

Madam Gao seemed to read him easily
spoilers:

She has been to K'un L'un she says and she clearly is well versed in Iron Fists If you assume Danny is the first to run away or leave the immediate area. The very basic things Danny didn't know seemed like a plot hole to me. Not even knowing how to recharge your chi? He was literally taught that in under 5 minutes once he got to Hand college... why wouldn't the monks have done it even before one of them became Iron Fist

end of spoilers

[Shriveling_memo]

Danny has to have a suit in his next outings, daredevil benefited greatly from it. I will say though when Charlie did action with out the suit in season 2 at least he looked convincing.

Kung fu maybe more harder then the mixed martial arts and brawling we got already, but it's disappointing what we got.

Yes he meant to be portrayed as a superior fighter but there should have been some classic fight scene that we could really point out too. Not one fight was amazing.

[JKtheMac]

The show's exploration of destiny was far more nuanced than a stated purpose in life or mummy issues, or boredom. It analysed and undermined the concept over and over. We are left questioning the very existence of destiny, until the final scene when we are then meant to compare destiny with role and realise one is intangible and one is very real and essential. I think it is a little unfair to knock the show for something it was incredibility strong on.

Who's fault was the last scene? The show is asking that question and it does not have an easy answer. Plus, we don't have all of the pieces of the puzzle.

[The Whovian]

Started watching this Friday night and finished last night. I have mixed feelings about this series. The first 5-6 episodes were really just "meh" for me. After that, it started to pick up and the last 4-5 episodes were great.

Positives:
-Danny using his Iron Fist. Every time they showed it, my mind flashed back to all the cool moments in the comics when he used it.
-Davos. I really didn't think he would be used this much in this season, but it was cool. And his friendship and then disappointment with Danny was played up well.
-The flashback sequences with Danny and Davos, although short, were nice.
-Danny and Colleen's romance. I know some people are going to hate that, but I liked it and it helped make the story more sense as a TV show.
-The actors were pretty good for the most part, especially the guy that played Harold.
-Having Madam Gao and the Hand in this series helped the DD/IF universe tie together.
-They stayed fairly close to the comics but didn't let the comics define the series. In some parts this worked, in others, it didn't.
-Nice little Easter egg with Stan Lee's face on that poster in the 10th episode.

The negatives:
-Parts of the story made absolutely no sense.
-Okay, let me get this straight. Claire, who knows about the Hand, and knows Matt Murdock, but doesn't tell Danny "Hey, there's another guy with unique abilities just like you who can help you fight the Hand, let me give him a call". Instead, she goes along with Danny and Colleen to fight the Hand?? Really???
I get it, they wanted this show to be about Danny, but couldn't they at least have had Claire say "I just called my friend (Matt) and he's unable to help us right now, so we're on our own" or something like that?
-Danny's character came off acting like a whiny little baby who has no common sense and is extremely naive. He literally had no plan of attack, and just bull rushed into every situation. Even the show acknowledged this several times by having Claire say it. It was ridiculous.
-They wasted too much time focusing on Rand Corp. If I wanted to watch a show about a firm with attorneys, I'll watch Boston Legal. Not this.
-The lack of flashback scenes. I understand they could only put so much into this season, but they wasted too much time on the legal aspect of Rand Corp when they could have done more flashbacks featuring Danny's time on K'un Lun.
-I was disappointed in the fight scenes. I was expecting more exotic martial arts. I mean, Danny is the Iron Fist from K'un Lun, but Daredevil had better choreographed fight scenes.

There's more, but that pretty much covers it. Overall, it was entertaining, but the negatives really hampered this show. I would give the show 6/10. The last half of the season really saved the show. Both seasons of Daredevil were better than this. Hopefully, the writers look at this season and learn from their mistakes.

[JKtheMac]

-They wasted too much time focusing on Rand Corp. If I wanted to watch a show about a firm with attorneys, I'll watch Boston Legal. Not this.

I find this particular criticism interesting, mainly because it kept cropping up in the professional reviews. So please don't take my singling this out as an unfair attack on your view, it just catches my eye.

There is no way that this show can be considered a corporate drama. The corporate detail is mostly colour and setting, it is hardly filled in at all, and often has an unrealistic, sub Dallas understanding of corporate issues.

What was shown was all very much focused on the characters. As an exploration of character I think they did a great job of establishing the family dynamic with the central dysfunctional and literally cancerous figure totally warping and straining the relationships around him. Every corporate scene played to the themes being explored in the show, especially the desires of Ward and the way he felt he was being denied his destiny and legacy and instead given a functional role as foot soldier. His desire to escape was palpable. He was basically Danny under different circumstances.

I presume Boston Legal has more detailed corporate stuff, and more realistic portrayals of board rooms. This show is not only not trying to do that, it makes a point of not doing that in favour of what it is doing.

[The Whovian]

Ok, so as a huge Iron Fist fan, I think this series is definitely better than what critics initially gave credit for, but it's a far cry from the other Netflix shows. I'd give it a generous 6/10.

Same here. I gave it a 6/10

[The Whovian]

I have a few scattered thoughts i can share now other people are getting to the end of the show.

Complete waste of some amazing comic characters like the Bride of Nine Spiders and Zhou Cheng.

If that was her, they definitely did them both a disservice.

i don't like that they shut down Orson existing, Davos said Danny is the first white Iron Fist.

He said that? I missed it. My wife was watching it with me and when they showed the old reel footage of an Iron Fist with both hands glowing from looked like WWII, I told my wife that must have been Orson. Dang it.

[The Whovian]

He has two, can channel it into any aspect of his body or even channel the energy externally. Iron Fist is basically a low key energy manipulator.

Just to let him know, this is only in the comics. In the TV show (at least so far), he has only been able to channel it into one fist.

[Ronin705]

Started watching this Friday night and finished last night. I have mixed feelings about this series. The first 5-6 episodes were really just "meh" for me. After that, it started to pick up and the last 4-5 episodes were great.

Positives:
-Danny using his Iron Fist. Every time they showed it, my mind flashed back to all the cool moments in the comics when he used it.
-Davos. I really didn't think he would be used this much in this season, but it was cool. And his friendship and then disappointment with Danny was played up well.
-The flashback sequences with Danny and Davos, although short, were nice.
-Danny and Colleen's romance. I know some people are going to hate that, but I liked it and it helped make the story more sense as a TV show.
-The actors were pretty good for the most part, especially the guy that played Harold.
-Having Madam Gao and the Hand in this series helped the DD/IF universe tie together.
-They stayed fairly close to the comics but didn't let the comics define the series. In some parts this worked, in others, it didn't.
-Nice little Easter egg with Stan Lee's face on that poster in the 10th episode.

The negatives:
-Parts of the story made absolutely no sense.
-Okay, let me get this straight. Claire, who knows about the Hand, and knows Matt Murdock, but doesn't tell Danny "Hey, there's another guy with unique abilities just like you who can help you fight the Hand, let me give him a call". Instead, she goes along with Danny and Colleen to fight the Hand?? Really???
I get it, they wanted this show to be about Danny, but couldn't they at least have had Claire say "I just called my friend (Matt) and he's unable to help us right now, so we're on our own" or something like that?
-Danny's character came off acting like a whiny little baby who has no common sense and is extremely naive. He literally had no plan of attack, and just bull rushed into every situation. Even the show acknowledged this several times by having Claire say it. It was ridiculous.
-They wasted too much time focusing on Rand Corp. If I wanted to watch a show about a firm with attorneys, I'll watch Boston Legal. Not this.
-The lack of flashback scenes. I understand they could only put so much into this season, but they wasted too much time on the legal aspect of Rand Corp when they could have done more flashbacks featuring Danny's time on K'un Lun.
-I was disappointed in the fight scenes. I was expecting more exotic martial arts. I mean, Danny is the Iron Fist from K'un Lun, but Daredevil had better choreographed fight scenes.

There's more, but that pretty much covers it. Overall, it was entertaining, but the negatives really hampered this show. I would give the show 6/10. The last half of the season really saved the show. Both seasons of Daredevil were better than this. Hopefully, the writers look at this season and learn from their mistakes.

I was literally yelling at the screen for ClaIre to step up, but i guess the execs are really all about not blowing their load off early.

[GhostPirate]

Another question:

spoilers:

Does his origin mirror that of CW's Arrow? I know Arrow took a bit of license with that show's origin, did the same happen here? Billionaire is lost, gets trained, comes back to save his city, etc.

end of spoilers

Just because I haven't seen that anyone else has answered your question yet...

spoilers:

It's actually the opposite: the Arrow origin pretty much lifted directly from Iron Fist's origin story, which was written around 40 years ago. There's a little license taken in the adaptation from comic to screen as ****ADDED SPOILER**** Meachum is more overtly involved in the original comics origin story, and the reason for his coming back to NY in the first place is more directly tied to revenge on Harold Meachum, as opposed to the ambiguity of his reasons in the show. As an added frustration for those of us who are more "purists", and want the adaptations to come a little closer to the source material... Arrow also "borrowed" quite liberally from the Frank Miller Daredevil run, notably the Elektra Saga, for their Canary/League of Assassins subplot, which is probably why DD s2 instead chose the 'Black Sky' angle for their version of the character.

end of spoilers