It was nice to see Danny address the point I made in that he is supposed to fight the Hand and the Hand are here, ergo, he should stay. This could have been a great "both sides have valid points" issue, except it seems like Danny will be able to get his chi back on his own through meditation and focus, which admittedly undercuts Davos' point significantly.
To his credit, Davos has other reasons for wanting to bring Danny back to K'un L'un. It really made him the stand out character, as his motivations and personality seemed to take center stage. The fact that he developed such strong dynamics with both Danny and Claire also helped make a dialogue heavy episode much more engaging.
His relationship with Danny is...complicated to say the least. The two are clearly close friends and that brotherhood is shown in spades, but we also see some resentment on Davos' part. Not only does he take a cue from Vegeta in thinking that Danny stole his birthright, but he's also resentful for being abandoned. It's both personal, but his point about leaving K'un L'un defenseless is also cause for consideration.
It also brings to light Danny's reasons for leaving. It's a bit anti-climactic, but it does provide an answer after leaving that question lingering so long after Gao first asked him.
While Danny doesn't return, we do get a brief glimpse of K'un L'un. Given that it is supposed to exist in another dimension, you might be expecting something more, but all we get is a snowy mountain. It's consistent with what little we saw, but you can't help but be disappointed. I guess budget was an issue, but you're still left wishing there was more there there.
This also becomes a problem when we learn that Danny had to fight a dragon to become the Iron Fist. That would have been really cool to see. Sure, it would have been CGI and it probably wouldn't have been of the highest quality, but that's the sort of thing that people were likely hoping to see when they heard that Iron Fist was getting a show.
On a brighter front, Colleen also gets some development. She starts off trying to plead her case to Danny to no avail. While she doesn't approve of Danny getting wounded, she does try to point out that her branch of the Hand has been doing a lot of good.
It should come as no surprise that Bakuto's branch (if it even ever was separate at all) is just as nefarious, even going so far as to try and drain Colleen's blood in a similar manner that we saw back in "Daredevil". Suffice it to say, she's not really a fan anymore. Her students don't seem too fond of her either. At least she's out of that "girl without a country" phase she was in when both Danny and Bakuto had ostracized her for her apparent disloyalty.
On the one hand, showing that the bad guys are bad guys is probably for the best, especially considering they are the big bads for the upcoming "Defenders". On the other, it could have made for some interesting tension had things been more in the morally grey area.
Speaking of morally grey, the Meachums also contribute to the plot, with Harold hatching a plan to use their company connections to effectively defund Bakuto's sect. Not only is this a strike in its own right, but Harold goes on to enlist Danny and Davos to confront them when they eventually seek retribution.
The grey comes in when Joy realizes that the aim is to kill Bakuto. You can understand why she'd be appalled, but given who they're up against, simple arresting may not be sufficient. The Hand is well connected and, if for some reason that's not enough, they can just send a swarm of ninjas to break Bakuto out.
In any event, Harold's decreasing mental state forces her to go along with the plan. By and large the scenes the two share are actually quite nice. The two are bonding and connecting, but the show hasn't forgotten Harold's short fuse, which is good to see, but it does add some tension to their scenes.
While the episode is light on action and doesn't even really move the plot forward, the character moments are strong enough and frequent enough that the episode doesn't come off as a total dud. It may be a strange way to go given that there are only two more episodes left, but for what it was, it was decent. Though, we really could have done without the "calm the eff down" line. If you can't say the f-word, just say "calm the hell down". It would have flowed so much better.
Click here to join our Patreon campaign
No comments:
Post a Comment