Friday, January 20, 2023

'Iron Fist' Season 2, Episode 3: 'This Deadly Secret'

 




After learning of the the association between Joy and Davos (as well as the potential implications), Ward and Danny decide to host a dinner.  It is unofficially a Festivus dinner as the main purpose is for everybody to air their respective grievances, clear the air, and potentially mend some fences.

It's not a terrible idea.  The problems they all have do seem like things that can be rectified.  Even Davos, who has the deepest enmity still shows to have a bond with Danny as they reminisce over their experiences in K'un L'un.  There's a lot of fake niceties during the amusingly awkward dinner, but that moment over the grill seemed a lot more genuine.

Despite this, things go South, and it seems like there's little hope of reconciliation.  It isn't helped by the fact that Ward wanted to keep his presence secret, which ties into Joy's resentment of being kept out of the loop for her presumable protection.  It was well intentioned, as he didn't think Joy would show (which she admitted during Danny's confession) but she's still more than a little peeved.  

The latter half of the episode shifts its focus to the gang war and the attempted truce negotiation.  It's a pretty jarring plot and tone shift, but thematically, it actually makes for a nice parallel.  You have two aggrieved parties who can potentially stop a greater conflict through dialogue, at a table no less.  It goes about as well as the dinner did.  Actually, no, to be fair, there were no punches thrown or weapons drawn at the dinner party, so at least Danny and Colleen have that win under their belt.

What's weird is that the whole fight is kind of Danny's fault.  He looks out the window and sees people who he thinks are involved in some sort of trap.  As a result, he promptly cuts things short, and a fight ensues.  The people who Danny saw are never a factor after this.  Maybe they were mooks who Danny and Colleen took out, but if they were just random people who happened to be doing their own thing, shouldn't the gang leader have expressed confusion or said something to the effect of "there is no trap, stop being paranoid"?  Maybe the next episode will elaborate on it because it was a little strange how that played out.

Mary doesn't have a whole lot of screentime, but the episode manages to do a lot with it and even give her some of the episode's best scenes.  She initially comes to Danny to warn him that he's being followed and watched.  Despite her concern, he's convinced that it's just some tabloid papparazzi looking for something to sell.

It turns out that Walker is in the employ of Joy and Davos, acting as a sort of recon agent keeping tabs on him.  The mystery of Walker's identity isn't held too long, being revealed at this episode's end.  It turns out that Mary herself is Walker.  It doesn't appear to be an act, though.  Given what we've seen, she seems to have a split personality.  This is made evident by the fact that Mary's actions actually set Walker's efforts back and get her in hot water with Davos.  

To Walker's credit, she does not take kindly to Davos' threats.  She actually ends the episode with two blades held to the warrior's throat.  Between that and her creepy speech patterns, it made one hell of a first impression, that's for sure.

This episode was a quieter, more dialogue driven affair, but it worked well.  There were plenty of great character moments peppered throughout.  It did move the plot along quite nicely and it gave characters chances to progress in various ways.  I was never bored and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.







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