Iron Fist S02E07 Review: This City Has Failed You

Iron Fist, Season 2, Episode 7: Morning of the Mindstorm

Another honestly slow episode of Iron Fist, although one with far, far more development and character moments than the previous, clunky one. We start off with a scene of Danny in a hospital with a leg brace attached -- I do like the show simultaneously acknowledging that we live in the same universe that Misty Knight can just get a robotic arm, but at the same time still acknowledge that Danny isn't going to do any fancy martial arts moves especially with the dual blow of losing his mystical Iron Fist powers and the mobility of one of his legs.

But then the episode cuts away to Davos, and finally shows him doing something beyond just fisting gangsters in the chest. After a fun, unexpected showcase of martial arts from Davos's new buddy Chen, Davos essentially recruits Rhyno's gang -- the random bunch of stray youths that Colleen interacted with several times earlier this season -- and wants to turn them into what's basically his personal army. We get to see a bit of Davos's training and ethos later on, telling them that "the city has failed you" and that he's going to help them become strong to fight the "putrefaction" of the city. Oh, and the inevitable "break" that even Chen finds is going too far comes with Davos killing a bunch of carjackers unaffiliated with the triads. That's... that's not as brutal as I thought it was going to be, but okay. Sure.

Also, a little bit of a revelation that I didn't think I noticed was the fact that Davos was specifically noted to be able to light up both his fists, whereas Danny only used one. I definitely remembered Davos using both his fists in episode 6, but I genuinely never realized (or forgot) that Danny was only able to use only a single fist. Proof that Davos is legitimately more worthy than Danny? We'll see.

Meanwhile, we get some neat little check-ins with the rest of the cast. Misty Knight is unable to secure any help from captain Pike, the local police chief,  who's actually just waiting for Davos to wipe out all the triads regardless of the bodies that pile up. Misty also ends up going on an unnecessarily long side-quest to investigate the bowl used in the ritual, talk to Joy, then to Mika Prada, all to get printouts of the ancient ritual scroll. That felt like a huge time-waster, if I'm being frank. Likewise, the Ward storyline -- as entertaining as Tom Pelphrey is -- feels largely redundant and a huge, unnecessary distraction. It's not even interesting, because Ward getting drunk in a bar isn't super interesting, and the revelation that he got his sponsor pregnant is more of a "did we really need this?" moment than a huge revelation. Joy... Joy continues to doubt and wonder where her real loyalties lie, and after a talk with Mary, goes off to basically try and sabotage Davos in her own way, while pretending to be his ally? Eh.

Danny, meanwhile, gets into a brief, well-done conversation with Colleen comparing Bakuto and Davos, with Danny noting that he still wants to redeem Davos, as fucked-up as that sounds, whereas Colleen notes that despite everything Bakuto has done to her, she still finds it in her heart to care for him. It's a thin line to walk, whether we should cut off all toxic people from our life, or if we should not stop having hope, but this interesting train of thought goes nowhere as, bizarrely, the Danny/Colleen dynamic is shaken up by... Danny insisting that Colleen train him in martial arts from the ground up, and Colleen somehow going straight into the extreme of "if I become your shifu, I cannot feel emotions for you"? That genuinely feels forced, although it's definitely an... interesting change in dynamics. Both characters could certainly afford to be less dicks about it, but eh.

The other big storyline going is Mary, who... who's interesting, but at the same time feels underdeveloped. Joy, desperate to get Walker back out, decides to... back off, but also tells Mary to "be well" and remember how Walker protected her? And then we get brief, vague flashbacks to how the Mary and Walker personas were apparently born in a horrible prison, and now Mary decides to record a message to Walker and transform back into her other identity? It's all so rushed, and I genuinely don't buy that a single conversation from Joy is able to suddenly touch on so many points on Mary especially considering how little we've seen of Mary.

Overall, a more interesting but still very clunky episode.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Mary Walker apparently hails from (or at least was imprisoned in) Sokovia, the fictional nation that was the setting of Avengers: Age of Ultron, a rare bit of continuity nod to the live-action movies.