Iron Fist S01E09 Review: Frank N. Stein

Iron Fist, Season 1, Episode 9: The Mistress of All Agonies

Good lord, this episode. Last episode was kind of messy and poorly written, but at least we have a couple of cool fight scenes to make up for it, and a solid goal that we're pursuing. So far Iron Fist has been various shades of 'this is interesting', but even at its worst (i.e. the first three episodes) it's never been completely bad. I don't think there's any part of this episode that I really liked. 

Where to begin? There's the old-and-tried "villain lets herself be captured to mess with our heroes' head" with Madame Gao trying to play mind-games with Danny, Claire and Wing, but that honestly just feels like something so we have some padding between Danny and Harold scenes. Mostly, because as much stupid zen sayings as Danny repeats over and over, he's not a very enlightened or intelligent person. He doesn't want to kill Madame Gao, but he wants to end the Hand? He wants to interrogate Madame Gao, but doesn't want to resort to violence? He wants to find out about his parents, but not about the Hand's plans now? And when Claire and Colleen call Danny out on this, his answer is an absolutely irritating and petulant "so you guys are ganging up on me now?" Well of fucking course, Danny, because you're being an idiot. He runs into Joy, who tells him that he's been ousted of the company, and his answer is a very indignant "so that's my fault?" Joy's a lot sterner than Colleen and Claire and her flat "yes" is easily one of the few redeeming parts of this episode. 

It's one thing to make Danny impulsive, naive and out of touch with the world. It's one thing to make Danny have a mysterious past and we still have no fucking idea what went down in K'un Lun. It's another to make him do absolutely moronic decisions and get rewarded for it. 

Like, imprisoning Madame Gao with nothing more than a chair and ropes? The fuck? And the whole problem of him being super-convinced it's Madame Gao who killed daddy and mommy because the poison coincidentally happened to be the same is still insipidly moronic writing. And after the truth serum nonsense, it's left ambiguous whether it's even real with Gao's talk about how she's immune to poisons. 

Also how the utter fuck did they get Gao from China back to New York? That makes the FakeChina bit from last episode even more stupid. 

Ward, meanwhile, continues to unravel and apparently his father set him up to be framed for using drugs. Which, mind you, he was totally doing. Or maybe he actually did leave those drug packets out and being careless and his double-fuck-you-fingers deal was actually him being paranoid that everything bad in his life is his daddy's fault.

Speaking of which, Harold comes back to life. Which, as much as the actor is entertaining... isn't a very compelling plot point. Okay, yes, there's the huge revelation that the people modified by the Hand (Nobu from Daredevil, implied to be Madame Gao since she mentions having been alive since the 17th century) will revive themselves after dying. But did we need the long, drawn-out moments of Harold wandering around town like an idiot? Or the unnecessarily and uncomfortably long scene of him murdering Kyle? The show tries to have an emotional moment between Harold and Ward but while the show's probably going for a more "I can't believe it" kind of tone, Ward's deadpan and emotionless reaction was more hilarious than emotional. Yes, Harold meeting Joy at the end is something that's just waiting to drop, and I suppose that's still a somewhat interesting moment. 

The mystery around Colleen is also very... whatever. How the fuck did the poison instantly kill Gao's bodyguards, but with her it creates this beautifully intricate network of black arteries on her shoulder? That plotline was boring, there's no real tension there because we immediately get an out with Colleen's sensei, who turns out to be Bakuto and teaches Danny a Chi-healing technique thing. 

Some military dudes show up for some reason. 

Some random dude bumps into Harold and beats up a random hot dog stand owner for some reason.

Colleen and Bakuto take Danny to... wherever they're working for, likely the Chaste or maybe something more sinister considering they're not letting Claire come with. So many weird questions are raised -- is Gao telling the truth? Who are the military dudes? Who's the ninja star dude? Whose side is Bakuto and Colleen really on? What's Harold going to do? What's Joy going to do? What happened in Danny's past? What's the Hand's endgame? But none of it really feels engaging enough, and to make it worse, despite the slow agonizing job that the show has done in making Danny Rand likable, it backtracks on a lot of it, and turns out that he's honestly just kind of unlikable and petulant. 

Overall, yeah. I really hope the show does something more in its last four episodes, because, holy crap, what a boring ass episode. 

Iron Fist S01E08 Review: Drunken Fist

Iron Fist, Season 1, Episode 8: The Blessing of Many Fractures

Oh, hey, another episode with martial arts fighting! They really should've done this, or the Scythe fight, or the twin Russians, as part of the first episode instead of 'Danny barely gets away from a bunch of thugs'. Both the main battles between Colleen and the Hand henchwoman with a sword, as well as the Iron Fist's fight with Zhou Cheng, who gets my vote as the best martial artist in the show, are a delight to watch, less so for the brawl at the end which isn't helped by really fake-looking axe props. 

Still, it's a step back compared to the previous episode. The Ward/Joy stuff was, in Ward's own words in this episode, 'cliche and pathetic'. There was some nice writing with Joy talking about how she looks up to Ward for doing what he does in Rand Enterprises so smoothly (even though of course, we know Ward is just following daddy's orders) and she wants to fight for a position she's reached. She's hired a certain drunk P.I. hint hint nudge nudge to take compromising photographs because coincidentally apparently every single person on the board is an adulterer. Also Ward tries to cut a deal behind her back because of course he does. And when it turns out that the slow moments of brother-sister bonding is going to get us some revelations, Ward freaks out over seeing blood all the time and tells her sister to fuck off, making a good chunk of this episode feel pointless and unnecessary. 

The therapy session between Claire and Danny also felt absolutely awkward and shoehorned in, with relatively poor writing that feels like it's supposed to be the outline of the conversation instead of the actual conversation itself. And the actual trip to China feels very convoluted. Why did Madame Gao go all the way to China when she's pretty much waving her superiority and untouchability in front of Danny? If Rand Enterprises has presumably cut off Danny and the Meachums' funding, where did they get money for the very first-class-looking airplane tickets? Did we really need that scene where Claire can't find her phone which fell off the dashboard? And Claire and Colleen pointing out that, hey, Danny doesn't even have a plan on how to deal with Gao, which they point out as absolutely dumb... then decide to follow Danny anyway. What the shit?

Danny's naive, I know, but jeez, a lot of what he's doing is utterly stupid, even by TV hero standards. Ward even points out the idiocy of hoping that the Hand will just shrug and abandon their operation and business by destroying one factory, instead of, y'know, retaliating and (to Danny) killing Harold. Claire and Colleen both also point out the stupidity of a lot of Danny's plans and actions in this episode, where he's basically chasing any thread he can about daddy's death. Shit, man, just because Gao knew your father (and anyone can look up his father's name and say it to unsettle him) doesn't mean she killed him! And apparently Madame Gao is the only person allowed to use paralyzing poison, because of course Danny recognizes that the same poison the Hand goons use on their axes are the same ones that killed the pilots of his childhood plane, and therefore, Madame Gao (who, in Danny's mind, is the only one with such a poison) killed his parents. 

Also, where is that powerful one-hand shove that she did in their previous encounter?

Also, you guys are going to fight the Hand, you'd think Claire would call in at least Daredevil for help. I mean, I know it's impossible, but at least handwave an excuse, or write Claire out of this particular raid, because now she looks like an idiot.

So much of this episode is just poorly-executed character moments and a plot that jumps all over the place, but there's a highlight, which is the fight between Zhou Cheng, Defender of the Hand, Disciple of the Qilin or whatever his title is, who employs a very wuxia-inspired drunken fighting. There are some really awesome moves in that fight, and Zhou Cheng's drunken fighting moves includes some highlights like butt-shoving Danny, that spinning thing he does to lean on the ground, and using his alcohol jug, connected to his hand with some rope, to whack Danny. And Zhou Cheng raises some great questions, and without really knowing what the reasons are for Danny leaving K'un Lun, it really doesn't paint a very favourable image for our hero -- especially combined with his very childlike tantrum when planning out stuff with Claire and Colleen earlier in the episode. Zhou Cheng points out, rightfully so, that even though his masters might be murderers, at least he's not dishonourable the way Danny is, abandoning his post like that. He's just charismatic, mixing in taunts and boasts "I need to keep my dragon sedated!" and honestly I'm pretty sure I'm rooting for him. 

Of course, Danny wins because he's the hero, and proceeds to beat up Zhou Cheng's face into a pulp (a very unfortunate image), something that's oh so EVIL. Because they're not trying to stop a ninja drug cartel or anything, no, beating someone's face to a pulp is totally going too far. Really, Claire, you went on this journey to get payback for your dead friend, were you expecting to serve the evil ninjas a subpoena? It's one thing to contrast Daredevil and Punisher's methods. It's another to be complete morons without a solid plan to end this without bloodshed. And honestly, Danny sics a triad gang to shoot up one of the Hand's factories, and Colleen is totally fine with that. Suddenly worrying about accidentally killing Zhou Cheng and potentially killing Madame Gao is wrong?

So yeah. A combination of bad writing and inconsistent motivations and reverting Danny back into 'clueless idiot' from his previous 'charmingly naive' personality, really makes this episode more miss than hit. And when the stereotypical Asian kung fu minion who shows up for all of ten minutes is much more likable than our protagonist, something is seriously wrong in your writing. At least we get proper kung fu fighting in this episode.


Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Jessica Jones finally gets a shout-out after Madame Gao left her out in her 'metahumans that showed up in New York' roll call! It's not explicit, but the hypercompetent, always-drunk private investigator that Joy hired is totally her.
• Likewise, while not explicit, the letter that Claire receives is definitely from Luke Cage, who's 'unavailable' because he's in prison, but Claire identifying him as a love interest pretty much seals his identity. 

Hearthstone: Un'Goro Reveals, Week 3: More Elementals & Dinosaurs!

Tomorrow we'll have the ultimate super-final stream where every single card gets revealed. Before then, let's talk about the cards that have been revealed for the past week!

Battlenet blog about creating the Adapt mechanic! Over the week quite a fair amount of cards have been released. Also, the art blog offers some really great insight at the visual design of the cards, which is something that's definitely understated when people are all talking about how viable cards are and stuff. Also we're apparently getting the Time-Lost Proto Drake as a card? Also, the third part of the Malone/Doyle saga has been released. The video with Professor Doyle is a little less remarkable than the previous two, but basically they made it to the foot of the volcano and poor Professor Doyle's expedition sketches got burnt down, and we finally get to see what the full Kaleidosaur card looks like.

Eddie's journal is a little more illuminating. Apparently after their encounter with the Murloc tribe, Eddie's camp and underwear got burnt down by what appears to be Fire Flies. Also Eddie apparently owns the Alley Cat, whose name is called Reginald. Apparently, as they avoid fire elementals, instead of seeing the Un'Goro crater walls, they instead see nothing but the jungle. They encounter Kalimos and his little buddies, but as the volcano erupts and the elementals chase them, they're kidnapped by a Pterrordax.

Crackling Razormaw
Crackling Razormaw's a Hunter minion, a 2-mana 3/2 Beast that Adapts another Beast as a battlecry. It's a pretty simple card, possibly comparable to a lesser Houndmaster that doesn't have as severe a stat loss but only gives a single type of buff instead of the Houndmaster giving stat bonuses and Taunt. I previously said Adapt's roughly equal to one mana's worth of stats, so I guess done right the Razormaw might help out in a general Beast Hunter deck, and suddenly giving Windfury or Poisonous to another minion that's ready to attack ain't something to laugh at. Not sure if he's ultimately going to make the cut or not, but he's certainly a nice companion piece to Kindly Grandmother as the Hunter's resident two-mana drop. Without a Beast on board it's just a Bloodfen Raptor which is just bad, I guess.


King Mosh
Warriors join Hunter this time around as having a gigantic bestial dinosaur as the Class Legendary. One of the giant Devilsaur bosses in the World of Warcraft version of Un'Goro crater, King Mosh is a 9-mana 9/7 Beast, which is obviously not the best statline out there. It's a total of 16 stats, comparable to the 9-mana dragons, but a lot more fragile than the 8/8's and 4/12's that Malygos, Alexstrasza and their ilk have. But King Mosh's suboptimal stat distribution belies a powerful battlecry: Mass Execute. Obviously, Execute is a 2-mana spell, and King Mosh allows you to destroy every single damaged minion on board, which control warriors love a lot. Of course, Mosh eats your own damaged minions, but honestly if it didn't then it would be a bit too broken. King Mosh is comparable to Sleep with the Fishes, a spell from Mean Streets of Gadgetzan that only saw fringe play, mostly because it costs 2-mana, and it only deals 3 damage to damaged minions so it doesn't act like an answer. Mosh allows you to just Whirlwind and murder everything on board. It's definitely slow in a 9 mana slot, but it does work quite well against a board filled with Jades. The Beast tag, for what it's worth, does let it be drawn by the Curator. I don't fully think that King Mosh is going to be in every deck, but it's definitely a great Control Warrior card, and definitely a better legendary than poor Varian Wrynn.

Raptor Hatchling
A card blatantly meant to interact with the swamp queen quest that requires you to summon a whole bunch of one drops is Small Raptor. He's a cute little baby raptor, a 1-mana 2/1 Beast that shuffles its mommy, a 1-mana 4/3 Beast. Theoretically it's 2-mana 6/4, which in itself is such a huge value, but the value's kind of offset, similarly to White Eyes, by the fact that mama raptor is shuffled into your deck instead of summoned immediately by a Battlecry or Deathrattle effect. It does allow you to continue playing one-mana cards without losing tempo, though, helping to complete the quest while not topdecking another 2/1 minion in the late game. How powerful a vanilla beast that shuffles another vanilla beast (albeit an overstatted one) will remain to be seen, but I have a hunch that Raptor Hatchling's going to be pretty good, if nothing else to help enable the Hunters' Quest.


Terrorscale Stalker
The Terrorscale Stalker is a Saurok, and he has a similar effect to Princess Huhuran or Feign Death. The Terrorscale isn't a beast, and has a slight stat penalty, losing a point fro the standard for a 3-mana, but it comes in early so it can help trigger those Kindly Grandmothers, or Small Raptors, and as deck builders will note, the more of a single effect you have in a deck, the more consistent it is. Huhuran is powerful, of course, but the fact that you only have a single copy of that effect makes the deck utilizing her as a whole a little less inconsistent. Terrorscale Stalker fixes that a little, I think. The fact that the Terrorscale Stalker is a lot cheaper mana-wise than Princess Huhuran means that he's a lot easier to combo than the Princess. The big problem is that Terrorscale Stalker suffers from the same problem that Rat Pack does -- it's a 3-mana card, and Hunter tends to be pretty heavy on the three-mana slot. I think it's a perfectly balanced card, especially with that slightly lower stat-line.

Thunder Lizard
Speaking of 3-mana 3/3's, Thunder Lizard is a neutral beast with the battlecry that allows you to Adapt it if you played an Elemental in the previous turn. Which I don't think will really see the cut into Elemental decks? It's one thing if your effect is as powerful as the Tol'vir Stoneshaper (turning into a 4-mana Psych-o-Tron with an extra health ain't no joke), but a simple Adapt to a 3-mana 3/3 isn't something that I really want to run in an Elemental deck, I don't think. Cool artwork, though.

Lightfused Stegodon
Jeez, it's the Quartermaster on steroids! The Lightfused Stegodon is the Paladin's dinosaur, and it's a 4-mana 3/4, which is perfectly one mana less stat-wise. Its battlecry? Adapt all your Silver Hand Recruits. Hitting one Recruit would break even. Hitting three, or four? Man, this dude's going to be insane in Wild with Muster for Battle. And giving the Silver Hand Recruits the Attack buff is basically a free Bloodlust. Giving them the Poisonous adaptation's going to make them a board clear. I really think this dude's a pretty powerful card, one that suddenly makes the 1-mana summon two 1/1 dudes suddenly feel appealing.

Hemet, Jungle Hunter
A very strange card, Hemet the Jungle Hunter is an upgrade to the hilariously bad Hemet Nesingwary from Goblins vs Gnomes, unquestionably the worst of the worst as far as Legendaries go. His effect this time around thankfully has nothing to do with his old, crappier incarnation. Hemet is now a more respectable 6-mana 6/6, and as a battlecry he destroys all cards in your deck that costs less than 3. It's... a very interesting card, which in theory will allow you to get rid of any early-game cards you failed to draw before turn 6, and with a few exceptions those tend to be bad anyway. Obviously not a card you want to play in Pirate Warriors, One-mana Hunters, Jade Druids or Rogue decks, but it is still a pretty interesting card that pulls off a pretty impressive 'thin out your deck' play. Maybe use Hemet to kill every single 1-drop card in your Carnassa Hunter deck, then play Queen Carnassa the next turn, thereby guaranteeing that you'll keep drawing cycle cards? It's going to leave your deck very vulnerable to fatigue, though. I'm not entirely sure what deck New Hemet is going to be used in, some kind of heavy-duty control deck I suppose, but honestly it's going to be a 'wait and see' card.

The Last Kaleidosaur/Galvadon
So after accidentally having its effect be leaked by other language translations, the Paladins' Quest Legendary, Galvadon, is finally confirmed to be a 5-mana 5/5 Beast that Adapts FIVE TIMES as a Battlecry. While the value of Adapt is still questionable until we actually see it in play (remember when we all thought Grimy Goons was going to be good?) Adapt really looks like each Adapt costs somewhere between half to one and a half of a mana. In addition to already having respectable vanilla stats, Galvadon can adapt five times. Which mean he can be a 11/5 with Windfury, Divine Shield and Stealth. Which is just scary and absolutely makes Al'Akir's nonexistent mouth hang agape in jealousy. Galvadon has the potential to really be broken despite his innocuous "eh, same thing but five times" battlecry.

Now what about the quest, though? It's... cast 6 spells on your minions. Which actually doesn't really seem as tricky as the Rogue's Quest, but it's going to take some time before you can get 6 spells out. The only real good buffing Paladin spells at this moment are Blessing of Kings and Dinosize. Even with the Quest, I don't see Blessing of Might, Blessing of Wisdom or Hand of Protection being played, neither Lay on Hands or Forbidden Healing are ever getting cast on minions, and Seal of Champions is rotating out. I guess we'll see Silvermoon Portal or Divine Strength being played after all? It's an interesting quest and an interesting reward. We'll see how well this stacks up against the other quests we've seen so far.

Blazecaller
So yeah, if you're playing Elementals, Blazecaller's definitely a dude you want to put in your deck. It comes on turn 7, so it comes perfectly after the Shaman's Fire Elemental and the Mage's 6-mana version of Pyros. It's a 7-mana 6/6 that deals 5 damage as damage if you played an Elemental the previous turn. And judging by Blackwing Technician, who's also a one-mana-more-expensive-for-his-stat and has a conditional damage dealing battlecry, Blazecaller's a pretty powerful effect. I honestly think that if I make an Elemental Shaman deck, Blazecaller's going to be my 7-drop instead of the Stone Sentinel. It's actually looking pretty good in my opinion, a lot better than the likes of Ozruk.

Servant of Kalimos
Servant of Kalimos is adorable! Also, another neutral Elemental. He costs one mana's worth of stats less, a 4/5 statline for 5 mana. The Servant of Kalimos is also an Elemental, mind you, and its battlecry is one of the better ones -- if you play an Elemental last turn, Discover an Elemental. Discover is a pretty powerful card, and depending on your class you can get some really good Elementals, too. Blazecaller, Kalimos himself, Al'Akir, Ragnaros Lightlord, Fire Elemental, Water Elemental... I think it's a card you'll want for your turn five play if you're running an Elemental deck. A card that discovers another card without stat penalty is actually pretty good, though, again, you really need a dedicated Elemental deck to make it work.


Ravenous Pterrordax
A curious dinosaur that joins Clutchmother Zavas in the ranks of new Warlock beasts, which is something that I honestly didn't expect to ever see. The Pterrordax is a 4-mana 4/4 with the Battlecry of destroying a friendly minion to adapt twice. Warlocks do have ways to make disposable minions with the brand-new Nether Portal, or from Possessed Villager or Forbidden Ritual, though without Imp Gang Boss or Implosion in Standard, it's a bit hard to find disposable 1/1's. I guess killing a Power Overwhelming'd minion is something, except P.O. is leaving Standard as well. Killing like a Flame Imp or Voidwalker will always feel bad, and yes, theoretically it's a huge, huge value boost since you get to Adapt twice, which means you might get something as big as a 4-mana 4/6 with Divine Shield or something. Ultimately I don't think Adapting twice is really worth destroying a friendly minion, though, and it'd be horrible if you topdecked this dude. An empty board means the Pterrordax is a bad 4-mana 4/4, but it's worse if you have a board with valuable minions like Doomguards and the like.

Evolving Spores
A Druid 4-mana spell that adapts all your minions... and it's honestly not very appealing. Gentle Megasaur does the same thing to all Murlocs, and still comes with a body that doesn't even get a stat-to-cost penalty. A 4-mana Adapt really depends on the type of adaptation you get, really. Some adaptations are just bad when done en masse. A mass +1/+1 is overcosted at 4, especially since Mark of the Lotus does it for 1-mana. Mass Stealth, likewise, is a shit choice considering Conceal is also priced at 1-mana. I don't really see the point of making all your minions get Taunt, +3 Health, spell-proof, or get the 1/1 Deathrattle (you'll want to cast Evolving Spores on a full board, and when they die they'll just swarm the board with the maximum amount of 1/1's which isn't that good for 4 mana). I guess mass Divine Shield or mass Poisonous is somewhat decent for trading, but do you really want this card to just do that? The +3 Attack or mass Windfury are probably best for finisher purposes, but it's not reliable that you get those, and besides Druid still has Savage Roar around. So no, I don't think this card is super reliable or will really be played.


Spirit Echo
Spirit Echo is a card that I didn't expect to see as a Shaman card of all things. It's something that Rogues would really love to have considering their new quest. But Shaman gets yet another strange new toy with Spirit Echo, which is surprising considering their repertoire in the Un'Goro set is split evenly between Murlocs and Elementals, leaning more towards the latter side. Spirit Echo... kinda synergizes with those two, but also kinda don't. Like, Elementals benefit from playing other Elementals, so obviously having a recycle mechanic is useful (ditto for Jade Shaman too, actually), and getting a Kalimos or Blazecaller or Stone Sentinel back, so long as you have an activator, would be pretty great. Of course you still have to pay the cost when you re-play those minions, but it's still pretty good. Now whether you want to pay three mana to give an entire board 'return this card to your hand when it dies', and then have to pay the mana to summon Kalimos or Megafin or Aya Blackpaw or whatever again... I dunno. My gut says that Spirit Echo is good, but situational. We'll see. It's 3 mana, so it's kind of cheap, and comparable effects like Echo of Medivh and Blood Warriors did see play.

Tortollan Primalist
There's not enough Tortollans in this set! For a brand new race, we've got, what, three, four of them in total? The Primalist doesn't seem quite good either. He's a 8-mana 5/4, which is disastrously bad stats, and his effect? A glorified Servant of Yogg-Saron. Yes, you get to choose the spell, so if you get something that definitely targets the enemy (Consecration, Flamestrike, all Secrets) it's good, but is it worth paying 8 mana for a 5/4? Yes, you'll probably want to get the value, but Discover means that the three spells are going to be from your class, which begs the question -- instead of playing this understatted card that has a not insignificant chance to whiff, why not put in said spell?

Spikeridged Steed
Well, at least we're getting a somewhat decent Paladin buff card to play with the quest. It's a +2/+6 and Taunt, which is kind of like a better, more expensive version of Power Word: Tentacles... but the value doesn't stop there, because you summon the 2/6-Taunt as a Stegodon when the buffed minion dies. It's actually not a bad play. I'm not entirely sure if you want to spend your turn six buffing a minion and doing nothing else, and that really seems to be the big weakness of the Paladin Quest -- Galvadon is insanely good, but when are you really going to get the chance to play all the buff cards? Regardless, though, if you do end up playing the Paladin Quest, I'm pretty sure Spikeridged Steed makes it into the deck. (Side-note: this card wins the 'most difficult to pronounce mentally' prize.)

Stegodon
Some sources are citing that the Stegodon from the Spikeridged Steed is actually a collectible card in the set itself? What a fucking boring card that is, then, our first real 'boring statline swapped around' card in the set. It's a slightly more defensive Sen'jin, and that's more or less it.


Cornered Sentry
"Clever girl!"The Sentry's a pretty interesting card. She's similar to Dirty Rat in that she's a 2-mana 2/6 Taunt, but instead of summoning an opponent's minion from their hand, she summons three 1/1 Raptors for the opponent. The flavour's certainly there, this lady explorer just stumbled into the wrong neighbourhood and is now attacked by a group of angry tiny raptors. On one hand, unlike Dirty Rat you don't deny powerful battlecries. But on the other hand, you also minimize the chance of giving your opponent a free huge body on the field, and while three 1/1's can definitely do some work, if Leeroy Jenkins is any indication they tend to not matter much against a 6/2, let alone a 2/6. Plus, this followed up with a Ravaging Ghoul is just amazing. Just don't give the Raptors to a Hunter, lest they do a lot of Adapt/Houndmaster/Beast shenanigans with them.

Justice League Unlimited S02E13 Review: Before Beyond

Justice League Unlimited, Season 2, Episode 13: Epilogue

So, this episode is supposed to cap of the DC Animated Universe. And honestly still works. Batman: The Animated Series changed the game for superhero cartoons on television. It's not the first cartoon, nor the first good cartoon, but it's the first one that really, truly respects both the source material and the audience's intelligence, being meant as entertainment not to appeal to children of the ages below five, but to a broader audience. The voice-acting and dialogue wasn't asinine, the character writing were actually amazing, the action scenes were great, and while it doesn't steep to the dark themes of modern comics it's still very much content on tackling more mature issues.

It spawned many, many other stories. Superman: The Animated Series. Batman Beyond. Static Shock. Justice League. Justice League Unlimited. Of all these, Batman Beyond perhaps can be called the DCAU's biggest and most ambitious creation, being almost entirely original and not based on any prior DC creation. It's also chronologically the last stories of the DCAU, and where Justice League and Justice League Unlimited served as a capstone to some Superman stories that the showmakers weren't able to tell, not a corner of the DCAU goes without being respected. And one burning question is the whole mystery in Batman Beyond. I have to admit I haven't watched the series beyond its first season at the time of writing this review, but it's still an emotional story nonetheless.

The story works both in-universe and out-of-universe, showing the influence that Batman has on the world, essentially spawning the entire generation of heroes in the DCAU. Amanda Waller as the old, mysterious woman from Bruce's past that reveals a lot of things to Terry -- namely of the 'Batman Beyond Project' to ensure that the world will always have a Batman to protect it, is well done and ties this all to JLU pretty well. It ties in to the greater Cadmus plotline very well, and actually answers a question about Terry -- that he has neither the hair colour of both his parents, and actually resembles Bruce a fair bit. Does it take away from his agency as a character, that he was just 'destined' to become Batman? No, as Amanda Waller points out, Bruce never reveals that he knows (or if he knows) to Terry, and all the trials and tribulations that Terry McGinnis went through to become Batman, to succeed Bruce Wayne as the protector of Gotham City, is real.

It's really an amazing bit of television as Terry hallucinates some black-and-white events of him breaking up with his girlfriend Dana, rejecting the Justice League, rejecting Bruce, and generally acts like a douche after hanging up the mantle of Batman because he feels betrayed. It's not until the final set of scenes (where both Dana and Bruce are very amicable to Terry, and locales that should be destroyed are actually repaired) that we realize it's Terry's imagination and not flashbacks to what recently happened. As someone who has to succeed what is possibly the biggest burden out there -- to be Batman -- Terry goes through a crisis of self-worth as he's confused just how much of the Batman mantle he deserves, thinking that he's the result of Bruce's machinations. Except that Bruce is innocent. Everything is Amanda's fault.

It's a huge bombshell, of course, as Amanda Waller reveals that the world will always have a Dark Knight because of her own machinations, that she alters the genetic code of the reproductive organs of some men, including Warren McGinnis, effectively making Terry the biological son of Bruce Wayne. It changes the dynamic and relationship between Bruce and Terry, but then Amanda Waller always was an extremist. Hell, she very nearly has an assassin murder Terry's parents in a dark alley... it's a good thing the assassin she hires is Phantasm, making a very welcome return to the DCAU in a short but impactful cameo where she refuses to do the deed.

What really sells Amanda Waller why Batman is a hero that the world needs and not, say, Superman or J'onn J'onzz, is not the ease at which Batman maneuvers around her, or how Batman was the one that uncovers Luthor's conspiracy during the Cadmus crisis, but rather one of the best Batman moments ever, in an encounter with the Royal Flush Gang's Ace, one of my favourite creations of the DCAU. See, Ace is a very powerful realty-warping telepath, one of the creations of Cadmus. She doesn't belong among the heroes, she doesn't belong among her other Royal Flush Gang members, she doesn't even belong among crazy villains like the Joker. She tries to make a 'new' Royal Flush Gang, transforming a group of people to be her friends, but they're more intent on destroying stuff.

And Ace has used her powers to transform a huge part of the city into her own personal wonderland, and where Doctor Light and the other League members fight against the four Royal Flush Gang mooks, Batman enters Ace's realm to stop Ace from killing everyone -- she's suffering from a terminal aneurysm that'll kill everyone in the city. Waller is insistent that Batman kill the terminal Ace. It would be a mercy-killing, since the kid's terminal anyway... but Batman is not just a hero because he can fight, or he has a lot of gadgets, or that he's smart. He's a hero because no matter the cost, he upholds his code of honour.

Both Ace and Batman know that Batman isn't going to use the killswitch Waller gave him. Batman finds a different way, and this way is compassion. He holds Ace's hand, sitting on the swing, calming the girl down from her fear of death and her crippling loneliness -- things that Batman is familiar with. It's a moment that tugs at the heart strings, that's for sure, and Batman sees a lot of his young, afraid and lonely self in Ace. Yes, he is the vengeance and the night, but deep down Batman's a nice guy, a hero that's strong enough to be gentle, and it's this compassion that really sells Batman's character as a hero not only in the audience's eyes, but also in the eyes of Amanda Waller.

It's an amazing story, and one that helps Terry get past his own insecurities. Yes, he's part of a legacy both as a son of Bruce Wayne and as the second Batman, but he's still his own man. He's Bruce's son instead of his clone, which is an important distinction. And as he patches things up with Dana and Bruce, and the moment where we see Bruce making dinner for Terry (Bruce knows, doesn't he, damned detective that he is) and Terry setting Bruce's medicine for him is really heartwarming, and he embraces his destiny as Batman... but in his own terms.

It would've been a really great end for the DCAU, where Terry, as the Batman, finally gets a happy ending while still upholding the legacy of the dark knight, showing that Batman and the League's efforts are still being fought for in the future, while telling a very emotional and heart-tugging story for Bruce and Terry.

Of course, it's not the end, since we have another season to go. This is practically the perfect episode to end the DCAU on, though, the perfect epilogue with lots of great character moments and lots of callbacks to earlier stories.

We'll take a break from Justice League Unlimited for a month or so before we go through with the third season. JLU is such an excellent bit of superhero storytelling that it's a gem to review, but it's pretty exhausting too at the same time simply due to how much I have to talk about every episode.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Roles: Batman (Terry McGinnis), Batman (Bruce Wayne), Amanda Waller, Kai-Ro, Tomahawk, Aquagirl, Dr. Light
• Non-Speaking Roles: Red Tornado, Hawkgirl, Stargirl
• Main Villains: Parasite, Ace
• Non-Speaking Villains: Inque, Shriek, Stalker, King II, Jack II, Queen II, Ten II, Phantasm

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• This episode takes place after every single episode of Batman Beyond, the latest chronologically in the DCAU canon. 
• Ace last appeared in the Justice League episode "Wild Cards". Retroactively and coincidentally, this probably means that Bruce's dog, Ace, is named after this Ace.
• The new Royal Flush Gang is based visually on other properties. King is based on Marvel comics' supervillain M.O.D.O.K., Queen is based on Alice in Wonderland's Queen of Hearts (also she's really a he, a stealth reference to a drag queen), Jack is based on the cartoon Samurai Jack, and Ten is based on Bo Derek in the movie '10'.
• Terry briefly mentions how Joker used DNA alteration on Tim Drake, referencing the events of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. Terry also briefly mentions Mister Freeze, a villain that both Batmen have tangled with.
• The Justice League Unlimited roster that appear in the future, namely Warhawk, Aquagirl and the Green Lantern Kai-Ro, are all seen in the Batman Beyond episode "the Call". The villains they fight, other than the Parasite, are all Batman Beyond villains: Inque, Stalker and Shriek. It's revealed that Terry isn't a member of the JLU yet.
• Parasite has mutated to develop a fanged, lamprey-esque mouth, referencing his appearance in the comics. It's unclear if this is the same Parasite as Rudy Jones or not. 
• Phantasm, a.k.a. Andrea Beaumont, was introduced and last seen in the movie Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. 
• Terry watches a movie titled "The Grey Ghost Strikes Back", which is a reference to Bruce Wayne's childhood hero. The title is probably a reference to the Frank Miller comic "The Dark Knight Strikes Again."
• Waller's offhand quip about how the Royal Flush Gang here is "the second or third incarnation" is a reference to how chronologically this would be the second incarnation, but due to Batman Beyond airing before Justice League, then in the real-world this would be the third incarnation of the Royal Flush Gang shown to the audience.
• The events of this episode recycles several plot points from a cancelled Batman Beyond movie which would have Catwoman as the person responsible for the cloning process.
• The episode's final scene features Terry's Batman flying, silhouetted against buildings and startling an airborne police hover-car, with one of them yelling "did you see that?", which is a homage to the opening scene in the very first scene of the very first episode of Batman: The Animated Series, "On Leather Wings", complete with the B:TAS score.

Iron Fist S01E07 Review: Company Problems

Iron Fist, Season 1, Episode 7: Felling Tree with Roots

Man, imagine if Iron Fist started off at this kind of pace and storytelling quality. This really should've happened earlier in the season instead of a little after the midway point. There's a lot here that goes down. Ward and Harold have a confrontation. Danny tries pushing his weight around in the company one too many times. Gao and Danny have a confrontation. Danny, Colleen and the Yang Triad gang unleash a raid on a Hand base.

Let's start with Ward first. Can I just say how much I like Ward and Joy's relationship in this series? It's a bit rare that a show manages to portray a brother-sister villain team with a relationship that felt as healthy as this. Their immediate predecessors, Cottonmouth and Mariah, are also a sibling team whose familial loyalty is marred by a deep-seated resentment they have for each other's methods. With Ward and Joy, they disagree a lot but at the same time, Joy still backs Ward all the time, and even at his worst Ward snapping at Joy a little is immediately followed by apologies. Joy truly doesn't know what Ward is hiding -- she thinks it's something that's just a harmless drug addiction when Ward has a little Frankenstein Daddy hidden in the proverbial basement -- but doesn't push. She tells Ward that he needs to get out and maybe take a holiday for a bit because she recognizes the problems her brother has.

But Ward's relationship with Harold? Oh, that's so hideously unhealthy. It's not just the verbal and physical abuse either, because Harold basically fucks over Ward's attempts to run away by draining all the money from his account. He employs Ward to dump bodies in the river, without really telling Ward just how those bodies get there, and continues to berate Ward for being a weak piece of shit who can't follow instructions. It's a horrible, horrible kind of abuse and it's at least one part in Iron Fist that really comes through as well done. And it's no surprise to anyone that Ward snaps. He's angry at his father on so many levels, and he snaps at the end of the episode after one too many abuses, murdering his father in cold blood with knife to the gut.

Side-note: Ward murdering Harold, while not identical, is kind of similar to how Mariah murdered Cottonmouth during the halfway point of Luke Cage, isn't it? How the more passive of a family villain duo murders the card-carrying villain after one too many personal insults? Harold's a far more terrible father than Cottonmouth ever was to Mariah, though.

Yes, Ward is a huge douchebag especially with the revelation that his escape vacation money was embezzled from pension funds. But he also really didn't deserve literally have his choices be absolutely cut off by his father. Between his addiction, dealing with Danny, having his escape ruthlessly cut off, having had to dispose of bodies gruesomely hacked up by his father... no wonder he cut off. And, well, the episode opens and ends with Ward disposing of a body in the park lake, which is sorta cool, I guess.

It's a pretty good moment even if Harold's absence from several episodes has made him feel like, well, a pretty generic mastermind villain, whose position of interest is pitting people against each other and his shtick as a bad dad. And it does throw a huge wrench into the plans of everyone. He's playing Danny against the Hand, taking Danny into the company to earn his loyalty so Danny will deal with the Hand for him, while assuring the Hand that, fuck, he had no idea what's going on with all this Iron Fist nonsense. "That sounds like a sex toy" indeed. And Harold being absolutely nice to Danny means that Danny believes his act because, well, Harold has been the most (selectively) open to Danny so far, and the dude's kind of a naive fool so it's definitely believable.

Danny, meanwhile, is kind of broken out of his flunk by Harold promising that they're going to fight the Hand together, and he totally get to bang Colleen Wing and get some comforting words from her. Coleen herself continues to be somewhat interesting, with the added wrinkle that her... old boyfriend? Current boyfriend? Bakuto shows up, and the two of them are revealed to actually know about the Iron Fist. I'm not familiar enough with the source material to say whether these are allies (maybe from the Chaste?) or enemies, but either way would make their cryptic conversation make sense.

Joy is running ragged trying to fix Danny's cock-up. And, yes, from the eyes of the boyish billionaire, what he's doing is the right thing. The plant's maybe making people sick? Shut it down! Oh, and pay the employees, too, 'cause I'm a nice guy and doing the right thing. The thing is, the dude handles it in such a hugely assholish manner to the board of directors and Joy that the Meachums and Danny's position in the company is basically evicted. Danny's passion for doing the right thing is definitely admirable, but his impulsiveness and bullheadedness in refusing to compromise is also absolutely cringe-inducing.

You really can't envy Joy's position here. She tries her best to smooth things over, to get Danny to apologize to the board of directors while simultaneously trying to find a middle ground to all this, but not only does Danny throw away the gesture of goodwill, he stamps his foot down and demands that the plant be shut down -- and not only that, he goes behind everyone's back to already make a statement to the news. It's not being the head of a company, it's being a dictator. And you know what? That's exactly what happens when you get someone with the mentality and black-and-white heroism of a ten-year old in charge of a huge company. Meetings? Profit? What's that? Of course, this is television land so obviously Lawrence is the evil one, and naive, bullheaded Danny and Joy will end up teaming up to retake the company. Which is going to be a drag.

And, well, Danny's troubles in the company isn't just that he's now missing Harold and his job, but discovering that his company has been infiltrated by Madame Gao for far longer than he knew. Gao's apparently even conducting her business inside the Rand building itself. Madame Gao shows up in Danny's office without fear, commenting on feng shui and whatnot, and reveals something that's foreshadowed in the previous episode -- that Danny left K'un Lun because he wants to be Danny Rand more than he wants to be Iron Fist, Protector of K'un Lun and Destroyer of the Hand. Gao's proposition is simple. Stay out of each other's business. Of course, Danny can't do that, and he infiltrates Madame Gao's office in the 13th floor -- because not only Harold has a secret floor in the Rand building.

Danny's brief stint at clue-finding seemed to be a bit too easy since Gao actually seems to suspect something both in the elevator and during the guard-less meeting. It's also a bit odd that she's talking about every single operation in New York and her secretary (who doesn't leave with Gao and her two bodyguards) has all the data Danny needs. But hey, it could all be a plan, and as both Harold and the Bride of Nine Spiders showed, Danny's quite easy to fool.

Danny and Colleen get their own army in the Yang Triads (a.k.a. the Hatchet Men, as the show's begun calling them) who murder everyone in a heroin factory to get Radovan, who proceeds to immediately die of his wounds, and he's already told Gao the formula. Also the fact that Gao's gone to Hangzhou, which was Danny's original destination on that fateful plane.

So yeah, the Hand plotline is proceeding quickly even if I still don't really get where they are going with the heroin mass production. Is it literally just for money? The board meeting stuff is easily the least interesting parts of the story, too. But this episode has some really good parts especially in regards to Ward, and introducing new layers of mystery about Colleen Wing, Madame Gao and Danny's history is pretty awesome.


Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• When talking about how the world's gone crazy, Gao references Daredevil and Luke Cage. Pity we didn't a Jessica Jones reference there to get all three of the other Defenders mentioned, but then Jessica's been keeping all her vigilantism secret. 
• Karen Page is referenced again, and Danny apparently went to her to get his story out. 
• Harold briefly mentions the long-running evil organizaion in the MCU, Roxxon Corporation, whose complicity with the Hand was shown in Daredevil's second season.
• The Dogs of Hell, a street gang that was featured in Daredevil's second season as well as briefly in Agents of SHIELD, was briefly mentioned during Gao's discussion.

Arrow S05E16 Review: Hurt

Arrow, Season 5, Episode 16: Checkmate

Whoops, missed an episode. So yeah, a pretty strong episode of Arrow. Oliver Queen confronts Adrian Chase with the knowledge that he's Prometheus, and Chase's reaction is basically "good, I don't have to put up with this good guy act." He makes it clear to Ollie, Quentin and Rene that, yes, he is Prometheus, and there's nothing they can do about in since all of them are high-profile members of the city, and he's not going to go down easy if they decide to come after him the traditional way. Chase's definitely a very interesting villain.

Chase being Prometheus isn't the biggest twist out there, because there's always a shifty way about how Chase carries himself. And, yes, he's either going to be the Vigilante as his comic-book counterpart or he's going to be Prometheus, but either way the cat's out of the bag, and he's now playing an absolute thorn in Oliver's side -- in both his lives. We still don't quite know anything about Chase's master plan beyond "make Oliver hurt", and whether he truly is the son of Jason Claybourne, but we did discover that his real name isn't Adrian Chase but rather Simon Morrison, leaving it open for Vigilante to be an Adrian Chase whose identity was stolen. It's like the Zoom/Jay Garrick thing all over again, but done right.

Chase has kidnapped Susan, and this thing has prevented Oliver from really moving against him. And to make things worse, Oliver traveled to a knockoff of Nanda Parbat to meet his old buddy Talia... who reveals herself to not just have trained Chase, but actually helped him to become Prometheus. Talia reveals her true name of Talia Al Ghul, and while she's estranged from her father she's pissed that Oliver killed him. Nevermind that he's a huge terrorist, he's still Talia's father and she will have her revenge.

Which gets far more complicated when Talia actually shows up to help Prometheus take down Green Arrow in a fight, and actually kidnap him at the end of the episode.

Prometheus is constantly one step ahead of Oliver, really (or TEN STEPS AHEAD! as he keeps reminding us). Oliver wants to talk to Chase's wife? A SWAT team is ready to arrest the dangerous vigilante. Try and get inspector Pike to investigate? Hobo-mode Chase stabs him and leaves him in a coma. Hell, even kidnapping Oliver at the end ensures that none of his allies can reveal his identity to the public.

Susan being kidnapped drives a good chunk of the plot, and it's just a shame that I don't really care for her. It's understandable that Team Arrow wouldn't let Susan die, but she left as much of an impact as me as Thea's HIVE boyfriend from the last season, which is not at all. Still, she is a damsel in distress, and her kidnapping sets up some pretty great fight scenes between Oliver and Prometheus that honestly feels a lot more kung fu-y than the half of Iron Fist I've watched.

Chase's constant telling of Oliver how he's ten steps ahead gets a bit tiresome, but Oliver brings his wife into the mix. It's not the cruel "Imma blow her head off!" type of thing, of course, but she's brought out when Prometheus has unmasked himself and revealed himself to be Adrian Chase (or Simon Hurt Morrison) and his wife is something he didn't expect to show up. Of course, he's a villain so he stabs his wife and leaves her for dead, and there's a nice bit where he actually looks like he feels fucking sorry about all of it, but does so because putting an innocent woman's death at the hands of the Green Arrow vilifies the vigilante and makes him a sad man whose wife was killed by this dangerous fucker. And yes, Chase's wife is less of a person than Susan Williams, but the moment hits nonetheless, with Chase's anger and hatred being so consuming that he threw away his family to further that agenda a little bit is amazingly done.

The B-plots in the episode aren't as well done, I think, and sadly the Russian flashback has lost a lot of what made it so good earlier in the season. It's just Oliver Queen donning the hood and becoming a vigilante to murder the Gregor faction, before going back to fighting Kovar over... shit, the girl from last season's island plot? Gregor dies without much of an incident, but his "if you kill me you'll regret what you'll become" thing is absolutely weird and seems to have come out of nowhere. Boo. Still, we did get a great line from Anatoly: "What is thing you do with voice?"

Felicity's plotline is a lot nicer, as Helix asks some quid pro quo from her. Helix helps her out in locating Susan, but in exchange for Felicity redirecting some satellites. Curtis tries to get Felicity to, well, not do any of this morally ambiguous bullshit, but what choice does she have? She has a resource, a way to find this innocent woman, but at the same time it's also figuratively selling her soul to a very well-spoken devil. Kojo Sledgehammer (or, well, more likely K0J0513dG3h4|\/||\/|3R) is very nice and cheery, and as far as Felicity is knowing they're doing the right thing, if slightly outside the law... which isn't it the same thing that the Green Arrow is doing? Very curious where Helix will end up leading, and if we're going to get the Helix plot tied into the Prometheus one. 

Overall, a pretty strong episode. Smaller moments I didn't get to talk about include the very well-acted frustrated Oliver Queen, Curtis and Dinah's interactions while investigating, and the T-Spheres being even more useful.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Prometheus's real real name is revealed to be Simon Morrison, and a combination of his first name and his actions bring to mind Simon Hurt, a Batman villain whose first modern appearance involves him causing character assassinations of the Wayne family (similar to how Prometheus is fucking up Green Arrow's legacy) and having a personal connection to Batman. Of course, the similarities aren't that obvious, but Simon Hurt as the inspiration for Arrow's Prometheus makes a hell lot more sense compared to the actual DC character Prometheus.
• Anatoly and Oliver's talk about needing someone to pull data out of the bullet-ridden laptop is a callback (or call-forward depending on your perspective) to Oliver's first meeting with Felicity, where he recruits her to decipher data from a bullet-ridden laptop.
• Talia being romantically involved with Batman (or allied with Green Arrow, in this case) but ending up choosing her father when her loyalties are put to the test, is a common plotline in practically every single one of her appearances. 

Justice League Unlimited S02E12 Review: Barry Allen Would Be Proud

Justice League Unlimited, Season 2, Episode 12: Divided We Fall

The Justice League.

Okay, this honestly was meant to be the end of Justice League Unlimited, with the plans and greenlight for the third season coming very late after the second season was underway. And honestly? I can see where so many points in this episode (and the last three) all aimed to end. All the Cadmus storylines that were seeded throughout the first two seasons are dealt with, Green Arrow and Supergirl, the two characters we're introduced at the beginning of Unlimited, come full circle with Green Arrow going from a cynic to recognizing the importance of the League to be the first person to speak up against dissolving it. Superman's storyline that carried so much of season two also comes to a close, as does Lex Luthor himself as the arc villain. Sure, there's a final episode in season two, but that acts as an epilogue to the universe more than it does to just Justice League Unlimited.

And it's fitting that this supposed 'final episode' only stars the main seven heroes that founded the Justice League as they come face to face with this monstrous combination of Lex Luthor and Brainiac, about to take over the world, and having to actually fight copies based on Justice Lord versions of themselves. Yes, it's a bit on-the-nose after so much subtlety throughout much of season two, but this kinda does show that the heroes' sense of justice is far stronger than the potential of them turning out evil like their alternate-universe doppelgangers.

This season of Justice League Unlimited has a long-running theme of how the Justice League became their own worst enemy, how due to the paranoia and escalating arms race between Cadmus and the League, they very nearly ended up destroying each other and allowing the world's real monsters -- like Luthor and Brainiac -- to take over. In trying to deliver this message, part of it is kind of lost (unless you count Green Arrow's speech here) because our heroes have to stop Luthor and Brainiac from destroying the world, but the main themes still stand. With great power comes great responsibility, and if the Justice League wants to be the watchers of the world, they cannot just take the laws into their own hands, lest they become no better than Cadmus or Luthor.

The majority of this episode is just a huge, huge, glorious action scene as the seven founding members of the Justice League is reunited as they do battle with the combined Luthor-Brainiac creature (Lexniac? Brainithor?), from his gigantic tentacle spaceship, to the hulking montrosity that they two are combined into in the first few scenes, to Justice Lord clones, to the final golden form... it's pretty awesome action all around, with a lot of great moments. Hell, even Amanda Waller gets some action in by shooting Luthor-Brainiac when he's monologuing! Lady's got some awesome guts.

All the heroes get their due. J'onn's awesomeness in breaking free, Flash using his vibration-arm technique to blow up Reverse-Flash, Green Lantern and Shayera get to unleash their personal tensions on each other's doppelganger, and Superman gets to have a short guilt trip that he was shaken out of by Diana. Brainiac and Luthor's conversation in the sewer, with Brainiac explaining his real plans, and Luthor getting Brainiac to cooperate with him in a similar way to him manipulating Amazo, is pretty awesome and Luthor-Brainiac getting a power-up by assimilating the Dark Heart is pretty cool, making him far more believable as a threat to all seven League members.

And the Justice Lords episode has been a huge, huge lynchpin in getting this whole Cadmus affair forwards, first by being the thing that caused both Question and Project Cadmus to even consider the League going back in the first place. And Luthor mentions this bit multiple times, noting how 'Flash will die'. And true to that, Flash ends up being an integral part of the episode.

Flash, especially the younger, more inexperienced Wally West version, is someone who's very easy to underestimate. He's just a kid that runs fast -- Superman can do that. He's less powerful than J'onn, Shayera or Wonder Woman, he's not as smart as Batman or Green Lantern. And then he lets loose in this episode, and it's amazing. From how he's vibrating so fast that the rubble around him rises into the air, to him slamming into Luthor-Brainiac so fast that he runs around the world multiple times... that's easily one of the most iconic and most badass scenes that Flash has ever done, and reminds me once again why, despite DC comics and its live-action adaptations thinking otherwise, Wally West will always be the Flash in my mind. Sorry, Barry.

It's just a fucking badass moment, all right? And after essentially being ignored for a good chunk of Unlimited's first season, seeing Flash basically save the day is amazing.

Flash runs around the world so damned fast that each successive force hits harder and harder that Brainiac's Dark Heart technology can't regenerate, and strips away every bit of Brainiac from Luthor's body. Going this fast causes Flash to peacefully fade away into the Speed Force, however, and the horror in everyone's faces -- especially Flash's "big sister", Shayera, is agonizing. And you honestly believe that Wally's going to just be gone, considering how much the mainstream comics likes killing off Flashes as the 'big death' in climaxes. And since this is the final episode of Justice League Unlimited, or is meant to, you almost believe that it's the case. But J'onn manages to telepathically get Wally back, and all the six League members begin a hand-to-hand pull of Flash out of the Speed Force. Even Batman, whose strength is negligible compared to the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman, but damned if the Dark Knight is going to not give his all in getting Flash back. It's cheesy and corny, yes, but fuck, it's heartwarming and awesome.

Luthor-Brainiac is defeated, and Superman calls a press conference to talk about how they're all guilty of the sin of hubris, how they've failed humanity. In Superman's words: "We had the best of intentions to be Earth's guardians, to keep you safe... but we failed you. We looked down at the world from our tower in the sky, and let our power and responsibility separate us from the very people we were supposed to protect. No one should ever be afraid of us."

And, of course, it's Green Arrow -- the biggest voice of criticism against forming an army of superheroes on day one, who spends a good chunk two episodes ago criticizing the League's own methods -- that speaks up against Superman's attempt to dissolve the League. Yes, Superman's, well, Superman, and he takes on other people's burdens because he's the strongest of them all, but he's not the only hero in the Justice League. In Green Arrow's words, no, Superman has not failed the city the world. "If you're quitting because you think you've already done your fair share, we'll throw you a parade. But if you're quitting because it's easier than continuing the fight, then you're not the heroes we all thought you were." Green Arrow's line is one that resonated through me when I watched this episode as a kid, because being a hero isn't about just beating the Luthors and Brainiacs of the world. It's not even just about admitting your mistakes like what Superman just did. It's about not giving up, it's about learning from your mistakes and continuing to help people however you can, because you can. And that's what the League is all about -- it's greater than any one man, it's greater than the original seven.

And yes, the League does continue. Even after the cancellation of Justice League Unlimited, it still continues, be it in comic book form, or in new incarnations of the cartoon (like 2016's Justice League Action that I'm reviewing concurrently, created nearly a decade after this), or in live-action, the League will endure, and the League will continue to exist, with or without Superman. And while it's noble for him to bear the burdens of everyone, every single person in the League are heroes, and what was once just a group of seven people trying to help the world have grown into something larger and more noble than Clark and Bruce hanging out to beat up a couple of terrorists.

Is it the perfect ending that I thought it was when I first caught this episode on Cartoon Network as a kid? Nah, it's not. There are a fair amount of holes when I sat down to review this episode, and I think the last four episodes took the longest for me to review. There's the abandoning of the very interesting proactiveness argument last episode and replacing it with a relatively more generic superhero angst. There's a lack of resolution on the Cadmus part of the storyline, with only Waller really participating in the end. There's the fact that Brainiac still comes out of nowhere and the episode could've functioned as well against him and if Luthor had done everything himself (maybe he succeeds in transferring his body into the Amazo body?). And yes, maybe the rest of the League could come help out and fight the big Brainiac battleship, but keeping it to the main seven works just as fine, I suppose. Whatever the case, it's still a pretty great final episode... well, until the epilogue. And the final season comes around.

Justice League Roll Call:

• Speaking Roles: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Amanda Waller, Steel, Green Arrow
• Non-Speaking Roles: Dr. Light, Creeper, Ice, Fire, Vixen, Supergirl, Nemesis, Aztek, Zatanna, Huntress, Vigilante, Atom Smasher, Vibe, Rocket Red, Waverider, Red Tornado, Dr. Mid-Nite, STRIPE, Stargirl, Hourman, Captain Atom, Wildcat, Gypsy, Commander Steel, Atom, Crimson Avenger, Ray, B'wana Beast, Starman, Shining Knight, Dr. Fate, Sand, Question, Elongated Man, Fire, Mr. Terrific, Black Canary, Metamorpho, Crimson Fox
• Main Villains: Lex Luthor, Brainiac

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Various episodes of Superman: The Animated Series are referenced by Brainiac. I'm not super well-versed in the later seasons of Superman: TAS, but apparently part of Brainiac has been in Luthor's possession, and it's separate from the Brainiac destroyed in the Justice League episode "Twilight", though Brainiac seems to be aware of his betrayal by Darkseid in that episode, referencing it here. Luthor attributes Brainiac for curing his Kryptonite poisoning and giving him super-strength. 
• The Dark Heart reappear after it being confiscated by Eiling and the government in "The Dark Heart".
• The clones created by Luthor/Brainiac of the Justice Leaguers all resemble their Justice Lords counterparts, with Lord Hawkgirl apparently having a Thanagarian general outfit, something we don't know during the Justice Lords episode... and since there isn't a Justice Lord Flash, Luthor/Brainiac creates one based on the comics' Reverse-Flash. Rather ironically, Flash uses the Reverse-Flash's trademark "vibrating hand" murder technique to dispatch his robotic doppelganger.
• Brainiac's gigantic metallic skull ship is based on his appearance in the comics' Silver Age all the way to the 1980's, where he's a skeletal robot riding around in a gigantic skull-ship with metallic tentacles. Meanwhile, Brainiac and Luthor sharing a body, with Brainiac being more dominant, is a possible homage to the comic "Whatever Happaned to the Man of Tomorrow?" where Brainiac does take over Luthor's body.
• Batman's quote, "quis custodiet ipsos custodes", a.k.a. "who watches the watchers" is more likely than not a homage to the iconic Alan Moore comic Watchmen.
• Flash's jibe about how he's going to paint his logo at the Justice League conference table is a nod to how in the comics the League members have their respective logos on the back of their chairs.
• Flash being lost into the Speed Force, finding it peaceful, while trying to stop a powerful villain from destroying the world, is a homage to the death of Barry Allen's Flash during the Crisis to Infinite Earths.

Nanatsu no Taizai - Gowther Side Story Review

Nanatsu no Taizai: The Doll Asks For Love

Ah, we finally get a Gowther side-story! Regrettably it doesn't really answer who the original demon Gowther was, how doll Gowther got made, and what crimes did he commit that he was imprisoned by the Demon King, but it's still answers a fair bit about how Gowther came to be a member of the Seven Deadly Sins slightly before the present-day stuff.

Apparently he lost all his memories and feelings due to his Commandment, but I think that's something that might've happened to Demon Gowther in the past, which we have to return to the flashback story to really understand. Whatever the case, doll Gowther wakes up several centuries after the original great Goddess/Demon Clan War, to be found by this girl Nadja, who we later find out is actually sister to King Barta and the knight Denzel. Gowther's confused about everything that's going on. What is this kingdom of Liones? What happened in the past 3000 years? Why is the great fairy forest underground? He befriends Nadja and smiles and all, before finding the dead body of his namesake and his wheelchair. 

There's a bit where he's lonely and Nadja keeps visiting him in that underground cavern, bringing him books (which is why he's so obsessed with them). Gowther shows off his ability to extend his hair, as well as his doll heart. His opening of his chest and showing off his Zelda-style heart container freaks Nadja out that she faints. Nadja wakes up in her room and tells about how she likes Gowther to Barta, and apparently Gowther disguised himself as a maid to get Nadja help. Barta knows what's going on, and keeps quiet, allowing Gowther to hang around as Nadja's maid.

Some time passes, and Gowther continues to emulate the knight Meldor in the story that Nadja showed him the first time, taking her on horseback rides and whatnot. Barta tells Gowther to stay by Nadja's side forever after foreseeing another event.

Nadja is apparently super sick, and Gowther's sad. He also notes how he's ultimately just a doll, just someone's creations, and he will continue to exist for thousands of years unlike the frail humans that he loves. Nadja tells Gowther that their hearts are the same, and Gowther's afraid. He notes how his father, Gowther-the-Demon, died and went away before his eyes, and he knows that Nadja's time is not long. Nadja tells Gowther that he's grown so much more than just a doll, and he can feel. And then they make love. It's not graphic or explicit, but they definitely did it for two pages. 

Nadja dies after the sex, and Gowther freaks the fuck out. They're both naked, and Gowther's mind thinks to Nadja's earlier words about how they both have the same heart. The guards that hear Gowther's scream enter the room to see Gowther, naked, straddling princess Nadja, with blood splattered everywhere because Gowther ripped open Nadja's chest to try and transplant his artificial heart to her. Thankfully Gowther's body blocks off most of the gory results of the chest, but shit, the image is still one of the more disturbing ones to come out of Taizai.

Gowther is arrested, of course, and his crime's probably felt a lot worse than any of the other crimes we've seen. Gowther is sent to death by immolation, Barta notes to himself that Nadja died happy, and Gowther? Gowther is crying, noting that if having a heart hurts this much, he doesn't want or need one, he doesn't want to remember, and all he wants to do is just to be a plain old doll.

A very great story, that's for sure, and man, I feel totally bad for Gowther right now. Poor dude. Definitely a well-done story that uses sex and gore well while still being classy at it, and it does explain a fair bit of Gowther's eccentricities in the present-day. 

Legends of Tomorrow S02E15 Review: Second Breakfast

Legends of Tomorrow, Season 2, Episode 15: Fellowship of the Spear

Something that doesn't really come up that often in this blog since the main genres I review are superhero TV shows and manga is that, well, I'm a huge, huge fantasy geek. Warcraft III and Legend of Zelda are the first that introduced me to the fantasy genre as a kid, but since then I've branched out and really geeked out over so many other fantasy worlds. And all of them owe to the writings of one J.R.R. Tolkien, otherwise known as 'that dude who wrote Lord of the Rings'. I've watched all the movies, and then again in extended edition, and I've read at least one-and-a-half of his books. They be really long books written in archaic English, okay?

But still, there's a bit of hilarity that shortly after inspiring Star Wars and Camelot, the Legends of Tomorrow seem to have inspired the Lord of the Rings as well. The Tolkien bit was fun stuff, even if Tolkien himself didn't feel that much different from all the other historical figures we've met before. The references to stuff that Tolkien found fascinating -- having to bring a sacred, indestructible plot device to a certain location; script that is revealed when the plot device is exposed to fire... but while there are a lot more for Tolkien fans to geek out, the plot of this episode isn't centered around Tolkien but rather on the titular Spear of Destiny. Hell, Tolkien himself didn't even appear until nearly the halfway mark of the episode. 

The first half was a very, very awesome raid on the Vanishing Point by the Legends, who quickly make use of their own fragments to steal the ones that the Legion of Doom has -- with Atom using his shrinking abilities to keep Eobard in sight, and Firestorm transforming the indestructible obelisk into a mountain of jelly beans. We haven't seen a lot of Firestorm's transmutation powers since... Invasion, I think? But it's great to see it in work. 

With the Legends on the advantage for once, and Reverse-Flash cursing at the sky after being waylaid by our heroes, they put the pieces of the Spear of Destiny together, upon which it reassembles itself with magic. Rip Hunter tells us that the spear will tempt anyone and everyone to use it, so their only option is to destroy it. Mick's light it on fire response doesn't destroy a mystical holy artifact, but it does reveal a message that it can only be undone with the blood of Jesus. Thankfully we sidestep the whole trickiness of adapting religious characters into a time-travel story by Rip Hunter putting his foot down that no, there are some points in history that you literally cannot enter.

So somehow Nate figures out this whole plan of getting the blood of Jesus from the Golden Chalice obtained by Sir Gawain, and the only person to know where it is would be J.R.R. Tolkien who once wrote a paper about it. It's... convoluted, and I truly ask the Legends why the fuck didn't they go ask Tolkien when the poor man isn't in the middle of a fucking World War, or why they see the need to retrieve the blood during said war. I guess they're just in a hurry? It's a weak logical plot hole in this otherwise enjoyable episode. 

Two of our heroes in particular get tempted by the reality-altering powers of the spear. The first is Amaya, who, after her discovering the future of her village last episode, very much wants to use the spear to rewrite destiny and history and change that very fact. Going back to WWI and seeing the horrors of war did nothing against Amaya's personal struggles. She doesn't fall for the temptations, though she did propose the team to use the powers of the Spear of Destiny to rewrite history to write the Legion of Doom out of existence... she did concede the point to the majority vote, and doesn't go with the Legion of Doom in the climax.

Mick, on the other hand? We've seen Snart come back as a hallucination in a previous episode, and for Mick to think that it's just his mind playing tricks on him again -- especially after his brief return to the Vanishing Point -- makes it a lot more believable for Mick to think that his mind is playing more tricks on him. But the truth is that Reverse-Flash plucked Captain Cold out of the timeline before he had a chance to rejoin the Legends (thereby making him kind of 'safe' in this out-of-time context the way Darhk is), and he's fully evil and disappointed in Mick. He keeps telling Mick that his new allies doesn't see him any more than a thug and an attack dog on a leash, and the revelation that Leonard Snart is actually real and not a figment of his fragmented psyche rocks his world.

The thing is, Mick joining the Legends team and gradually finding a niche in the team of heroes is something that he did mostly to humour his friend Leonard Snart, and later to honour his friend's sacrifice. But Snart telling the Legends that it was Mick who told him all about their plans, as well as Mick's closeness to Snart, causes the other Legends to openly ask Mick about his loyalties. It is a little silly that one of his friends would use the specific word 'thug' like three scenes after Snart notes that Mick's little more than a thug, but the words and sentiments echoed by the Legends clearly hurt the pyromaniac more than the others meant to. He clearly was on the good guys' side right before that moment, but a combination of his friends doing exactly the same thing that Snart told him they would do, and turning back on him, questioning his loyalties?

Well, two things trying to tempt and corrupt Mick ends up breaking the poor man, and he ends up walking towards Damien Darhk and Captain Cold at the climax, choosing his side. It's a betrayal that's felt as deeply as any earlier Snart/Mick moments in this series, and the two of them have consistently been the twisted, thuggish heart of the series from the get-go. The Legends undoubtedly lose this fight. They lose Mick, they lose the Spear, the blood they fought to get is destroyed in the firefight, and turns out that the Legion can activate the powers of the Spear.

The final scene, with the Legends (well, mostly Ray) noting that they could've treated Mick better is sobering, because, shit, everything here was all the Legends' fault. Merlyn's apparently off on his own adventure to get the magic spell to activate the Spear of Destiny, and at the end of the episode, the five-man-strong Legion of Doom put their hands around the Spear (very, very surprised Eobard didn't decide to betray them there, but I guess he's grown fond of the others) and began changing destiny.

Two episodes left, which I guess will be all climactic showdowns between the Legends and the Legion in whatever twisted world the Legion has created. 

DC Tolkien Easter Eggs Corner:

• Not much in lieu of DC comics Easter Eggs in this episode, but a lot of references to the Tolkien stuff.
• Fellowship of the Spear is an obvious nod to the first part of the Lord of the Rings series, the Fellowship of the Ring. Nate even intentionally uses the term Fellowship in front of Tolkien himself to hammer the point home.
• The writing on the Spear is only revealed when Mick unleashes a tongue of flame upon it, similar to the One Ring revealing elvish words when thrown into flame.
• Just like the One Ring, the Spear of Destiny grants immense power to those who wield it, yet it also whispers temptations to corrupt even pure-hearted individuals who would otherwise use the ring for something good.
• The power the created the Spear and the Ring are respectively the only ones that can destroy it, and the Legends had to bring the Spear into a war-ridden land to get to the place where they can get to the blood that can destroy the Spear, similar to how the Fellowship traveled to Mordor to destroy the ring.
• The Spear glows when in close contact to the blood, similar to how the Ring's influence gets stronger the closer they are to Mordor, as well as the orc-detecting glowing sword wielded by Frodo, Sting.
• Likewise, the Fellowship is betrayed by one of its own, Mick, which in the novels would be Boromir. Mick's story here also borrows parallels from Gollum, where he's ostracized and treated as a barely-tolerated outsider, leading to his eventual treachery.
• Tolkien's commanding officer calls him "fool of a Tolkien", which is similar to how Gandalf likes to call Pippin "fool of a Took".
• Martin Stein does a variation of the memetic line from the movies' version of Boromir: "one does not simply walk into Mordor", swapping out Mordor for the war zone.
• Rip's speech borrows a fair bit of lines from Aragorn's speech ("but today is not that day!") to the assembled army at the climax of the Return of the King.
• Tolkien's "I enjoy long stories" line is an obvious reference to the length of his novels (which are absolutely long) as well as the movies that they are adapted into.

The Flash S03E17 Review: He's the Music Meister

The Flash, Season 3, Episode 17: Duet

Okay, so maybe my expectations for the 'Music Meister makes Flash and Supergirl go on a musical' episode is a little off, mostly because I've already watched the awesome Batman: Brave and the Bold episode that starred Music Meister in the first place, and I'm bummed we didn't at least get a cover of the titular Music Meister's villain song, or indeed anything from that episode.

It's going to be a very polarizing episode, though, simply due to the format. Musicals ain't for everyone, though I certainly like them, having been involved in several musical plays during my high school days as well as being raised on Disney movies. At the same time, though, the titular Music Meister barely does any singing, only doing a brief cover at the start of the episode. And the entire episode isn't fully a musical, but rather more an episode that's half a musical-parody-dream-world, and the other half's just our normal cast doing normal crossover stuff. Don't get me wrong, cast members do get to sing a lot, and in addition to the Supergirl cast members, we even get Victor Garber (actor for Martin Stein) and John effing Barrowman (actor for Malcolm Merlyn) making a guest trip from Legends of Tomorrow to show off their wonderful singing voices.

So after Winn, Mon-El and J'onn show up on Earth-1 after the Music Master 'whammied' Kara, the Music Meister himself shows up on STAR Labs, easily manhandles Flash and Kid Flash, and transports Barry into the same nightclub world where Kara is performing and absolutely gorgeous cover of 'Moon River'. It's not long for Barry and Kara to be given an introdump by the Music Meister that this dream-world is caused by the two of them binge-watching musicals recently, and they're going to have to figure out how to get out of this musical-world, in which they play the roles of two singers working for Malcolm Merlyn! Or, well, a character in the musical that's played by John Barrowman, anyway. Characters played by the actors of Cisco, Winn, Malcolm, Joe, Stein, Iris and Mon-El all show up in this dream musical world, acting out their own version of West Side Story, and it's a thinly-veiled allegory to let Kara and Barry work their love problems out. Music Meister even acknowledges it as such near the end of the episode.

Just to be clear, I absolutely enjoyed the musical aspects of the episode. Kara and Barry's absolutely corny 'Super Friends' duet, Barry's equally-corny solo at the end when he proposes to Iris, Kara's Moon River solo, Music Meister's jumpy jig, and most of all the absolutely great sing-a-long between Joe, Stein and Merlyn. Victor Garber, John Barrowman and Jesse L Martin have absolutely wonderful voices that they show off, and while Stein and Joe have sung in various episodes before, I didn't expect John Barrowman to have that angelic voice.

It's definitely a surreal episode that also lampshades the musical genre, with Barry and Kara being equally huge musical geeks that they relish singing and playing along, while also recognizing the absurdity of how quickly a song can just progress the plot of the story. And the show has absolute fun by showing off familiar characters in strange roles, like Iris as a smartass gangster's daughter, or Joe and Stein as a pair of lovers that lead a gang, or Malcolm Merlyn as a smooth-talking nightclub owner.

Honestly, I thought there was just simply not enough musical numbers. You'd think that the big climactic moment where Barry and Kara confront their feelings for Mon-El and Iris would deserve a big, touching moment, but we didn't get that. Also the fact that neither Music Meister nor the gangster daddies get a good old-fashioned villain song is also a missed opportunity. I guess having the whole romance problem between the two main pairs be resolved in this corny musical episode is as best as we can get without extending the romantic plot tumour longer than it should, so good for the showmakers for sneaking in this resolution to a plotline no one really cares about in the first place. (Kara's problem with Mon-El last Supergirl episode felt more like a tantrum than anything anyway, and Barry breaking up with Iris didn't make sense at all in the first place)

Meanwhile, in the real world, Music Meister apparently... siphons the powers of those he puts in the dream-land? It's all part of the act, but while Music Meister himself isn't malicious (if anything, he's like a sane, not-asshole version of Mxyzptlk) he does end up giving us a big team-up between Vibe, the Martian Manhunter and Kid Flash, something I didn't realize I needed so much in my life. Hell, I just need J'onn J'onzz do more Martian Manhunter things, and honestly a little part of me just absolutely geeked out when J'onn reveals his martian self to Cisco and the others with a grin and says "Call me Martian Manhunter".

And, again, that team-up? Amazing. It's short, with Vibe using portals to send J'onn and Kid Flash to whack the Music Meister, but it's still pretty cool nonetheless.

The episode ends almost all-too-perfectly, with Barry and Kara making up with their respective love interests (it's amazing how well the two of them work as platonic buddies), the Music Meister revealing that he shows up because he doesn't really want to deal with any of this mopey romance bullshit that the audience doesn't care about before disappearing, and Barry proposes to Iris for real-realsies. Oh, and Kid Flash gets over his confidence issues.

So yeah. You're either going to hate this or love this, but come on. This episode really has all the dorky cheesiness that both make Supergirl and Flash so lovable in the first place, and after a streak of depressing episodes and nonsensical romantic developments, it's nice to have everything be resolved with some singing. Besides, you get to hear Malcolm Merlyn, Professor Stein and Joe West sing a song together! How many episodes get to do that? I don't think this episode is superior to the Brave and the Bold's musical number, and I'm a little disappointed in the Music Meister here, but I'm honestly not complaining that much.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• This episode takes place immediately after the Supergirl episode "Star-Crossed".
• The Music Meisssster sings the song that the world wants to hear! Let's not fight, let's get a-long for our hypnotic puppeteer! The Music Meisssster is the man that the world shall obey! So do your job, steal all you can, while you're under his sway! -ahem- The Music Meister is an original character from the Batman: Brave and the Bold episode "Mayhem of the Music Meister", the unquestionable best episode of that series. While in this episode he's a strange godlike being that pretends to be villainous to solve our heroes' funk, in the original source material he's a straight-up villain who takes over an entire city (and several superheroes and supervillains) and mind-controls them, as well as causing every one to speak in song and dance.
• Originally voiced and sung by the (wait for it) legendary Neil Patrick Harris, the Music Meister here is played by Darren Criss, who is a Glee alumni just like Grant Gustin (Flash) and Melissa Benoist (Supergirl).
• Jesse L Martin (Joe), Victor Garber (Stein), John Barrowman (Malcolm) and Jeremy Jordan (Winn) all have performed in Broadway, whereas both Barrowman and Carlos Valdes (Cisco) both have musical careers alongside their acting ones.
• "I'm Your Super Friend" is, obviously, yet another nod to Superfriends, one of the earliest DC comics cartoon adaptations.
• Barry briefly mentions Superman while singing his duet with Kara. Though the two never met before, presumably Kara told Barry about her cousin off-screen in one of their previous team-ups.
• Caitlin noting that she remembers Barry's singing voice happens during their one-time date in episode 12, "Crazy For You". (Incidentally, I don't often ship characters... but Barry and Caitlin were absolutely cute together in that episode)
• While every single character in Barry and Kara's dream-world gets a new name, Mon-El gets the name 'Tommy'. In the dream-world Mon-El's counterpart is the son of Malcolm's counterpart, whereas the real-world Malcolm's son is also named Tommy. 

Iron Fist S01E06 Review: Tenkaichi Budokai

Iron Fist, Season 1, Episode 6: Immortal Emerges From Cave

So a significant portion of the earlier episodes had Danny kind of flash into him in Chinese clothes on a mountain, and it's left ambiguous whether he literally had his soul or mind or whatever return to a spiritual plane, or if he's having flashbacks. A good chunk of this episode shows Danny talking to the spectral image of what I assume was his master (Lei Kung?) admonishing him for not being able to let go of the material world and embrace his destiny as the Iron Fist, living weapon and destroyer of the Hand. Danny Rand should be dead, and only Iron Fist should remain.

Multiple characters like Madame Gao and her warriors also make note why the legendary Iron Fist has descended from K'un Lun when he should be guarding the gate, so yeah, all of this does raise questions as to just what the fuck K'un Lun really is, what Danny is doing, and why is he in New York. Is he banished? Is he on a mission to destroy the Hand? Is he escaped? The stuff that Ghost Master was talking about did seem a fair bit brainwashing-esque, so maybe he's just tired about that, and refuses to deny his 'Danny Rand' persona?

There's a nice bit of ambiguity whether Danny's master is a ghost, communicating through him from K'un Lun, or if Danny's just hallucinating it all. Certainly none of the others can see the dude. It's all very interesting and comic-book-y, for sure, and learning bits about Iron Fist's enigmatic backstory while simultaneously learning little is a bit frustrating, especially when you consider some of the earlier episodes could've told the K'un Lun story alongside its corporate stuff, but at least we're getting there.

So the cast is basically divided into three groups at this point. After saving the chemist, Rodovan, Danny decides to track down his kidnapped daughter, ignoring poor Ward's attempts to just get him to come to a crucial meeting. Meanwhile, Claire and Colleen go bring the dying Rodovan to a hospital, and Ward deals with his own drug addiction and basically self-destructs.

The B-plots in this episode are nice additions, for sure, following the theme of urgency around Danny Rand's life at this point. His big gesture to appease the crying mother is putting the company in jeopardy. Joy pulled some strings to get someone to help out, but Danny refuses to even come to the meeting (sending Ward instead of Joy there is a bit of a dumb move, though) and Ward's going through drug withdrawal. He throws away all his painkillers in an attempt to appease his sister after overdosing last episode, but this leaves him sleepy, jumpy and jittery during the meeting, possibly dooming it even worse than it already is. Ward's spiral into even worse decisions is honestly not necessary and I'm not sure it required the amount of focus it did.

Colleen and Claire, meanwhile, are forced to bring Rodovan to a hospital and I for one am a little happy that Claire's nurse skills doesn't just magic away every single life-threatening disease. They end up being bamboozled by the hospital, which is infiltrated by Hand agents already, and while Claire and Colleen do their best (including a pretty badass takedown of a Hand agent by Colleen) it still really doesn't do much to catch interest.

There's a cool, kung fu movie 'gather the fighters' scene as various invitations on purple pillows are sent out over the course of the episode's first few minutes, as we're introduced to a group of villains. A pair of Russian meat butchers, a female Korean scientist experimenting with spiders, and a psychotic dude that karaokes Take On Me as he brutally murders people. The latter two are apparently actual Iron Fist enemies Bride of Nine Spiders and the Scythe, and, well, they certainly feel like comic villains that carry the flourish of their comic book origins while still feeling at home in the more grounded adaptation.

Basically, Madame Gao sends a challenge to Iron Fist, expecting Danny to go around in that Aston Martin of his and find the decapitated head of the goon from last episode that Gao killed... but find it he did, and Iron Fist enters this holy ritual to fight the Hand, observed by Gao. The three villains (well, four, but the butcher twins fight as one) act like boss levels in a video game, and, well, finally we get some martial arts. A little ham fisted in how he still has flashbacks with his master and basically having a conversation with him, but hey.

The Russians have the least personality, basically asking Danny if he's the Iron Fist, and if he is, why did he abandon his post, blah blah, before being beaten down. But they felt a lot better than the Bride of Nine Spiders, who I think was kind of poorly realized. I do like that she's gloriously hammy, and while her introduction with spiders and whatnot is pretty cool, during the tournament she shows up in a gothic corset, and gets close and seduces Danny in record time -- literally walking up to Danny and stabbing her with a poison needle. It's definitely a little eyebrow-raising that the only female fighter dresses provocatively, doesn't actually throw a punch, makes everything about her revolve around her sexuality (unlike the other fighters, who makes references about the Iron Fist and duty and whatnot) and gets knocked down by a single kick.

Scythe's easily the best and most entertaining villain of the bunch, even from his introduction scene of singing karaoke after brutally murdering a bunch of dudes. His obsession with weapon clashes very well with Danny's insistence that he is the weapon, and the fight with Scythe, while partly obscured by the dark lighting of the scene, is still easily one of the best the show's done.

Gao isn't keen on honour, though, threatening to slit Sabina's throat if Iron Fist doesn't formally withdraw. Danny is actually taken aback that Gao would stoop to so low... yeah, he hasn't been out of the monastery much, has he? And the best thing is that the show's spent a not inconsiderable amoutn of its screentime telling us how idealistic and naive Danny is, so yeah, him expecting Gao to fully honour ancient traditions is definitely something that I totally see Danny as doing.

It's predictable that Danny's going to choose to save the civilian over destroying the Hand, which he also does earlier during his time in the office, choosing to ignore literally everything Ward is saying because he has to figure out where the Hand is, and he has to save the girl. Moreso than Daredevil, Danny Rand and Iron Fist are very much separated, and the real Danny is somewhere in-between, the guy who finds more purpose saving girls and fighting evil ninjas instead of staying in an office, yet he's also the guy that'll choose to not be on an autopilot "destroy the Hand" mode all the time.

The opaqueness of the whole K'un Lun stuff is irritating, to be honest. We're already buying into a show where a kung fu dude fights with a glowing fist that channels chi, so why keep it so secretive? It's really suffering from the same problem that Daredevil's second season does, but at least Daredevil has the excuse of switching from a 'vigilante takes down criminals' plotline into a mystical ninja cult plot. Here the premise has always been that Iron Fist is a mystical warrior, so while I'm not faulting the show for keeping some mysteries hidden for a later episode, it's getting frustratingly roundabout that we don't get a lot of answers but just more questions. And not knowing the full story, the full weight of being the Protector of K'un Lun, really hurts the climax of Danny choosing to be Danny Rand instead of Iron Fist a little.

Still, Gao reveals some nice tidbits about herself and Danny, too. She's from K'un Lun, or at least has visited there. She's met a previous incarnation of the Iron Fist, noting how different Danny is because he doesn't fall into all the brainwashing "kill your past self, you're only a weapon" thing. Also, Wendell Rand has something to do with her, at the very least... and whatever answers Danny is seeking ends up a dead end as Madame Gao can literally knock him halfway across the room with a single touch.

It doesn't end well with him. He has to forfeit the tournament and since Danny's an honourable fellow he's probably going to honour his part of the deal. He rescues Sabina, but he doesn't know that her father's been recaptured. His already-precarious position in Rand Enterprises gets shaken even more (though poor Ward's a lot more volatile than he is now). And Madame Gao shows that with a simple tap on the chest she can send even the mighty Iron Fist flying into a wall. And Danny's choice to save the girl instead of crushing the Hand causes his ghostly master to turn his back on him. Not a good day for Danny.

Still, as frustrating as the lack of information about K'un Lun is, and as ineffective as the Bride of Nine Spiders is, it's nice that the show's elements started to work a lot better. There are still a lot of things that didn't work and keeping both Iron Fist's backstory and the mechanics of his power ambiguous and only sparsely scattered is both maddeningly slow yet gives some nice mysticism to him. Also, yay for actual kung fu fight scenes, which, if nothing else, was a fun enough distraction from the weaker parts of the episode.


Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The cast of the hospital previously appeared in Daredevil season two, including Claire's long-suffering superior Shirley.
• Claire drops Luke Cage's signature "sweet Christmas" when chasing the Hand ninjas in the hospital.
• The crisis manager dude mentions the Hulk in "that incredible green guy".