The Defenders S01E08 Review: To Defend

The Defenders, Season 1, Episode 8: The Defenders

So, the Defenders finally come to a close, and I must say... it's uneven as all hell. It's nowhere as great as the best Netflix Marvel shows -- Daredevil's first season and Jessica Jones, and nowhere as the solid-if-not-novel Luke Cage. It's certainly better than the flop that was Iron Fist (and even made Danny Rand into a likable character while still keeping true to what his show established of him) so that puts it around the quality of Daredevil's second season. Uneven, has a lot of plot twists done for plot twist's sake, but there are so much great action scenes being thrown around, so much great moments and acting that you forgive the weaker parts of the show.

The actual episode mostly runs on action scenes in this final episode after a brief mission statement where Luke makes note that they will not kill unless necessary, and only bad guys at that. Matt does a mushy bit of "I'm glad I met all of you" which earns a gigantic eye-roll from Jessica... and the rest of the episode is just beat-em-up. There's honestly not much to say about it without breaking down every single fight scene, other than I find it pretty damn badass. There's just so many times you can do the whole "huge pan-around montage of all the Defenders fighting mooks", although Gao, Murakami and Elektra being thrown into the mix gives us a fair amount of sweet 'elites' for our heroes to toss around. I did find the sequence that starts without any actual background ambience and just hip hop in the background to be a bit jarring -- like, I know it's something associated with Luke Cage, but still.

The huge emotional components of the finale are the battle between Daredevil and Elektra, as Matt tries his hardest to get Elektra back into the light -- and it becomes increasingly clear that the new Elektra is revelling in being a villain. Meanwhile, on top, Colleen has to face her demons by distracting Bakuto and giving Claire time to arm the bomb, leading to a definitive and climactic battle between student and master. Misty shows up to save Colleen at one point, and gets her hand sliced off -- but Colleen beheads Bakuto, putting down the third and final member of the Five Fingers that are definitely killed. Colleen's character arc that ran across the Defenders has been a side-plot that I didn't quite realize I enjoyed very much, and she's basically taken up Stick's place as the unofficial fifth Defender, just one that fights in a different location than the other four. Now she just needs a cool codename.

Of course, during the course of the battle, during the absolutely tense elevator sequence, Danny and Luke manage to toss Murakami down the deep hole while Jessica holds up the lift with nothing but sheer strength (Bad. Ass.). We see Murakami impaled on a pile of metal, bleeding, as Madame Gao approaches and tells him that they've lost and this is the end... yet we never see Gao and Murakami actually die, and they are in a cave with the dragon bones that are apparently the source of the mysterious death-defying "substance", so it's honestly more surprising if Gao and Murakami were actually killed off. They did have to escape a building being dropped on them, but this is Marvel comics. Characters have survived more insane deaths. (Besides, Madame Gao walked off a point-blank iron fist punch after a brief moment of laying on the groud)

Daredevil, whispers to Iron Fist to "protect my city" as he stays behind to slow down Elektra, and finally embrace death together. Elektra's writing is a little too messy for my liking, with her apparently doing all this just so that she could either cheat death, or to die together with the man she loves. It's messy, but at least messy is a wod you could use to describe what Elektra's feeling at this point, and the final shot they share as they get ready for death in each other's arms is a neat conclusion to this chapter of their story. 

And while I never bought that they would kill off Daredevil, it was a pretty neat eulogy and closure to the Defenders. We see Matt, wounded, being nursed to health by some mysterious people at the end of the episode, whereas the final 15 minutes prior to it is a neat way of closing up outstanding plot points. Foggy is in severe mourning (his voice breaking as Luke asks him how he's dealing with Matt's death is amazingly acted) and not inconsiderable guilt considering he gave Matt the suit in the precinct, but he and Hogarth managed to pull some strings to make sure that all the police nonsense ends up being handwaved aside. We get Danny in a modernized version of his classic Iron Fist costume looming over New York City, embracing his new role as the replacement to Daredevil now that his fight against the Hand is done, Misty is recovering from losing an arm (no small part thanks to Danny owning the best hospital in New York), we get Luke and Jessica sharing a drink and noting that they really should take care of each other (even if Luke isn't willing to move forward considering he's still with Claire) before they end up like Matt, we get Luke and Claire settling in, we get Jessica and Malcolm finally re-opening Alias Investigations. It does get somewhat negated by the fact that Matt's actually still alive, but it does portray the gigantic loss that the Marvel universe is feeling now that Daredevil's thought to be dead. 

Speaking of dead, let's talk about Iron Fist a bit, a character who I've always felt to be problematic. It's never been actor Finn Jones's fault in my opinion, but the general writing in Iron Fist overall and the insistence on portraying Danny as naive, a bit of an asshole and consistently whining and moping. Here, Iron Fist drops off the latter two qualities after the first few episodes. He's still naive, still a bit of dumb brick despite his noble intentions, but he doesn't mope and whine as much as before, and certainly doesn't do any of that entitled bullshit. Luke got through to him after all, and while Danny is still my least favourite Defender, he's certainly been vastly improved from "character I wished never get another episode" to "least favourite Defender". Which is neat. 

It's a well-done conclusion, and while Defenders has been a very uneven ride, it's still very much entertaining and I walked out of it smiling at all the fun superheroism and snarkiness thrown around here and there. 

The Defenders S01E07 Review: Five Fingers

The Defenders, Season 1, Episode 7: Fish in the Jailhouse

So last episode set up the climax pretty neatly. Elektra killed Stick and apparently is taking over the hand by killing Alexandra, she has also kidnapped the Iron Fist and the Defenders are back on the backfoot. And as of the end of the episode, the immortal Iron Fist, in the words of Stick a couple of episodes ago, is still a "thundering dumbass", who, when shown the gigantic door that can only be opened with the Iron Fist.... proceeds to immediately fight Elektra with the Iron Fist active. And, naturally opens the door. Oh Danny, you gigantic moron. It's always fun to see someone show Danny up, though I'm slightly perplexed that Elektra was able to absolutely own Iron Fist like that. I guess mastering the fist isn't the only thing Danny didn't quite master, and his own kung fu skills are lacking? I dunno. We get to see what appears to be... well, I'm not sure what it is. Dragon bones are strewn all around the gigantic chamber at the bottom of the Midland building's hole, though, so maybe it's a portal to K'un Lun? It's exciting to see that the whole series has been building up to a final showdown in this building. 

Of course, the episode spends half of its runtime with our heroes arrested by the police. Which... which I felt took way longer than it should. I get why they did that, of course. The sense of dread as they're on a race against the clock to rescue Danny and defeat the Hand, but are powerless as the seconds tick by, are well-portrayed. But I honestly find it a little hard to believe that Luke and Jessica doesn't just tell the police that, shit, metahumans are involved, y'all, back off and let the indestructible people do the work. Especially considering that Misty Knight knows the amount of danger that the likes of Luke get up to, even if her superior (who I don't think we've ever seen before this show?) is being obstructive I felt that the NYPD's involvement wasn't necessary. It's acted well enough, but I felt like it's too obvious a momentum killer between two large action scenes. 

Of course, they decide to break out instead (miraculously no one put together that Matt Murdock is Daredevil, but I suppose when you're blind no one will consider that he's actually a chain-club-slinging ninja) but at least the transition is well done. Jessica and Luke are the easiest -- Jessica doesn't really give a shit about the police in the first place, Luke keeps telling Claire and Misty that he's going to do the right thing, even if it means withholding information from the police force who are ill-equipped to fight a ninja army, at the cost of being potentially thrown in jail again... but Matt? Foggy and Karen, the two people in his life who are adamantly against him putting on the horns are in the station itself and we get to see an unexpectedly tender moment between Matt and his two best friends, a moment that I didn't think I would see in the parts of the show leading up to the finale. Capitalizing on the various Matt/Foggy and Matt/Karen conversations we have had throughout the season, we get to see the different ways that Karen and Foggy tries to get Matt to not go all Daredevil and risk his life. Karen, being a bit newer to the whole thing (plus the unspoken implication that she's still working through some of the emotional baggage after failing to get Punisher to stand down) gives Matt what amounts to an ultimatum: don't go, or don't go. She sees being locked up as a good thing, and yes, it's short-sighted and selfish, but again, it's not like she doesn't have a point. Let the police, or failing that, the other two super-powered Defenders take the job. Matt can stay and not die.

Foggy, on the other hand, goes through a bit of a speech about how Daredevil's vigilantism is bad for Matt... but then shows Matt that he brings the Daredevil suit. He trusts Matt to make his own decisions, and he's going to help Matt either way. And while Foggy knows that he prefers Matt Murdock to just be Matt the lawyer and not Daredevil the vigilante, he also understands that being Daredevil is as much part of Matt's life as the Matt Murdock portion, and it would kill his friend if he were trapped, unable to help. Somehow still keeping his secret identity secret, the three Defenders break out of the police precinct. 

...and Jessica gives a most bored "there it is again" in response to Matt's costume.

...and Jessica steals a hobo's beer and downs it to one of the most hilarious double-take from Luke and Matt.

...and later as they discuss transportation, Jessica goes 'umm' and pulls out her subway card, cutting to the three Defenders sitting in the subway.

God, these episodes really kind of emphasize that I cannot wait for season two of Jessica Jones, more than anything else. 

Oh, and much appreciated is the fact that it's not just the three Defenders themselves getting pep talks either. Colleen and Claire spent a couple of conversations in the previous episode talking about Colleen's role as, if note an outright Defender, then a very vital supporting character. This episode the roles are reversed, as Colleen notes that, shit, Claire is the foundation, the one who brought the four together. Claire also helps Misty remember Luke's extremely strong moral compass, something that showcases Misty's role as a more independent police officer who, like Luke, cares more for saving people than bookkeeping. To this end, Colleen Wing decides that unlike literally every single other supporting character trapped in the precinct, she's someone who can make a difference, stealing her sword and the several pounds of C4 that Jessica's late client, Raymond, was stockpiling in that apartment. Colleen and Claire show up in the Midland building to help up, acting as a strike team while Daredevil, Luke and Jessica do all the heavy fighting, and Misty, despite all the legal stuff, decides to trust Claire and Luke and is prepared to at least delay the other NYPD dudes. 

Meanwhile, it is a bit hard to swallow that the remainin three Fingers of the Hand would kowtow so quickly to Elektra's coup, but Bakuto has always been more oberver than active participant, Gao has always been established as a character that capitalizes on situations, and it's clear that they see Elekra not as a replacement for Alexandra, but a means to an end -- cnosidering she did what Alexandra or the other never managed to do. Captue Iron Fist. Certainly would've preferred the whole Alexandra/Elektra thing to have more buildup than what we got, but it was... perfunctory, if not satisfactory. Besides, Elektra makes her intentions clear -- she wants to never, ever return to the cold embrace of death, something that Gao and the others can certainly relate with... at least until Elektra can actually open the door. I did like how Elektra, Gao, Bakuto and Murakami moved around the room as they calmly negotiate the terms of their... 'partnership', for lack of a better term, clearly the three trying to get the drop on Elektra, but a combination of fear over Alexandra and Sowande's recent deaths and Black Sky being a pretty terrifying warrior (if we can get an explanation to why Elektra is the Black Sky and why the Black Sky is so special, the season would be amazing) means that the three Fingers are cowed. 

And, of course, the gigantic climactic battle at  the end of the episode. We have another big round of battles in the eighth, final episode, but honestly, while not bad, I didn't feel that it was as awesome as this one. Our three heroes come to charge the Midland building, but find their way blocked by three people. Not just any three, either, but Gao, Bakuto and Murakami. 

The fight between the Defenders and the Fingers of the Hand might be a little choppy at times (probably necessary to cut away from scenes of the elderly Wai Ching Ho -- or her stunt double -- clattering to the ground too brutally). The fight scene is certainly set up well, with the telekinetic Force-pushing Madame gao proving to be as badass as I hoped she'll be, Force-Pushing cars to knock around Jessica and Luke, and quite spectacularly, I did love the direction of not making this three one-on-one fights and instead have Jessica and Luke gang up on Madame Gao, while Daredevil takes on both Bakuto and Murakami, and the fight partners swapping around a cuople of times during the battle. Considering a lot of them have been built up to be badass fighters, but only Bakuto among them have arguably been effective against a Defender, it is very refreshing to see the villains kick as much ass as the good guys. It's suitably epic, and whil I wish the batte was a bit more clear at times, it's definitely ewll-done enough that by the time the Fingers decide to beat a hasty retreat with an explosion of fire, while they lost you don't really get the imperssion that they're chumps. 

Also, while perhaps unintentional, it does make Iron Fist really look bad, yeah? He is trained in kung fu in addition to having a punch that can unleash shockwaves and destroy metal, yet he gets tossed around by Elektra. Whereas Bakuto, who gave Danny the fight of his life, can be held off by Daredevil who's fighting Murakami at the same time. Elektra fighting Danny isn't as exciting as the big three-way fight, but still relatively well done. It does make Danny really look like a gigantic idiot when he starts doing the one thing everyone tells him not to do, though Danny being an idiot is already something I know. So. 

Game of Thrones S07E07 Review: Night of the Dragon

Game of Thrones, Season 7, Episode 7: The Dragon and the Wolf

Woo that season finale.

And, yeah, the final scene of the Wall coming down was awesome and all, but clearly the standout scene has to be the many, many conversations that took place in King's Landing as the characters negotiate -- special kudos go to Lena Heady and Peter Dinklage, the former being criminally underused in this season. This episode's confrontations between all the various characters in Westeros -- all the main characters in Westeros -- is amazingly written. Yeah, only one major character dies, which is slightly surprising considering it's a Game of Thrones season finale, but I'll buy it.

I've been complaining throughout this season that despite my obvious enjoyment of the episodes, the pacing has been thrown out of whack and many plotlines move rapidly while some just move on slower than the army of the dead (who, finally, after seven seasons, reached the Wall). The Winterfell plot, for one. Jaime's heel-face-turn. And the Theon stuff, for another. Those are things that I really feel should've happened a couple of episodes ago. Or, in Jaime's case, really feels like it should've happened entire seasons ago. Still, it's honestly a minor complaint considering the amount of ground this episode covers.

And honestly? A good chunk of the big, show-shattering scenes happens in the meeting that takes up so much of the episode's mammoth 80-minute runtime. So we'll dissect all the tangential scenes and go back to it last. Let's start, instead, with the final shots of the episode. We get to see Tormund Giantsbane and Beric Dondarrion, the two members of the Westerosi Suicide Squad that's left on Eastwatch-by-the-Sea... and the monotony of standing watch on that castle gets broken when suddenly there's movement. A figure walking out of the forest, a White Walker on an undead horse. Then followed by a huge army that march silently out. And they have giants! It's scary, the music is nothing short of breath-taking... and then you hear the dragon. It's just amazing as Frost Wyrm Viserion just swoops around out of the mist, with Tormund and Beric's head whipping around as the zombie dragon zips in and out... and then he comes out again, in full clarity, with the Night King riding Zombie Viserion's back. Hoo yeah. And as Viserion unleashes blue fire (ice?) the Night King single-handedly breaks down the Wall. I've always thought that this season would end with the White Walkers reaching the Wall, and the Wall shattering and/or being breached, but god damn.

We don't actually see Tormund and Beric die, which I feel is a probably good indication that they're alive (maybe alive long enough to die in the next season premiere?) but holy shit, how amazingly badass was it for the wall to absolutely shatter apart as Viserion's dragonfire punched through? There's just something chilling to see the Wall get absolutely decimated. It's been standing tall since the very first season, there's always a subplot happening there that revolves around the Night's Watch and the wildlings, but it's been destroyed in one fall swoop, and the final shot of the gigantic horde of the undead (including giants!) just marching through the shattered wall, with Viserion the undead dragon flying above them? God damn, that was badass as all hell.

Like, for a Big Bad Villain whose motivations we don't really know (I mean, we know the Night King was created by the Children of the Forest for some reason or other, but we know so scant little beyond that) the White Walkers are pretty damn awesome.

Speaking of the mystical portions of the show, Bran Stark and Samwell Tarly finally have that conversation about Jon's parentage, and it's pretty well done. Apparently, the reason why Bran hasn't told anyone about the whole R+L=J theory is not because he's too busy being mysterious and shit (although, fuck, Bran, where were you for the past three episodes?) but because he just thinks that it makes Jon another bastard. I can't lie, I laughed out loud at the sudden change in topic with Bran incredulously telling Sam "no, that makes him Jon Sand." Sam, of course, tells Bran about the marriage change, which Bran takes the opportunity to go into his time-travel memory-vision thing and witness Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark's marriage. Sam and Bran realize that it means that Jon's the rightful Targaryen heir (with the birth name Aegon Targaryen, to boot!)... which, of course, was juxtaposed against Jon and Dany making love in the ship. Yeah. Surprise incest! I'm... I'm actually okay with that, I think, in so much that the show at least acknowledges it.

(Also one of the funniest moment in the show is Sam going "Oh!" at the mention that Bran is the Three-Eyed Raven, and then quickly mumbles "I don't know what that means." Also even more hilarious is Sam asking Bran if he knew that Jon's returning to Winterfell from his visions... and Bran cheekily pulls out a little letter.)

It does make Rhaegar Targaryen look like a complete fuckhead, though. We're supposed to see the saccharine wedding where two beautiful people get together and would later make Jon Snow, but as Bran points out, that means Robert's whole rebellion -- itself started when Ned's father and brother were burnt at the stake trying to get Lyanna (who they thought were abducted) back -- was based on a lie. Not to mention that Rhaegar left behind his first wife, Elia Tyrell, and the two children he had with her, behind for... for 'love', I guess? Yeah, explain that awkward conversation to Elia, who, not protected by the Kingsguard during the sacking of King's Landing, got raped to death and her babies' head smooshed into paste by the Mountain. So yeah, Rhaegar and Lyanna's marriage are shot similarly to Robb and Talisa's, and I think it's meant to be that way, a marriage out of love that defies what logic states should happen in their position, but whereas Robb and Talisa merely got their families killed, Rhaegar and Lyanna plunged the seven kingdoms into a bloody war that essentially killed off nearly all the Targaryens. Good job, you damn lovebirds.

Anyway, at least Bran and Sam knew it, so they're in a position to tell Jon (and Dany!) that next season. Cool and good. The other Winterfell stuff is the culmination of the painful Sansa-vs-Arya subplot, and thankfully, it's retooled into a Sansa-and-Arya-vs-Littlefinger plot. Which is irritating because the show overplayed their hand in trying to make the Sansa/Arya conflict seem so much like they're tearing into each other's necks (especially since it happened almost exclusively behind closed doors). The episode isn't clear if Sansa and Arya's conflict in the past two or three episodes are all an act the moment Arya finds the letter (which is more likely, but on the other hand who are they acting the angry scenes out for?) or that Sansa's pouring her heart out to Littlefinger and him going through the whole "sometimes I play a little game" shtick was what got her gears thinking, which isn't good either because it short-charges Sansa's character and it still means Arya acts all psychotic and nasty to Sansa for no real reason.

But god damn if the trial scene wasn't deliciously well-done. Seeing the Stark children (Bran helped!) united once more is amazing to behold, despite the rocky setup they needed to reach this point. Sansa and Arya chewed the scenery so much, but it's amazing scenery-chewing as Sansa turned the tables to show that it's Littlefinger, Petyr Baelish, that was on trial instead of Arya. Sansa's constant "how do you plead?" and refusal to play Littlefinger's little game is amazingly cathartic, and she just lists the long, long list of crimes that Baelish has done over the long seven-season-long run of the series. Selling Sansa to the Boltons. Pushing Lysa Arryn off of the Eyrie. Manipulating Lysa and getting her to murder Jon Arryn. Betraying Ned Stark to the Lannisters. And, as we discover in this episode, hiring the assassin with the valyrian steel dagger to kill Bran, and rile up Catelyn and Robb to go to war against the Lannisters.

God, it's so satisfying to see him realize how utterly fucked he is, how with each crime he has less defense, and when he demands to be escorted to the Eyrie, of course the only representative of the Eyrie is Yohn Royce, who most people probably don't remember, but I do. Littlefinger was a dick to him, and I swear the dude's just resisting to break into a smug smile when he denies Littlefinger any protection from him. Littlefinger's breaking down and his transition to smug maneuvering into getting on his knees and crying, begging for mercy and love, absolutely humiliated and exposed after a lifetime of being the one in control, is some fantastic acting from Aiden Gillen, and he gets murdered by Arya by slitting his throat. Littlefinger falls, and while I won't miss the character too much (I liked him, but by the time it's season four or five the show's run out of interesting things to do with him) I will definitely miss Aiden Gillen's acting skills.

Oh, and there's Theon Greyjoy's little subplot! Which I really liked, but I also feel like a bit of a weird detour considering how central the rest of the storylines are. Still, from his refusal to bend down right then and there in the meeting when taunted by Euron, to him rising at the chance to mock Euron's joke-making skills with Tyrion and finally to that conversation in the Dragonstone throne room with Jon... these are honestly plot points that I expected to happen, but Theon just kind of disappears all season because the conversation needed to happen in the finale. It was a good conversation between Theon and Jon, though, with Jon telling Theon that, no, Jon isn't the perfect boy (though a certain silver-haired Khaleesi would disagree). Also I did love that Jon doesn't just wave off Theon's sins and when he goes "I've done so much worse!" Jon nods and says, something to the effect of yeah, son, you fucked up real bad. But Jon's a nice dude, and he forgives Theon whatever he has the right to forgive, and tells him to do what he needs to do. He's both Greyjoy and Stark, and he needs to embrace it. Which means trying to recruit the other Greyjoy mooks to go and save Yara, but because these are Ironborn, Theon needs to fight the previous leader nearly to the death, and I did love how the show portrayed Theon as winning the battle due to outlasting the other Ironborn. That's something that the poor, tortured Theon can definitely do -- withstand pain.


Hoo. Those were just the B-plots and I've spoken way too many words about them. Let's go to the meeting! The episode's main meat lies there, and I'll try to explore it to the best of my ability. From the awesome panning shot of the Unsullied army parked in front of King's Landing, to the ululating Dothraki horde charging and running around the Unsullied as a show of intimidation, the threat of war coming right then and there is very much real.

The walk down to the Dragon Pit, a very appropriate location for the truce that is easily the symbol of the Targaryen dynasty's downfall when they locked up their dragons and 'they got small' (a neat callback to Daenerys's own downfall when she locked up Viserion and Rhaegal two seasons ago). We get some great conversations from the various players finally meeting each other. Tyrion and Bronn's conversation is so earnestly full of jackassery that you just can't help but smile. Bronn claims he doesn't give a shit and Tyrion just finds it refreshing nonetheless. Pod meets both Tyrion and Bronn again, and god it's pretty heartwarming and funny, especially when they finally do reach the Dragon Pit and Bronn just basically drags Pod away for some drinks and shit while all the serious stuff goes down. Brienne and the Hound also get a conversation that I didn't actually think would happen without some violence, but the two are basically pretty cordial, with the Hound making it clear that no, he's not going to get Arya Stark back for what she did.

When the meeting starts we also get Euron taunting Theon, and Euron taunting Tyrion, and Euron just being a gigantic dick until Jaime and Cersei tells him to shut the fuck up because, shit, there are more important things going on here. We also get the Hound walking up to Zombie Mountain, and promising that they will be at each other's throats at one point. His "you're even more fucking uglier than I am now!" is perfect.

And then, of course, Daenerys arrives late, on dragonback no less, and the score that builds up is amazing, as is the huge AAAA WTF face on every single person that has never seen Drogon before... and even those who have! Jaime really looks like he's about to lapse into PTSD, and the look on shock on Brienne, Qyburn and Euron's face really is amazing. And, of course, after your courtesies are exchanged, Tyrion calls out the fact that, no, everyone on one side wants to murder the other side, for easily justified reasons, but then he tells the Hound to come up with the box, and after a comically long sequence of the Hound opening the box, he kicks it over and the wight comes tumbling out... and hoo boy, that was some well-done zombie makeup.

The wight's screeching and running around was well done, as is Cersei and Euron's terrified reactions. It took as long as it needed, but they didn't overplay it. The Hound gets extra credit for making the demonstration extra effective by slicing the wight in half at the waist, then slicing its hand off, and the wight's still twitching. Jon then walks up, with a hilarious PSA-style voice and goes "there are several ways you can dispatch a wight! First..." Also, bless Qyburn for not being freaked out at all and just picking up the wight's dismembered arm and inspecting it. He just looks so damn fascinated!

Also hilarious is Euron walking up to the wight, asking Jon "can they swim?" to which Jon says "no" (I dunno, Jon, they did get those chains down to drag up the dragon corpse) and Euron's next line is something to the effect of just going home with the Iron Fleet, because, shit, he didn't sign up for zombies. That was hilarious. And even moreso than before, really shows Cersei's increasingly-weak position. Can you blame her for wanting the truce right then and there? But Cersei extends her truce not to Daenerys, because she knows the two of them will never back down, but Cersei wants Jon to extend a show of neutrality and not support either queen...

And, of course, Jon Snow decides that, no. He's a northerner, and while this same silly display of honour was what got Ned Stark killed, he's not going to make a promise he doesn't intend to keep. Jon tells Cersei that he has picked a side, and he has bent the knee... to which Cersei just leaves the negotiating table. Tyrion and Jon's conversation afterwards is definitely well-done, with Tyrion tearing in Jon being well-deserved, and Jon's answer sounding earnest but not stupid. Thank god Tyrion is there to clean up Jon's mess. Meanwhile, Jon and Dany take the opportunity to flirt, with Jon asking Dany about how trustworthy is the witch that says Dany can't make babies. Which, of course, a couple of scenes later leads to them consummating their relationship. [Insert obligatory Ser Friendzone Jorah joke]

Which, of course, leads to one of the strongest scenes in the season, when Tyrion enters the room with Cersei. The two siblings have had a very complex relationship filled with nothing but hate for each other, and god, they play off each other so well. Tyrion's difficulty in attempting to enter the room was well-displayed, and as he rattled off all the logical reasons that Cersei have for hating him (Tyrion killed Tywin, Tyrion killed their mother at childbirth) and less-logical reasons (Cersei blames Tyrion for all their children's death, putting the Sparrow nonsense as a result of Tywin's death) Tyrion just dares Cersei to kill him. Right then and there. Kill him if that's what she wants. There's so much raw emotion in Tyrion's voice, and Cersei's conflicted expression there just speaks volumes. The fact that Cersei's still being portrayed as a villain (and at the end of the episode the lines between 'good human' and 'bad human' are clearly drawn) but doesn't have the heart to kill Tyrion speaks volumes, I think. Tyrion asks Cersei what she truly wants, and that whole conversation, especially when Tyrion realizes that Cersei's pregnant again, is all simply just well done. I wish I had more words to describe this scene, but considering the amount of shit that Tyrion and Cersei had thrown towards each other, it's just... good. It's just good.

Tyrion's brief talk with Cersei was apparently enough for Cersei to return to the negotiating table. Not only that, though, she pledges to march the armies of King's Landing and Casterly Rock north, even if she doesn't particularly believe that Dany or Jon would care all that much once things are said and done. Cersei gets all the badass lines here!

Of course, as Team Dany returns back to Dragonstone and discusses how they are to reach Winterfell (a united approach is the best, Jon says, but I think he just wanna bang), it turns out that poor Tyrion is outplayed once more, because Cersei has no intentions of honouring her word. But before we go into that particular conversation, let's acknowledge Jaime Lannister's plot reorientation, yeah? I've always felt it strange that despite going through so much shit while with Brienne and later with Bronn, Jaime ends up settling back in as the big Lannister enforcer thug, even after Tommen's death and after the Sept being blown up by Cersei. There was a bit of ambiguity... is Jaime's character development simply thrown out of the window in favour of the fact that the man's simply too madly in love?

Well, Brienne of Tarth shows up, drags Jaime when the Lannister team walks away during the negotiation, and tells Jaime to talk to Cersei. "FUCK LOYALTY!" Brienne shouts loudly, and this really hammers things home to Jaime. Both Jaime and Brienne are knights, and Brienne is easily one of the most honourable people Jaime's met in his life. But no, this isn't the time for oaths and old loyalties and the petty bickering. Brienne saw the wight, Brienne saw the dragon... and she's pretty terrified herself, and Jaime's the only person that can get through to Cersei.

That particular conversation we don't actually get to see, as it's Tyrion that seemingly convinces Cersei, but Jaime's happy with the results. The next time we see him, Jaime's planning the expedition north until he's interrupted by Cersei, who tells him that, no, they're not going to work with the Mother of Dragons and the King in the North, and she's just saying that so that they'll leave. She just wants all her enemies to duke it out and kill each other... to which a very frustrated Jaime points out that if the army of the dead wins, they're fucked because the army would be far, far larger than before. And if the Dany/Jon team wins, then they're fucked because they would come back to murder Cersei and Jaime due to their treachery. Thankfully, Cersei's not just being stupid, but she actually has a plan. The big show that Euron Greyjoy makes where he's all out of the game was apparently a plan by Cersei so Euron would be able to move his sheep to the Iron Bank and get their big big army.

It's still an incredibly risky and stupid plan, though, and Jaime knows it. Such a huge part of Jaime Lannister's characterization has been his love for his sister, and he is caught between what he knows is right -- joining up with Tyrion, Brienne and the others -- and what he knows is wrong (and also stupid). And to his credit, he tried so hard to get Cersei to listen. But Cersei is beyond words, and at one point she even threatens to have the Mountain prevent anyone from 'walking away' from her. And, I can't lie, I was genuinely afraid that Cersei has lost so much of her soul that she would be willing to let the Mountain murder one of the few people that she still loves. It would clearly push Cersei over the edge into irredeemable territory... yet that distraught look on her face when she realizes that she has truly lost Jaime, is amazing to behold. Cersei Lannister might still be playing the Game of Thrones, backstabbing everyone and planning to fuck up even the basic living-vs-the-dead lines in the sand, but now more than ever she's truly alone.

Meanwhile, Jaime Lannister is finally on his way to regain some of his lost honour as he's apparently the only Lannister soldier going north. So yeah. I just really like Jaime's arc in this episode, as he tries to desperately to work with his sister-lover, to have her see some logic, but failing that, he chooses duty and logic over love, a decision that probably didn't come easily for Jaime. Good show, man.

With Jaime on the side of the good guys, the line between good and bad has been clearly drawn, with only Bronn of the Blackwater still being stuck on the other side of the board (though he's easily far more flexible than Jaime, so him jumping ship might not be too out of the question). Littlefinger's dead, Jaime's changing sides, Team Dany and Team Jon are united (in more ways than one), the Wall has fallen, winter is here... in two years. We'll be back in 2019 or whenever season eight airs to finally see the conclusion to the gigantic saga of Game of Thrones.

The Defenders S01E06 Review: Divided

The Defenders, Season 1, Episode 6: Ashes, Ashes

This episode is another "things happen" episode. and, boy, while I think I still like the previous episode a lot better, so many things happened in this episode, huh? Whereas the last two episodes are the big mid-movie action scene, if we're taking the entire Netflix season as an equivalent to a movie (and you should, in some ways), this would be the part of the movie that raises the stakes as we're sent rocketing towards the grand finale. We've got the tensions built up in the previous episode boil over as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen does battle against the Immortal Iron Fist (I may have enjoyed the scenes of Daredevil whupping Iron Fist's ass a lot more than I should), as Daredevil and Jessica Jones investigate what the architect was working on, as Luke, Danny and Stick have a conversation, as Alexandra tries her best to keep her house in order, and as Elektra stabs Alexandra in the gut in the finale... not because she turned good, as everyone expected, but because she wants to take over. It all sounds great on paper, and while it's certainly enjoyable, there are some pacing issues that I wished was ironed out a little before

So let's try to dissect the various events that happened in this episode, where I think that the episode peaked in its beginning and end, but didn't have a strong enough middle section to really hold it. The final, oh, ten to fifteen minutes are just an insane whirlwind, with Elektra showing up at the warehouse that Luke Cage and Stick were holding Danny Rand hostage (long story, but suffice to say that it's for Danny's own good). Stick and Luke, who are fighting over whether Stick should kill Danny right now to deny him to the Hand, are caught unawares as Elektra shows up, knocks out Luke Cage, with Iron Fist being powerless, and murders Stick, earning our first named casualty in the series. And then Elektra manages to knock out both Daredevil and Jessica when they show up. And then, after Alexandra manages to quell rebellion from the other fingers... Elektra abruptly stabs Alexandra and declares her intention to take over. It's a twist, but one that I'm not sure the show neeeds. Let's talk about the elephant in the room, then...

Becuase, as much as I didn't expect the twist, it doesn't really mean that I consider it a particularly good twist insomuch that I feel like Alexandra's story isn't fully told yet. Sure, we know a fair bit about Alexandra's motivations and goals. She's an immortal woman who's dying, and has chosen to put all her fates in the Black Sky regardless of what her compatriots think. There is some mother-daughter thing going on. But all of that ends up still feeling like we're missing a link here and there that explains Alexandra's blind devotion to the Black Sky, or why the other Fingers fear Alexandra so much to only take a stand now. It feels like we're starting to really develop Alexandra beyond a (figurative) mustache-twirling villain, and then she gets killed off very quickly. I dunno. Maybe I expected more because she's played by Sigourney Weaver, but I feel like this ends up being a slight disservice for the character, because for all the hype she has as the person that unites the Five Fingers and brought back the Black Sky and everything... she doesn't actually do anything but sit and terrify people.

In this episode alone, her conversation with Madame Gao, where Gao plays the diplomat (RE: past treachery, Gao's nonchalant, cheeky "the past is the past." is perfect) and tries to get Alexandra to see reason (and, failing that, she's going to back the winning horse) is absolutely fantastic, as is the completely calm conversation she has with Murakami, who flat-out says (in equal calmness) that he's going to murder her and take over. Yet any potential Hand Civil War gets interrupted by Elektra capturing Iron Fist... and her subsequent murder of Alexandra. Which... really, is a bit of a sore point. It's not that I hate Elektra as a character, but it's just that she's spent nearly the entirety of Defenders as a mute brainwashed zombie, who's remembering fragments of her old life... and I feel that despite her sleeping in Matt's bed and stealing a bible verse or whatever, she doesn't do enough to really justify her sudden change of heart into being a full-on villain.

That said, though, there are some quality acting from Sigourney Weaver and Wai Ching Ho, the particular being absolutely fantastic playing the kind granny next to Alexandra in her room, transitioning quickly to manipulator when she passes Bakuto and Murakami, and that gasp of shocked grief and vulnerability when Elektra decapitates Alexanddra. The bond between Gao and Alexandra has always been well-established in the show, even if Gao condones Murakami's murder attempt that also takes place, having Alexandra be so brutally murdered as opposed to being killed by 'one of their own' horrifies Gao and this wordless scene speaks a fair bit despite my general disdain with the Alexandra/Elektra stuff.  Also really liked the expressions on Gao, Bakuto and Murakami's faces when Sowande's head was sent to them, showing that they truly are mortal now.

Which, by the way, is their main goal, as exposition tells us this episode. The 'substance' used to resurrect Elektra is the same substance that the Five Fingers (also Nobu) used to return from the dead, and the resources Alexandra committed to raising Elektra, at the cost of all their mortalities, is the immortality-granting substance itself. And apparently the Iron Fist can open a gateway to... K'un Lun (wasn't it razed to the ground?) or somewhere related to K'un Lun that would give them more of the substance.

Of course, the Hand isn't the only team having problems, because the Defenders are collapsing themselves. When the Defenders realize that the Hand wants the Iron Fist, the best plan is, of course, to keep the Iron Fist as far away from the Hand as possible -- something that the hot-headed, naive Danny obviously balks at. Yes, it's so easy to dismiss Danny as being an irresponsible twat once again (and he is!) but at least this time around he genuinely has a point -- he is the most powerful member in their group offensively, he is a mighty warrior,  and he would be a great asset against the Hand. There are many ways in which, and I cannot believe I'm saying this, that I agree with Danny Rand's argument. Of course, like any pampered bully, when others refuse to play ball, Danny jumps from "guys, come on, you need me on the front lines" to "I will BEAT YOU ALL UP if you don't let me fight with you!" and, yes, it's out of his own misguided intentions that this is all part of the Hand's mind-games and shit, but come on, man.

Of course, with his own investment in Elektra, and second-guessing Stick, Daredevil isn't the most objective person around. Add Jessica (naturally) pouring kerosene into the fire by egging the conflict and pointing out that Daredevil has been keeping secrets -- not just about Elektra, but also, as we find out this episode, about the hole underneath the Midland building from the second season of Daredevil. Of course, it turns out that when Iron Fist wants to fight, he fights. And god damn the martial arts battle between Iron Fist and Daredevil is gorgeous. It might just be my favourite fight in the entire show, without hyperbole. The fight is great, and as Jessica tries to stop Daredevil from beating up Danny, Danny reflexively pushes Jessica aside... causing her to retaliate... causing Luke to try and stop Danny... causing Danny to unleash the Iron Fist to lay waste to the entire base.

The rest of the episode, sadly, is a bit clunkier. The constant scene-changing from the pairs of Luke/Danny, Matt/Jessica and the goings-on in the Hand side of things... sprinkle copious amounts of Elektra ruminating the world, and the episode has one of the more uneven pacings I've seen. It's not bad, it just feels a wee bit too choppy.

Thankfully the actosr play off each other very well. Danny and Luke's chemistry are well done even if Danny's tied up and hostile, with Danny being earnest but so socially awkward, whereas Luke just exudes this aura of confidence. I did like how Luke starts to soften once he realizes even more that Danny isn't a horrible person, he's a nice dude that says horrible things because he truly is that naive. Everyone and their mother knows a Luke/Danny team-up in the future is all but certain, and this episode certainly sells me on that. By the time the bigger conflict looms, Luke was ready to divulge personal information about his and Jessica's past relationship, even if he doesn't quite buy the whole punched-a-dragon thing. Of course, and then Stick tries to get a third option and snuff out the Iron Fist before Elektra shows up, so there's that.

Stick's pretty cool, too, having a brief moment of tenderness against Elektra before expiring, while still being an extremist for the greater good, ready to snuff Danny Rand out of existence to deny the Hand the Iron Fist, which clearly is crossing the line compared to decapitating Sowande or training child soldiers. Stick does get some neat bits of manipulation with Luke and Danny, getting the two of them to lower their guard by talking about how he was adopted from hell by the Chaste, and as he's about to kill Danny, he notes how survivors make it up as they go along and apologizes for how necessary this is. Stick's role as a mentor, and a morally-ambiguous one at that, has always made him prime candidate for being killed off in a higher-stakes season, and this certainly counts. Stick's death is going to be missed, because I for one truly enjoyed Stick's jackass one-liners.

Jessica Jones and Daredevil, clearly, win the "most fun duo" award. Jessica's one of the angrier members of the group when she realizes Matt's deception last episode (and this one, too)  but the two's chemistry is absolutely excellent, with Matt's no-nonsense attitude and Jessica's fuck-the-world attitude playing off each other pretty well. It's a pretty great moment as Jessica tries to recount the story of Matt's father in front of that little girl, showing once more that, yes, despite her brusque exterior, Jessica Jones is a hero and a loyal friend.. The two discovering the blueprints in the piano is slightly convoluted how they jump from inspiring speech to "I believe the architect hid something behind the piano", but I'll buy it, simply because Matt acting extra-blind to reach the piano is hilarious (Jessica evidently thinks so too).

Also, they just have so much great dialogue. Matt: "You sure [this is the house]?" Jessica: "99 percent. -pause- 92 percent. But that's still a lot." or this: Jessica: "My past is none of your goddamn business. And it's not actively trying to kill us." or that hilarious eyeroll Jessica has when Matt tells her it's not a tunnel, it's a hole? The two's mutual respect, and Jessica's agreement to trust each other, is definitely well done.

And then there's Elektra. She has... dreams as she sleeps in Matt's apartment, and she is this weird mix of both the Black Sky and the old Elektra, and takes in everything Alexandra says or does... and decides to just, eh, stab Alexandra and take over. She remembers everything, it seems, because he calls Matthew by name, but she's unaffected by her parents in either life, stabbing Stick and later stabbing Alexandra. I'm not really sure I buy any of this, though, because moreso than the backstory Sowande exposits before his death, Alexandra has been built up for far longer, over the course of nearly the entire episode, but was never really allowed to act on that beyond the Black Sky stuff. And while there is never a scene where Alexandra was flat-out bad, I think the show could've done a lot better. I dunno. Maybe I just wanted to see Sigourney Weaver do a lot more? I feel like she's wasted as the villain that ended up as a mere stepping stone for Elektra. I dunno. I still feel a bit ambivalent about it. 

The Defenders S01E05 Review: United

The Defenders, Season 1, Episode 5: Take Shelter

Sorry about the brief delays, but reviews of the second half of Defenders should be finished this week. But here, we start the episode off with a pretty awesome montage of the four fingers of the Hand gathering and marshalling their forces as they prepare to assault the Royal Dragon and murder the Defenders, with Madame Gao, Sowande and Murakami all converging at where Alexandra and Elektra are at, set to the orchestral music associated with Alexandra. This episode follows the streak that the previous two episodes did by having exciting things actually happen, and it's a blast to watch. There are some weaker moments which I'll cover at the end, but by and by I'm pretty satisfied with this episode. 

The action prologue might not be as smooth as the hallway battle from episode 3, thanks to some odd jerking about of the camera that cuts to one action scene to the next in abrupt ways, but it does show some pretty cool moves as Daredevil, Jessica, Luke, Iron Fist and Stick all unleash their differing fighting styles against the goons of the Hand. In this beginning battle, while every hero gets their due, special kudos go to Daredevil and Luke, both of whom face off against Elektra and Sowande respectively. Sowande's martial arts unleash enough force to knock the unbreakable man backwards, matching Luke blow for blow, showing that the leaders of the Hand aren't just pushover businessmen like Alexandra (who disappears during the battle) are. Sadly, the Sowande/Luke fight gets interrupted when Luke gets hit by a truck, and next thing we know, Luke returns having cuffed and apprehended Sowande. That felt jarring.

Murakami and Elektra act as the head-honcho ninjas, with Murakami, after the buildup he gets last epnisode as being the only other 'finger' of the Hand that isn't subservient to Alexandra, to kick all kinds of ass. But as Murakami arrives to see Daredevil (who breaks ranks to try and get Elektra to 'wake up') and Elektra not... killing each other, Elektra ends up going berserk and turning on Murakami briefly. It's a sign that Elektra's going to be trapped in some crisis of conscience thing, and that Daredevil's attempts to redeem Elektra is going to be trouble for the group -- which aren't the best parts of the episode, but are done well enough to not bother me that much.

Also, Jessica whacks Madame Gao. Of course it's her that hits an old, unassuming lady. Gao's just awesome in the prologue, yeah? Coldly shooting one of her minions in the head because they need the Iron Fist alive, and then calmly using her hand to Force Push the gigantic dumpster thing that Jessica uses to block the exit out of the Royal Dragon. Madame Gao's implied superpowers (or K'un Lun chi kung-fu) have been on the backburner in Daredevil's second season and Iron Fist, but it's nice to remind us that while the Defenders are powerful, so are the Five Fingers of the Hand.

And, yes, Five Fingers, because Bakuto, main villain in Iron Fist, presumed dead because his dead body disappears after the battle, reappears in this episode, having been revived. And Bakuto's appearance is certainly welcome. Not just because Ramon Rodriguez gives pretty stellar performance here, but because it also gives Colleen Wing something to do beyond insisting that she and Danny started the fight against the Hand while being kept in the sidelines. Also, Claire's deadpan “That dude was for sure dead last time we saw him, right? Okay, just checking.” when she sees Bakuto, and Danny's equally-deadpan nod, are also bloody hilarious.

Bakuto and Colleen get some scenes in this episode as Bakuto confronts her ex-student and ex-lover, and the episode focuses quite a bit on Colleen Wing, and, indeed, the entire supporting cast of the four Defenders' individual series. Colleen gets a relatively large amount of screentime in this episode, interacting not only with Bakuto, who tries to shake her entire worldview -- and as someone who has spent her entire life believing that the Hand (or, well, Bakuto's faction of the Hand) is the one true way to live, and she has had her entire life ripped away from her. Colleen has since latched on completely to being Danny's sidekick in their tag team to fight the Hand, but Bakuto's return shakes all of that. Colleen is clearly not taking any more of Bakuto's shit and goes sword-first against her former master, but both actors portray their roles amazingly well, with Bakuto's confidence of someone who has his hooks in Colleen's psyche and Colleen's determination is tinged with confusion and doubt. The encounter sadly ends with the rather comical 'turn away for one second, and he's gone!' bit, but Colleen's gut-stab takes her out of the fight.

Less elegant, mind you, is the earlier speech where Colleen rants to Danny that she doesn't like Danny allying with the Defenders since it's "their" fight, even though Colleen is the one who suggested Danny find allies in the first place. That bit didn't feel like it needed to happen.

Her honest speech to Claire, asking if she's just useless and pointless, is also amazingly acted by both actors, with Claire assuring Colleen that she is "the foundation" of the Defenders. Which seems rather strange, considering that if there is anyone who could be called the foundation of the team it'd be Claire herself, who's the only common friend between all four Defenders, but perhaps the term could be applied in a more general sense to every single supporting character that, well, quite literally supports the Defenders mentally and emotionally. Foggy and Karen. Trish and Malcolm. Misty and Claire. Colleen. These people, while the obvious weakness of the Defenders (the Hand goes after two of these characters in this episode), is also their strength. Someone like Jessica or Luke doesn't really buy into the whole eternal ninja clan full of resurrected overlords, but they do know that they need to keep their loved ones safe, and that's enough for them. And this is where the supporting characters come in, as we spend time with them and remind both our heroes and us, the audience, just who our characters are fighting for. 

And none feel this weight more than Matt's supporting cast. They decide to gather their loved ones at the precinct under the watchful eye of an increasingly exasperated Misty Knight (fill her up on the Hand already, Luke!) but whereas Colleen's interactions with Bakuto and later Claire get more spotlight, and Trish later ends up being the crux to a Jessica/Daredevil/Murkami fight, Matt's conversation with Foggy and Karen are so much more well done. It's so easy to generalize Foggy and especially Karen as selfish, stop-superheroing characters, but at the same time, is it really that hard to blame them to want to keep their friend Matt from, well, dying in the gutter fighting something he's over his head about? Yet the same fate that befell Elektra (and other characters who died in the other heroes' respective journeys) is exactly why Matt -- nay, Daredevil -- is fighting so hard. He wants to prevent the same thing from happening to Foggy and Karen and his newfound friends, as well as to redeem Elektra herself. Karen's resigned sigh as she realizes that, yeah, she just have to trust Matt is well-done. And I also did like the members of the different supporting cast having their own scenes and lives. Trish isn't just lounging randomly when Jessica finds her, she's trying to get to the bottom of why the earthquake was covered up in her radio show by her superiors. Foggy and Karen share a reunion. Claire and Colleen have a conversation about Colleen's self-esteem, and Misty introduces herself to Colleen, recognizing that her sword skills probably means that she can (and probably will) need to help defend the precinct if shit goes down.

And, yes, Jessica's fight against Murakami when she tries to get Trish to safety is amazingly done, showing how skilled these Five Fingers are. Jessica is undoubtedly stronger, but Murakami's agility and ability to parry strikes means that despite her strength, Jessica can't damage Murakami if her punches can't land. This leads to the dramatic entry as Daredevil, finally in his full costume again, shows up and lobs his throwing sticks at Murakami. The three-way battle between the in-costume Daredevil (who finally got over the struggling-between-two-lives thing now that the threat is real), Jessica Jones and Murakami is amazingly done, and a neat showcase of their powers as Daredevil and Murakami engaged in a series of awesome martial arts exchange, before Jessica gets a shot to let loose with a gigantic metahuman punch that sends Murakami flying. 

And, of course, since Jessica Jones is the most amazing snarker in the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe... her (apparently ad-libbed by both actors) nonplussed "nice ears." at Daredevil's costume, and Daredevil's irritated and pouty "they're horns." is absolutely perfect.

Of course, all the character interactions are pretty great, and we get Sowande giving this long, impressive backstory about how he once caused a gigantic temple of the Chaste to be basically broken by siege tactics, causing them to kill each other as they give Sowande up to his own people to end the siege. Matt's return to the full Daredevil costume, a decision that was honestly well-paced over five episodes despite its slow burn, starts with him kicking ass with Jessica, and later using his brand-new chain-stick things to choke Sowande from halfway across the room, earning another gem: Danny goes "THAT'S SO COOL!" excitedly like a little kid (I agree with Danny), and Luke tries to play it cool and goes "eeeh it's kinda cool."

Of course, Sowande gets into Matt's head, knowing all about Elektra and the Black Sky, causing Matt to lose his temper and almost kill Sowande. ("Unfortunately", in Stick's words) Again, always refreshing to see storylines where it's not afraid to be dark, but still have the heroes not kill unless absolutely necessary. The revelation about Matt and Stick knowing about Elektra's identity all along causes a pretty big blow-up as Jessica, Luke and Danny kind of demands why Matt is hiding this from them, and what else are they hiding, but they aren't at blows with each other (yet). It's a trick that's as old as superhero team-up comics in general, but one that was done.... well, reasonably well if not particularly super-exciting. While the Defenders are squabbling, Sowande attempts to escape and capture the Iron Fist, and Stick just slices off Sowande's head. "Cut off one finger, the hand can still move" indeed, but Stick just doesn't give a shit. It's a bit of an abrupt end, but the moment of doubt on the other three Defenders as they realize that Stick isn't quite a wise mentor like Obi-Wan Kenobi sinks in. Killing Sowande isn't the worst thing Stick could do, of course, and while extreme isn't unjustified, but it's a pretty neat shocking twist

Less done well, perhaps, are the Five Fingers of the Hand themselves. They lick their wounds a lot in this episode -- four of the five didn't manage to get any of the Defenders at the beginning of the episode. Bakuto fails to turn Colleen against the Defenders, Sowande gets murdered and Murakami gets his ass beaten by Jessica and Daredevil. We get the handwave that despite them being shown as being on a civil war during Iron Fist, apparently Bakuto and Gao just brush off their older conflict as "well, we're still technically allies with each other." I wish we spent more time on Bakuto and Gao's conflict, but then that would eat up even more time. I certainly didn't expect Bakuto, Gao and Murakami to turn against Alexandra, but honestly that's a very, very well-done scene.

See, we're still not super-clear just what makes Elektra so special, what makes the 'Black Sky' so special that Alexandra apparently uses all their resources to bring her to life. Murakami has already been opposed to Alexandra's methods and treats this as a partnership instead of serving under her, Bakuto didn't even join up until this episode and has a history of fighting against other Hand leaders, and Gao, while subservient, also shows up later to remind Alexandra that her putting all her eggs in one basket with nothing to show for it is.... well, one of the five dead. The death of a fellow immortal shakes the three of them to the core, and none of the three have enough faith to follow Alexandra blindly, certainly not when she seems to be failing so much. I just wish we get to learn more about Alexandra's motivations and her faith in the Black Sky beyond, well, general mommy issues. And that's where I think the writing behind Alexandra feels lacking, as it doesn't quite get any better for the rest of the series. Sigourney Weaver is a fantastic actress, but I honestly feel that her role as Alexandra, while amazingly portrayed... doesn't quite carry a full story. 

And Black Sky/Elektra herself is a bit weird, too. She's clearly confused and trying to find out why she instinctively protected Daredevil from being killed, and she just tries to find out where she came from, finally ending in Matt's old apartment. It's... it's okay, I guess, but I just kind of don't find a lot of the Elektra stuff super-interesting. It's not the fault of the actress or the writers, who did their best to pace a resurrected character coming to terms with conflicting memories and all that jazz, it's perhaps just that this particular subplot feels rather detached and doesn't quite have the necessary buildup that I, as the audience, end up asking the same questions that Madame Gao and the others are asking: why bring Elektra back at all?

Still, a pretty solid episode regardless of the long-term missteps. The plot is heading headlong to a big clash between the Defenders, who drew first blood, against the Hand, and it's pretty exciting.

As a little parting note, can I just say how utterly awesome Stick is with one liners this episode? From his reaction to Sowande's near-death choking and Danny asking if he's dead: "Eh, unfortunately, no." Or his comeback to Sowande's "I was wondering when I would see you again.", which is him going "Me too. -waves hand in front of eyes- Huh. Guess that won't be today." Or his response to Sowande's long scary speech about how he mind-gamed an entire castle to give up: "If I kneel before you right now, shithead, will you shut up?"

Nanatsu no Taizai 231-232 Review: It's High Noon

Nanatsu no Taizai, Chapters 231-232: Pride vs. Wrath/the Almighty vs. the Greatest Evil

Well, this week we got a dual chapter thing going on, and it's glorious. After Merascylla's defeat in a way that gets around the whole Elaine-will-die-if-Scylla-dies plot point (something I found to be a bit of an ass-pull, to be honest) Escanor fights Meliodas, and it's hype as all hell! There's really not that much to say without repeating "OMG" so many times, but by god it's just badass. The art's completely on point as Escanor and Meliodas just unleashes barrage after barrage of powerful moves. Both Escanor and Meliodas are two characters that are very much susceptible to the 'invincible overpowered hero' trope. Especially after the time-skip, they have been punching through enemy after enemy without batting an eyelid, so clearly they're actual threats against each other.

And the manga makes it pretty awesome at showing that Evil Demon Meliodas (great to see him back, by the way) is just absolutely brutal while Escanor is taking a beating... but he keeps getting stronger as he gets closer to high noon (insert obligatory Overwatch joke). Escanor is clearly damaged, but his expression and lines are always bragging and over-confident, which are amazingly shown. We get a gigantic power-up by Escanor as he hulks up at the end of 231 and unleashes a gigantic punch that seemed to surely have ended the contest... and then Meliodas punches up and makes him bleed.

Then 232 shows up and apparently Escanor's not dead yet. Quite the contrary. We get great swaps between sun blasts, axe swings, dagger hellfire stabs and full counters (and a cryptic voice that Merlin hears), whereas Merlin's Perfect Cube gives the two strongest characters in the setting ample space to fight without genociding humanity. The manga is perfect at showing both Meliodas and Escanor surprised at the other tanking their latest attack without going too much into repetition, and as Escanor seems to fall at last... Merlin talks about how Escanor is just delaying until it's high noon... where for one minute during high noon, Escanor's power peaks and he becomes the "invincible incarnation of power, the One". Which... shit, it's basically the Hulk meets Sentry, yeah? He's gigantic, he's burning with sunfire, his eyes are glowing... and then Meliodas unleashes a 'Divine 1000 slices' that seems to fuck Escanor up, like each time Meliodas gets serious earlier in the fight... but Escanor goes "naught but an itch", waves his hand down in the motion of a knife... and cuts Meliodas. Well. It's certainly hype, and Escanor will probably beat Meliodas in this 'the One' form, or Meliodas might withstand Escanor for the full minute and then as Escanor weakens Meliodas will pound Escanor to the ground. Highly doubt either of them will die, and the penultimate panel shows Elizabeth rushing towards them, so it might be a friendship speech that saves the day... but I kinda want to see more Escanor and Meliodas badassery, so hopefully next chapter won't be the end just yet.  

Hearthstone: Hearth & Home / Frozen Throne Adventure & Druid Talk

Hearthstone recently released this, a fully-3D-animated cartoon about the general concept of Hearthstone, a magical card game in the world of Azeroth in a mysterious inn. It's glorious! And considering the amount of salt that the Hearthstone fanbase has, it's neat and heartwarming to see what Hearthstone is created in mind. It's definitely goofy, but it's freaking Hearthstone. How can it not be? It is kinda weird to see the Innkeeper's mouse sidekick, though. That felt super weird to me and distinctly non-Azerothian. Also, I loved the cameos of Hearthstone characters and cards throughout the background.

The Frozen Throne Adventures have been amazing, easily one of the best adventures full stop I've seen in Hearthstone since... oh, Blackrock Mountain, I think? There is also a gigantic amount of Easter Egg interactions that the adventure mode has, which is surprising, even by Hearthstone's standards. The second wing of Icecrown does feel a bit too easy, even if the mechanics are pretty cool. Sindragosa and Lana'thel in particular felt not particularly difficult, which is a bit of a shame... but all in all, the missions are difficult enough to be a challenge, but not too difficult that they're insanely frustrating like heroic BRM/Naxxramas. And the Lich King final battle? God, that was entertaining and hilarious. It has the perfect balance of being difficult yet not too frustrating, with the Lich King's unique cheating between all nine classes making the boss fight pretty entertaining to figure out. So far I'm 2 out of 9 classes in my progress to getting that majestic Arthas skin. Oh, and the freaking voice lines and easter egg voice lines are just bomb.

The meta is insanely dominated by Druid, and I have to respectfully take back what I said about Crypt Lord -- god damn, turns out that a taunt minion that heals as you swarm the board? Pretty amazing. Ultimate Infestation is as awesome as everyone thought it was going to be, and then some. Spreading Plague also ends up as one of the most insane board-securing tools I've ever seen in the game. And I kind of knew that Malfurion the Pestilent wasn't shit, but the sheer amount of power that it lends Druid? God damn. Both Jade and Aggro Druid are insanely powerful in the ladder right now, yet at the same time still quite fun to try to counter. Skulking Geist alternates between working amazingly and flopping, though, which is a shame.

Priest is the class I've been working with a lot, and so are Shaman and Paladin. Priest's Raza/Anduin/Lyra combo works amazingly well, and is easily one of the most fun decks I've ever played. Another variant that showed up recently is a deck that only has big minions, Barnes and Shadow Reflection to pull them out, which is insanely gamble-y, but pretty hilariously insane if you get the combo off.

I've ranked all the way to rank 3 and trying to push legend in these last two or three days with a combination of Raza Priest and Evolve Shaman... plus joining the druid horde at several points when I tried both Aggro and Jade Druid and found out that it is as insane as it looks, and my decks are missing several key pieces. Druids are pretty awesome, even if I feel dirty whenever I win with them.

And, by god, the simple addition of Thrall Deathseer and the Saronite Chain Gang buffed Evolve Shaman so much and gives the deck so much more consistency because I can more reliably do evolve shenanigans instead of evolve being a side-thing that's nice to get while the deck traditionally relies of bloodlust.

Paladin's amazing. Between the various Murloc Paladins and this weird midrange thing I've got going with Uther of the Ebon Blade, it's not as rampant as the mages, druids and priests in the ladder, but still pretty fun and consistently good. Also, Skelemancer + Spikeridged Steed is insanely great, so I take back every horrblbe thing I said about Skelemancer. Bonemare's also pretty awesome in the already taunt-and-buff-everything midrange paladin decks, and I'm pleasantly happy that a neutral card end up finding a home in multiple decks.

Exodia Mages are insanely annoying, but now I pack a Dirty Rat in control decks to pull out their Sorcerer's Apprentices and make them cry, whereas aggro decks just crushes them entirely. It's very interesting how the addition of two cards -- Simulacrum and Ghastly Conjurer -- suddenly made the deck's combo so much more consistent when before it's a meme deck.

Warlock Death Knight decks showed up a lot in the earlier weeks (both the death knight and Despicable Dreadlord are... despicable!), but seemed to have been shunted away. There was a Warlock deck that used Prince Keleseth that is reasonably decent, actually, and I'm happy that one of the 'useless' princes actually saw marginal play. Hunters, which I don't see a single one of in the first week, end up showing with a new midrange version that switches from 'swarm the board' to 'Deathstalker Rexxar mega value' in the mid-game, which looks insanely fun. Rogue... there's some miracle Rogue lists running around, which is cool but something that I always beat handily. Warriors are weird. I see pirate lists every now and then, but never as rampant as they were in Gadgetzan since aggro druid and paladins are better. Control lists use Scourgelord Garrosh pretty well, but I kinda think the list isn't as figured out as people would like. I saw a C'Thun variant that uses Dead Man's Hand to get extra C'Thuns and Shieldbearers and I thought that was pretty cool.

Despite the Druid infestation I actually probably played Hearthstone far, far more than I did in any prior expansion, going for a Legend push in ranked and ranking 10's and 12's in Arena runs. Do think Druid needs to be reined in, though... personally agree withe dev feedback that it's not Ultimate Infestation that's the problem, it's Spreading Plague and the ramping tools that's the problem. Maybe make Spreading Plague generate 1/3 or 1/4 Taunt tokens instead? Or make Innervate cost 1 mana but give 3 mana crystals? I dunno. Something.

The Death Knights in general are all pretty good -- I think Valeera and Garrosh are the most inconsistent ones at actually gaining you value, but there aren't things that are borderline unplayable like the paladin and warlock quests. I realy like that.

General thoughts on crafting cards (epic and legendary) in general... the death knights all seem generally good. Prince Keleseth sees play in Warlock decks. The other two princes suck. Corpsetaker is pretty amazing in Paladin lists. Rattling Rascal is nowhere as good as I thought he was. One Skulking Geist is all you need. The Lich King is amazing, and Arfus is great in Hunters. Ultimate Infestation and Malfurion the Pestilent are amazing, but Hadronox is a disappointment and Fatespinner predictably doesn't see play. Deathstalker Rexxar is great, Putricide is okay but unessential, Toxic Arrow and the Abominable Bowman don't see much play. Both Frost Lich Jaina and Sindragosa are very solid cards for elemental control mage -- Sindragosa looks so much fun that I really want to craft one just for kicks, and Jaina is a lot better because, shit, it's actually hard to play around her hero power at times. Glacial Mysteries doesn't see play, as predicted, but Simulacrum unexpectedly does in Exodia Mage. Paladins... Bolvar Fireblood is actually good! Uther is also good. Light's Sorrow is bad, as predicted, and Blackguard is... not bad, but doesn't see much play, I think.  I really love Shadowreaper Anduin, and Obsidian Statue is an insanely great fit for priest decks. Embrace Darkness is kinda poop and Benedictus is a meme card.

I don't think I've seen Lilian Voss ever, yet, neither did I ever see Doomerang or the Spectral Pillager, but Valeera the Hollow, if you get to pull her off, is quite decent. All the freeze Shaman cards didn't work, so neither Cryostasis or Moorabi sees play. Overload is kinda dead in standard, so the new giant doesn't see play either. Thrall Deathseer is insanely great, though. Bloodreaver Gul'dan is one of the more popular Death Knights for good reason -- even with the lackluster demons available to Warlock in standard right now (though a bunch of 6/6's aren't anything to laugh at) Gul'dan manages to be decent. Blood-Queen Lana'thel saw no play as predicted and neither did discard Warlock. Gnomeferatu doesn't see play, and Treachery only exists for the memes -- I did have someone try to do the Howlfiend-Treachery-Spreading Madness combo, but I win because even though he succeeded in discarding my Shadowreaper Anduin he did play a deck with 6 bad cards. Warriors... Bring it On seems bad anytime it comes up, Scourgelord Garrosh is decent if not spectacular, Rotface is truly fun the rare times I saw him on play (Rotface into Doom Hogger is actually insane) and Dead Man's Hand, while not that good, is actually quite a neat tool that I see some lists using well.

One Piece 876 Review: Cake Making

One Piece, Chapter 876: Coincidental Apperance of Pudding

I'm...  not a super-big fan of this chapter? The whole Big Mom pursuit part of One Piece, while a decent story plot point, has always been paced strangely, feeling like it would come from a manga like Bleach where they care a bit less about pacing (i.e. not at all, with characters running around aimlessly in 75% of the later arcs). It's still readable and enjoyable, but I honestly could do without Big Mom taking forever to catch up with the Straw Hats, especially now that Zeus is back under her relative control. The first two pages were particularly bad, with the Straw Hats literally standing there and discussing "should we run? Is Big Mom dead?". Literally standing around. Yeah. And then there's the constant suspension of disbelief that Big Mom's attacks all miss the mark, Zeus and Prometheus just don't go and attack the Straw Hats, and Big Mom despite her immense strength can't catch up on the Straw Hats on leg. 

 Also not a big fan of the constant split-personality ultra-tsundere Pudding, though at least it's finally made clear that Pudding is genuinely in love with Sanji instead of trying to put on a mask of pretending to love Sanji or whatever. It's... it's not horrible, but at the same time the execution is so muddled in a lot of fake-outs and 'plot twists' that Pudding ends up being a huge mess of a character with split personality, and I'm not a big fan of that. Such a huge chunk of the chapter, nearly half of it, is devoted to Pudding trying to keep her dual  personality in control as she and Chiffon attempt to recruit Sanji to bake the wedding cake with them, something that everyone has seen coming from a mile away -- though I wouldn't say that this is a disappointment per se. It felt kind of earned, and this being a Sanji-centric arc, he does kind of needed a 'win'. I just wish that the Sanji-needs-to-bake-a-cake plot twist didn't take so long to pop up. 

We did get a badass scene from Pudding, with Pudding taking away the memories of all the Homies with her memory fruit powers (use it on Big Mom!) which... returns the memories of the souls' original owners? Huh, that might prove interestingly useful against Big Mom's homies. Meanwhile, Brook and Chopper are keeping up against Perospero and Katakuri's forces (the two aren't actually fighting) and as Sanji passes them, he decides to leave them alone, saying "they can handle themselves". If Sanji's team is going to pacify Big Mom, I think Katakuri being the 'final boss' for this arc for Luffy to defeat kind of makes sense? I dunno. 

Oh, and the cover story switches away from Bartolomeo burning Shanks' flag to Sai and the Happo Navy returning, something that I am genuinely surprised about. I like Sai, so I don't mind seeing him, but that Bartolomeo cover story sure ended rather abruptly, huh? (... I also just realized that every single fleet general in Luffy's Grand Fleet were responsible for defeating a member of Doflamingo's executives. Huh.)

Overall it's not a horrible chapter, I just feel that the pacing and general plot development could've been done better.

Young Justice S01E09 Review: Mind-Blown

Young Justice, Season 1, Episode 9: Bereft

Well, this episode. It neatly picks up on last episode's foreshadowing of something going on in the Bialyan Desert, but throws us straight into a 'huh? What happened?' bit as M'gann wakes up next to Superboy in the desert, and they have both regressed and lost their memories. It's a memory loss episode as the Team has to learn how to work together all over again, with their egos and memories restored to how they were a couple of months ago, which means Superboy is reduced to a screaming tool and Artemis has no idea why she's in this weird superhero costume.

It's an interesting concept, but one that's not handled that well. On paper the episode is a pretty neat standalone storyline, of course, but I think this is the first Young Justice episode that I didn't really like that much. Objectively it's a decent episode that tells a neat, fresh story, but I don't feel like the positioning of this episode relatively early in the series worked that well, especially when some of our characters like M'gann and Artemis are relative ciphers, and the trio of Robin and Kid Flash already being buddies kind of makes the whole 'work together with strangers that are actually your friends' bit redundant, as does M'gann immediately remembering fragments of them being a team and trying to get everyone on her side, and quickly solving things with her telepathic powers. (Aqualad sits the episode out, being unconscious for most of it). It's also a miracle how Kid Flash and Artemis survived Superboy's rampage without any broken bones for no real reason.

It's a bit weird that the main villain of the episode, Psimon, ends up just wiping out the Team's memories instead of mind-controlling them or killing them outright, and it's honestly very oddly handled overall. The action sccenes are decent enough, but the whole concept of the memory loss storyline is rather slipshod in execution in my opinion.

One of the things that is intriguing in this episode is the mention of the Light having a 'partner' with access to a Boom Tube, but that's a cliffhanger that won't be explored until way, way later down the line. More relevantly is Artemis's angry reaction that this is probably another test from her father (what father drops his own teenage daughter in a random desert, and changes her clothes into a belly-revealing costume?) which Wally tries to probe into, but we don't get much from it. Artemis's backstory is definitely interesting, but the vague hints on this front doesn't really add that much to the episode.

There is, of course, a brief progression of M'gann and Superboy's romance, and the introduction of the enigmatic sphere, and M'gann shows that she's an insanely powerful telepath that beats down Psimon in a telepathic battle, but otherwise it's pretty much a filler episode. I suppose M'gann is supposed to be the main character? We don't really learn that much in terms of new things about her, and Psimon is a pretty dry villain and no amount of 'Psimon says' catchphrase can make him that interesting... though the psychic storm action scenes are pretty cool.

Roll Call:

• Heroes: Miss Martian, Superboy, Robin, Batman, Kid Flash, Artemis, Aqualad
• Villains: Psimon, Queen Bee, the Light's council

DC Easter Eggs Corner: 

• Psimon, a.k.a. dr Simon Jones, is a scientist who worked on extradimensional travel when he accidentally opened a portal to hell, and was transformed by the demon Trigon into a powerful psychic with his iconic visible-brain appearance. Psimon is most closely associated with being one of the most powerful member of the Fearsome Five, a group of villains who fought the Teen Titans, before deposing Dr. Light and acting as the leader of the group. 
• Queen Bee is the name of various supervillains in DC comics, with most versions being various kinds of aliens that command a swarm of robotic or alien bees. This one is based on the second Queen Bee, the human dictator of the nation of Bialya who clashed several times with the Justice League Europe and Justice League International. This Queen Bee's real name is never named. 
• Bialya is a fictional country in the Middle East, being a country involved in Captain Atom and Justice League International stories. The first Blue Beetle, Dan Garrett, also discovered the scarab that gave him his powers in Bialya as well. 

The Defenders S01E04 Review: Best Conversation Ever

The Defenders, Season 1, Episode 4: Royal Dragon

In contrast to the first two episodes of the season, "Royal Dragon", the fourth episode of Marvel's the Defenders, involves all of our main characters -- the titular Defenders and Stick -- sitting in a restaurant and talking. Sure, Jessica says "fuck you" and buggers off for like the second half of the episode, but that's all they do. Yet it's so much more interesting and engaging than the weird book-keeping and errating jumping around we had in the first two episodes. From the moment that the episode begins with a shot of the titular Royal Dragon, a Chinese restaurant that the Defenders quickly hide in after escaping from Midland, and the clever visual hint that the Royal Dragon's neon signs has only the four primary colours associated with our four heroes in the opening credits (Matt's red, Jessica's dark blue, Luke's gold and Danny's green), it's the place where our heroes end up getting finally properly acquainted, trying to struggle to comprehend all the crazy shit going on with each other. Oh, and comprehend each other. This is the kind of a slow episode that really deserves to be made, one that truly explores characters and shows interactions that are interesting. 

Also, the episode makes Danny Rand finally likable, something that 13 episodes in his home show never managed to do. I can't help but think that the writers tried to redeem Danny in both the audience's eyes after the blowback on Iron Fist (nice to know I'm not the only one that doesn't like that show), which is definitely nice. And it doesn't feel like a complete retool of the character either, which would be inelegant. Danny is just this over-excited puppy with his extremely naive views on superheroism, which isn't hard considering his manchild mentality and his 'I am the destined hero, so we MUST fight them!' gung-ho attitude. We have had Danny be admonished twice in this season, first by Colleen and then by Luke, and seeing him here relatively excited to potentially have allies against the Hand, while still being enough of a prideful (but ultimately noble) tit to talk back to anything he desn't agree with, makes him work a lot better. There are also hilarious moments of him being accidentally insensitive, like earning the Royal Dragon's staff's cooperation through what initially seems to just him talking in Mandarin, but apparently he basically all but bought the restaurant with his boy billionaire money, and his proud "hey, guys, I did a thing!" excited little-brother smile is fun. More of fun, noble-idiot Danny and less moping, entitled-shit Dany, please. 

The four principal members of the Defenders have a common enemy, but they are all four well-defined characters who have gone through some serious shit in their respective shows. And unlike the Avengers, there was no Initiative. No SHIELD and Nick Fury that acted as the big good organization to tie them together, and in any case, with the Avengers half the team were actually working for SHIELD by the time the movie began. Sure, the Defenders all have a common friend in Claire Temple, and they all live in New York, but that's about it. They are a bunch of people who just don't trust other people easily, and even the characters who know each other before all this mess -- Luke and Jessica -- aren't super keen on working with the others. And that's not to mention all the hot emotions running right now. Matt's frustration and anger at seeing Elektra alive but not exactly herself, Jessica's streak of bad luck, Luke working out frustrations over Cole's death and... Danny's actually pretty chill in this episode and that sort of makes sense. 

Add all the hard-to-swallow stuff like the existence of the ninja clan called the Hand, the Immortal Iron Fist, dragon-punching and all that, and the Defenders just find each other's story hard to swallow, even if they do calm down a little after Danny orders five of every single item on the Royal Dragon's menu. Stick also shows up around the halfway mark to deliver some much-needed exposition and to call out Matt and Danny out -- the former being uncooperative, and the latter for being, in Stick's own words, "the immortal Iron Fist is still a dundering dumbass." becuase him calling Colleen basically tipped off their location to the Hand. But before that... story time! Luke's chill and cooperative despite his suspension of disbelief, but Stick's attempt to get Jessica Jones to SIDDOWN ends up with Jessica going "fuck you" and leaving, easily a highlight of the episode.

The conversations are well done, blending characters reacting to things the audience already knows like the general disbelief about Iron Fist's claim that he punched a dragon -- Luke has the perfect eyeball-rolling scene. Luke and Danny actually have some really great chemistry that builds up from their previous meetings in the second and third episodes, and I wouldn't mind seeing them team up as a duo show, which is apparently something that happens multiple times in the comics. Matt is, rather surprisingly for me, the most uncooperative of the bunch. Whereas Jessica is irritated and sticks around long enough to listen to the information she wants to know, Luke is chill and Danny is excited, Matt continues to want nothing to do with the group, something that makes a lot of sense considering how he doesn't even actually want to become Daredevil again until circumstances forced him to. Jessica's dry insistence that he return her scarf is hilarious, and Danny's constant "whooaaa how did you do that" look any time Matt comments on things with his super senses are hilarious.

Matt gets super-irate when Stick shows up, being a gigantic douchebag towards Stick and insisting that whatever Stick does isn't going to end well for anyone else -- he may be fighting the Hand, but that doesn't mean that he's working for everyone's best interests. At the moment, though, Stick is being cooperative, and despite his missing hand (there are some times where the stump prosthetic looks fake, though) Stick is in a talkative mood and catches both the heroes and the audience up on the state of things. The Chaste is formed in accordance to K'un Lun's orders -- not that it matters because it appears that both K'un Lun and the Chaste are basically wiped out, and confirms that the dead bodies that Danny, Colleen and Luke stumbles upon in episode two are what's left of the Chaste. We also get the revelation that the Hand is controlled by the Five Fingers, five heretics from K'un Lun that were exiled, but are also immortal thanks to obtaining certain... mystical things in K'un Lun.

These five fingers are the big players of the game, as we learn the identities of the five fingers. Alexandra and Madame Gao, obviously, and I did find Danny and Matt's confusion that the other knew Madame Gao to be more hilarious than I shold. "White Hat", or Sowande, the black dude that Luke has been following and we saw working with Alexandra last episode, is another, and Bakuto, the main villain of Iron Fist, is confirmed to be another (presumed dead, but maybe not) finger. The final member is a character we meet in this episode through Alexandra scenes, a Japanese man named Murakami, and is confirmed to be Nobu's leader. There is the weird oddity that apparently despite the bickering between Gao and Nobu, and Gao and Bakuto, the Hand's actually multiple organizations embroiled in constant alliances and rivalries... but it sort of kind of makes sense, allowing some tie-in to the sometimes inconsistent motivations that Madame Gao seems to have -- the Hand factions we see in the three different seasons they showed up in aren't necessarily the same faction. Their motivations being immortality might not be super original, but it's believable enough.

And through this all, the five main players in the room (four after Jessica leaves) exchange some great lines of dialogue. Without going too in-depth about it, it's just generally well done, with everyone's point of view being well-defined, and the moments when Luke and Matt decide to finally let go of their reluctance to team up with Stick and Danny is definitely well done. All of them are heroes, as much as they don't want to admit it, and despite Luke's reservation about this "magic" and Matt's hatred of Stick, they still know that people are going to get hurt and they can't have that. Matt also gets some of his alternate goals made known when he talks one-on-one with Stick about Elektra, and expresses some hope that, shit, Elektra might recognize him. Stick, heartless blind bastard that he is, is basically telling Matt not to be blinded by his emotions. 

Jessica, meanwhile, takes some time to finally say "fuck you" to everything, but curiousity gets the better of her, and she finds out that, yeah, the handwritings found in the records she photographed all match each other, leading credence to Stick's talk about immmortals. When she returns to investigate Michelle Raymond's house, she finds a thug watching the family, and while protecting them Jessica confirms the existence of the Hand. She shows up finally at the end of the episode, using a car to break through the walls and smack Elektra down, giving us a pretty badass dynamic entry and a cliffhanger for next episode as it promises another Defenders-vs-Elektra fight.

Alexandra gets some scenes to break up the restaurant stuff in this one, and it's pretty neat. There's the scene where she shows up to talk to Murakami, who speaks entirely in Japanese, before showing up in the restaurant, sitting on a chair, while everyone is distracted. While we do kind of know some bits about her -- she's an immortal who, for some reason, is dying, and is accelerating things faster than the other Five Fingers are comfortable with -- she's still mysterious enough. She asks Danny to come quietly, otherwise everyone else dies. Threatening their personal lives, as well as the fact that she's basically indirectly caused the death of Luke's buddy Cole, means that there's not really going to be peace. She then unleashes Elektra upon them, and while I highly doubt that four-on-one she's going to pose a threat to Iron Fist and Luke Cage, Jessica smacks Elektra with a car instead. Doubt she's down for the count, though.  

Definitely a win in my book. Perhaps a bit slower, but the right kind of slow that allows us to explore characters and character intereactions, instead of the weird meandering tone we had in the first two episodes. More please!