The Defenders S01E03 Review: YEAAAAAAAAAAAH

The Defenders, Season 1, Episode 3: Worst Behaviour

Okay, that's pretty fucking awesome. I've been pretty vocal in my relative distaste of the absurdly slow-as-snail pacing of the first two episodes of Defenders, but this one definitely helps to restore my confidence in the show. It's not just the big bad finale hallway battle at the end either when all the four Defenders stand together and fight against a crapton of Hand enemies (also Elektra), though that certainly helped immensely. It's the entire episode in general.

All four members of the Defenders feel like they end up working individually (or together, in Matt and Jessica's case) to arrive at the Midland building, the same building that became the setting of parts of Daredevil's second season, is owned by Alexandra, and apparently to become part of its board of directors you need to be a tonfa-wielding ninja. Add some surprisingly hilarious and compelling dialogue in this episode (Jessica Jones is my spirit superhero and still wins the best lines award) and you just have a recipe for an episode that's firing on all engines.

Let's leave the big action sequence for the end of the review, and talk about other things that make this episode still awesome. There's nowhere go but up after the previous clumsy episodes, of course, but this time around, all the main Defenders find their way to Midland security in believable ways. Matt and Jessica encounter each other as lawyer and client, and while Matt tails Jessica, we get an awesome back-and-forth as Jessica doubles back to follow Matt, who proceeds to shake her off by ninja-jumping up buildings. And then when the two of them meet again, Jessica tries to get Matt to get off her case by threatening to expose the photos she took (Matt just smashes her camera, which is hilarious) and their argument is cut short when Matt hears gunshots, and their argument ends up being moot as both heroes run up the building to reach the top and join the fight.

Oh, and their conversation is peppered with hilarious dialogue, of course. Jessica goes "I'll punch you so hard, you'll see" towards the blind Matt is just the brand of assholish humour that makes me like Jessica Jones so much, but Matt stealing Jessica's scarf for a makeshift (stupid-looking) mask and runs off with Jessica going "you look like an asshole!" and Matt's "it's your scarf!" quip is just so perfectly done. As is the montage of Matt just charging up the stairs of like an entire skyscraper, reaching the top floor like a ninja ready to battle... and Jessica just nonchalantly steps out of the elevator. It's gorgeously scripted comedy.

Also well-done comedy is the short bit of investigation as Jessica smoothly steps into the role of an annoying millennial-hipster "ohmygaaawhdddd" in trying to hire a building and investigate her own way from 'dead architect' to 'something-something-Midland'. God, seeing the normally pissed-off-at-the-world Jessica Jones switch gears into one of her vapid cover personalities never ceases to amaze. Easily one of the highlights of the episode, if the Jessica/Matt stuff didn't made me laugh so hard.

Meanwhile, whereas Jessica and Matt, arguably the two most mature members of our cast, are trying to one-up each other in investigation, Luke and Danny are having a... sausage-comparison-fest, to name the least. After the previous episode's explosive fight between the Iron Fist and the unbreakable man, Luke's off-handed mention about a skinny white kid with a glowing fist that can hurt him causes Claire "I'm in every series, y'all" Temple to basically just set up a meeting between Luke and Danny, so they can sort their problems out because they're fighting against the same guys.

And, oh god, what an amazing, amazing conversation between the two. One of my biggest complaints about Iron Fist is that even though Danny makes some utterly batshit stupid choices, he's never called out on those, and his stubborn brattiness ends up being justified because the show bends over backwards so that the Iron Fist's unlikable snobbishness ends up being the right thing to do, and both Claire and Colleen tend to be portrayed as being way too trusting of Danny to really actually challenge him beyond general "get off your ass and stop moping" sentiments. Here, Colleen and Claire walk out of the room they leave Iron Fist and Luke Cage in, so they can sort things out. After a hilarious pissy exchange "You punched me!" "He punched first!" I do like how Luke and Danny end up bonding together for a bit, acknowledging each other's skill as a warrior and each other as heroes before the differences in their methods split them apart. Oh, and Luke not buying a shit of Danny's claim to have punched the heart of a dragon is a hilarious continuation of a running joke from Iron Fist's own series. Whatever my problem with Danny Rand is, Finn Jones's portrayal is best when he's playing bubbly optimistic happy hippie Danny, and that bit is very enjoyable. Danny and Luke play off each other well, and giving Danny some good lines makes him ten times more likable than he has ever been throughout 13+ episodes in his home show.


But then, Luke starts calling things out on Danny's methods, and Danny himself actually makes some good points. Yes, Danny Rand is making some good points. Whatever sob story Cole may have had behind him, he did work with the Hand, and Danny can't afford to hold back his punches oin every single enemy just because they might be working to feed their family. But on the other hand... he was about to punch Cole in the head and we do know how insanely powerful Danny's punches are. That particular argument is going to be hard to really take a side on, because both Luke and Danny have a point. Danny can't be expected to stop every single thug working for the Hand and ask "hey, are you forced to do this because you don't have a family, and you have no other way to feed your mother other than this shitty job?" just as Luke shouldn't ignore the forest for the trees, ignoring the fact that Cole is working for a terrorist organization just because he's doing mere gruntwork.

Of course, as with everything that comes out of Danny Rand's mouth, whatever well intentions Danny has gets kind of screwed over by his douchebaggy, single-minded entitled bullshit, and Luke's line, "you may think you earned your strength, but you had power the day you were born before the dragons, before the chi". Is it unfair for Luke to pull the race card? Perhaps, but on the other hand, throughout his own show Danny has done his fair share of bullying his way to get what he wants, either waving around his 'I have 51% of the shares of my company!' or the 'I am the immortal Iron Fist!' flags to justify whatever he felt doing, while moping and feeling sorry for himself to look like a sad puppy. That is an absolutely succinct explanation of Danny Rand's character flaws, and god, the look on Danny's face as he starts to realize that, yes, there are other ways than just beating up low-level operatives is amazingly done. Danny obviously doesn't back down, but the fact that he's prepared to actually take Luke up on his advice and actually use the boy-billionaire Danny Rand persona to tackle the Hand at the top is well done.

Of course, this is Danny Rand, so his attempts to use diplomacy has the subtlety of a glowing fist, where he walks up to Midland's CEO building and just rants about how they are all members of the Hand... and Alexandra just walks in, nonplussed at Danny's silly man-child speech. I do enjoy Danny making a fool out of himself by his misguided, noble but ultimately childish endeavours. Funny Danny is the best Danny. Of course, Alexandra just casually sics an army on him.

Luke, after the conversation with Danny, goes on his own 'little people' crusade, and while it's not as obvious as Luke's damning speech about Danny's character flaws, does end up having to kind of think about how futile his attempts at going about it the supportive-public-figure way is. Cole refuses to tell Luke anything because "they're watching", and sends Luke off to buy lotto tickets for his mother... and as Luke and Cole's mothers are talking (and Luke finds the clues that point to Midland) we get the heartbreaking scene as Cole is shanked to death off-screen, causing Luke Cage to realize that, shit, he should've taken his own advice and taken the fight to the people on the top.

Which leads to the amazing team-up. Danny Rand gets dogpiled by the CEO ninjas, and then hip-hop music plays and Luke Cage just waltzes into the office, non-plussed, and starts throwing around fools. The weird hip-hop aura that accompanies Luke Cage wherever he goes is a bit weird and hilariously corny, but at the same time... the team-up between Iron Fist and Luke Cage is amazing to behold. Both characters get their individual moments to shine, with Luke throwing people so hard they make the walls crack, to Luke covering Danny from a swarm of bullets, to Danny kung-fu fighting people and plucking darts out of the wall to tranquilize the Hand agents... Danny's own personal one-against-two-dozen kung fu scene before Luke Cage shows up is also pretty fluid and amazing to watch, something that I didn't quite feel back when watching Iron Fist where a lot of the fight scenes felt awkwardly done.

And then as Luke and Danny literally burst through a wall to meet Jessica and Matt (who's just raising his fists up unsure if Luke and Danny are enemies), with Luke and Jessica just so casually greeting each other... and then Alexandra sics Zombie Elektra and the second wave on them, and an awesome hallway fight ensues. Matt quickly realizes that 'something' is coming, not identifying Elektra as Elektra until well into their pretty impressive one-on-one melee. The hallway scene before Elektra reaches the Defenders were a highlight, too, allowing Matt and Danny to jump and bounce off walls and dropkick fools, while Jessica and Luke use their immense strength to just toss people around like ragdolls. And meanwhile through body-slamming Hand goons to the walls, Jessica Jones has the time to irritably press the lift button to make sure the door stays open. God, Jessica's the best, isn't she.

The battle between Elektra and Daredevil is also amazingly done, I just really wished Matt wasn't wearing that stupid-ass scarf over his face. Elektra has Daredevil beat, but Iron Fist shows up to protect Matt, using his fully-charged Iron Fist to literally punch Elektra's sword into a million pieces, and then punching her through a wall. Considering how relatively little we actually see the titular Iron Fist in action in his own show, seeing Danny flare the fist up and use it to its maximum potential at least once per episode is a delight.

Of course, the episode isn't all well-done, because the first... oh, 10 to 15 minutes of the episode is just weird exposition that would probably have worked better as part of the second episode or something to break it up. It's just a flashback to when Alexandra and 'White Hat' retrieves Elektra's body from the grave and puts her in the resurrection chamber, basically an extended version of the Daredevil season two ending stinger... and then proceeds to basically show Alexandra rehabilitating Elektra as a soulless "Black Sky", who doesn't have a single memory of her past life. Which isn't something I'm particularly fond of (because we're still kind of unclear what Black Sky is supposed to do other than be part of a mysterious Hand prophecy) but I guess it comes with the territory?


Thankfully, Stick and his dry wit comes to brighten things up, as in the present day Stick reveals some things about Alexandra we don't know yet. They have a long history, Stick and the Chaste (who gets wiped out -- the bodies last episode were whatever was left of the Chaste) and Stick loses his right hand, cutting it off to catch Elektra and Alexandra off-guard and escape, and meet with Colleen Wing and presumably will be directed towards the Defenders before the next episode. We don't learn much about Alexandra necessarily other than confirmation that, shit, she's super-duper-old and likely immortal before her sickness, but she puts a lot of stock in the Black Sky, and is able to single-handedly stop a rabid Elektra despite her age.

Another moment that perhaps didn't work as well is Danny's conversation with the Rand Industries secretary. While I do appreciate giving Danny some breadcrumbs to follow so he can get to Midland independently like Jessica and Luke, the secretary going to being scared shitless of the Hand to "okay let me exposit about every single holdings they have" within two sentences is absolutely clunky and that scene would've worked far better if the secretary wasn't aware and Danny just told her to find company dealings that went through the countries he knows the Hand is operating out of.

Overall, though, those are relatively small complaints for a very stand-out episode of the Defenders that shines not just in action scenes, but in the smaller conversations and character moments, in snarky dialogue and brief emotional scenes, and succeeds in redeeming Danny Rand somewhat in my eyes. We'll see if Defenders can keep up this streak, yeah?

(As always, check out my reviews of the entire Netflix Marvel saga here.)