Iron Fist, Season 2, Episode 5: Heart of the Dragon
Again, part of what made this episode so much more interesting is how much more interesting Danny is when he's not moping about how he can't solve everything with his glowing fist. The scene where Davos has the silliest Iron Fist mask ever and punches a random wall is corny as hell, but there's definitely a lot of fun in seeing Davos just wander around as the new, Immortal Iron Fist, punching people and doing his own take on what a protector of peace should be -- the Punisher, basically, without any of Frank Castle's morals. He punches the leader of one of the triad gangs to death, and basically sets up for a mass massacre of all the other triad leaders.
Meanwhile, the flashbacks in this episode really sell just how fucked-up Davos's upbringing is, with his mother being one of the elders of K'un Lun and being a pretty horrible person who basically grooms Davos to be nothing but the successor of the Iron Fist, putting him down even more after Danny won the fight and goes off to face off against Shou-Lao the offscreen dragon. And with a father that is clearly more interested in the outsider who stole his glory, and a mother who doesn't care to show any of her love towards Davos and unleashes nothing but verbal abuse... and seeing the utter tomfoolery Danny Rand did when he abandoned his post prior to the first season... is it any wonder that Davos was so desperate to regain the Iron Fist?
Again, Davos's story is pretty damn compelling, and I can honestly say that he's easily the most compelling villain in all of Netflix's work, backstory and motivation wise. Well, maybe except for Kingpin and pre-hero Punisher. But still, that's actually some unironic praise towards Davos. Whether you view him as a villain with a good backstory or an anti-villain or straight-up an anti-hero, he's a damn good character.
Danny himself is also in a very interesting spot, placed in a very vulnerable position. He does spend half the episode at the tender mercies of the gang that Colleen befriended a couple of episodes back and it's a bit of an obvious writing decision to have the one gang member call Colleen so she can come and help Danny get back up, but Danny does get a couple of great scenes bonding with Ward about how utterly powerless they are once power was taken from them. It's not the best writing ever and I really thought it was jumpy, but the emotion was certainly there. I guess Danny's dependance on the Iron Fist and his often refusal to listen to anyone that he's not sleeping with are both qualities he can share with Ward?
Less well-done, however, is the writing around Joy. Jessica Stroup is a very competent actor, but the script really flip-flops on just how evil Joy is. The first half of the season really tried to sell just how vengeance-obsessed Joy is, but in this episode she acts like she's not been planning for Danny's destruction from day one, and I genuinely don't get just why she got cold feet. After all, what the fuck did she think Davos was going to do when he got the Iron Fist? It's genuinely puzzling, and I'm genuinely not sure just why she flipped back into "oh god I made a huge mistake". She does get a couple of good scenes with Mary Walker, up until Misty and Colleen show up and arrest them both.
Ultimately, though, it's still a surprisingly strong episode. It might just be because I'm a pretty huge fan of Davos and the Daughters of the Dragon, and they get significant spotlight here.
No comments:
Post a Comment