Ironheart, Season 1, Episode 5: Karma's A Glitch
Okay, that's not bad at all! This episode probably contains the big 'grounding moment' I wanted for both Riri and Hood, who otherwise just feels like they're bouncing around reacting to everything. Alas, it does come a bit too late since we're in the penultimate episode. And the episode and season in general does have a problem with lack of buildup, i.e. the magic-iron-suit that Riri gets at the end of the episode. But let's go in rough chronological order.
The episode starts off with Riri talking to Zelma and kind of still showing her attitude about all of the magic... which I thought was rather poor continuity considering the whole point of the previous episode was her panic attack as she realizes how over in her head she is. Zelma gives us the working theory that the Hood draws his powers from Dormammu of Doctor Strange fame, and just using Hood as a way to get summoned to Earth. Unfortunately, the magic infodump needs to wait as the Hood's gang show up. Without the Hood himself, which, by the way, the episode never really explains.
There is a couple of cool moments here, like Riri using the forcefield watch from last episode to trap the Blood Siblings, but otherwise Riri gets to fight Clown unarmoured, which is pretty neat. Slug, the hacker, tries to run over Riri with a truck... at which point NATALIE breaks free from where she was previously captured, wraps herself around Riri and Ironheart punches the shit out of the truck and flips Slug off. It's a scene that was kind of meme'd in the internet, but this was actually fun.
The last fighter to show up, however, is Ezekiel Stane, upgraded with his biological implants that makes him a superhuman. It mostly translates to lightning blasts from his fingers and the ability to tank Riri's repulsor blasts. Zeke's motivation is still a bit murky, particularly with how the series established his dynamic with his father's legacy, but a combination of his desire for revenge and the high of superpowers drives him at this point. Zeke rips Riri's suit apart piece by piece, but mid-villain-rant Riri begs for mercy and Zeke... tells her to get out of Chicago. I kind of get this interaction, especially with what we've seen about Zeke Stane before, but it does feel a bit awkward.
Riri spends the rest of the episode in a huge heart-to-heart with her mother and eventually the rest of her allies. And again, Ronnie Williams is a great foil to Riri, finally sitting her down and demanding they talk. Riri does finally break down and say that she views the Iron Suit and her handwave-y excuse of building it 'because she can' and tells Ronnie and Natalie that she thinks that's the only way to protect her family. Ronnie then tells Riri that it's time to fight, and then we get to Gary's garage. Despite Riri's arguing, Natalie plays a memory from when Riri was younger, telling her that she's so consumed with all the bad stuff that it stops her from remembering the good stuff together. It's got a bit of a mixed messaging, I feel, particularly with the themes of Natalie as an AI... but the episode glosses over that.
Other allies show up as Riri goes on to build a suit, including the little kid from the first episode, Zelma, and Xavier -- the latter having a change of mind after reading a Star Trek themed letter that she wrote off-screen. The Xavier stuff really did feel abrupt, and honestly this whole sequence does feel like a halt in pacing right after the tension of the previous episode and the first half of this episode. There is an in-universe reason as to why Riri could take her time, but it's a rather odd one that I'm not sure holds up.
While all of this is going on, we cut back to the Hood's gang. No explanation why the Hood didn't join the lynching. Zeke can't lie properly and it seems that the Hood catches on to the fact that Riri is dead. Clown, however, makes a cover story for Zeke... which honestly isn't even that good, but Hood takes it in stride. Shaken by something Riri said in their fight, Clown gets Slug to research about Rampage's death, and confronts the Hood about it, leading to an infighting and eventually the four minions to bugger off.
The Hood returns to Ezekiel Stane, who is attempting to move away. When his asshole neighbour tries to confront him again, Zeke is about to blow up her garden... when it's revealed that the Hood has hacked into Zeke's systems and can essentially control him like a puppet. With an unwilling Zeke in tow, the Hood assaults a mansion and lets Zeke deal with all the thugs. Turns out that the mansion belongs to Hood's dad, who was an abusive and negligent father. We get the revelation that all of the companies that Hood attacked and gained control over in the past couple of months are part of his father's big company, and now he wants everything that his dad has.
The scene is well-acted, but, again, it does really come out of nowhere and honestly, quite a bit too shallow to explain Parker's motivations. It doesn't help that Parker spends all of his screentime either being broodingly mysterious or struggling with being taken over by the demonic hood, so when he gives this whole sob backstory, it kind of... fell flat? There is enough material here to honestly do something with -- particularly with him driving away his 'found family' earlier in the episode -- but we spend so little time with these characters that it's not particularly engaging.
The episode ends with Riri building a fancy red-and-black suit not dissimilar with the version we saw in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever... but the problem is that they don't have a good enough power source for it. For whatever reason in spite of everything she has been saying, Zelma agrees to make magical runes and use it (and maybe the piece of the Hood's hood? It's not really clear) to power the Ironheart armour. Unfortunately, with Zelma's warnings that 'magic always takes something', turns out that this time, it's Natalie. The armour apparently can't handle magic and Natalie at the same time, and despite everyone's efforts, she fades away screaming in fear and panic.
Again, I do feel like a lot of the actual scenes in Ironheart are done well. There was some really great moments of acting as you can see the broken boy behind Parker's eyes as he confronts his father; Zeke's villain speech; Natalie's panic as she realizes that she is dying; Clown and Slug's tension after they realize Parker did actually kill Rampage; and everything to do with Riri's interactions with Ronnie and Natalie. The moments are great, and the action scenes in this episode are really fun. But the connective tissue really isn't there. All the magical elements (whether Dormammu or the magical equivalent exchange stuff) still really feel shoehorned in. Zeke's motivations ping-pong all over the place, and I've spoken about how I don't think placing Hood and Riri's big moments on the second-to-last episode isn't the best. It's not bad, but it really does feel rocky. We have one more episode left, though, so I am curious to see how this show's going to end.
Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:
- Dormammu of Doctor Strange fame is brought up and discussed. In addition to being a nod to the character, the comics version of Hood does actually draw his power from Dormammu.
- Zelma also brings up the events of the Doctor Strange movie, specifically Kaecilius's part in it and his slow corruption via scars as he attempted to summon Dormammu into Earth. Dormammu's realm, the Dark Dimension, is also mentioned.
- Riri's stepdad's muscle car was prominently featured in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
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