Well, we finally got there, but it took quite a bit longer that I would have liked. Over the past four episodes, all the different aspects of Ironheart have been whizzing through the air, never quite coming together to form a complete whole. In some ways, you could say that the show’s been a bit like the Mark 42 suit in Iron Man 3 – flying about the place in various pieces that look cool, but ultimately malfunctioning when it eventually tries to fit together.
However, with episode 5, it seems like the adventures of of Riri Williams have finally found the cohesion necessary to come together and bring the flawed hero, her family, her various enemies and the recent addition of magic into the equation, to lock together and form a rather kickass metal suit.
There’s still shakes and there’s still wobbles, but after a season full of meandering and build up, Ironheart belatedly gets to do the hero thing – sort of.
While meeting up with Zelma to discuss the nature of the Hood’s powers in greater depth, words like demons, possession and the dread Dormammu are thrown about that give Riri some pause for thought. However, such musings about the supernatural are put on hold when Slug, Clown and the Blood Siblings show up on Parker Robbins’ orders to murder Williams after discovering she was responsible for the death of John. While the Hood’s crew wouldn’t normally be that much trouble for a young woman with a robust suit of armour, it turns out that the gang have already taken some sizable precautions and have taken the suit and AI N.A.T.A.L.I.E out of play.
However, Riri manages to hold her own thanks to some of that plucky brainpower of hers, but it all proves to be for naught when it’s revealed that the wronged Ezekiel Stane has not only joined the Hood, but has jacked up his biology with bionics that offer him super strength and the rather handy ability to shoot electricity from his finger tips. As a result, Riri is resoundly defeated and her armour literally torn from her body; but instead of killing her, Stane takes pity and lets her live, giving her the ultimatum to leave town and never come back.
With Parker Robbins believing that his foe is dead, he fires his crew after they demand to know what really happened to their missing member, Stuart, and forges ahead to his endgame which proves to be much more personal than the other rich dudes he’s been leveraging up till now. But as the influence of his hood spreads even further, the dark forces he’s aligned himself with seem to be corrupting Robbins beyond the point of no return.
You’d think this might be a sizable warning for Riri, but after being convinced to stay and fight back with her loved ones and building a brand new suit, she figures that she needs a power source that can match the Hood. However, the price she’ll have to pay may be to great of a cost.
While still I wouldn’t say that Ironheart is top tier Marvel TV, the fact that all of its various parts have finally come together is something of a belated triumph. Greatness may be out of Riri Williams reach thanks to the fact that it’s taken this long for it to all come together, but Karma’s A Glitch gives us a long overdue view of what could have been if Ironheart’s various aspects had came together more smoothly. For a start, it’s weird that the Hood’s gang has been rather bland until the exact moment that they try to kill our hero – and watching them all go toe to toe with a suitless Williams gives them the spark they need to be more than just bad guy window dressing. Similarly, now that we’ve got a bit more backstory on Robbins and he’s gone it alone without hiding behind his gang, he’s also becoming more interesting. With the revelation that the house that he and John robbed in an earlier flashback was the house of his own, estranged father and the reveal that his rich father kicked him out at the age of twelve gives us that sense of identity that the Hood has been sorely missing. However, once again, it’s Alden Ehrenreich’s Zeke who proves to be the most fun and while his shift from meek whiteboy to lightning flinging bio-freak may have broken some land speed records, but he’s by far the most interesting villain the show has. The fact that he’s tumbling down his father’s rabbit hole into vengeful super villain territory means that he’s now become the Hood’s plaything – but the fact that he won’t fully accept responsibility for his predicament (Williams may have carelessly ruined his life, but he was an illegal weapons hoarder before she ever came along), only adds to to the show’s growing themes of responsibility.
To be honest, I was struggling with Riri’s journey a little as her actions have been admittedly self serving for most of Ironheart’s run as when she wasn’t screwing up lives in her wake or willingly breaking the law in order to further her own ends, but the truth is the show is giving her the Tony Stark treatment only in a more detailed setting.
We tend to forget that most of the shittier things that Stark did before finding armoured redemption were glossed over by the Iron Man movies, but with Riri we’re getting episode after episode of her single-minded determination screwing up the lives of all around her just so she can get her suit made. But while she’s been responsible for everything from inadvertently having someone arrested to actual murder in self defence, this episode finally puts her on the redemption trail when everyone comes together to help her out. OK, so maybe getting you’re ass stomped by the dude who played young Han Solo and then having multiple panic attacks may be less elegant than toiling in an Afghanistan cave with slivers of shrapnel in his heart, but we’re getting there.
However, the real breakthrough here is the show going all in with using magic as an energy source and while Marvel completists will no doubt be disgruntled that Riri Williams has fused magic and tech in the MCU long before Doctor Doom has even made his debut, it’s a welcome return to that Marvel trait of fusing two completely separate aspects of the universe together in one. Watching the episode connect Iron Man from phase one to Doctor Strange from phase three via a montage that sees a new suit being forged from Gary’s old car while Zelma infuses it with otherworldly power gave me a bit of old school, MCU endorphins. Of course, the warnings that all this supernatural mojo will come at great cost almost instantly when it’s discovered that N.A.T.A.L.I.E is not compatible with an armour powered by spectral energy and the AI is promptly deleted while a horrified Riri watches.
It’s taken maybe a bit too long, but with all the various components of Ironheart finally all working in tandem, the show manages to get it’s house in order just in time for the finale. However, with the action, emotion and all the MCU shenanigans present and correct – all we now need is some classic, Marvel-style surprises to give the show a different kind of power boost.
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