After something of a slow start for Netflix’s fifth Marvel show, I can’t help feel a little worried. I mean, can you really blame me – in a show based on a Kung-Fu centric comic from the 70s, not only was there a stunning lack of Kung-Fu, but the main character didn’t even get to use the power that gives him his namesake. While I appreciate the fact that the writers are trying something different and trying to come at a superhero show from an original angle, the fact that it’s trying to muddy the origins of a superhero that not many casual viewers have heard of seems a little strange. How can we endear this new character to audiences if we don’t allowed them to actually get to grips with him?
If you signed up to watch a show that sees its high-kicking, super-punching hero go all One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest for 60 minutes, have at it. But for those of us who expected something a little more nimble and quicker, I suppose we’d better learn the virtue of patience…
After his claims of being the long lost Danny Rand ruffled the feathers of those who run his late father’s company, the absent, eccentric heir apparent has found himself outwitted by the Meachums and placed in a psychiatric ward for “his own safety”. Despite his repeated boasts of being some sort of living weapon known as the Immortal Iron Fist, the heavy cocktail of drugs he’s put on leaves Danny unable to actually access these abilities. While the show’s writers and the effects budget both breathe a sigh of relief, Danny realises that convincing people that he isn’t actually crazy may be a tall task, especially when the details behind his fifteen year disappearance are about as feasible as the abominable snowman playing for the Knicks…
But wait a minute, what if Danny is actually telling the truth? While Ward Meachum is rock solid in his belief that this is just some hoax, his sinister, secluded father, Harold, is not too sure about that and has been spying on Rand thanks to tapping into the hospital ward’s security system. Also finding themselves starting to believe Danny’s stories is Joy Meachum, who takes steps to discover the truth and finds that her suspicions are correct, and even Colleen Wing, the only person that Danny actually knows in New York, gets drawn back into the life of this weird stranger and begins to believe his unbelievable tales after Rand Industries offers up a suspicious bribe.
However, while his doctor also thinks that he’s telling the truth about his identity, Danny’s claims of spending the last fifteen years being trained in a mythical city from another dimension in order to obtain supernatural powers means that he’s not about to get out of the hospital any time soon. The only way that’s going to happen is if he can get his fluctuating Iron Fist powers to work long enough to bust his way out. But hinting that bigger problems lay ahead is Danny’s mentioning of familiar ninja cult, the Hand, who also seemingly have ties with Harold Meachum…
While “Shadow Hawk Takes Flight” is something of a step up from the previous episode, there’s still a frustrating amount of problems still inherent with the approach the showrunners have chosen. For a start, the steps the story takes to nullify the hero’s powers is yet another eye-rolling example of writers scrabbling for time and stretching things out, but while they tend to wait for around the halfway point of the season to pull this overused trope (they nailed Luke Cage with it somewhere around his seventh episode) the fact that they’ve waylaid Iron Fist in only episode two means that the show hasn’t managed to gain any sense of momentum at all. I get that the powers that be are trying to build anticipation as they gradually reveal to us what our main character can do, but why should we care if we have no idea who he is in the first place? Say what you will about the first Thor movie (surely one of the most prominent nerfing of a superhero in the last twenty years of the genre), but at least we got to see a full display of his abilities and his world before being judged unworthy and stripped of his lightning. Poor old Danny doesn’t even get that, and instead he has to trawl through an episode-long reworking of Cuckoo’s Nest but with none of the pathos.
Finn Jones is still decent enough, but despite all of the angry insistance about who he is, between his incarceration and his wide-eyed confusion, it’s tough to get any real grasp on his character at all. Thankfully, while our lead struggles to play catch-up while strapped to a gurney, the rest of the cast get to spread their wings a bit. Jessica Stroup and Tom Pelphrey get to establish the Meachums a little more, as the good/douchebag divide between the siblings becomes more pronounced. While Ward is content to be a snivelling shit, we find that Joy has far more empathy and even manages to unravel the mystery of Rand thanks to an inspired use of M&Ms – however, it seems that the real heart of show is the polar opposites of Colleen Wing and Harold Meachum.
David Wenham is obviously having a fucking ball wringing every ounce of odious businessman out of his scheming, secret CEO and the writers obviously are feeding into it, giving Harold plenty of sneering quirks and withering putdowns as he emotionally strips the shit out of his son and his lowly assistant, Kyle. In fact, in a show that initially still seems pretty dour, it’s Wenham’s exaggerated villainy that’s proving to be a something of a highpoint, especially when it’s revealed that he has something to do with regular, Marvel/do-badders, the Hand. However, matching his snide remarks with a wholesome sense of decency is Jessica Henwick’s Colleen who, bizarrely within only two episodes, has not only gotten more character development than the hero, but has enjoyed more involved martial arts sequences too. Striding around New York in her red puffer jacket, with a wooden sword srapped to her back, her training regime of getting her students to ambush her on the street seems a little questionable in the legal sense, but she’s proving to be far more a vibrant and interesting character than Danny himself.
However, thanks to a final act which not only sees Rand get in a fight, escape the hospital and finally use that Iron Fist he’s so eager to boast about, there’s still some hope that the first couple of episodes could still spring into life. After all, even Danny himself says that “Only in the middle of a fight did I truly come alive.” as he describes his life training in the mystical city of K’un-Lun (not to be confused with Ta Lo) – so let’s hope that’s doubly true now that the Immortal Iron Fist finally might get to do some epic Iron Fisting. Pardon the expression.
While Danny Rand’s stint in a hospital-set bottle episode stinks of the Marvel/Netflix writers deploying their worst habits worryingly early in the season, I’m hoping that this means that such a slow start is an indication of a suitably fast finish. However, while there’s a noticable sense of improvement and we get more hints of K’un-Lun and finally lay eyes on the titular, glowing fist of iron, it’s going to take a lot more work to endear the hero to casual viewers who aren’t fueled by pure FOMO.
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