As Iron Fist continues with its painstaking, inexorable, climb to trying to nail a four star episode rating, we find that the third episode continues the slow, but gradual, improvement that was started by the previous installment, as those early plot hurdles have finally been dispensed with. The two core aspects of Iron Fist as a character are that he’s both a master of Kung Fu with chi-based superpowers and the owner of a sizable corporation, and if I had to pick a trite description for it, I guess Enter The Dragon meets the big business meeting room drama of a show like Billions fits well enough.
Well, as it seems that we’re not getting a bright yellow mask and a giant flaired collar any time soon (we haven’t even seen Danny Rand’s iconic chest tattoo yet), the show has shifted ever further from its Kung Fu roots to keep focusing on the much easier-to-plot tension as our hero makes a major play to get his company back. Can it hope to make up for a continuing and noticable lack of quality martial arts? No, but it sure beats locking its main character up in a psychiatric hospital for an entire episode…
After escaping from the psychiatric ward by using his Iron Fist to punch down the door, Danny Rand goes to the only place where he feel’s safe: Colleen Wing’s dojo. However, Colleen isn’t exactly thrilled to see him, so in order to buy himself a week’s stay, Rand promises to fund her struggling martial arts school once he gets back in his feet. How exactly is Danny going to achieve this? Why, with a classic piece of Marvel cross-pollination of course, as he hires formidable lawyer Jeri Hogarth to represent him in his attempt to wrestle Rand Industries back from the Meachums. Seemingly having bounced back admirably from the events of Jessica Jones, Horgath is convinced to take the case after Danny reveals he remembers her back when she worked for his father over fifteen years prior.
It’s a good thing too, because using his own brutal training in K’un-Lun as a benchmark, Rand is quickly kicked out of Wing’s dojo after getting way too strict with her students and soon his brand new lawyer gets him fancy new digs and a new wardrobe. However, while Colleen has an issue with Danny’s attitude, that doesn’t stop her from trying to pay her bills by participating in an illeagal fighting ring and after emerging from her first fight victorious, it seems she’s picking up a taste for it. Meanwhile, while Ward Meachum tries to balance orders from his domineering father and a hostile takeover from Danny, Joy (who has no idea that her father is still alive) continues to buy up all the property that Harold Meachum desires. But it seems that the one pulling his strings is none other than Madame Gao (or, her voice at least) who exercises corrective measures when her orders are questioned.
With Danny seemingly victorious in his bid to get his father’s company back, his suspicions about Harold Meachum gets him snooping around the offices at Rand. But after getting a violent shove while scaling a sheer wall on the outside of the building, will the Immortal Iron Fist prove to be as mortal as the rest of us?
By now, it’s fairly apparent that Iron Fist: the show, isn’t particularly interested in being Iron Fist: the comic, and to be brutally honest, in some cases it’s actually pretty understandable. While I would have liked to seen the show take a punt at Danny Rand’s brilliant green and yellow superhero costume, to expect such a thing right out the gate when it took Daredevil thirteen episodes to slip into the reds simply isn’t realistic, but considering how awkwardly the show continues to handle the material, I wouldn’t hold your breath for much, classic, Iron Fist iconography any time soon.
However, while the show is growing ever more confident about what it isn’t, it’s also growing more confident about what it is and now the rather empty pilot, and the heel dragging second episode have been dispensed with, there’s a feeling that the show is finally starting to get a sense of itself. Now no longer culture-shock confused or drugged into oblivion, Danny Rand now actually has focus, even though we seem to be going with a storyline that suggests that his desire to reclaim his 51% share in his company has clouded the more virtuous parts of himself. Again, it’s hardly an Iron Fist character trait ripped right out of the comic, but having him try to prove his identity and gain that control is something, I suppose. He even busts out that Iron Fist again to shatter a set of brass knuckles when he catches one of Ward’s goons trying to destroy evidence, which is admittedly badass, but Finn Jones’ lack of actual martial skills is starting to get pretty noticable.
Once again, it’s down to Colleen Wing to carry the episode and it’s a fairly telling thing that she’s going off and brawling in illegal fight clubs when one of the greatest, supposed fighters on earth is sitting in a chair in a lawyers office. Either refusing to put up with Danny’s shit, facing down Meachum sponsored thugs, or pulverising the bone structure of a fighter twice her size, she’s far and away hogging all the best moments. Once again, running a close second is the preening, overacting of Harold Meachum, who now is revealed to sleep in an oxygen chamber like a mid-80s era Michael Jackson and still physically abuses his son despite the fact Ward is a grown-ass man. However, while his frequent, verbal mauling of his hapless assistant, Kyle, are still a highlight, it’s the revelation that Madame Gao has finally returned after her stint bothering Daredevil, that really starts tying things together.
In fact, while “Rolling Thunder Cannon Punch” (great fuckin’ title, by the way) starts to give Iron Fist a more sturdy base to work from, it’s far more successful as an episode that provides connective tissue to the greater franchise of the MCU. Not only is Gao hinted to be the true big bad, but the lawyer Danny chooses hire means that Carrie-Anne Moss gets to return and deliver more razor-sharp asides as Jeri Hogarth. While there’s no mention of all the shit she witnessed thanks to her run in with David Tennant’s Killgrave (dead ex-wife, hateful ex-girlfriend, numerous cuts), it’s interesting that we get a kinder version of her than we got in Jessica Jones. While here relationship with the boozy PI is pretty antagonistic, the fact that Rand knew her when he was a child (he calls her “J-Money”) means that she has a noticable soft-spot for this weird dude, and it’s weirdly adorable.
While the show may not be moving in a direction that’s particularly close to the comics, at least it’s moving in some direction for a change. Everyone now seems to be locking into their various roles a little more with each installment, but considering how truly bizarre the show could be if it took the big business drama and that thus-untapped Kung Fu heritage and mix it all up, this show is still fighting out of its weight class.
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