With its last episode, the good people behind The Defenders finally delivered that golden episode that not only realised the inherent coolness of the concept, but it almost made up for the world building that sometimes got in the way of some of the individual series’ personal adventures. But with the Hand introduced, the resurrection of Elektra explained, the Chaste wiped off the board and the main villain introduced, the show was finally free and clear to shove out four, antisocial heroes in the same room abd have them beat the utter crap out of suited thugs and it was every bit as awesome as I hoped it would be when the team-up was first announced.
However, now that team-up moment has happened, what now? After all, the real making of the Avengers assembling wasn’t just the sight of a bunch of comic book heavies sharing an action sequence, it was how they interacted when they weren’t saving the world and with Royal Dragon, we get exactly that – for a whole episode. Fighting evil is easy, getting along with peers – especially ones who can lift a car or punch a hole in a brick wall – is hard.
After fleeing from the impromptu brawl at the shell company that the Hand has been hiding behind, Matt Murdock, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Danny Rand, the Immortal Iron Fist all retreat and take cover in a Chinese restaurant named the Royal Dragon to lay low and catch their breath. However, when you get such large personalities together in a room – especially one’s with gargantuan trust issues – there’s going to be some sizable personal fireworks and one of the most triggering points is that Murdock is still trying like Hell to keep his secret identity due to his retirement from his life as Daredevil. However, adding fuel to this already simmering fire is the arrival of a badly maimed Stick, who despite the fact that he’s cut his own hand off to escape the Hand, is eager to recruit new soldiers now that the Chaste is all but dead. Matt, who has heard all of this end of the world rhetoric before, continues to not want any part of this, but the Hand obviously don’t agree as the head of the snake, Alexandra, brazenly walks in to make some deals. It seems that whatever the Hand is after, Danny Rand and his oft mentioned Iron Fist is key to unlocking something that will get the Hand back up to its former glory after the resurrection of Elektra into the Black Sky has left its ability to bring people back from the head dangerously depleted.
With all this talk of chi, immortality and killer ninja, the notoriously grounded Jessica opts out and leaves to negligible safety of the Chinese restaurant to keep an eye on a family who has found themselves in the crosshairs of the Hand due to her earlier investigation.
But when Elektra is let loose on the Royal Dragon and the would-be heroes, it looks like the Defenders will have to try and pull together to fend off another Hand attack.
And so here it is, the pivotal moment that the entire show was probably hinged on is here. Imagine that the post credits scene of the Avengers eating shwarma actually occurred just before the Battle of New York and lasted around an hour and you’re not far off the concept that’s being floated here and if this wasn’t the first scene conceived when the writers settled down to crack the story, I’d be very surprised.
An episode contained almost entirely within a single location (we cut away a couple of times so the villains get some air time and Jessica can storm out), it could almost be a play and the surrounds are actually perfect as a Chinese restaurant seems to be the ideal setting for a bunch of ground level heroes needing to hide from a secret society of immortal ninja. In fact, the set is neatly designed to continue the visual thread of each character having their own colour scheme by having blues, reds, yellows and greens decked out all over tbe restaurant in splashy neon. It’s something you just couldn’t do in a feature film by pumping the brakes to allow for a forty minute conversation, but in-between unavoidable bouts of exposition, there’s some great little character moments in here. Krysten Ritter delivers her usual withering put down when things get too comic booky and Finn Jones gets to lean into Danny Rand’s lack of social awareness by addressing the fact that Matt Murdock quit being Daredevil. Although, I have to say I’m getting a little frustrated that the show is holding back so much on Matt as I’ve never been fully on board with the whole “retired” plotline and as a result, we’re now in our fouth episode where the most famous character in a superhero show still technically hasn’t suited up yet while everybody else has gotten to carry on as usual. In fact, it seems like the characters from the two most embraced shows (Daredevil, Jessica Jones) seem to have less to bring to the party than the lesser loved ones and the detail that suggests that Iron Fist may be the key to the whole thing only confirms my suspicions.
Elsewhere, the plot sifts through the central concept by peeking in every now and then to keep things movie. Not only is Sigourney Weaver on hand to helpfully update us to who her cronies are (aka. the five separate fingers of the Hand), introduce us to the bear skinning Murakami (aka. the man behind Nobu) and what she leaves out, Scott Glen fills us in, including Alexandra’s origin and the formation of the Hand.
However, I have a sneaking suspicion that we should probably embrace this episode as tight as you can, as with only four episodes left, the breathing room this bottle episode has allowed itself to have will doublessly vanish the second we go into episode the second half, which is a shame seeing the glimmers of character we get to savour. Is there a chance of Luke and Jessica resuming their affair? Is there more chance of Luke and Danny’s bromance blossoming even faster (I hope so)? Can Matt manage to untighten that sphincter a little after making the breakthrough of removing his makeshift make and “outing” himself to his peers? I gave to say, this episode was so much fun, I feel that maybe Netflix made a bit of a snafu with the episode count of their shows. While Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist all felt like they were running long at some point at thirteen episodes each, The Defenders my end up feeling like it’s going to run short, so maybe this is the show that should have thirteen instalments and the rest have eight?
Anyway, Royal Dragon not only manages to build on the promise of the previous episode, but actually vastly over performs to be the best episode of the bunch so far and I genuinely believe that if it didn’t leave the resteraunt at all, it would have been flawless. But then if that had happened, how would we have gotten the moment where Jones hits Elektra with a car?
However, when your episode is this good, it makes small issues like that easy to… defend.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 