We finally come to it: the final Defender, Iron Fist. By now, you’ve been treated to the full live tweet of Iron Fist, led by our very own Alice W. Castle. Now sit down, get some tea, and get ready for these full breakdowns of each episode. In “The Blessing of Many Fractures,” the gang goes on a road trip and Joy Meachum plays dirty. Let’s jump into this but be warned, there will be spoilers.
1. Road Trip
Danny decides to get really bold and decides to go to China to take out one of the places Madame Gao is using to make heroin and capture her. What will he do when he captures her? No one knows but Claire has plenty of opinions about it. This honestly isn’t the worst plan in the world but there’s no planning involved which a very Danny Rand thing to do. Colleen and Claire go with him and one of the most amazing things is the evolution of Claire. I’ll get to the dialogue in a moment but I did enjoy seeing Claire kick butt in this episode. My problem with this is a general problem with all the Marvel shows so far. This is something that would lead to a great season finale…in 2 weeks. Instead we’ve got a a bunch of episodes left which will definitely create a pacing issue. I kind of like a bit unhinged Danny but…
2. Danny Is Ineffective
I am still really thrown off by how bad Danny is at fighting The Hand when that’s literally his only purpose as the Iron Fist. It still really bugs me that he didn’t even know The Hand was real but a nurse from New York did and has more experience against them. I want to believe in the Iron Fist but I don’t, because he’s like a baby. It doesn’t help that the fight scenes featuring Finn Jones are disjointed and flat. We do however, finally get a good fight scene and it’s a sword fight between Colleen and one of The Hand’s henchwomen.
3. The Meachums Continue To Spiral
Ward Meachum is now losing it on a mental level as he’s begun to hallucinate blood everywhere after killing his father. This is either a side effect of the drugs he’s taking or he’s reaching his breaking point. He’s out of his company and his sister admitted to truly idolizing him despite how much he’s lied to her about their father over the years. On the other hand, Joy is still calm, cool and collected…for now. She has hired a P.I who is good “when she’s sober” (it’s Jessica Jones, duh) to get dirt on the board and plans to blackmail her way back into the company. Even after Ward tries to get her to walk away, she just can’t but unlike Ward, there is no worry in her. I’m fascinated by Joy and again, I find myself interested in what she’s going to do next.
4. Why Are You Doing What You’re Doing?
Claire and Colleen both go with Danny to China and while I understand and sympathize with Claire, I don’t really get why Colleen is going. This romantic pairing doesn’t completely work for me and really the only reason Colleen is going is because Danny is. She doesn’t really care about defeating The Hand, at least not as much as Claire does. Danny needs the backup but I hate that she’s not really her own independent character and early on in this season, she had the potential to be.
5. Painful Dialogue
Iron Fist really struggles with tone and dialogue in a big way. Claire in particular has some very corny and questionable quips that she wouldn’t have had in any other series and the dialogue in the fights is equally as bad. My problem with this is that in a different kind of show, this would work. Iron Fist just has no comedic timing because it still doesn’t know what it wants to be. I’m entirely here for a show with a sense of humor even in the darkest moments but you have to understand your timing and follow what your show actually is. Iron Fist still doesn’t know if it is a straight up drama or something a little lighter and that’s a huge part of why this dialogue comes off terribly. Into The Badlands is a perfect example of this. This show has quips and some of your standard Kung Fu show dialogue but it works because the show knows what it wants to be.
What did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments below!
