Iron Fist Season 1, the buildup could have been better...

Now, this is actually an interesting one, for one, I really struggled initially to like the main character, or care for anyone not named Claire or Gao, and that too I did because of the earlier shows.

But the more interesting thing is, that regardless of the beginning of the season, and regardless of the I don't care problem, by the end, the show does set up a quite interesting endgame that travels directly into the Defenders.

This was supposed to be the big build up to the big finale, but then why is it so.... not?

Well firstly let's set up why this is actually an interesting show by the end.

Even though the creepy father stand in being the villain in the end routine is pretty predictable all things considered, what isn't predictable is how we got there.

You see, as dully as this show begins, it sets up one simple thing in the beginning, Danny rand was away, and now he is back, and the two current owners of Rand, i.e. Joy and Ward Meachum are the potential villains as they refuse to believe that their once dead friend is now suddenly back.

They treat him appropriately of course, because as that is what villains do.

But as judgmental as I was of Ward and Joy's actions in the beginning, that is not the case now, as recently I had an old friend visit me after disappearing for a long while, around five years or so.

And while for me this person was far from dead, in those five years, things had changed, I had changed, and moved on in many ways from the person I was then.

Now there are some people who are respectful of that change and understand your boundaries, but not everyone, and it can prove to be very annoying...

Now if this someone had come to me after almost three times as much time and had been someone who had been thought to be dead, and I had moved on from this person, and I was one of the leaders of one of worlds top companies meaning that this person stood to gain a lot from this, and gain something in a way that is necessarily my loss....

Yeah I would also think this is a crazy person.

Not to mention claiming to be the son of a famous business man is something pranksters do a lot...

Still from the point of view of a story though... it makes a lot of unearned Drama around characters we do not know or care about, and the thing about Drama is, the reason it is interesting is because we want to see it resolved.

We want to see it resolved because we do not like drama, as such having drama be the introduction point for characters we have never met before is... not great...

We also do not know who to side with, or if there is a side to pick because we know next to nothing about either of the characters, and I do believe this is actually somewhat intentional as the people behind this story want us to feel the confusion the characters are feeling and besides neither side is actually the villain, they are both the Hero.

But regardless the point is this show begins with confusion, something that is not exactly known to keep people invested unless there is prior investment in what you are confused about.

All of this could have easily been fixed by grounding us in at least one of the two points of views, I would suggest the Meachums since they are protagonists and they act antagonistic in the beginning and are proven wrong, as such if we care about them before all this negativity, it's easier.

But...

And then as if that wasn't bad enough this leads directly into further confusion around what the hell kind of show we are actually watching because episode two is entirely focused around a mental health facility and that facility has one job.

To keep Danny rand under wraps.

I mean imagine you open a show called Iron fist and then the second episode has like the last eight minutes on the clock and you hear this gem of a line Dropped.

I mean, a lot of shows and fictional properties have coma theories, you know... it was all a dream!

Some famous examples are: -

1. Harry Potter

2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

3. Pokemon

4. The Simpsons

And the list goes on...

Some of the above mentioned like Buffy the vampire slayer even have coma episodes which are deliberately left open to interpretation to let the audience decide if they want the entire show to be in the head of some lunatic in a mental asylum.

But then again the above episode only works because it was season 6 episode 17, in other words, not one of the first things you saw on screen.

Generally speaking this is a terrible idea, I mean coma theories are widely hated for a reason, not only because they are the easiest to make and therefore the most ubiquitous, but also because entertainment media is mostly used for a form of escapism, so believing that all this really happened is a huge part of why they become successful.

Yes, if done correctly you have on hand a Buffy the Vampire slayer, here though, that ain't the case.

This again has an easy fix, just do a little introductory work before the whole thing starts, and we are here to see the Iron fist, so maybe dedicate sometime in the beginning to show how good he is at fighting the hand....

Or just give us something...

Anything...?

But again...

And that is just the first two episodes, overall they suffer from a "oh my go why should I care" problem and a "when does the iron fisting start problem"(yes I know how that sounds).

Overall it seems they were assuming a prior investment that most people wouldn't actually have.

But at least they do not have the even worse problem that the next few episodes then go on to have.

The problem of the unlikable character, also called Danny Rand.

You see, Danny Rand is 51% of one of the largest companies in the world, and he won't let you hear the end of it.

In general you like it when a protagonist gets their rights, but for Danny Rand it only increases his entitlement.

I guess it's only appropriate that they took an Asian character and whitewashed the shit out of him.

But enough about the bad stuff, let's get to the good bits, because, believe it or not, this show has those.

Take Colleen Wing for example, she runs the Chikara Dojo, is a skilled fighter, helps Danny Rand when he gets out of confinement and is overall a nice person.

She also is very likeable when she breaks her own rules by fighting for money, not because she needs it exactly but because she ends up liking going all out like that.

Overall she turns out to be a pretty solid love int.... oh no she is with the Hand isn't she?

Now the interesting thing is if the earlier shows didn't exist, if you didn't have the context for the Hand being this evil organization of immortal ninja assassins

Then you really could believe Colleen's story of Bakuto leading the good parts of the Hand while Gao and Nobu lead the bad parts.

And you know what, that could have been an interesting story.

Not to mention that having a single member of the Hand turn isn't interesting.

The thing is, this goes to show that the Hand isn't filled with evil people, there is nuance, there are people there that are simply being manipulated, makes sense, it is an evil organization after all.

But unfortunately, the show doesn't execute this confusion right, and by the end it just becomes another one of those things that begins to bog the show down.

Another such example is Harold Meachum.

He is your typical abusive father, towards Ward and he hides his presence from his daughter Joy causing ward to get addicted to muscle relaxants and being forced to lie to his sister.

So obviously Ward kills Harold and drags his body to a pond where he had previously dumped two of Harold's kills.

But that's okay because they were the hand, and also because Harold comes back to life.

And up until this point and post Harold's death, it almost looked like Ward Meachum was going to become a secondary antagonist, but he was not.

In fact Ward's killing of Harold becomes something that haunts him.

This show keeps you thinking, and that is a good thing.

Would have been better if I had liked the characters from the start...

You see it's the Umbridge problem in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, you really like the acting of the actress playing Umbridge and the movie is a good adaptation, but you don't want to watch it again because all of the above means you hate the character.

To add to all of the above, the decided to add in the Last Airbender Fire nation problem, meaning, like in the movie the Firebenders cannot make their own fire but only bend what is already there, which is a stupid rule.

Iron Fist can't always summon his Iron Fist because it drains his Chi, great...

And all of this so we can have a leader of the Hand teach the fist how to recharge his Chi.

So all in all not really uh... not really a great lead up to the Defenders.

But you do see what they were trying to do, they wanted this Iron Fist to be like a really important thing, so they limited it's use, they wanted an unlikable to likable story, they wanted a slow build up, and a mystery.

I get it... but...

The buildup's just too slow, the important special Iron fist thing doesn't work because every other time we see the "gifted" use their abilities all the time.

And why is the fight choreography so atrocious?

This is Iron Fist, this is supposed to be all about the fighting...

This show ends with Davos(who is as important to the show as he is to this article), asking Joy if she wants to kill Danny Rand and Danny realizing that the way to K'un-Lun is gone and the Hand got there, killing many...

But that is enough of that, onwards to the defenders, that's gotta be great right? No way that is bad?(p.s. I have already finished it...)