Latest Marvel small screen offering lacks weight, insight
Since the appearance of Daredevil on Netflix, Marvel has been following a pattern similar to the Cinematic Universe with its small screen properties. Just like the blockbusters, they’ve been largely hit and miss.
Daredevil roared to life in its first season, with a powerful villain and action sequences reminiscent of The Raid, stealing the character back from a failed Ben Affleck film with wild abandon.
Jessica Jones, the follow-up to Daredevil, likely surpassed it in execution with strongly layered storytelling that brought the boozy hard-boiled detective to life and stayed largely true to the source material.
Luke Cage followed, as a bulletproof hero introduced in Jessica Jones, managing to tell half a solid story before getting bogged down by a poorly conceived supervillain bait and switch.
Then, much like Luke Cage, the second season of Daredevil suffered from overstuffed villains, foregoing a compelling Punisher arc for the Hand, a boring society of ancient ninjas with muddied goals wrapped in an equally boring love interest for the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.
Audiences got more ninja nonsense in Iron Fist, as well as a dumb characterization from Finn Jones, turning it into a show that seemed rushed and underwritten. This precipitous drop in quality didn’t bode well for The Defenders, the small screen Avengers event that’s been hyped for over a year now.
While The Defenders isn’t quite as dull as Iron Fist, it never manages to soar the way a superhero team up should. As always, the heroes are only as good as the villains and these villains just aren’t all that scary.
The Hand has been a problem for the last two Defenders, screwing up their lives, killing their friends, and causing all sorts mayhem for New York’s back streets and alleys. The Hand was also a narrative problem for both because, no matter how hard the writers try, they come across as a little silly.
They remind us, with good reason, of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle villains the Foot Clan. This is because the Foot was a direct parody of the Hand—and like all good parodies, the original is effectively ruined.
Yes, for Daredevil fans, the Hand is an essential villain, steeped in rich mythology and tradition. But in the show, their menace is laughable. The Defenders goes all in on the Hand as villains and the results are only so-so. Still, it’s fun to see our heroes connect (or reconnect, in the case of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones), even if the results are sometimes mixed. Matt Murdock and Jessica Jones have a good amount of chemistry, thanks mostly to the acting chops of Charlie Cox and Krysten Ritter.
But Danny Rand as the Immortal Iron Fist, is written as relatively weak and goofy, ruining a lot of the good will built up in the other shows. Luke Cage (Mike Colter) maintains his cool center, and spends a lot of time taking Rand down a peg, but the character is still far too off putting to ignore entirely.
There are pacing problems with the show as well—it takes three episodes to get the main characters in a room together and there are only eight episodes in the season.
There’s far too much exposition and backstory in the first two episodes—the showrunners need to trust that they have a return audience, and that those new to the show are smart enough to figure things out.
The actions sequences are fun enough, although the Kung Fu of Daredevil and Iron Fist outclass Jones, making her less useful in a street brawl. Cage is sometimes nigh immovable and other times bouncy as a rag doll, an annoying inconsistency in an already inconsistent world.
Missing are the long shots in single takes that define the Daredevil series—and their absence is significant. There are, however, many fun one-liners and a decent amount of self-deprecation—Jones’ assessment of the Daredevil costume is dead-on.
In the end, the series is very average. I doubt any fan will hate it, especially if they were able to stomach Iron Fist. But Netflix (and Marvel, by extension) needs to take a hard look at these shows. What are the goals? Are they trying to tell a worthwhile story? Or are they trying to rack up their numbers through binge viewing?
The last few outings feel a bit paint by numbers. If they keep it up, some might just stop watching.