Back to Iron Fist. Yes, I’m finishing this before I go onto The Defenders. We open to a phoenix
rising from the ashes. No, wait, no, a business man rising from the swamp.
Harold Meachum, whom had been patricided by Ward two episodes ago, has
apparently pulled a Lazarus and come back to life. The dagger Ward used on him
is still in his gut, but he’s more annoyed than anything else. He pulls it out
and start wandering back home.
Meanwhile, Danny and his allies were
able to get Madam Gao back to New York, and into Colleen’s dojo. Not really
sure how they possibly could have pulled that off, but let’s just keep moving. Danny
tries to get the old woman to talk, but, honestly, I don’t have the words to
describe how little she seems to care about being held hostage. The team
convenes off to one side and try to brainstorm ideas. Claire suggests that
Danny goes to Rand’s laboratory and get her some sodium pentothal. It’s the
‘truth serum’ that you see in most flics.
Harold at the moment is wandering
around New York. He has a weird conversation with a housewife and her child.
His brain is clearly not firing on all cylinders, if you catch my drift. He
wonders off again, clearly out of it.
 |
| Seriously, I should not be this intimidated by a little old Asian lady, Who is also tied to a chair! |
Joy is kind of freaking out again.
Apparently between episodes, Joy looked up the history of the building that
Ward showed her. She’d found out that dear ol’ dad had bought the building
shortly before his death. Ward is remaining silent, and seems to have vanished
from the map. That’s not good. She runs into Danny, (she’d been looking for him
by Colleen’s dojo) and lets him know about recent events. Specifically losing
their positions at Rand and that her brother has vanished. She wants his help,
but Danny is kind of in a hurry and blows her off. He makes it to Rand, sneaks
in again, and breaks into the lab to get the drugs.
Meanwhile, Gao is playing mind
games with Claire and Colleen. Namely threatening loved ones and implying a
possible connection to Colleen’s grandfather. Not good. And, unfortunately,
Colleen seems to be suffering from some kind of illness.
Back at Rand, Harold arrives at the
building and starts getting back some more of his mind. He bumps into a scary
looking hobo, and then breaks in. He gets to the offices, and finds out that
Ward and Joy have lost their jobs. Not good. He finally gets enough of his mind
back to call his assistant to pick him up. On the drive back, he fills Harold
in on all that had happened over the last few days. He is concerned but not
overly. He’s more interested about his marvelous resurrection.
The hobo from earlier, silently,
knocks out a food truck driver and ties him up. He start watching Rand,
menacingly. He entertains himself by making origami throwing starts and hocking
them at his captive. Creepy.
Ward visits his father apartment
again… for some reason. And imagine his shock when he sees his father standing
there. Crap. Rather than being mad, Harold asks for his forgiveness and hugs
his son. Not the reaction I’d expect after stabbing a loved one. Ward
eventually tells his father that he wants out, of Rand and of his father’s
life. Harold is hesitant, but says he’ll allow Ward to go. But, he’ll have to
bring Joy inn on things. Not good. Ward still walks off though, the jerk.
 |
| So did the Iron Fist become the... Steel Palm? |
Danny and co inject Gao with the
truth serum. She starts talking gibberish, but the group is distracted when
Colleen drops to the floor. Apparently, being stabbed by the weapon back in
China had a delayed effect on her. Somehow. Gao then reveals that she's perfectly in control of her mental facalties, and claim that torture won't work on her. Why? Because she spent most of the 17th century getting tortured. Hm... the plot thickens. Maybe. The group is then attacked by a
group of mercs working for Gao. They’re able to disable them and hog tie the
intruders.
Meanwhile, Ward goes to the Ax
Gang. He’d heard from Danny that they had had some information about the Hand.
He hopes that they had a means of killing Harold for real. The clan leader
shakes his head, but imparts on Ward a story he’d heard back in China. His
village had a legend about a shepherd that was given the power to resurrect by
the Hand. He fell many times in battle, but continued to rise up. The problem
was, that each time the shepherd died and came back, he came back a little
worse. The story goes that one day the shepherd, who was incredibly far gone by
this point, killed his oldest two children by roasting them alive. The clan
leader advises that Ward runs, as the resurrected target their loved ones
first. Not good. Once he leaves them, Ward takes a hit of Iron Serpent Heroin
and goes for his car. Unfortunately, a pair of cops were searching his car, as
there was heroin left of the seat.
As if to illustrate the crazy
point, Harold brutally murders his assistant. Why? Harold had made him a nice
breakfast of ice cream, as the assistant had said that’s what he’d do if he
found himself to be immortal. The assistant, though, commented that he wasn’t a
fan of the flavored ice cream that Harold had spread out, but thanked him all
the same. This caused Harold to snap and murder him. Oh that’s not good at all.
Ward gets taken to the psyche ward,
the same one that Danny spent some time in, with the very same doctor. How
crazy? Ward wants out, but the doctor isn’t letting that happen. He diagnosed
Ward as having psychological disorders coupled with a drug addiction, so he’s
not going anywhere for a while. Meanwhile, Harold lures Joy to his secret
apartment and the two have a shocking reunion. Crap, that’s definitely not
good.
 |
| Woman with daddy issues reconnects with her manipulative, abusive, and unstable father... This would be bad even if evil Ninja weren't involved. |
Colleen’s sensei, Bakudo arrives at
the dojo. He tells Danny to heal Colleen. When it’s clear that Danny has no
idea what he means, Bakudo explains. Basically, Danny has to focus his chi to
his hand, unclench his fist, place his chi infused hand to the wound, and burn
out the poison. He does this, but the experience leaves him drained. Bakudo
summons his minions, and they pretty much kidnap Danny and Gao, with Colleen
going along willingly. Oh, and the crazy hobo is still following them. Nothing
sinister about that.
Once again, we seem to be on an
upward swing from the first half of the season. Honestly, if they’d squeeze the
first six episodes into three and gave greater focus to things like Danny’s
difficulty finding a good work/Iron Fist balance, and/or Ward’s drug problems
and extreme stress and this probably wouldn’t be such a bad season overall.
Madam Gao is once again one of the best things of this episode. Seriously, I
shouldn’t be so unsettled by a tiny Asian woman that is ALSO bound to a chair.
Hearing implications like that she might actually be centuries old was
interesting. It’s the Marvel universe, and she’s one of the higher ups of an
evil Ninja cult that can give people resurrection powers, so it’s entirely
possible. On that note, the resurrection of Harold Meachum is creepy and well
done. It was just unsettling to see him… reorient himself. It’s kind of
understandable, he did go several days without getting oxygen to it. Since this
resurrection seems to take time to regenerate various parts, obviously it would
take some extra time to fix the brain damage. The Ax gang’s story was also a
nice touch. They included a few side notes about how overjoyed the shepherd’s
wife and family were when he returned, which was a nice juxtaposition to the
moment when he lost that last bit of sanity and murdered his children. It helps
to highlight that whatever the Hand does to give this power, it’s unnatural, a
perversion of natural laws, and as such chips away at the person they bring
back bit by bit. I’m not trusting Bakudo, or what his group represents. Call me
crazy, but I really don’t trust someone that can casually take out a bunch of
trained mercs and has a small squad of minions at his beck and call. So yeah,
another decent episode for a show with such a lackluster start.
Twitter:
No comments:
Post a Comment