You know, I think there might be
something wrong with me of late. I’ve looked over my posts and it seems that
over the last few months, I’ve somehow grown content with just four or so posts
a month. I don’t want to call myself lazy, it’s just that it seems with my full-time
job, other commitments, and now being 100% in charge of feeding myself (I’ve
just recently moved out of my parents’ house), I’ve somehow lost it. I’ve lost
my drive, that inner desire to regal you, my viewer, with as much of this
superhero stuff that I love, in the hopes it gets you interested in a
character, movie or show that I really enjoy. And I’m not okay with that. This is
the thing I love, I should be striving to give you more content, not less. In the
spirit of that idea, let’s see if we can reignite that passion. How? Well, I’m
going to try to pump out Viewer Logs for all eight episodes of the Defenders by
the end of October. Not an outlandish feat, I’ve done it before, but since I
have to assume my skill in rapid production has atrophied slightly, better to
start with a manageable goal. Is that enough build up? Good, let’s move onto the Defenders.
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| Let's get started, shall we? |
I’ll start this one by pointing out
the little factoid that not one of the four principle cast members of the
series were part of the Defenders original line up. Actually, as far as my
research has turned up, none were ever members of the group until August of
2017 in the comics. The original team consisted of the Incredible Hulk, Doctor
Strange, The Silver Surfer, and Namor the Sub-Mariner. So yeah, it kind of
seems that they just took an existing team name, and some characters the movies
weren’t using, and slapped them together, doesn’t it? The result? Well, that’s
what we’re here to find out. Final note, if you’ve been avoiding this show
because you haven’t watched all four tie-in shows, stop. You don’t have to be
completely up to date with them to enjoy it. If you couldn’t get through Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, or Iron
Fist, they give you the general idea of who these people are and what they’ve
been doing right from the start. Yes, I left Matt Murdock off the list because,
come on, he’s the Iron Man of the group. If you’ve seen only one of the four
shows, Daredevil was it. Enough
preamble… or would it be post-preamble? Sorry, grammar humor. Enough stalling,
onto The Defenders.
We open to Cambodia. Beneath the
streets of one of its cities, a fight is taking place between a darkly clad
man, and a darkly clad woman. The two duke it out in an intense battle, just as
the Iron Fist, Danny Rand, arrives. He tries to help, but the man ends up being
stabbed through the chest. Danny races after the woman, while Colleen arrives
and takes care of the wounded man. Despite Danny’s best efforts in tracking and
fighting, the woman ends up escaping. When he speaks with the dying man, the
mystery fighter tells Danny to head back to New York, as that’s where the war
will rage.
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| Matt Murdock: Lawyer, Superhero, Ninja, Mentor. I would like to be just one of those. |
Back in New York, Jessica Jones is
apparently on the tail end of a hate spiral. She leaves a bar after drowning
her sorrows all night (and most of the morning), and liberates her adoptive
sister’s, Trish Walker’s, car from a tow truck. Trish has been trying to once
again get Jessica to embrace the hero thing, but Jessica still isn’t
interested. The woman could really use a therapist, all I’m saying.
In Georgia’s Seagate prison, Luke
Cage is being released for finishing out his sentence. He’s jeered as he’s
walked out, which he takes in stride, but when an Officer fumbles the keys to
his cuffs, Luke snaps the chain, and crumples up the cuffs, freeing himself
rather than wait. While leaving he runs into Franklin “Foggy” Nelson.
Apparently Matt Murdock’s former partner attorney did most of the leg work on
Luke’s case. He gives Luke his card and implies that he might have work for the
man with unbreakable skin, but Luke brushes him off.
Matt Murdock, meanwhile, is preparing
for a case. He’s reciting some of his cross examination when he’s momentarily
distracted by a violent sounding argument form outside. But, rather than getting involved, he lets
the NYPD handle it. We then jump right to his current legal battle, representing
a young man who’d somehow been crippled from the waist down due to some company’s
choice in materials. After an impassioned speech, Matt ends up winning the
case. Afterwards, he gives his client, a young man in his teens, some advice on
how to live with a disability. Basically, it’s not going to be easy, but moving
forward is all he can really do. He’s then approached by his secretary turned
reported Karen Page, who wants to have dinner with him.
Jumping back to Danny, our young
billionaire is flying back to New York aboard his jet. While cleaning up, he
has a hallucination/nightmare of seeing the Monks and citizens of K’un-Lun
slaughtered, and a version of himself berating him for the deaths. And, considering
his entire job was to prevent said slaughter, can’t say I 100% disagree with
the other Danny. He’s awoken by Colleen. The two discuss their recent
activities, how they’d spent months tracking the Hand, but came up empty. They’re
both obviously a little depressed by it, but don’t really have any ready means
of changing that.
We then settle our focus on a new
character, a mysterious woman. They don’t say her name in this one, but it’s Alexandra.
Revealing it now so I don’t have to keep referring to Sigourney Weaver by
titles and pseudonyms until they reveal the name. Alexandra is in for some kind
of medical testing. Her doctor reveals that she’s dying, rapidly. Alexandra
asks for options, but at this point, her doctor is pretty much telling her she
needs to prep for the inevitable. They do take her to get an MRI, but I think
that’s mostly for Alexandra’s piece of mind. Just saying.
Jessica arrives at her
apartment/office. A woman and her daughter are there to try to hire Jessica.
The woman’s husband, John Raymond, had disappeared a week ago and she’s worried
sick. Jessica isn’t too interested, telling Mrs. Raymond that Hubby was probably
cheating, and that she should call a divorce lawyer. Inside her apartment,
which looks as exactly destroyed as it had after she, Trish and Trish’s former
lover Will Simpson had trashed the place in a fight at the end of her last
season, she gets a call telling her to stay away from the case. You know how to
get Jessica Jones involved in a case? You guessed it, telling her to back off.
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| Can you imagine the priest's reaction to Matt's first vigilante confessional? |
Luke arrives back in Harlem, and
meets Claire Temple the moment he steps off the bus. They ‘get coffee’ wink
wink, nudge nudge, and enjoy each other’s company for a bit before being interrupted.
By who? Misty Knight. Misty wants to show Luke something, promising to bring him
back soon.
Matt and Karen get a quick bite at a diner. We
learn that, after telling Karen at the end of DD’s last season, Matt has
actually hung up his horns. Yep, Matt Murdock pulled a Batman on us. He claims
that he’s enjoyed just being a lawyer again, but it doesn’t sound too convincing.
Jessica,
meanwhile, has dived head first into the case. Her neighbor, and living
embodiment of her conscience, Malcom stops in. Despite Jessica’s protests, he’s
super excited to see her working on a case again and keeps trying to encourage
her to move forward. He gives her the idea to trace the call, as while phone
calls can be rerouted all over, the guy might be an amateur and not know that
how that works. They strike gold and get an address. It was to a payphone near
an apartment that Malcom assures us has shady stuff going down inside. As a
former heroin addict, I think we can take his word on that.
Misty takes Luke
down the street. She mentions that while Mariah and Shades, Luke two
outstanding enemies from his own series run, are still operating but from the
sound of things are currently biding their time. Luke isn’t thrilled about
that, but is distracted when Misty shows him a crispy-looking car. She mentions
this is one of seven similar cases that have been popping up, and that the
going theory is that Harlem kids are getting wrapped up as curriers for some
nasty people and getting killed in the process. The final kick in the head for
Luke was that the most recent victim was named Shawn, who’s sister, Candace,
had been killed during Luke’s last stay in Harlem. Misty asks Luke to put
street justice on hold and try to console the last surviving sibling, Cole,
like Luke’s former mentor Pops would have.
In his local
church, Matt goes to confessional. He confesses to his priest, who knows all
about Matt’s ‘other’ job, that he lied to Karen about being okay with not being
Daredevil anymore. His priest advises him that it might not be the red suit and
horns he misses, and instead it’s his former lover Elektra that he’s still
mourning. That’s probably not too far from the mark, just saying.
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| Seven or so crates of high grade explosives? Yeah, that's a Holy $%*@ moment. |
Meanwhile, Alexandra
and Madam Gao meet in the Central Park. After a little idle chitchat, we learn that
these ladies of the Hand have a master plan in the works. Said plan is scheduled
to begin in about three months, but Alexandra orders the time table be moved
up. Apparently, the tests had confirmed that she simply doesn’t have that kind
of time. Gao tries to dissuade her, but Alexandra isn’t interesting. Got to
say, weird to see Gao taking orders.
Luke tracks down
Cole, and gives the young man his condolences, for the recent loss of his
brother, and the not so recent loss of his sister. He also tries to warn Cole
off of following his brother down whatever path lead to his death, but the young
man isn’t interested in hearing Luke’s warning.
Jessica,
meanwhile, made it to the apartment complex she thought her caller had been
living in, and pounded on the door. She breaks the lock and slips in when no
one answers. Inside, instead of Mr. Raymond, she finds crates of high grade
explosives. Oh, that can’t possibly be good.
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| I wonder how many cities she's seen burn? Game over man, Game over! Sorry, I couldn't help myself. |
Gao visits
Alexandra, tells her that everything is ready, but warns Alexandra that it’s
not too late to simply wait. Alexandra isn’t listening, and orders things to
begin. Something massive shakes New York, all of our heroes feel it. From Matt
in his apartment, to Danny and Colleen atop of Rand Enterprises HQ, to Jessica
in the slummy apartment, to Luke on the city streets. Alexandra advices the
woman in black from the episode’s start, revealed to be the resurrected
Elektra, that she’ll get used to seeing cities fall. We end on Matt at home,
being overwhelmed by the chaos his ears pick up.
This is a decent
but slightly muddled start to this mini-series. Do in part to the fact we have
four major cast members, all of whom need to be invested and forced together
does kind of mean we don’t get a lot of screen time with any of them in this
first episode. Keep in mind, it’s been months to even a year or two since we’ve
seen some of these guys, so it’s kind of important to learn what they’ve been
up to. Got to say, it’s really kind of depressing that Jessica’s home is still
a wreck going on two years later. Despite this, everyone turns out great
performances. I especially liked Luke’s exit from prison. Can’t scream a subtler
insult then by making it clear to everyone including the warden that you were
100% choosing to remain in prison. Sigourney Weaver’s Alexandra is very well
done. This woman exudes a sort of power that makes everyone warry, even Madam
Gao. When the woman I’ve been saying is off putting is she herself off put, you
know you’re dealing with a tough SOB. Er… DOB, I guess. Whatever they’re
planning probably isn’t good. Just saying. So yeah, other than feeling a little
rushed in places, this was a darn good opener and I can’t wait to see more.
Have a good night, everybody.
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