I’m pleased to say that I found season two to be a marked improvement over the first. The sophomore effort returns with more depth, a strong group of well-developed secondary characters to help share the load, and a step up in both acting and writing for the portrayal of Danny Rand.
The Netflix MCU shows have always done well when they’ve followed a formula: 1. Have an interesting main character with a good actor to portray him or her. 2. Surround him or her with great secondary characters to round out the show, keep the character growing, and mix things up. 3. Have an interesting villain with real motivations and a degree of sympathy. This formula is what made season two of Luke Cage such an improvement over the first, with the introduction of Bushmaster and greater focus on Mariah Dillard. It was sorely lacking in a first season of Iron Fist that focused too much on Danny’s blundering about the city telling everyone he was the Immortal Iron Fist and making hushed, fierce-faced pronouncements without thinking things through at all.
We return to a Danny who seems, on the outside, much more at peace with the world he inhabits. The fish-out-of-water element to the show is gone, mercifully, as are the Rand Corporation corporate politics storylines, thankfully. The show suffers a bit from lacking a focused enemy like The Hand, who, if one-dimensional and a little boring, at least give Danny some purpose. But, unmooring him from his singular focus on destroying The Hand is also what allows the show to delve more deeply into what makes him tick. What we find is a very angry little boy with lots of repressed emotions. That’s not surprising given his stunted, brutal adolescence and the unresolved trauma of his parents’ death.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Davos, Danny’s pseudo-brother from K’un Lun, is in many ways a much better villain than Bakudo, though, I did find Davos’ whiny entitlement complex a little annoying. I get that he grew up in K’un Lun, and was probably on the path to face Shao Lao before Danny came along, and he clearly has his own mommy and daddy issues, but any sympathy I might have felt for him was washed away but his ruthless murder spree that spilled over from vigilante justice into outright psychotic killings. Still, his descent into madness, watching any sense of moral high ground or sympathy the viewer might have for him melt away as the episodes click on, was all really interesting.Joy was a little uneven. Her motivations for destroying Danny’s life and her disregard for the repercussions (as well as her somewhat unfair failure to recognize her re-born father as a monster) were something I didn’t buy. Yeah, despite how put together she fronts, she’s clearly as messed up as any of them, and her explanation later in the season that Danny was the only one she could hurt given her other limitations rings hollow when juxtaposed an episode later with her more or less thanking him for removing all the illusions in her life she didn’t even know existed. What it boils down to is that Danny bumbled into being a catalyst that helped ruin a life she thought she wanted. But it was Ward and Harold who actually pulled the trigger on that. Her failure to recognize that, and the cold-hearted and misdirected revenge she sought ruined any real sense of sympathy I might have had for her. Her later attempt to fix the situation seemed self-serving, though she put herself in serious danger to do so. What really ruined her though was the utter disregard she had for her role in causing the death of so many people. Her attempts to fix what she helped break seemed more obligatory than out of any real sense of responsibility or remorse. And that’s a shame, because I think they could haven given her better motivations.
I though Colleen Wing was the best part of Season 1, and I think she’s the show’s saving grace here as well. Her side story digging into her family’s past is interesting, and I’ll bet more than one viewer wishes that was the main story and not Danny’s. The show gives her a decent amount of screen time to explore her story away from Danny, but not nearly enough. Frankly I think the show gave Misty too much time, though I really do like the Misty/Colleen pairing and look forward to a much-rumored Daughters of the Dragon show starring the two of them.
I read more than one review of the second season that suggests the show intentionally sidelined Danny knowing that he was the worst thing about the show. I don’t think that’s true. I think, like Luke Cage, they realized it was more of an ensemble show that didn’t really work when solely focused on the main character, because, frankly, Luke Cage himself is a little boring, even if he’s more likeable and better written. But the universe they create around him, in Harlem, is easily the most interesting and dynamic of the Netflix MCU. Likewise, after a weak first season that focused too much on a deeply flawed character, they clearly went back to the drawing board to make this Danny a little more self-aware, a little less self-involved, and much more comfortable both in his own skin and his surroundings. All those changes were for the better.
I will say, one thing that continues to bother me about the way people treat Danny is that no one seems to respect the hardships he’s been through. Yes, until he was like ten years old, he led an incredibly privileged childhood…but then his parents were murdered in front of him, and he lived fifteen years being brutally beaten and forced to essentially fight for his survival on a daily basis while being trained to fight a mystical army of undead ninjas. With little support or love, he was indoctrinated in a bleak, black and white, good vs. evil system of fight or die behavior that left him with repressed feelings and little emotional intelligence. He’s severely traumatized, and unlike the characterization almost everyone seems to make of someone who had everything handed to him, he really did earn the iron fist. I get that not everyone knows his background, but it’s getting a little tiresome to have everyone accuse him of living some charmed life of vapid malaise given what he’s been through. Can someone at least give the guy a hug?
NOW MAJOR SPOILERS
I’m sure most people loved the ending, and I’m no exception. The decision to give Colleen the iron fist puts her front and center next season, and arguably puts the Fist itself in much more responsible hands. The question for next season will be whether she falls prey to the same temptations that Davos and Danny fell to, or, as a more completely developed person than them, will she be able to bear the load? Giving Colleen the Fist did feel a bit like the show was acknowledging the weakness of Danny’s character by softly moving him out of his own story, but then he showed up at the end with two glowing hands and magic chi guns. That would seem to defy the rules the show created for itself, but I’m sure season three will have an explanation for the whole thing. I hope Danny and Ward return to New York City early on. While I was happy to see Danny and Colleen have some time away to work on their own issues, I actually thought theirs was the best, healthiest relationship of equals in the Marvel MCU, and I was disappointed to see it break apart so completely.The rumor is that Marvel TV is just waiting from the word from Netflix for the go ahead on a season three. More rumors swirl that a second season of Defenders is possible, a Heroes for Hire season, a Daughters of the Dragon season, and more. Time will tell if the ratings justify more seasons, and given the literal billions of dollars Netflix spends on programming, it’s difficult to know just how bad a show must be to get canceled by the streaming service, but it would be a shame to let such a solid rehabilitation effort go to waste by not letting us see what’s in store for this increasingly diverse, interesting, developed cast of characters.
I would like to put in a word about how awesome I found Ward/Tom Pehlphrey to be this season. He was one of the surprise highlights of season one when he went from raging jerk to a more sympathetic, half-crazy jerk and he continued to rival Colleen as my favorite character in season two. He and Danny are both much better when they are getting along and working together.
I agree. Ward was an interesting frenemy in the first season and his transition to somewhat whacky sidekick in the second season was a delight. They fleshed his character out a bit more, gave him more to work with, made him more sympathetic, and turned him into a real surrogate brother for Danny, the one Danny always wanted. I also agree that both characters are more functional when they’re together and their relationship is working. They both have emotional voids that need filling, and both are more than a little cast adrift by losing their support structures (damaged though they were).