History YMMV / IronFist2017

* HolyShitQuotient::
** When Danny first unleashes the Iron Fist in the second episode.
** And then in episode 13, when he '''''truly''''' unleashes it.

** Characters spend several episodes acting skeptical that Danny is who he says heis, to the point where some critics got the impression that the show was actually trying to make the audience question it, despite this making about as much sense as a movie about Batman trying to convince everyone that he's Bruce Wayne!

* ItsNotSupposedToWinOscars: Finn Jones addressed the scathing pre-release reviews by explaining that Marvel made the show for fans of the comic books, not for critics. This hasn't helped.

** The other characters spend several episodes skeptical that Danny is who he says, to the point that some critics got the impression that the show was actually trying to make the audience question it, despite this making about as much sense as a Batman movie trying to hide that he's Bruce Wayne.

--->'''Danny:''' None of this is because of K'un Lun. It's because ''I'' left ''you''!

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** After the second season of ''Daredevil'' got heavy criticism for depicting the Hand as a bunch of random stereotypical ninjas, this show features several members with distinct personalities, and a much more diverse Hand cast, with Hispanic, African-American and Caucasian agents on top of the Chinese and Japanese members.

* SnarkBait: Pretty much every aspect of the show, from it's [[MightyWhitey casting]] to the [[FightSceneFailure poor fight scenes]] to it being the [[NotSoInvincibleAfterAll first critically derided MCU property]], has been subjected to this with Finn Jones' attempts at addressing complaints [[DiggingYourselfDeeper only making things worse]].

* MoralEventHorizon: Davos definitely crosses it when he [[spoiler: brutally murders the innocent restaurant owner for not accepting his "protection"]], going into full KnightTemplar territory.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Specifically, the main one. The conflict between Danny and Davos has been brewing since the first season and they have years of unresolved issues between them, loving each other as brothers but being in a heated rivalry for the Iron Fist ever since meeting. The stakes keep getting higher when Davos steals the Iron Fist and now the viewer assumes Danny must face Davos without his powers, and with a broken leg, to boot. All of this tension and emotion is sadly wasted and left unresolved then Colleen gets the Iron Fist and resolves the plot by herself. After the point where she gets the Iron Fist, the plot loses all power, stakes or relevancy, since Colleen has no actual connection to Davos and no personal stakes in anything that is happening. Wrapping up the season's plot feels more like a formality, revealing that the actual goal of the season was just to transfer Danny's power over to Colleen.

* Ass Pull: Colleen happening to be the great-great x20 grand daughter of some previous Iron Fist and this somehow meaning that she's not only entitled to the Iron Fist but that Danny's entire role in life and the purpose of his years of training, hard work and enduring physical abuse were only so he could give the Iron Fist to Colleen who didn't have to do any of that. Ass Pull in that, needless to say, none of this has any basis in any version of anything even resembling the source material.

* ToughActToFollow: Probably has this the worst of the MCU Netflix shows:
** The fact that the show had to follow-up three of the MCU's most critically-acclaimed projects would be more than enough to call it a tough task. It didn’t help that it had to directly follow critically-adored ''Series/LukeCage2016'', which dealt with issues of race and discrimination. In contrast, Iron Fist was decimated by critics and had to deal with accusations of [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2016/03/17/marvels-iron-fist-casting-kicks-asian-representation-while-its-down/81915698/ "kicking Asian representation while it's down"]] despite staying true to the original material. It's worth noting that Marvel's other TV property, ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' had been getting increasingly positive reviews over the past two seasons in large part because of its handling of its Asian-American characters[[note]]One of the show's lead characters, Daisy Johnson, is played by biracial Chinese-American Chloe Bennet, and other main character Melinda May is also played by Chinese-American Ming-Na Wen[[/note]] who have been praised for providing the ''only'' notable Asian-representation in the entire MCU.
** It's coming on the heels of ''Film/DoctorStrange2016'', which has a similar storyline of "WhiteMaleLead travels to East Asia and becomes a [[MightyWhitey master of mystic fighting powers above even his Asian peers]]", came out mere months before, and faced the same criticisms for whitewashing and appropriation of East Asian culture, and even then, despite criticisms of having a generic origin story, otherwise didn't receive so bad reviews.[[note]]Not helping matters is the fact that ''Doctor Strange'' director Scott Derrickson [[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/11/02/doctor-strange-director-owns-up-to-whitewashing-controversy.html handled such criticism]] with much better grace than Finn Jones.[[/note]]
** The fact that ''Series/Daredevil2015'' has received such praise for its fight scenes likely contributed to the relatively poor reception of ''Iron Fist''[='s=] fight scenes.
** Early reviews show this trope hitting hard, with favorable write-ups only considering it SoOkayItsAverage at best and the more savage critics calling the show a break to Marvel's trend of highly-acclaimed Netflix adaptations in their Cinematic Universe. At Website/RottenTomatoes, it's the first MCU property to earn a Rotten score[[note]][[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/marvel_s_iron_fist/s01/ 18%]] as of this writing[[/note]].
** To some viewers, even the intro pales in comparison to the previous Marvel/Netflix shows, with its less striking visuals, and a theme that sounds derivative of Music/DaftPunk at best, and not very melodic at worst. Some have snarked that it might not be a coincidence that Netflix introduced its button to skip their shows' opening credits at the same time that ''Iron Fist'' was released.
** Like [[Series/LukeCage2016 Willis "Diamondback" Stryker]] before him, a barely-foreshadowed character appears in the latter part of the season to supplant the ''far'' more interesting initial BigBad. [[spoiler:Bakuto aids in the capture of Madame Gao, only for it to quickly be revealed that he, too, is part of the Hand. While he insists he's part of a less villainous subsection of the organization than Gao's splinter, he really does little to indicate this, or flesh out the Hand's motivations, ultimately just leading to an uninspired and rather generic KnightTemplar driving the plot until the end of the penultimate episode.]]

* HoYay:
** Quite a lot between Claire and Colleen; heck, when Claire first meets Danny, she basically cock blocks him from having a "not" date with Colleen. [[spoiler: When its revealed that Colleen was a member of the Hand, Claire defends her without even a second of hesitation and is quick to forgive her after they have a talk, a talk that came off like they were a couple.]]
** Davos and Danny also have this, all of Danny's good stories of K'un L'un start with "Me and Davos." Davos also acts personally hurt that Danny would have left K'un L'un and really really doesn't like Colleen.

* SlowPacedBeginning: In sharp contrast to the EndingFatigue of the other Netflix shows (''Jessica Jones'' and ''Luke Cage'' in particular), this one is widely considered to get better in its second half. Unfortunately, this resulted in its disastrous critical reception when they only had the first half to go on. It's best exemplified by the fact that the first time Danny's actual abilities as the Iron Fist are seen is at the very end of the second episode, and prior to that his powers are only vaguely hinted at, meaning that he comes across more as a BadassNormal who happens to be very skilled at martial arts.

* TheyCopiedItSoItSucks: One major complaint reviewers had was of Danny Rand's "wealthy white guy travels to nebulous East Asian location to learn mystic martial arts and comes back to his hometown to become a superhero" storyline, which felt heavily derivative of earlier works such as [[Series/{{Arrow}} Oliver Queen]], [[Film/BatmanBegins Bruce Wayne]], and [[Film/DoctorStrange2016 Stephen Strange]]. In fact, the show actually changes aspects of Danny's backstory in a way that makes them closer to Oliver's.

** When early reviews of the first six episodes started coming in, Finn Jones notoriously started a Twitter controversy by claiming it was "for the fans" and criticizing the critics in turn for making their minds up without watching the whole season. It was promptly written off as an actor trying to salvage a trainwreck of a show. Then the show actually premiered and its audience reviews (on Rotten Tomatoes, at least) are on the low end (only ''{{Series/TheInhumans}}'' is lower) but otherwise [[CriticalDissonance on par with most other Marvel series]].

** [[FightSceneFailure The "fight" scenes.]] Enough said. One particular [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7U-72T67DQ example here.]]

** Danny’s ''first'' action in the series is showing up at the corporate building dressed as a hobo proceeding to ask receptionist if she can arrange a meeting with CEO for him, an attempt which goes as well as you could expect. Despite this, he may not really qualify for this trope because this behavior is not an isolated case but rather one of the many times when he acted without even attempting to [[WhatWereYouThinking think things through.]] Danny’s propensity to act on [[ATragedyofImpulsiveness impulse]] is repeatedly [[LampshadeHanging acknowledged]] by his allies and [[FlawExploitation exploited]] by his enemies.

* SpoiledByTheFormat: Just like last season, the show tries its hardest to make us think everything's been wrapped up when there's still an entire episode to go, making it obvious some big twist is coming: [[spoiler:Colleen getting chi powers from Davos, and both her and Danny being able to harness chi through weapons like guns and katanas]].

* SugarWiki/SheReallyCanAct: Though Creator/AliceEve is a very capable actress, her most high profile role in the US was as the MsFanservice in ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness''. Here, seamlessly playing both the NiceGirl Mary and ruthless ActionGirl Walker earned her praise comparable to Creator/DavidTennant's Kilgrave, Creator/VincentDOnofrio's Wilson Fisk and the aforementioned Creator/JamesMcAvoy's Kevin Crumb. Eve can convincingly portray the precise moment of switching between two personalities entirely in facial expressions and body movements, to say nothing of vocal inflection. And both personalities come off as equally genuine, even though we meet Mary first and spend more screen time with Walker.

** Danny says he can drive without a license because he's rich. A week after the show's release, the first full trailer for ''Film/JusticeLeague'' had Bruce Wayne say being rich is his superpower, also in a car.

* InternetBackdraft:
** Casting a white actor as Danny Rand managed to draw controversy, due to the MightyWhitey nature of the character, which is an especially sensitive topic in the context of the ongoing social discussion on cultural appropriation. This lead to a number of debates about whether or not comic accuracy trumps racial politics or whether change of Danny’s race would actually improve the show or turn the character into a MagicalAsian stereotype.
** The controversy over the casting even resulted in Finn Jones briefly quitting Twitter two weekends prior to the show's premiere, after he Tweeted an endorsement of Creator/RizAhmed's speech about the importance of minorities' media representation, and got into an argument with an Asian-American woman who accused Jones of hypocrisy -- accusations Jones tried to discredit by pointing out that she never saw an episode of the show before, and claiming that it had one of the most diverse casts of Marvel's pre-''Defenders'' Netflix shows.[[note]]In a way it was, featuring prominent actors of White, Asian, Black, Latino and Indian heritage.[[/note]]
** After the show's actual release fans turned on reviewers, and even sites like Rotten Tomatoes, as many found the show to be more than equal among the other ''Defenders'' titles. They felt these reviewers were biased and trying to please [[PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad social justice warriors,]] who hated the show just because Danny was white. Some have even accused the reviewers of anti-white racism. More reasonable fans though, felt that maybe reviewers either shouldn't be given early access or at least should evaluate the show in its entirety, since many fans admit the first six episodes are a bit weak and/or [[SlowPacedBeginning slow-paced.]]

* FandomBerserkButton: The name of the Hand's DrunkenMaster who nearly owns Danny in a fight is Zhou Cheng, not Joe Chang. Referring to him by the latter name is a good way of getting yourself flamed to a crisp on any Marvel-related discussion board.

** Season 2 addresses the complaints about Danny Rand being a MightyWhitey head-on, revealing that [[spoiler:Danny's becoming the Iron Fist wasn't so much a case of his being a better martial artist than all of K'un-Lun as Davos's father rigging the fight where he and Davos battled for the right to face the dragon, thus meaning that ''anyone'' who had faced Davos would have won]]. It ends with [[spoiler:Danny ultimately realizing he did not deserve to be the Iron Fist and deciding to pass on his fist to Colleen Wing, who becomes the new Immortal Iron Fist (like many people clamored in the first season).]]

** Season 2 addresses the complaints about Danny Rand being a MightyWhitey head-on, revealing that [[spoiler:Danny's becoming the Iron Fist wasn't so much a case of his being a better martial artist than all of K'un-Lun as Davos's father rigging the fight where he and Davos battled for the right to face the dragon, thus meaning that ''anyone'' who had faced Davos would have won]]. It ends with [[spoiler:Danny ultimately realizing he did not deserve to be the Iron Fist and deciding to pass on his fist to Colleen Wing, who becomes the new Immortal Iron Fist (like many people clamoured in the first season).]]

* EnsembleDarkHorse: Mary Walker. Already a fan favorite from the comic, here Mary was played to perfection by the talented Creator/AliceEve who managed to effectively play two contrasting roles. Even more impressive is that each alter is a RoundedCharacter with different motivations and is not defined by their relationships to each other. Both reviewers and fans are clamoring for more of Mary in season 3 and looking forward to the inevitable debut of Bloody Mary.

** Early reviews show this trope hitting hard, with favorable write-ups only considering it SoOkayItsAverage at best and the more savage critics calling the show a break to Marvel's trend of highly-acclaimed Netflix adaptations in their Cinematic Universe. At Webstite/RottenTomatoes, it's the first MCU property to earn a Rotten score[[note]][[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/marvel_s_iron_fist/s01/ 18%]] as of this writing[[/note]].

* HoYay: Danny and Ward get a lot of this during this season, especially during the [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming heartwarming scene]] in episode 5 where Ward tends to Danny after he's injured and they have a long heart-to-heart talk that ends with them basically admitting they love each other. They now refer to each other as their brother, just like Danny does with Davos (whom he also had quite a bit of HoYay with last season), and at the end of the season, [[spoiler:they end up WalkingTheEarth together when Danny persuades Ward to join him in a journey of self-discovery]].

* CounterpartComparison:
** Danny Rand has been compared to ''Series/{{Arrow}}'''s titular character ever since the first trailer aired due to the extremely similar upbringing (white billionaires' heirs thought to be killed during the accident that killed their parents returns the save their city after training with mysterious Chinese men).
** There's also the inevitable Bruce Wayne (in ''Film/BatmanBegins'') and [[Film/DoctorStrange2016 Stephen Strange]] comparisons. In the case of Bruce Wayne, they're both white billionaires who spend years training in the mountains under the tutelage of mystic Asians, then return to their city to reclaim their birthright and save the city. In the case of Stephen Strange, they're both white men who study mystic martial arts and become [[MightyWhitey masters of the craft above their Asian peers.]]
** Zhou Chen has uncanny similarities to Scaramouche the Merciless from ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack''[[note]]whose [[SamuraiJack/TropesSeason5 fifth season]] premiered six days prior to ''IF'''s[[/note]]. Both are villains working for the BigBad whom the hero encounters. The hero (as well as the audience) thinks said villains are going to be minced meat at first glance, before showing off their abilities (Chen [[spoiler:fighting drunk]], Scramouche controlling objects with music) and give a rather impressive battle before eventually being defeated.
** Harold Meachum with [[Series/{{Arrow}} Malcolm Merlyn]]. The CorruptCorporateExecutive and father of the hero's friends, who was secretly the BigBad.
* EnsembleDarkhorse:
** Then there's the [[spoiler:DrunkenMaster]] Zhou Cheng who Danny fights, distinguished not only by his amusing personality but by being one of the few Hand members to not only nearly win against Danny, but show a degree of honor while doing it, something his [[KnifeNut compatriots]] were [[PoisonedWeapons clearly]] [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown lacking.]]
** Scythe is also very memorable due his introductory scene being [[CrazyAwesome strangling a man with a microphone while singing karaoke]] (of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914 Take on Me]]" [[SoundtrackDissonance no less]]) as well as being a badass Hand warrior with a snide sense of humor who nearly matches Danny in combat.

* CounterpartComparison: Mary Walker draws comparison to Kevin from ''Film/{{Split}}'' as both are multi-personality super people with a dark super identity they have trouble controlling. Doesn't help that ''Iron Fist'' season 2 was revealed at San Diego Comic-Con 2018 alongside ''Split'''s sequel ''[[Film/Glass2019 Glass]]''. Others have compared her to [[Series/{{Legion}} David Haller]] for much the same reasons.