Sino ka ba?
The Iron Heart is a Philippine action drama series which started airing on ABS-CBN's Primetime Bida evening block on November 14, 2022. Directed by Lester Pimentel Ong, Richard Ibasco Arellano and Ian Loreños, it stars Richard Gutierrez in the title role.
The show would end on October 13, 2023, having lasted for 2 seasons and 238 episodes, and it was replaced by the romance TV series Can't Buy Me Love.
Tropes present in The Iron Heart:
- Action Girl: There are a lot of them in this show. To name a few: Venus, Selene, Juno, Nyx, and Helen.
- Arc Words: One piece of dialogue said to Apollo by his father Homer is what drives him to do all of his actions later on. Here it is:Homer: Walang mabuti kung walang masama. Walang masama kung walang mabuti. Nasa sa iyo, kung alin ka doon.
- Anyone Can Die: Any character you might root for may die in this show. Whether they are part of the good side or the bad side. Even characters who are Not Quite Dead will be Killed Off for Real in a later episode.
- Big Bad: In the first season, it's Priam dela Torre, the CEO of PDT Pharmaceuticals and the leader of Tatsulok. In the second season however, it's Eros del Rio, Apollo's ally who turns out to be the Commando of Altare's Philippines chapter.
- Bling-Bling-BANG!: Befitting his namesake (who carries a golden bow and arrow), Eros carries gold-plated pistols in some episodes. He also has two gold-plated Uzis, which he uses a few times to deadly effect.
- Bookends: Apollo's journey as a Tatsulok member in the first season all started and ended because of one person: Janus. It was Janus who first recruited him into the organization, and him holding Lia and his aunt Delia hostage later on is what led to Apollo blowing his cover and getting discovered as a CIB mole by the other Tatsulok members.
- Bottomless Magazines: Much like other action teleseryes before it, every firearms used by the characters fire way more bullets than what their magazines could realistically carry, although they do reload their guns from time to time.
- The Cameo: Sarah Lahbati, Richard Gutierrez's wife in Real Life, shows up in the finale as an unnamed CIB agent who Apollo comes across with.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Apollo and Cassandra were friends as children then began dating years later as adults.
- Cool Car: Eros has an affinity for Chevrolet Camaros. In the first season, he drives a sixth-generation version of the car. He would later switch to a fifth-generation one on Season 2.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Damon in the first season dies by accidentally ingesting acid from his own acid grenade, which was thrown by Poseidon and kicked by Apollo, which ricocheted from a tree towards his position.
- One of Selene's female bodyguards dies in the second season by being thrown into a rock crusher.
- Deadly Gas: Aside from a bioweapon that could cripple a farmland's crops, the Delos laboratory also produces these. One such gas is used to kill Eric after he tried to escape from the lab.
- Dead Star Walking: Maja Salvador (who is a well-known actress in the Philippines) plays Cassandra who is Apollo's Love Interest. She gets killed by Priam's henchmen after only a few episodes.
- Driven to Suicide: Priam shoots himself in the chest with his own pistol after finding out that Apollo is still working for the CIB, and that he intentionally made his mission on Altare fail.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Juno, a major figure in the downfall of Tatsulok, is killed at the start of season 2 after being thrown off a building by Altare mooks, led by Atlas.
- External Combustion: Romulo finally meets his demise when he gets inside a pick-up truck and turns on the ignition, which unwittingly activates a bomb that explodes, with him still inside the truck.
- Face–Heel Turn: Eros would pull this off in Season 2, with The Reveal that he is Commando, the leader of Altare's chapter in the Philippines. He first kills Xenon, his fellow agent in the CIB, when he reveals his identity to him. To say that Apollo was distraught and angered when he found out about this would be a massive understatement.
- Faking the Dead: Brother Joseph kidnapped Lia and faked her death, so he can make Apollo feel the pain and anguish of losing a loved one, since he blamed Apollo for the death of his wife, Hera.
- Government Agency of Fiction: The Crime Investigation Bureau (CIB), the organization that recruited Apollo with the purpose of bringing down Tatsulok.
- Just like the more recent teleseryes of ABS-CBN, the National Law Enforcement Agency (NLEA) is also present in this show, standing in for the Philippine National Police.
- The ICIA, the international organization that Harmonia is a part of, appears to be based on the Interpol, since they appear to have jurisdiction worldwide (they first travel to the Philippines to investigate Altare, and Harmonia has one agent placed in Japan to assist Apollo in finally catching Eros)
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: When an episode is set in another country (that's filmed in location on said country), the characters are guaranteed to speak a little bit of that country's language. An example of this is Priam and Eros speaking Italian on Season 1 and Eros ordering his men from Altare to kill Apollo in Japanese.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Atlas first tortured Orcus, Selene, and Dylan psychologically by blasting a repetitive song on a room lit by crimson lights. When members of Tatsulok capture him, they also used this exact same method on him, only this time he is put in a dimly-lit room.
- Made of Iron: Janus. He manages to survive a high fall, and just barely manages to reach Selene's car before passing out and falling into a coma. In his final fight with Apollo, he is shot twice in the torso and survives. It literally took Apollo a lot of shots from his pistol to finally bring him down for good.
- Meaningful Name: Janus is named after the Roman god of beginnings, which is quite fitting since he essentially begins Apollo's journey as a member of Tatsulok in the first season.
- Not Quite Dead: Some characters who were thought to have been dead turned out to be alive and well, such as:
- The aforementioned Janus, thought to have been dead when Apollo pulled him down from a high place.
- Adonis, who was seemingly killed when Apollo flipped him towards a wooden ladder, causing him to be impaled by the debris, is revealed to be alive and undergoing medical treatment from Aphro. He would only meet his end when Apollo hits his head with an axe in a later episode.
- Romulo was also thought to have been dead, when Nyx shot him in his shoulders during a confrontation. He would also return in the second season, with exactly what happened to him before returning to Tatsulok being unknown.
- Priam, the first season's Big Bad, is also revealed to be alive in the second season after he was shot by Eros, although he was imprisoned by the CIB for a while before being broken out by the Tatsulok.
- The Reveal: The episode "Yusebeia" reveals the true identity of "Commando". He is Eros del Rio.
- Redemption Equals Death: Brother Joseph seeking to redeem himself because of Lia causes his death when he was stabbed by Dylan during their fight. He does give Apollo a way to take down Altare before he dies.
- Eros himself would die in the final episode, getting sniped by an unknown assassin after giving Apollo the cellphone containing his contacts from Altare.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Most of the characters are named after characters from Greek mythology, with a few characters named after Roman mythological beings. Even fictional places in the show are named after aspects of Greek mythology (example: the city of Medea, the province of Hellas, and the European country of Tyche in season 1)
- Cian is an interesting outlier though: unlike most of the charcters who are named after Greek or Roman gods, he is named after a being from Irish mythology.
- Villain in a White Suit: Brother Joseph, the murderous, deceitful, and ruthless leader of Yusebeia, wears all-white clothing in most of his appearances.
