History Headscratchers / TheDefenders2017

** Matt's senses are good but that doesn't mean he'd notice one specific person out of a crowd who moved into an alleyway a short distance behind him briefly, especially if he's not specifically listening for it. Matt's gotten used to being able to slip off without being followed very easily, and the worst that's going to happen is that if he gets spotted, someone will think he's just another parkour fellow. Anyone willing to follow him like that already knows what he's capable of, anyway. And Matt's senses do require him to be fully focused. Right before this parkour instance, there's a little moment where he nearly collides with another woman as he's trying to make his getaway from Jessica. And even in ''Daredevil'' we've seen Matt have to focus to actually narrow in on sounds, like when he follows James Wesley by listening to the ticking sound of Wesley's watch, when he's trying to locate where the Hand have taken Karen, or when he's trying to find Claire after the Russians kidnap her.

** Actually, a better question would be "''why'' contact the Avengers?" What kind of help could they provide, that those four could not do on their own with their own resources? Clear the area of evil ninjas in a short time and with little effort? They can do that as well. Their problem is not the physical strength of a single enemy (it's not like AIDA or Hive for the agents of SHIELD), but a group of quasi-mafia leaders who [[WeHaveReserves have reserves]] and can attack the heroes by attacking their closer people. If the Hand were the enemies of ''Infinity War'' or a later ''Avengers'' movie, things would have still been more or less similar.
** It's perfectly reasonable why the Avengers or Doctor Strange don't show up. For one, these guys already have enough difficulty trying to convince the NYPD to believe them (and that's with an NYPD detective already on their side). How would they convince enough people to get the Avengers involved? How long would that have taken? Also, remember that it was established when Trish tried to talk about the earthquake on her show, and discussed when Madame Gao is conversing with Elektra after Alexandra's death, that the Hand has ties to governments and the media to keep things quiet. Also consider ''who'' the eyewitnesses are: a blind lawyer who would have to admit to being a vigilante, a private investigator who was investigated for murder and had stolen evidence from a crime scene, an ex-con who is known for that dashcam video of him assaulting two police officers (and was also framed for the murder of another cop), and a rich kid who says he fought a dragon. Not exactly the best witnesses to convince others.\\

** There's a reason the Hand are afraid of Matt. As outlined on FridgeBrilliance, Alexandra isn't fazed by Danny's threats because the Hand know the Iron Fist is their sworn enemy, and has been for the several centuries the Fingers have had to build the Hand. They know how to defeat Iron Fists, but the Devil of Hell's Kitchen is essentially the boogeyman because they know ''nothing'' about him.

** Conversations in ''Daredevil'' season 3, such as when Nadeem is questioning Karen after Fisk frames Matt as being an accomplice of his, and the conversation when Donovan is informing Fisk about being attacked by Matt in the Presidential Hotel's parking garage, suggest that Matt was reported missing around the same time as Daredevil was at Midland Circle.

** The war between the Hand and the Chaste has been two top secret ninja conspiracies [[ShapedLikeItself fighting each other in secret]]. Sure, Frank can mow through ninjas as well as anyone, as demonstrated when he gave cover fire to Matt in the season 2 finale, but he's not really designed for the kind of tracking you'd need to really hunt down the Hand. As demonstrated in Frank's own series, he's vulnerable to manipulation and subterfuge, and nearly died a bunch of times to an operation that was pretty hamfisted. Not that the Hand's been much better. If anything, Frank's a solution to a problem the Chaste didn't really have: like Matt is facing both times he's up against Wilson Fisk in ''Daredevil'' seasons 1 and 3, it's not killing the Hand leaders individually that's the hard part, it's pinning them down long enough to cut off the head, literally and metaphorically. Not only that, but the Hand have the advantage of numbers, and they can split up. One Finger provides a target for Frank, allowing the others to go on about their business as usual.\\

* So Danny tries to explain that restraining him, rather than sticking together as a team, was a bad idea, and playing directly into the Hand's… well… hand, as they are already in the process taking an agressive stance towards him, even trying to surround him. They act like *he* is the one being unreasonable, while insulting him, yet he knows how the Hand works better than anyone else there, save for Stick. And okay, Danny threw the first punch, but it was after it was clear that they were going to forcefully restrain him, against his will. He felt betrayed (as ANYONE would) and was defending himself. This is just odd to me because of how quickly they turned on Danny for this complete stranger Stick. Stick, who Matt has already established will say and do anything to get his way. Even more odd that Stick pointed out at the restaurant that the Hand will *always* find them, but nobody seems to remember or take that into account when this is all going down.

** In regards to why the Avengers wouldn't be involved with an organization like the Hand, it's because the Hand generally moves in the shadows and isn't very "showy", unlike HYDRA, who, while being a behind the scenes thing, tend to be a little "loud" with their plans. The Defenders only knew about all this because of Danny's and Matt's direct connections to the conflict, and Luke and Jessica being involved with the normal people who are affected by it. Unlike most MCU threats, the public never knows about the Hand. There was a weird attack at a hospital (that could be easily written off as gang violence, given this attack happened in the midst of gangs in Hell's Kitchen fighting for turf in the wake of Fisk's incarceration). Then a few months later a creepy guy covered in pond scum hobbled around Manhattan for a couple hours, babbling like an idiot. Then a few months after that was a weird earthquake. And then a couple more days after that a building collapsed. That was all anyone outside of the main characters of the Netflix shows knew.

*** This has actually been further muddled by ''Series/SheHulkAttorneyAtLaw''. Matt states there that the Sokovia Accords have been officially struck down by at least 2023, and that therefore enhanced individuals have the right to a certain amount of privacy. This implies that, after the Accords ''were'' instated, enhanced individuals could be captured by the US government with certain rights waived. However, during the period of the show in 2016, S.H.I.E.L.D is working with incredibly limited resources and busy with larger threats, Damage Control is in its infancy, and the ATCU has been shut down. Most likely at least one of them ''were'' keeping track of Jessica and Luke to some extent (the only two that the public ''knows'' have powers), but they are low on the threat level. Come 2023 when Damage Control is routinely rounding up enhanced people (especially POCs) in NYC, this would probably be a very different matter.

** WatsonianVsDoylist: The Watsonian answer is that she is just a very powerful warrior the Hand (and more specifically Alexandra) were eager to recruit as a weapon to use against their enemies, and while Elektra does just that the problem was that most of the damage she does (against K'un-L'un and the Chaste) happens off-screen and is less impressive to the audience; the Doylist answer is that ''Daredevil'', ''Iron Fist'' and ''The Defenders'' were made by different teams of writers who didn't really have a fleshed-out, agreed upon master plan in mind, so the writers of ''Defenders'' just made it up as they went along. Presumably the "Black Sky" would have been the intended host of The Beast, the demon that controls the Hand in the comics, but since the show opted to ditch that particular bit of mythos for the Hand in favour of an origin and motive that was far more mundane, leaving Elektra in an awkward position narratively speaking- ''Daredevil'' season 2 had set up her resurrection and flat-out claimed she was destined to lead the Hand, but that was at odds with the direction they were going in.

** The reason for Danny's behavior is that K'un-L'un trained him to suppress his emotions. Consider Claire's interactions with Davos back in ''Iron Fist''. In one scene, Davos is about ready to go into a rant about Danny taking away the Iron Fist, what Davos believes was his "birthright". Before he can properly get into it, he turns his head, breaths and says, "I shouldn't have raised my voice, I apologize." Claire asks him what exactly he just did, and he replies:
--->'''Davos:''' I centered myself; calmed the storm within me.
--->'''Claire:''' I've seen Danny do that.
--->'''Davos:''' It's how we were trained. You don't let emotions cloud your actions.
--->'''Claire:''' So you just lock it all away. Pretend your feelings aren't there?
--->'''Davos:''' ''[with a tone of pride]'' A weapon knows no feelings.

--->'''Danny:''' Every moment was a struggle. Failure... Lead to a beating. Victory was just the next fighting... The next lesson.
--->'''Joy:''' ''[worried]'' Sounds like abuse.

** Stark Tower is being sold, so no Avengers are there at the moment. Additionally, the Avengers are pretty much disbanded now. There's Iron Man, Vision, and that's it as Spider-Man eventually refused membership, War Machine is crippled, Hulk and Thor are off in space, and Cap's entire squad are on the run. On top of all of that, they had a limited amount of time (the 8 episodes of ''The Defenders'' take place mostly in the space of about two days) and most of what was going on was in secret. The official story was that there was an earthquake. There's not much to get anyone's attention and they couldn't waste time calling people who might not be able to respond in time. There weren't big splashy battles or acts of terrorism to foreign nations. Matt, Jessica, Luke and Danny were drawn into this stuff because they and/or people they knew were personally attached to this stuff, which is why they knew about it.

** Actually, a better question would be "''why'' contact the Avengers?" What kind of help could they provide, that those four could not do on their own with their own resources? Clear the area of evil ninjas in a short time and with little effort? They can do that as well. Their problem is not the physical strength of a single enemy (it's not like AIDA or hive for the agents of SHIELD), but a group of quasi-mafia leaders who [[WeHaveReserves have reserves]] and can attack the heroes by attacking their closer people. If the Hand were the enemies of ''Infinity War'' or a later ''Avengers'' movie, things would have still been more or less similar.
** It's perfectly reasonable why the Avengers or Doctor Strange don't show up. For one, these guys already have enough difficulty trying to convince the NYPD to believe them (and that's with an NYPD detective already on their side). How would they convince enough people to get the Avengers involved? How long would that have taken? Also, remember that it was established when Trish tried to talk about the earthquake on her show, and discussed when Madame Gao is conversing with Elektra after Alexandra's death, that the Hand has ties to governments and the media to keep things quiet. Also consider ''who'' the eyewitnesses are: a blind lawyer who would have to admit to being a vigilante, a private investigator who was investigated for murder and had stolen evidence from a crime scene, an ex-con who has assaulted a few cops, and a rich kid who says he fought a dragon. Not exactly the best witnesses to convince others.\\
And as said above, the timetable of the plot was very quick, only taking place over a two or three day period tops. And each character came at the problem though separate means (Matt representing Jessica, Jessica's bomb-stockpiling architect, Luke dealing with Cole, Danny following the Hand's money trail). After the hallway fight, the Royal Dragon meal is the four of them discussing their next move, then getting the people they love most to safety, then keeping Danny away from the Hand, ending with them having to rescue him. This all happens really fast and by the time the real threat to the city was known (that extracting dragon bones would make Manhattan unstable) it was too late to try and get the Avengers.

** In regards to why the Avengers wouldn't be involved with an organization like the Hand, it's because the Hand generally moves in the shadows and isn't very "showy", unlike HYDRA, who, while being a behind the scenes thing, tend to be a little "loud" with their plans. The Defenders only knew about all this because of Danny's and Matt's direct connections to the conflict, and Luke and Jessica being involved with the normal people who are affected by it. Unlike most MCU threats, the public never knows about the Hand. There was a weird attack at a hospital. Then a few months later a creepy guy covered in pond scum hobbled around Manhattan for a couple hours, babbling like an idiot. Then a few months after that was a weird earthquake. And then a couple more days after that a building collapsed. That was all anyone outside of the main characters of the Netflix shows knew.

*** So most likely, Alexandra had some hand in forging The Hand's connection with Fisk, but she wasn't directly involved. Her conversations with Madame Gao suggest that even before her illness forced her to rely on Elektra to do all her dirty work, Alexandra was very similar to Fisk in that she tended to be very hands-off, compared to her colleagues. She may have had the idea for the alliance, but had Gao and Murakami (and thus, Nobu) do the actual process of making contact with Fisk. Thus, Gao and Nobu were the ones who reached out to Fisk (by way of James Wesley) and the Ranskahov brothers, and struck deals. The death of Rigoletto (the mafia don Fisk had started his organized crime career in the employment of) could've even been part of those deals,

** The Hand, much like a cult, seems to have recruited a lot of people through Bakuto's compound and turned them into believers. Those that can't fight become involuntary blood donors. Maybe the fighters had to give blood samples anyways under the guise of a drug test. The "substance" appears to be dragon bone marrow mixed with human blood. The marrow is useless without the blood. Even though the events in ''Iron Fist'' season 1 take place after Elektra's death and resurrection, it is most likely that Bakuto was now restocking their blood supply for when and if they were successful in their mission to obtain more dragon bones.

** It's possible therefore that the public may have had some confirmation that Daredevil was still around prior to Midland Circle...or maybe they believe his “death” is code for another temporary vacation, and nothing to be concerned about. All of Matt's friends and allies would all have to have come up with some explanation for Matt’s pre-"death" disappearance lest they face being questioned by the NYPD as murder suspects… but if someone did see Matt power-walking around with Jessica and Luke, that'd be a bunch of awkward questions Foggy and Jeri couldn't keep quiet.

*** It's publicly known that Daredevil died in Midland Circle, as evidenced in ''Daredevil'' season 3 by the way Fisk says "So the devil is back" when Donovan tells him about being attacked by Matt in the hotel parking garage. As for Matt himself, well, publicly it's known that he'd been missing for months, and Karen was paying his bills, as Nadeem pointed out when he questioned her after being told by Fisk that Matt was an "accomplice" of his (and even harder to say is whether Matt gave the full story of what happened to him when he unmasked himself to Nadeem prior to the grand jury).

** As for Foggy, well, this is no different from past moments in the first two seasons of ''Daredevil'' where Matt's willingly opened up to Karen compared to his reluctance to open up to Foggy (like the fact that Foggy learned Matt's secret by finding him bleeding out in his apartment, compared to Karen, whom Matt willingly told his secret to). Matt and Foggy are like brothers, but Karen shares a special connection with Matt that they've had since the day they met in that police station. It not only stems from affection but also a desire to protect her. This is why he was both afraid to be honest yet at the same time wants to be honest with her above all. Karen brings a light and warmth to Matt’s life that he’s never known; she’s the first person he’s ever felt normal and vulnerable with. And Matt can almost open up to Karen about anything, like when he breaks down in her arms after being in Gao's drug lab. And he hates lying to Karen, as his confessional with Father Lantom illustrated. Trust is clearly significant to Matt. He trusts Foggy and Karen but they each have a different relationship with him. When Matt finally came clean with Karen about being Daredevil, part if his reasons for coming clean was that he realized Karen was a person he wanted to be completely honest to even though he still struggles with that. She’s someone he cares a great deal for. Not to mention, Karen's also supportive of vigilantes like Matt himself and Frank Castle (and she probably wrote the ''Bulletin'' bylines about Luke Cage), especially when Matt has saved her life twice, compared to Foggy who cares for Matt but also wishes Matt had never taken up Daredeviling. This means that it's easier in this case for Matt to reach out to Karen first and trust that she'll tell Foggy what's going on when she meets him at the precinct.

** It does seem like Daredevil's real identity is something they should know, especially considering how much time Madame Gao has spent around Matt, and how astute she's shown herself during interactions with the other Fingers as well during interactions with other associates/enemies like Fisk, Harold, and Danny. It's possible a few of the Fingers did know, but just pretended they didn’t because they didn’t want anyone else to have that information, kinda like Fisk handled this in "Born Again". [[note]]When Fisk found out Matt's identity, he kept his knowledge of this a secret from even his closest henchmen because he felt the info was too valuable. In time, this led to members of his inner circle revolting and overthrowing him[[/note]] But if the Fingers were all in the dark on this (as the show seems to imply), and assuming Gao did survive, it would be enough information for her to figure it out, considering how easily the Hand had earlier pieced together Daredevil's association with Brett Mahoney. The question is whether or not Gao would care enough to do so, if she survived Midland Circle. She has shown an interest in Daredevil in the past, and she could certainly use that knowledge to blackmail Matt and/or win back favor with Fisk, but it's more likely she'd just move on to greener pastures, depending on her future goals, not to mention that after her part in poisoning Vanessa, there's no way Fisk would've remotely considered doing any more business with her.

** When Elektra is escaping with Danny, she jumps out the window and lands on a car parked on the street below, crushing the roof and setting off the alarm. Depending on what security features the car's owner installed, the system probably sent out an automated dispatch to the police. A single unit was sent to check it out. When they got there, the officers likely saw the broken window, and realized the crushed roof was from someone jumping out the window. So they summoned a few more patrol units, and did a sweep of the theatre, finding Sowande's body first, and then finding Stick's body alongside the knocked out Matt, Jessica and Luke.

** Trish was just too far away from Jessica to help her. She was on the ground and by the time Trish got up and got over there, Jessica would have been dead. Even if she was close enough to rush Murakami, there's a difference between training and actually putting your training to use in a real world situation against someone trying to kill you. As one may remember from ''Jessica Jones'' season 1, in spite of all of Trish's krav maga training, she still lost to Simpson the first time she fought him. The second time around, even though she was on his pills, Simpson still had the upper hand on Trish until Jessica was able to recover enough to give her an assist. Although Murakami is not a trained Special Ops soldier like Simpson was, he is a practitioner of multiple disciplines of martial arts. So it's unclear how Trish would've fared against him.

* Did Jessica get a power boost between her first season and ''The Defenders''? She could barely lift Spheeris' car off its back wheels, and here, she's able to pull Trish's Hyundai off a tow truck and shove a Hand SUV through the Royal Dragon's doors with relative ease. Am I imagining things or not?

** Priscilla Ridley's absence is explained in ''Luke Cage'' season 2 as being because she was promoted to Deputy Chief and moved down to One Police Plaza. She doesn't come back up to the 29th until after Thomas Ridenhour is killed. Thomas Ridenhour, meanwhile, is established in the first episode of ''Luke Cage'' season 2 to have been transferred up to the 29th after Strieber got reassigned to the 15th Precinct (where he's seen in ''Daredevil'' season 3 overseeing the NYPD cops responding to Dex's attack on the church). As for Nandi and Bailey, they were probably offscreen handling the crime scenes left by the fights that the heroes were having with the Hand (it was the police who found Matt, Jessica and Luke at the theatre).

* When Matt goes to grab Karen from her office, Karen's reaction doesn't make any sense. Has she suddenly forgotten about being kidnapped by The Hand as bait for Matt? And how come she's more upset about Matt going back to Daredeviling? She should be having a more horrified reaction akin to how she later reacts in ''Daredevil'' season 3 at Ellison's house upon getting the news of Fisk being released from prison.

*** This has actually been further muddled by ''Series/SheHulkAttorneyAtLaw''. Matt states there that the Sokovia Accords have been officially struck down by at least 2023, and that therefore enhanced individuals have the right to a certain amount of privacy. This implies that, after the Accords ''were'' instated, enhanced individuals could be captured by the US government with certain rights waved. However, during the period of the show in 2016, S.H.I.E.L.D is working with incredibly limited resources and busy with larger threats, Damage Control is in its infancy, and the ATCU has been shut down. Most likely at least one of them ''were'' keeping track of Jessica and Luke to some extent (the only two that the public ''knows'' have powers), but they are low on the threat level. Come 2023 when Damage Control is routinely rounding up enhanced people (especially POCs) in NYC, this would probably be a very different matter.

*** This has actually been further muddled by ''Series/SheHulk''. Matt states there that the Sokovia Accords have been officially struck down by at least 2023, and that therefore enhanced individuals have the right to a certain amount of privacy. This implies that, after the Accords ''were'' instated, enhanced individuals could be captured by the US government with certain rights waved. However, during the period of the show in 2016, S.H.I.E.L.D is working with incredibly limited resources and busy with larger threats, Damage Control is in its infancy, and the ATCU has been shut down. Most likely at least one of them ''were'' keeping track of Jessica and Luke to some extent (the only two that the public ''knows'' have powers), but they are low on the threat level. Come 2023 when Damage Control is routinely rounding up enhanced people (especially POCs) in NYC, this would probably be a very different matter.

Of course, the real reason Matt had to stay down there and “die” was for the purpose of setting up [[ComicBook/DaredevilBornAgain a specific plot line]] for season three of ''Daredevil''. But ''The Defenders'' was supposed to be about all four of them equally, not just Matt. Structuring the finale around the narrative needs of ''Daredevil'' seems a bit unfair to everyone else. It makes it look like Matt was the real hero of ''The Defenders'', and the others were just along for the ride. Admittedly, going into ''The Defenders'', Matt had more issues left over from his own show that needed resolving than the others do. So there was always going to be some Matt/Elektra drama in this show. But making that storyline the climax of the show passed up some potentially interesting storytelling opportunities.

** Because Daredevil is Elektra's ex boyfriend which kind of complicates stuff since last time she joined them even with Stick telling her not to, but not Matt. Also Nobu is pretty much on their level. He just wasn't a Finger because they were already full and there is no AsskickingEqualsAuthority. Matt de-stabilized the Hand's work with Wilson Fisk, first through interfering with Nobu's first efforts to attain a Black Sky (prior to their decision to target Elektra) and later exposing Madame Gao's heroin operation. Then in season 2, Matt exposed them to the public when they took Karen and those other hostages.

It makes sense that Matt feels compelled to try and bring Elektra’s memories back. That's actually a pretty noble thing to do: he’s trying to give her back her own identity, her own life, by undoing the Hand’s brainwashing. Unfortunately, like later happens with Jessica's mom in ''Jessica Jones'' season 2 or with Harold Meachum in ''Iron Fist'' season 1, Elektra in ''The Defenders'' is really just a ghost of the person Matt dated in college. Elektra has no interest in going along with Matt's tidy little redemption narrative, and she doesn't care what he thinks of her anymore. If Matt had accepted that fact sooner, and hadn’t insisted on trying to take responsibility for her death, there would have been no need for him to stay down there with her in the first place. The show tries to frame it as a sacrifice to save the city, but if anything, Matt was down there for personal reasons. Because saving the city only required that none of the Hand manage to get on board the elevator while the heroes made their escape, so they’d be trapped down there when the building collapsed. Despite being the Black Sky, Elektra never demonstrates any major supernatural abilities. She’s just a really good fighter with a little superstrength courtesy of the substance. And if she were trying to board the rising elevator from below, [[IHaveTheHighGround Matt, Jessica, Luke and Danny would have had the advantage of height]]. All four of them working together could have fended off Elektra. In fact, that’s exactly what would have happened, if Matt didn’t have a personal connection to her. If Elektra were just the Hand’s strongest fighter, and Matt had never met her before, he would have been getting on that elevator with the others. Instead, he chooses death, turning his back on everyone who actually loves him. And he is expecting to die even before the elevator cable gets cut and he’s trapped, otherwise he wouldn’t have told Danny to protect the city. Foggy and Karen are heartbroken, and the other Defenders probably feel pretty rotten, too, even though they’ve only known him for a few days. It'd be one thing if Matt's staying behind was necessary to save the city, or if he had truly intended to escape but Elektra trapped him down there. But the way things go, he hurts all of his friends, as well as refuses until the last possible moment to acknowledge Elektra for who she really is, out of a misplaced sense of responsibility for her death. And now the others are left with their pain, and their grief, for however much time passes in-show until ''Daredevil'' season 3.

* Where were the other cop characters from ''Luke Cage'' at the time of ''The Defenders''? The 29th precinct became the hiding place for the heroes' loved ones, yet we only see Misty, and the new captain Strieber, but we see none of the other ''Luke Cage'' cop characters of Misty's rank, like Bailey and Nandi.
** Priscilla Ridley's absence is explained in ''Luke Cage'' season 2 as being because she was promoted to Deputy Chief and moved down to One Police Plaza. She doesn't come back up to the 29th until after Thomas Ridenhour is killed. Thomas Ridenhour, meanwhile, is established in the first episode of ''Luke Cage'' season 2 to have been transferred up to the 29th after Strieber got reassigned to the 15th Precinct (where he's seen in ''Daredevil'' season 3 overseeing the NYPD cops responding to Dex's attack on the church). As for Nandi and Bailey, they were probably offscreen handling the crime scenes left by the fights that the heroes were having with the Hand (it was the police who found Matt, Jessica and Luke at the theatre)

** Maybe she thinks he is an Inhuman? As proven by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., they have been widely featured in the news around the time Defenders is set.

** In regards to why the Avengers wouldn't be involved with an organization like the Hand, it's because the Hand generally moves in the shadows and isn't very "showy", unlike HYDRA, who, while being a behind the scenes thing, tend to be a little "loud" with their plans. The Defenders only knew about all this because of Danny's and Matt's direct connections to the conflict, and Luke and Jessica being involved with the normal people who are affected by it.

*** The sadistic part is that allowing that emotion to be bottled up for years, and to let whatever sad sack becomes the Iron Fist to be alone for the majority of their life, with nothing to think about aside from their past, it probably makes them more vicious and effective whenever they come across someone they're "supposed" to kill. The effect is only exacerbated for Danny when he had a life before, a family before, that he knows was intentionally taken from him. And the fact that he was an outsider of K'un L'un, and was treated as such. Lei Kung the Thunderer basically reduced Danny to an attack dog, a glorified weapon ("Bury your mother, bury your father! You belong to me. And to me alone. You must submit, can you do it?!") When you take Danny out of that sheltered environment, keeping in mind K'un L'un is literally in another dimension, when you take him off the path of Iron Fist: Guardian Of The Gate and onto the much more grey path of Iron Fist and Danny Rand: Mystic Martial Arts Warrior, Billionaire, Defender, he's gonna short circuit. K'un L'un is not Kamar Taj. And so when he loses it on Matt and the others in the theatre, that's what his mindset is like.

** She only hit Elektra with the car, and Elektra survived it despite Jessica having no clue. And if she didn't hold back on henchmen, they wouldn't be tossed across the room, they would have had their chests caved in like when Diamondback murdered that cop.

*** Again, Matt and Elektra have known each other a long time, and already share a lot. Matt and Karen are building something new, and they’re doing it very slowly. They didn't have much in the way of on-screen interactions in Season 1, and after the first episode most of their moments together are business-related and distant. They are both involved in their own separate plotlines, and don’t get much casual bonding time through which we might see their friendship/romance form. Hoewver, they did see each other every day at the office, and they probably hung out with Foggy at Josie’s on a semi-regular basis. We see the similarities in their personalities and get a sense of how much they have in common. There are also a few hints that Karen is attracted to Matt, such as Elena Cardenas's remarks, but it’s all very subtle and takes place in the cracks between the action. Which is a refreshing thing in a world full of media containing rushed, unnecessary, overemphasized romance plots.

** It's pretty clear from the cinematography and the way Jessica is constantly looking over her shoulder that she knew she was being followed. Remember that Kilgrave made Malcolm secretly take photos of Jessica for months without her noticing. She probably got used to knowing if she were being followed and being able to evade them. Matt was following her footsteps and/or heartbeat. It doesn't appear that Matt "loses" track of Jessica per se, but he's just caught off guard about her managing to slip around him so quickly. Matt realizes this and tries to get away from her as fast as he can.

** Cole was in a hazmat suit and yell "I don't know! We are just the clean up!" Unless Danny assumed Luke is brain dead he already knows what Cole was doing. Even his "he was just looking for a job" excuse fell already flat when Danny says he works for a death cult. And it's already ridiculous to call Danny out for not using his money for good when that's all he did in ''Iron Fist'', like maybe Harlem wasn't that riddled with Leishmaniasis or worked at the plant that was foreclosed with workers still on payroll but that shit does makes thing better and can avoid a bunch of crimes. Luke is kind of being an asshole saying your money can keep black people out of jail.

** Why did Luke think the Hand was a corrupt company, Sowande is making money selling weapon and performing terrorist act in Africa, Gao is in the heroin business (and Danny did try blocking that legally too in his series) and the faction Nobu belonged to didn't seem to make any money in New York, just brainwashing kids with magic and setting up the Black Sky resurrection. Even Midland Circle isn't a real company it's just an assassin hideout where they pose as businessmen but all pack guns and sticks. Like he dismisses the mystical element but think Danny should start a legal battle against said mystical element.
** To be fair, at the time Luke doesn't necessarily know that Cole was cleaning bodies, I'm pretty sure he only figured that out when he spoke to Misty, and after that, Cole. Honestly though, that whole argument could've been handled better; I mean his speech to Danny about him being a rich businessman beating up on a kid who's poor is really more of a class thing than a race one. And struggling to get by or not; Cole loses quite a bit of sympathy when his new job involves getting rid of bodies (and judging by how his apartment is filled with some fairly expensive things, it's not the first time he's done a job like that). Granted, by the time Cole realized what he was doing, it was too late to back out, but still. Bottom line; Luke doesn't really have much of a moral high ground in that argument when he doesn't even know what Cole was doing.

** Danny's attitude towards the situation is the fact that he's seen, through Colleen, that good people can easily be deceived into joining the Hand's ranks. But Cole doesn't look to him like someone who went through Colleen's situation. Therefore, Danny's mentality is that Cole is a Hand soldier, while Luke sees Cole as a scared youth who has had a downward spiral following his sister's death and subsequently fell in with the wrong people.

** The earthquake was caused by underground detonation (a geologist calls into Trish's radio show and expressed this theory and it was later confirmed in the architect subplot as well as Gao's statements to Alexandra). The Hand was trying to get the door leading to the dragon bones. As for the speeding up part, while that was never fully explored, I would imagine it would have involved smaller, more controlled detonations that would avoid detection.

** Judas bullets would have been hard to come by, and even if the Hand had access to them, the events of the series took place over a couple of days, only the latter one of which they were even aware that they were fighting Luke Cage. They wouldn't have had time to ship in any weapons and ammo specialized in killing Luke.

** The irony is, in ''Luke Cage'' season 2, she breaks up with Luke for the same reasons that she broke up with Matt, and this is after he gets aggressive and nearly kills Cockroach. Suffice to say, she gets moments of very strong characterization throughout the various shows. But, her personality and development are very much dependent on 1) the writing staff and 2) the series she’s in. As a result, the people writing her didn’t always treat her like she was a fully-formed character.

** Matt's senses are good but that doesn't mean he'd notice one specific person out of a crowd who moved into an alleyway a short distance behind him briefly, especially if he's not specifically listening for it. Matt's gotten used to being able to slip off without being followed very easily, and the worst that's going to happen is that if he gets spotted, someone will think he's just another parkour fellow. Anyone willing to follow him like that already knows what he's capable of, anyway. And Matt's senses do require him to be fully focused. Right before this parkour instance, there was a little moment where he nearly collided with another woman as he was trying to make his getaway from Jessica. And even in ''Daredevil'' we've seen Matt have to focus to actually narrow in on sounds, like when he was trying to locate where the Hand had taken Karen, or when he was trying to find Claire after the Russians kidnapped her.

There is also the possibility that Karen's cold reaction to Matt’s behavior throughout the show could tie into that secret past of hers, which presumably will be clarified in Season 3.

** Frank Castle has his own war, against the guys who killed his family, and the last thing Matt needs is someone with guns showing all the Defenders how easy and good it feels to kill. Also how do they contact him? He didn't give Matt his phone number and aside from the earthquake, the Hand kept most of their action secret. So unless his crime sense is canon Frank has no way to go "crime is happening there, I'll grab my gun and shoot everyone".
** Matt already disagreed with Frank’s methods when they first faced off and I doubt the rest of the group would be any more accepting of his methods. It’s possible that they ''could'' work together, but they’d be keeping Frank on a short leash. In the comics, Frank usually works well with those who are able to tolerate his methods or resort to similar methods themselves, like Elektra, Ghost Rider and Wolverine.
** Frank isn't a team player. Plus, the events of ''The Punisher'' take place after the events of ''The Defenders'' (given that Ellison is seen holding a newspaper headlined "CHAOS UNDER THE STREETS" - referring to the climax of ''The Defenders''), meaning that at the time of ''The Defenders'', Frank was hiding out on a Brooklyn construction site as Pete Castiglione, only going into Manhattan to meet up with Curtis.

** A lot of the plotting for ''The Defenders'' was done ''after'' the first season of ''Daredevil'' had aired, which is probably why there was no indication of Alexandra’s influence on Fisk, or that Gao and Nobu were connected in more ways than "they both have alliances with Fisk". Showrunner Marco Ramirez did an interview with Entertainment Weekly shortly after ''The Defenders'' aired, where he said that they were basically [[WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants writing by the seat of their pants]]:

*** So most likely, Alexandra had some hand in forging The Hand's connection with Fisk, but she wasn't directly involved. Her conversations with Madame Gao suggest that even before her illness forced her to rely on Elektra to do all her dirty work, Alexandra tended to be less hands-on than her colleagues. She may have had the idea for the alliance, but had Gao and Murakami (and thus, Nobu) do the actual process of making contact with Fisk. Thus, Gao and Nobu were the ones who reached out to Fisk (by way of James Wesley) and the Ranskahov brothers, and struck deals. The death of Rigoletto (the mafia don Fisk had started his organized crime career in the employment of) could've even been part of those deals,

** The fate of Matt's apartment is ultimately revealed at the start of ''Daredevil'' season 3: Karen, refusing to believe Matt is dead in the absence of a body, is paying his rent and keeping the place clean so it's waiting for him for when he comes back. Although it's a bit of a stretch to believe that Karen can pay for the rent of two apartments on her ''Bulletin'' salary, it seems like narrative-wise the writers did this on the belief that Karen took Frank's advice from the diner conversation of "Hold on with both hands and don't let go" to heart. Of course, Matt doesn't move back into his apartment until the end of the season after Fisk has been defeated. He does visit the apartment once, to get a suit and tie for his visit to the prison, and presumably again after he and Karen pick up Jasper Evans to take him to the ''Bulletin'', but otherwise he stays at St. Agnes (which is somewhat necessary since part of that time, Matt is having to deal with the fact that Fisk has convinced Ray Nadeem that Matt was an accomplice of his).

** If they captured Elektra, Matt would have wanted some quality time with Elektra to fully undo the mind wipe and help her recover. Luke would have wanted her locked up. Danny would have wanted her dead, as would Stick (if Stick survived). And it’s tough to say which option Jessica would have argued for, considering how torn she was when faced in ''Jessica Jones'' season 2 regarding her mother, but she would have definitely argued. Meanwhile, the Hand would have split. Murakami and Alexandra would have tried to kill each other. If neither succeeded (which seems likely, as they’ve all done assassination attempts on each other for centuries), they would have been divided about whether it was worthwhile to risk their own lives and the lives of their henchmen to get Elektra back. This discussion likely would have concluded with them attacking the heroes as a group in order to capture both Elektra and Danny. Which would result in a big climactic fight, with Elektra maybe (maaaaybe) siding with the heroes in order to protect Matt and get her revenge on the Hand.

** Matt probably got put up in the office at Foggy's request (the office in question is the Captain's office, given Thomas Ridenhour is shown working from this space in ''Luke Cage'' season 2). Foggy's known Matt the longest, he knows Matt's heightened senses. So he probably requested when Matt and the others were brought in, "Hey, is there a private room you can put Matt in? Preferably away from the bullpen? He's blind and...he just can get easily overwhelmed or disoriented if he wakes up in a strange environment,” plus maybe some threat of legal action. Also, remember that when delivering the suit to Matt, Foggy says, "the people in this building need to always, and ''only'', see you as a lawyer." This means that putting Matt up in a private room was the only way Foggy could change Matt's shirt without any cops in the room who'd definitely notice the scars on Matt's chest. And Foggy didn't leave Matt alone. He's holding a coffee cup in his hand when he comes in, and he's walking to the door, not running to it, which implies that it just a stroke of bad luck that that phone rang to startle Matt awake while Foggy had stepped out for a stretch break.

** Just like it's debatable in ''Daredevil'' season 1 whether Matt intentionally killed Nobu or not by setting him on fire, Midland Circle is a bit finicky. Matt did take the time to discern that the building was empty, however, and he wouldn't have signed off on blowing it up if it hadn’t been. And the plan was for them to go down into the hole and rescue anyone there who needed rescuing (Danny, Elektra, any willing henchmen…) before detonating the bomb. The fact that this didn’t end up happening was out of Matt’s control. As far as the rest of the Hand is concerned, this was, like with that first fight with Fisk and Nobu, an extreme situation, in which Matt’s no-killing policy might waver. As far as Matt could tell, the Hand were unreformable (they’d been bad guys for centuries), extremely powerful and dangerous, and a direct threat to at least the population of New York City, if not the world in general. They couldn’t be locked up, and they’d already caused a ton of damage. If blowing up their base was going to take them out of the equation permanently, Matt decided it was worth it– and that didn’t seem entirely out-of-character for an extreme situation. His standard no-killing rule that is used for Fisk and regular street thugs persists into ''Daredevil'' Season 3, except in moments of desperation (such as once Fisk hires Dex to impersonate him). It’s a key element of his character. It's no different from how Karen killed James Wesley only because he forced her into a corner.

** Matt of course has a very legitimate reason for being reluctant to cooperate with Misty here: remember what happened when he brought Brett Mahoney into his investigation of the Hand during ''Daredevil'' season 2? Well, the Hand found out, threatened Bess, and got Brett to give them information to kidnap Karen and a bunch of other Daredevil survivors as bait for Elektra, a trap that ended with Elektra dying.
** Let's say that Luke tells Misty what is going on, and she believes him. AndThenWhat? Will it be the "four Defenders plus a complete ESU squadron against The Hand?" Or, better yet, just an ESU team facing off against the Hand? Not going to happen. The ESU teams would be CannonFodder for the Hand, or at least the heroes would consider them to be that. There's also the part that their plan is to sneak into Midland Circle and blow it up. No good cop would ever agree with such a plan, because it's just plain and old-fashioned terrorism. Even the dirty cops that Fisk paid to kill the Russians would frown upon this, because EvenEvilHasStandards. But let's say that, somehow, the heroes convinced the NYPD that this is the best way to solve the crisis, and that helping them would be worth going through all the Internal Affairs red tape that would ensue. If so, say goodbye to stealth the moment an ESU team got sent in. Misty alone is just one cop, with no special powers and no experience with The Hand, so having just her joining the team would be having TheLoad. That in part is what led to her losing her arm when fighting Bakuto.

*** It's publicly known that Daredevil died in Midland Circle, as evidenced in ''Daredevil'' season 3 by the way Fisk says "So the devil is back" when Donovan tells him about being attacked by Matt in the hotel parking garage. As for Matt himself, well, publicly it's known that he'd been missing for months, and Karen was paying his bills, as Nadeem pointed out when he questioned Karen after being told by Fisk that Matt was an "accomplice" of his (and even harder to say is whether Matt gave the full story of what happened to him when he unmasked himself to Nadeem prior to the grand jury).

** It does seem like Daredevil's real identity is something they should know, especially considering how much time Madame Gao has spent around Matt, and how astute she's shown herself during interactions with the other Fingers as well during interactions with other associates/enemies like Fisk, Harold, and Danny. It's possible a few of the Fingers did know, but just pretended they didn’t because they didn’t want anyone else to have that information, kinda like Fisk handled this in "Born Again". [[note]]When Fisk found out Matt's identity, he kept his knowledge of this a secret from even his closest henchmen because he felt the info was too valuable. In time, this led to members of his inner circle revolting and overthrowing him[[/note]] But if the Fingers were all in the dark on this (as the show seems to imply), and assuming Gao did survive, it would be enough information for her to figure it out, considering how easily the Hand had earlier pieced together Daredevil's association with Brett Mahoney. The question is whether or not Gao would care enough to do so, if she survived Midland Circle. She has shown an interest in Daredevil in the past, and she could certainly use that knowledge to blackmail Matt and/or win back favor with Fisk, but it's more likely she'll just move on to greener pastures, depending on her future goals, not to mention that after her part in poisoning Vanessa, there's no way Fisk would've remotely considered doing any more business with her.

** That still doesn't explain why he'd let her see him in the first place - and he HAD to have known she was behind him, they were alone in that street and she was practically right behind him. The most likely reason is probably just plot convenience so she could later call him out for being Daredevil and get the story moving.

** Scarfe's notepad might have not been enough to get Cottonmouth in jail, but it was enough to bring heat so even if he does disposal for someone that is not Mariah he probably won't dispose six bodies with the "rumor" that he does that.

** Actually, a better question would be "''why'' contact the Avengers?" What kind of help could they provide, that those four could not do on their own with their own resources? Clear the area of evil ninjas in a short time and with little effort? They can do that as well. Their problem is not the physical strength of a single enemy (it's not like AIDA or hive for the agents of SHIELD), but a group of cuasi-mafia leaders who [[WeHaveReserves have reserves]] and can attack the heroes by attacking their closer people. If the Hand were the enemies of ''Infinity War'' or a later ''Avengers'' movie, things would have still been more or less similar.

** There's a few reasons the spider-guy wouldn't be involved. In-universe, the Hand worked via street crime, not blowing up buildings with laser weapons. And the heroes who got drawn in came because they just naturally ended up there due to the cases they got involved in. Out-of-universe, there's two issues: first off, Spidey wouldn't fit in tone-wise. In ''Homecoming'', he was made to be funny and laughable, which would make him impossible for Matt or Jessica to tolerate. Furthermore, he'd be too overpowered for the show. He's possibly the strongest street level hero in the MCU, and he's ''definitely'' the fastest. But he's totally unwilling to throw a punch. He's been in two movies thus far and has thrown zero punches in either one of them, and The Hand are an enemy that cannot be bought, convinced, or detained. The Hand has to be met with force, and Spidey is too good natured a kid to even punch Adrian Toomes, so he would ''definitely'' hold back against the Hand. He also doesn't have any bullet resistance like Jessica and Luke have, or martial arts training like Matt and Danny have, so he wouldn't stand up well at all. Plus, he'd be completely out of his depth fighting a mystical ninja cult. I highly doubt Matt, Jessica or Luke would want a 15 year old to participate in the war, although Stick would be all for it, given their attitudes towards Danny, who's only about ten to twelve years older than Peter.