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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Runaways poster from the original series artists
◊. One for Cloak and Dagger
◊ too.
edited 2nd Oct '17 9:10:15 AM by comicwriter
The problem with Elektra's backstory is that it robs the character of any agency. He goes from a slightly crazy but independent young woman to some sort of tool for Stick and the Hand, and naturally she needs Matt believing in her so that she can develop her own agency...except she doesn't, not really, she is just following his wishes in the end. And dies for him.
I'm glad they went and got Alphona back specifically as his stuff is always great. I just wish they would do the same for the movies. Imagine if Steve Epting, Brian Stelfreeze, or some guy who can do a good Jack Kirby imitation got to make posters for CA:TWS, Black Panther, and Thor Ragnarok respectively.
Heh.
You never forget the first time you get smashed.
The fact that Hulk can beat the hell out of his older brother (who he also fears) probably just adds to it.
One Strip! One Strip!Iron Fist, episode nine!
Oh, hey, Harold's back! Wow, I figured, The Hand needed to retrieve his body and do some kind of ritual to resurrect him, but I guess he got some Auto-Revives. I do remember something from DD2 about Stick needing to decapitate Nobu in order to perma-kill him, so that's probably it.
Man, daddy is going to be pissed at Ward. ^.^ Seriously, Harold, I've missed you. Welcome back.
Also, Harold has what's got to be the worst case of Swamp Mouth in human history. Shower, brush teeth vigorously, then go shit on Ward.
Oh my god, Ward actually left the knife in him. That's just lazy, Ward.
"I don't understand why we had to bring her here." "Never let the enemy choose the battlefield." Okay, sure, but why here. That question wasn't, "Why did we leave her base in China?" It was, "Why are we kidnapping a person in my home and place of business?" Your platitude does nothing to answer Colleen's concerns about your continued intrusion upon her life.
"Let's just take her in." For what? You have collected no evidence of any wrongdoing on her part. Even her drugs aren't actually illegal, and even if they were, you've got no connection between her and the drug trade. Legally, she's the victim here; you kidnapped her from China, which means all three of you could face extradition and trust me, you don't want any part of what China's going to do to you for entering their country - presumably illegally, given how quickly it was put together - and abducting a Chinese national.
"Why are you asking about events that happened fifteen years ago when you have more pressing concerns." Introducing today's guest co-reviewer, Madame Gao. Give her a hand, everybody.
Incidentally, I love how their method of containment is to just tie her to a chair in the middle of the room, knowing full well how powerful she is. Man, these people wouldn't last five seconds against Kilgrave.
"Look, I'm fine. I know what I'm doing." "Do you? Because it looks like we're on the fast-track to waterboarding here." Introducing today's guest co-reviewer, Claire Temple. Danny has no f*cking clue what he's doing and everyone can see it. It's great. He is now literally the only person who thinks this situation under control, and when that list includes the f*cking hostage, you're in a bad spot.
"So now you're ganging up on me?" Yes. Yes, that is absolutely what they're doing. Because you are so far off-base here it's not even funny.
I'm actually sad that Gao didn't chime in about how she's on Claire and Colleen's side too, and offer Danny psychiatric help.
"Sodium pentathol. Truth serum. If you can get it for me, we'll dose Gao and she'll tell you everything you want to know." Maybe. Dosing someone with sodium pentathol makes them talkative and more cooperative, but its reliability in actually obtaining confessions that are accurate accounts is questionable at best. It's much more commonly used for putting someone in varying states of unawareness. It's been used for anesthesia, to medically induce comas, and as a lethal injection.
"It's better than torture." That, I will agree with. While sodium pentathol is of questionable accuracy, torture has long been discredited as a means of gathering intelligence. People will eventually talk when tortured long enough, but more often than not, they'll just say something that sounds like what you want to hear. The Jack Bauer Interrogation Method has been discredited for many, many years.
No one ever brings that up, though, because Hollywood loves the idea of beating information out of a suspect. The objection is usually that it's morally wrong. Nobody ever talks about the fact that it doesn't even f*cking work in shows and movies.
"Is that your son?" "…yeah, so." "I have a son!" Is Harold's brain function having to come back slowly rather than him just instantly being okay upon revival? Because if so, that's actually pretty cool. I think Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the only other time I've ever seen resurrection take a toll on a person's psyche.
"You've been stripped of everything but your shares. Can't even enter the building anymore." "Why?" Because you've been consistently awful, refused to do anything anyone asked of you, and didn't even give the board the courtesy of showing up to multiple meetings that were specifically about you. This firing is wholly deserved, Danny. The company is not a toy you can put back in the box when you're not using it. It's a serious responsibility.
Just like being the Iron Fist, in fact. It's amazing how Danny abandoned his responsibilities to Kun L'un so that he could return home and abandon his responsibilities to Rand. Danny wants all the benefits of being an important person but doesn't want to do the work.
"Why are you lying to me?" "Just stay away. Don't go anywhere near there, okay?" Once more, Danny confuses giving orders for assuaging people's fears.
"It certainly smells good. It's, uh…what is that?" This is amazing. Harold's mind is knitting itself back together. We're even getting to see his language functions slowly regenerate. He recognizes things, he's accessing memories more and more, but it's a steady progress. I love this.
"What the hell are you doing?!" He's clearly emotionally damaged and probably in need of help. He's wandering around stammering, can't recognize basic things, and is covered in blood. Why does nobody notice this?
"You often find yourself fraternizing with people with gifts. DareDevil, Luke Cage, Danny Rand." Why is Luke in that list but Jessica's not? Luke's never interacted with The Hand, so she's not counting off enemies of her organization who are gifted. Just gifted people in general that Claire knows.
This is the second time Jessica's been snubbed from the list of Netflix protagonists. I was willing to forgive it the first time because the person had clearly gotten their list of enhanced people from news reports, and Jessica's not famous. But Gao has no reason to magically know about Claire's involvement with Luke and yet be entirely ignorant to Jessica's existence.
Given this show's already questionable depiction of women, it bothers me that Jessica keeps getting snubbed.
"Not even to save your mother? How do you know my men aren't at her door right now?" Solid bluff. It's the kind of thing that ultimately can't be known one way or the other, not with how The Hand operates. The logically correct answer is not to take the bait because if anything was going to happen, there's no reason to assume you could get over there in time to stop it, nor that you'd be physically capable of stopping it. But humans are not logical creatures. The emotional kneejerk is go and help a loved one who's been threatened.
"Hello, Miss Wing. You don't look well." Gao is having the time of her life and I love it. These kind of psychological power plays where a character who is literally tied down can assume control of a room purely through charisma are always enjoyable to watch.
Again, these people wouldn't last five seconds with Kilgrave. He tried to pull this shit too, but most of the people involved knew better than to listen. Most. Hogarth almost went for it.
"I'm sorry to put you in this position but it's really important. There's no one else I can turn to." Bullshit. You're just saying that because she caught you. I don't think you even know her name.
"What's this for?" Well, it's sodium pentathol, so either he's kidnapped someone, he's looking to get high, or he's plotting a murder. Either way, no reasonable person would ever help him steal it from the company. This isn't "Whoops, I accidentally stole company property, silly me." You are now an accessory to a serious crime. Forget worrying about your job, you could actually go to prison for helping him do this.
"Honor the warrior your grandfather created." Did Gao literally poison Colleen with her words? I am so curious about what's going on here.
"Harold. Harold Meachum." Seriously love this. But is nobody going to wander by and happen to notice the company's dead founder standing right outside the building? That feels kinda obligatory.
Are the elevators at Rand working this late or did we miss out on seeing Harold staggering up thirty flights of stairs?
Joy's got to be around here somewhere, right? I mean, there's no reason for her to be here this late, but someone's got to notice Harold wandering around the building.
"Amazing." "Thank you, sir." "That wasn't a compliment." He's almost back to full Harold. ^.^ Welcome back, big guy. You're the best part of this show and I missed you so much.
"If you don't get out of here, I'm gonna bust your head wide open." And then there's this asshole! Not the guy with the truck. He's a poor victim. I just had to quote him because This Asshole doesn't say anything. I honestly can't remember if this is Bakuto or whatever his name was. Colleen's mentor dude. I don't think he is. But whoever this guy is, he's an asshole.
…he made a shuriken out of tinfoil and then threw it and it stuck in a wall. No, show. I know, I know, physics in a superhero story, but…that…that made physics cry.
Ward went up to Harold's again? Makes sense, actually. Murderers often return to the scene of the crime. It helps them emotionally process what happened, I think. It's a compulsion. Man, I hope Harold's here.
"After your mother delivered you, the nurse wrapped you in a blanket and placed you in my arms." Now he's back to Full Harold. Ward's shock and horror is glorious.
"Why aren't you dead?" "Something about the treatment from The Hand made it so if I die, I can come back." You knew this. You didn’t believe it, but you knew it. Ward's a believer now!
Somehow, Harold's apology to Ward is actually more terrifying than if he'd just stabbed him. Man, Harold is the best part of this show.
I was hoping when they went into the dojo with the sodium pentathol, Gao would make some snippy comment about, "I want it on record that I've been unguarded ever since Colleen fell ill and yet I have managed to behave myself."
"If I give her too much, she'll fall asleep." That's a funny way to say "slip into a coma and die".
"You got something scarier than a dragon in a cave?" "Yes. Yes, I do." I love how Gao answers that with zero hesitation and huge f*ckoff grin. I believe her. So does Danny, given how unnerved his face gets. With four words, Gao jousted Danny's intimidation game and bested him at psychological warfare, setting the precedent for who is truly in control of this interrogation.
"Did you really think your drugs would affect me? I spent most of the 17th century being interrogated." Danny's a garbage protagonist, but Gao is a lovely antagonist.
"I've been working on something that will put an end to that." "What?" "Ward, you wanted to leave. So leave. We'll be fine." This is a clear manipulation but it's also a solid move. That's what makes it a great manipulation; Harold's making a power play within the bounds of fairness. Ward said he wanted to go, to have nothing to do with any of this. Well, if he wants to have nothing to do with it, then he doesn't get to be in on the plan.
You don't get to be one foot out the door and one foot in. If Ward's worried about what's going to happen to the family, then he has to stay and be part of the family. It's totally fair, which is precisely what makes it a great angle for manipulating Ward.
"Time is up, Danny Rand." I like the camera under the door. The Hand's casing the dojo to prepare their strike. You never get to see that in a show.
Smoke grenade through the window! Great way to do it.
Flashbang, also good.
These guys are not The Hand. These guys are law enforcement. SWAT, maybe FBI? Color me confused.
"This is not ninja shit. These guys are military." That'll be awkward if they are, seeing as Posse Comitatus expressly forbids military from engaging in the enforcement of civilian law. You legally cannot send federal soldiers into an American city to capture a wanted man. That's what SWAT is for.
"Wow." "I didn't know which one was your favorite so…." Harold's gonna kill that kid. My trap sense is going off wildly after that legend we just heard.
"Well, I don't like all these fancy flavors. Vanilla's fine for me." And just like that, kid's sealed his fate. Harold's going to take that as a sleight against his generous gesture, because his mind isn't entirely stable after two resurrections.
"It's okay. I've been where you're going. It's not so bad." Which is a pretty cool way of humanizing Harold's descent into being a violent, dangerous person. It'd be really easy to just say that he's going crazy from the effects of the revivals, but this gives a legitimate rationale. Dying and coming back is desensitizing Harold to the reality of death. It means less to him because he's been there twice. It's not just that he no longer fears death; he no longer respects it. It's lost its specialness.
"Jesus. Oh, what did I do?" But it's only twice, so he still has enough of his humanity to recognize where he's going awry. Death is less meaningful for him now, but not entirely devoid of meaning yet. What's especially interesting about this line is that it's not delivered in despair or regret. Harold sounds more curious than anything else. Like he's disbelieving what he's capable of, rather than feeling legitimately remorseful for killing Kyle.
"I'm here because my dad had drugs planted in my car." I love how he just openly says that, like it's not going to make him sound crazy when he accuses a dead man.
"You see, that's the trap, and he knows it."
If I tell you about my dead father controlling my life, then it's just playing into his hands! This is the correct thing to say to a psychiatrist!
I hope Harold cleaned up Kyle's body before letting Joy come up to the penthouse. This is already going to be an awkward meeting. It doesn't need that extra layer of WTF. "Hi, Joy, it's me, your father. Two-time zombie dad has been here this whole time. Also, I totally murdered this kid for no reason. Surprise! Want to eat his brains with me?"
"You have no business here. Leave!" Wow. For the first time, Gao seems flustered. She does not like Bakuto - who I can now say with certainty was not This Asshole. This Asshole's identity remains unclear.
"You are about to fall into a trap from which you cannot escape." I believe Gao on this. If she's freaked out by Bakuto, then Danny needs to be too. There's an old saying about this, I think it goes something like, "The enemy of my enemy can kiss my ass too."
I believe Bakuto that Danny channeling the Iron Fist can save Colleen because something something pushing his chi into her maybe? But I think Bakuto's also counting on Danny exhausting his chi doing this, leaving him unable to use the Iron Fist to defend himself afterwards.
"Use your chi to burn the poison away." I love that Gao actually looks concerned when Claire looks at her.
Here's the thing about this obvious trap. Colleen said to call Bakuto because he would be able to help her. That indicates that an antitoxin is possible and that Bakuto knows it. She can't have known that he'd have Danny do this, or she would have just had Danny do this. This implies Bakuto has a different means by which he can cure Colleen. But he didn't use it. He made Danny expend his chi healing Colleen instead.
Colleen wouldn't have thought of Bakuto if she knew Danny could save her, nor would she have thought of him if she didn't think he could do it himself. That Bakuto has another means of curing her is strongly implied, and that makes the fact that he did it this way very dangerous. This is about to get bad.
Eeyup. And then they collected both Danny and Gao. It's gonna suck to be Danny in a few hours.
This was a pretty good episode. Danny wasn't in it much, which is probably why it had very little obnoxious about it. Harold's back and it's great! We got a bit more of Bakuto and some development of a greater conflict between The Hand and some other mysterious faction. I'm going to guess that Bakuto is with The Chaste, that group that Stick served?
Never got an explanation for those guys in military gear, though. I think someone called them "Gao's mercenaries" at some point but we were never shown anyone learning that so I don't know. Are those guys supposed to be agents of The Hand or something?
Whatever the case, this was a pretty solid episode and I enjoyed it.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.So the idea that you have to consider is that Gao knows about the Devil of Hell's Kitchen and Harlem's Bulletproof Man, but actually had no idea about Jessica or Kilgrave. Theirs was a very private conflict— Jessica doesn't use her powers in very public ways, and Kilgrave kills a lot of the people who see him use his. It's possible that the Hand just didn't realize Jessica was anything other than a private eye who Luke and Claire met. Sadly this doesn't actually go anywhere in The Defenders. Would've been great to see the looks on their faces the first time Jessica threw a major appliance at them, but no, we never got that scene.
Honestly, the Hand were pretty unprepared for everyone in the Defenders except for Danny. They had no answer to Luke, and even though Jessica has no actual fighting technique, she could still toss them around like rag dolls. And they never found out who Matt really was either, and it seems the techniques that Nobu and his men used to counter him weren't passed along (though Stick helped Matt figure out how to deal with that). They just didn't have a way to deal with these guys.
One Strip! One Strip!Eh. It's good that the foot soldiers (...of the Hand) get their asses handed to them, and if anything, I really wanted the Five Fingers to be more of a physical match for the team. They have that one fight in the parking garage, but I really would've liked to have seen more one-on-one stuff— not actually seeing the whole fight between Luke and Sowande, for example, that was a crime.
But what I was actually referring to was that Gao and the Hand might not even know that Jessica Jones has powers at all, let alone how to deal with them.
I just kind of love that Gao's faux omniscience is thwarted by Jessica's consummate refusal to give a shit. Jessica would rather use her detective skills than her superstrength, and unlike Matt, this isn't a crusade for her.
edited 2nd Oct '17 7:03:06 PM by Unsung
Jessica's not too subtle with her strength though. She doesn't really hesitate to hide it, though I suppose if there's not too much info on her, and they weren't keeping an eye on her, it wouldn't be out of the question.
One Strip! One Strip!![]()
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Glad that you are enjoying it now...what do you think, does death by ice cream scoop beat out carving out someone's heart with a spoon?
Concerning Jessica: Gao might or might not know about Jessica, but it is actually pretty unlikely that she would know about Claire knowing Jessica. Their encounter was fairly brief after all, and most of it happened in the relative privacy of Jessica's home.
edited 2nd Oct '17 6:44:27 PM by Swanpride
Given how much intimate knowledge about everyone she pulled out of her ass in that scene, I just assumed she was mind-reading them, to be honest.
She's explicitly centuries old, appears to have some manner of telekinetic force projection, and knows everything. I assume nothing about what she can't do.
And no, I'd say carving a heart out with a spoon is worse. The ice cream scoop was just a typical bludgeoning death with a slightly pointy bludgeon.
edited 2nd Oct '17 6:59:00 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Claire and Jessica were together for like two minutes. Gao is knowledgeable, but Jessica's brief moment with Claire probably slipped under her radar. Considering Joy mentioned Jessica in the previous episode, I don't think they're deliberately snubbing her.
And Harold's antics in this episode are great. Both the aimless wandering at the start, and death by ice cream scoop near the end. Plus his "Jesus, what have I done?" remark, which as you said sounds more curious than regretful or horrified.
And of course, Gao saying she's been alive since the 17th century is a fact that can't be allowed to pass uncommented. We got a hint of that with Elektra saying Nobu's crime record spans more than one lifetime, but this is the first real indicator of just how old some of these Hand people are.
Also, physically speaking she's powerless when tied to a chair. She doesn't have telekinesis, she just pushes stuff with the force generated by her palm thrusts.
edited 2nd Oct '17 7:06:10 PM by Anomalocaris20
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!Harold's a character where I wasn't necessarily expecting much when he first showed up. He has this radio serial villain quality to his voice that made him hard to take seriously. Of course he's supposed to be funny, the way a lot of these scripts were probably supposed to be funny, looking back at it now. But it's all staged and scored for drama, which is probably a disconnect between the writers and production team thanks to how quickly they had to rush this out.
Yeah, Gao's main power so far is a chi blast, something that shows up in a lot of older kung fu movies, the idea that a master martial artist can kill you with their bare hands without even needing to touch you. She's throwing shoryukens, basically.
edited 2nd Oct '17 7:16:12 PM by Unsung
Nitpick: that's a Hadoken. The Shoryuken is a spinning uppercut.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

I liked Elektra until the delved into her "true backstory". That one really ruined her character for me. Ironically I had the opposite reaction to Colleen, I initially thought her pretty bland but the more they delved into her backstory, the more I liked her.