Yeah, Matt's sidekicks are such whiny bitches in this one. I alternate between liking them a lot and fucking hating their guts. Specially Karen. She's so self-centered sometimes.
The thing is, Danny's character seems to have regressed to how he was at the start of his own series. Almost like had no growth at all.
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Was Foggy testing him? I thought that was a clear show of support on his end which makes the moment hurt even more considering what happens. I definitely understand why you got annoyed with Karen, because that moment hurts to have her berate and be so annoyed with Matt, but I agree with Unsung it wasn't entirely about her being annoyed with how Daredevil stuff is uprooting her life. She wishes Matt would have some self-preservation. It's not just that he's saving the city, but he literally puts himself last on the list of things he cares about. This is Karen, I have a hard time believing that she really thinks Daredevil is an entirely bad idea. She was infatuated with Daredevil, and was almost supportive of Punisher's murderous vigilante act. But she also knows it is toxic enough to separate Matt from everyone, and will maybe get himself killed. It's ironic, because Matt gets mad at Karen for the same behavior.
edited 19th Aug '17 3:29:46 PM by iamthecircle
I think they almost have to be selfish— selfish on Matt's behalf, because as demonstrated, without them grounding him, he'll just throw himself into the meatgrinder every day until it finally kills him. They're selfish because they want him to care about them, and himself, more than random strangers. Which is, y'know, normal.
Karen and Foggy just want some semblance of a normal life, which isn't really so much to ask. Paraphrasing Foggy, Matt's already donated more than his share. If anyone's earned a break, it's him. That Matt can never give himself that is part of the tragedy of the character.
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edited 19th Aug '17 10:33:16 PM by Unsung
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This entirely. I think Matt's arc was the most clear of the Defenders and part of the reason why is because of the effective use of Karen and Foggy. When you spell it out like that I realize Coleen got real annoyed for similar reasons. Danny is the most important person in her world, and she's crucial to his, but he's just a dumb kid to the Defenders.
Just finished it.
I'm wondering how Matt got out. Maybe Elektra dragged him out of the pit, or maybe some of the dragon substance got on him.
Danny Rand is the worst. Once again, everyone who said he was awful was right.
Jessica is great and always will be. I was wondering how she would fair in combat, being as she lacks Luke's greater durability, or Danny and Matt's pure fighting skills, but she was just smart about it most of the time and picked her moments. It helps that in most cases, she's only has to hit them once.
Luke Cage is the man. This series has taught me that you can't ninja your way around a man with unbreakable skin.
So good show, Jessica good, and I look forward to Davos destroying the fake Iron Fist.
One Strip! One Strip!I do wish we'd gotten to see Jessica hit harder. It's okay if she has trouble connecting, but I'd like to have seen just how dangerous getting hit by her can be. Of course, granted, she's probably still pulling punches for fear of killing someone by mistake, but I'd have liked it if they called that out in dialogue.
And I still wish they'd made something out of her low profile, with her superstrength catching the Hand totally off guard at first. Ah well.
Jess is actually a little stronger than Luke isn't she?
He's more durable, but she actually hits harder between the two of them if I recall their brief (Killgrave induced) fight in Jessica Jones.
One Strip! One Strip!I too feel bad for Finn Jones, he got a raw deal from Scott Buck and the writers of Iron Fist, which is why I'm low-key rooting for him to get better. It seems that he might take on Daredevils mantle for a bit while Matt is M.I.A. This could be a good thing, as Danny needs to become more grounded and him having to deal with some of the ugliness of the criminal underworld will force him to step out of his own little world and grow up. Plus in the comics Danny actually did become Daredevil for a spell so it would make sense. Plus DD show runners will actually give him time to train and prepare for fight scenes.
Tis the great art of life to manage well The restless mind![]()
That fight actually makes it harder to gauge how much stronger Jessica is than Luke, since his size and training make it hard to say how strong he'd really need to be. We've seen him punch through walls and yank the doors off cars, but while we've seen him stop a car with his body, we haven't seen him lift one up, which is something Jessica does effortlessly. So I think she's actually quite a bit stronger in raw terms, but Luke's superhuman durability lets him push past normal limits to match her more closely, particularly at close quarters. Just not without strain.
He also can't super-jump like she can. Which seems like it could've come in handy a few times in this show.
edited 19th Aug '17 11:58:18 PM by Unsung
Yeah she didn't super jump at all. And it's still kind of ambiguous as to whether or not she can actually fly. I think she just jumps good, but I have a friend who thinks she might actually have flying abilities if she applied herself to her abilities. But her abilities are what drew Kilgrave to her in the first place so I guess that's why she seems to almost resent them. But yeah I think she's supposed to be the strongest of them what with her holding up an elevator with the same tension as someone would carry cat litter into their house.
Oh right. Luke has military training right. He did seem to know how to fight more than Jess did.
Also, I think that all those of example of his raw durability. He's bigger and can tank bullets, so he's got a lot more raw weight to put behind his attacks than she does.
One Strip! One Strip!It becomes a bit obvious as the series goes on that the Hand doesn't really have a counter for Luke. Jessica's strength blows them away, but she can be hurt by swords and bullets. He isn't as strong, but they literally can't hurt him. Every fight scene with him in it is just him mowing through ninjas without much threat to himself.
Their only means of fighting him was possibly Elektra, but it's difficult to know for sure as the only time she is able to do so what when he was drugged and barely conscious from poisoned incense.
I haven't seen this series yet, or Iron Fist, but I want to ask:
Since the Netflix shows seem oddly reluctant to introduce Bullseye, is there ever a point where Danny Rand is fighting someone and says, "You're good, baby, I'll give you that. But me?" (activates Iron Fist) "I'm magic."
As I remarked in my first post, you could cut Karen out of the whole story and you would loose nothing. I honestly don't see the point of her being there, but if you have her, do allow her (and Malcolm for that matter) interact with the others and give her something to research. I think this is actually what annoyed me the most. Karen is a reporter and is put in a room with people who are all connected to famous superpowered people (and a millionaire), one of them being herself a famous radio personality, and yet she makes no move whatsoever to satisfy her curiosity. I actually looked forward to see Karen and Trish interacting with each other but I didn't expect to get a "oh, this is bad", "Yeah, this is worse than I thought" scene instead of them carefully seizing each other up. This is Trish after all, I don't see her being in any way open towards a reporter!
Concerning Finn Jones: He is not the problem! His interactions with Luke is actually what I enjoyed the most about the show after Jessica - who is still my favourite Defender...I think partly because she is never forced to do "gravitas"....all the other Defenders get those scenes in which they are supposed to be all serious and intimidating and start to talk in a half-whisper and it comes off corny with every single one of them, but Finn Jones gets it very bad, because not only gets he the worst lines in those kind of scenes whenever he is supposed to do it, you can tell that the writers and show runners themselves think that the whole character is ridiculous.
The other reason why Jessica is the best in this show is because she is the only Defender who doesn't constantly hold the idiot ball. I won't bother repeating the complains about Danny's actions, but what about Matt? The others can be kind of forgiven that they leave Danny tied up with Stick of all people, but not Matt, he should know better (especially since Stick's first reaction to learning that Danny is the key is raising his sword). And don't get me started on him keeping his relationship with Elektra secret and then abandoning the others in a middle of a fight. When Stick had his "you should be the leader" speech I was all "Really? So far the only one who displayed any common sense is Jessica!" And Luke isn't much better, either. There is actually little reason for him not telling Misty what is really going on. I get it from the others, they don't know Misty all that well, but Luke should know better. It is not like he is actually keeping Misty save when she is already looking into the hand anyway without knowing what she is really in for.
Speaking of Misty, I can't be the only one who noticed that Colleen and Claire are actually saving the day while the Defenders are only saving Danny.......
But on a different note, I think for all the time the show spend on the hand, we actually didn't learn much. We didn't learn why they want immortality (I suspect that each of them had a different reason). We didn't learn what the Black Start actually is (and how they recognize the children who have potential) or why Alexandra was obsessed with the notion except a vaguely story about her daughter. After all the good work Iron Fist did making the Hand kind of interesting, this show made it boring again.
Jones is good when he's playing off of the other Defenders. He's bad when he's doing something else. The scene where he confronts Alexandra in Episode 3 had some downright atrocious acting. He's trying to act like he's pissed and he's gonna wreck their shit, but he sounds way too forced in his delivery. Jones is bad at acting super angry. He excels when he's being upbeat, which he shows in Episode 4 in the restaurant. It was like somebody flipped a switch on his back that said "act" and he started actually acting good. The problem is that they keep trying to make Danny super serious and angry when, to my knowledge, that's not who the character has been in the comics.
As for Karen and Foggy...everything Unsung said, he explained it better than I could. To be honest though I've been seeing a lot of hate towards Colleen and Misty, which strikes me as kind of odd? The only time I got really annoyed by Colleen was her flip flopping on Danny teaming up with people, and even then she changed her mind in like two seconds.
And I'm gonna add: MOVE ON FROM THE HAND, PLEASE. NO MORE. JUST GIVE US IGH FOR DEFENDERS SEASON 2, NO MORE OF THE HAND. I dunno how they'd tie Iron Fist in with IGH but for the love of God, NO MORE OF THE HAND.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
x4 Elektra was taking on all 4 of the Defenders pretty handily in the last episode, though, so one-on-one I'd say she'd be capable of wearing Luke out. Sowande seemed to be holding his own really well against Luke before his off-screen defeat, too, considering his ability is apparently attacking pressure points.
Luke is an ex-con who just got out of prison. They are committing multiple felonies along the way. He would put Misty in an impossible position as a cop if he straight told her what they were doing, as she would either violate her oath to serve and protect by looking the other way, or she would endanger herself and probably many other cops too by acting against people that are far beyond her power level.
Also, Misty is the one "loved one" who didn't experience the Hand by herself, along with Malcolm, and it's not easy to sell the "ninja conspiracy theory" to people who never saw those ninjas.
That is another thing...they took Sowande out of the game too early. See, Matt has a relationship with Gao and Elektra, Danny has one with Bakudo and Gao, but neither Jessica nor Luke had any relationship with the Hand and the Hand has no beef with either of them. But at least Luke felt anger towards Sowande for messing around in his neighbourhood. He should have gotten some sort of fight with him at the end.
I also would have loved if Karen and Trish were the ones strong-arming the police into letting all the charges drop by threatening to go public if they do. After all the built up they did beforehand it was odd that they just ignored that they took down a while building, even Foggy isn't THAT good.
And...well, considering how many people dislike Danny I doubt that many will agree with me, but I think when Luke came down on him because of his privilege, it was about the wrong issue. For one, Danny had no idea who was behind the mask, he just know that those were people working for the hand who were ready to remove bodies. And two, the guy didn't do it to "feed his family", he bought expensive sport shoes instead. There just is a point were the "well, this guy just didn't have many options in life" excuse doesn't quite fly anymore. Perhaps if they established that he had no idea whatsoever what kind of job he would take, but it didn't really seem that way, not with his brother already dying (and that was another thing, I thought the hand wanted the explosives, but then the architect had it? Or did the architect steal it from the hand?).
Matt failing to predict what Stick would do I can chalk up to him never being 100% able to focus on what's happening, he's incredibly distracted throughout.
Jessica's lack of patience with all the bullshit was great, my faviourite bit of that was probably when Matt was slowly working out the Pinang situation and the moment she realises what he's getting at she Janis the thing open.
As for our lovable Iron Fist being bad at being serious and intimidating, I'm not sure if that's accidental, Danny isn't good at being that way, so to may be on purpose that he can across as a kid trying to act serious.
That's why I don't have much of a problem with Danny than others seem to, the series was full awere of him being a child to me, he's gotten better at the business world and considering thing (old Danny would have blown off Luke's privilege speech completely) but he's still bad at it.
Edit: Oh and as always Gao was great, she's one of the best MCU villains out there, I do hope she returns.
edited 20th Aug '17 3:50:36 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranYeah, I do think that Danny being kind of childish is deliberate...I am just really bothered with them having him act like an idiot all the time. For example why aren't the writers come up with some kind of scenario or plan which explains him walking into the headquarter of the hand which doesn't involve him being all "here I am and I promise I will take you down"? He should know better by now.

Foggy gave Matt the suit because someone had to save the city. He felt bad about it because this happens to be the time it got his friend killed (as far as he knows), but that was probably going to happen sooner or later anyway. Doesn't really help at all with the grief or guilt, of course.
Karen's upset when Matt shows up to escort her to safety for pretty much the same reason Matt feels guilty about it, because she wouldn't need protection if she weren't connected to him, and the reason she's mad in the first place is because she still cares about him, deeply.
"You deserve better." "So do you." That about spells it out.
edited 19th Aug '17 10:43:11 PM by Unsung