In this episode, all 4 Defenders’ finally come together and cross streams… Um, that didn’t come out how I meant it. All 4 Defenders are finally in the same place, at the same time, blending their signature colors, which should make brown, but mostly just makes Elektra turn up again.
But that’s not until the end of the episode. Let’s start at the beginning, with the sublimely cultured Alexandra. In a scene from months ago, She’s dining alone, as always, in a little out of the way Turkish restaurant. Alexandra tries the food and asks the proprietor to tell his wife that she makes the dish even better than they did in Constantinople. He informs her that she must mean Istanbul. Constantinople is the ancient name. Alexandra smiles her enigmatic smile and says, “Of course.”
Just how old are the members of the Hand?
Alexandra’s dinner is interrupted by Sowande/White Hat, who tells her that they have the Black Sky. They move to a cavernous basement, where Black Sky/Elektra’s body is dressed in a red dress and placed in a stone sarcophagus. Sowande reminds Alexandra that bringing Black Sky back will use up the last of their resources (the solution that keeps the leaders of the Hand and a few chosen others immortal). Alexandra says that Black Sky is worth it.
More recently, Alexandra and a few guards wait near the sarcophagus while Black Sky pushes off the lid and leaps out. She’s covered in whatever the liquid in the sarcophagus is, either blood or chocolate syrup. Elektra would choose blood, because she’s hardcore, but Alexandra is a foodie and could go either way.
Alexandra tells Black Sky that everything is fine. She talks to Elektra like a newly adopted child, then they have their first mother-daughter sparring match. After, Elektra eats, and Alexandra explains to her that she has been reborn. Everything in her previous life doesn’t matter. She’s Black Sky and the ultimate weapon. Once she’s full, Elektra has a little weapons practice, then commits baby’s first mass murder. Alexandra gives Black Sky her villain costume as a reward/birthday gift.
Today, Alexandra has Stick handcuffed to a pole. They’re verbally sparring over the Iron Fist and old grudges. Alexandra calls Black Sky in. Black Sky holds a sword to Stick’s throat, while Alexandra holds one to his chest. She asks him again where Danny is. He refuses to answer, and tells her he won’t let Danny join her army. She says that she wants Danny for something else, and marvels that Stick doesn’t realize what the Iron Fist really is. Stick says he may not, but he knows what Alexandra is. Cue the super sacrificial heroics.
Stick uses head butts and kicks to get the two women away from him and grabs a sword. He slices off his own hand and escapes. I’m calling it now- Stick has had the solution and will regrow that hand eventually, plus he’ll never die and stay dead or relieve Daredevil of his annoying presence and toxic attitude. Some family members are like that.
Matt and Jessica settle into the police interrogation room to discuss her case. The room is very blue, with none of Matt’s red. Interesting. Jessica tries to figure out where he came from, and insists she won’t pay for an expensive lawyer sent by Hogarth. Matt assures her that he’s independent and won’t charge her, though he was referred by a friend who works for Hogarth (Foggy!).
She continues to be defensive. Matt lets her know that she’s not being charged, but will need to be available for questioning. Then he gets personal. He knows who she is, and her story. If she needs any legal help, or there’s anything *unusual* about this case that Daredevil he could help with, he’s there for her. She won’t even consider his offer or him.
Claire finds Luke in her kitchen, angsting over leaving Cole behind after he got arrested. Claire reminds him that he’s supposed to be staying out of prison. Then she notices that his bullet-proof self has been damaged, and he tells her about his encounter with the skinny white kid with the glowing fist. Claire, being the intelligent woman that she is, realizes that he’s talking about Danny Rand. She arranges a meeting. This should be fun.
Once they meet at the dojo, the two boys glare at each other, and pout about who started the fight. Colleen and Claire sigh at them for being children.
Danny and Colleen explain about K’un-Lun, the Immortal Iron Fist, and their battle with the Hand, but Luke is too grounded to immediately buy into mystical explanations. Danny points out that Luke is bulletproof, and that’s not exactly normal. Luke knows how that happened, so it’s different in his mind. Colleen and Claire leave the boys alone to talk things through.
Jessica meets with Michelle Raymond, the architect’s wife, again. Jessica wants to continue her investigation. Michelle insists that her husband wasn’t into anything strange and he wasn’t suicidal. Jessica thinks that he was being targeted by someone.
When Jessica leaves, she realizes that she’s being followed through the city streets by Matt. She loses him in the crowd, then doubles back to follow him. He takes a side alley, then climbs fire escapes and crates up to the roof to try to find her again. Jessica thinks he’s pretending to be blind. She takes photos of him climbing.
She has to give up her surveillance when she gets a phone call inviting her to a meeting.
Danny and Luke have settled in a bit. They are talking civilly, but a bit cryptically. Luke flat out denies that Danny could have fought a dragon. They discover that they each want to help, but disagree on the methods. Luke has a major chip on his shoulder about people with money. He thinks that Danny should have been using his money to change the world when he was a small child, and a hostage in K’un-Lun for 15 years. Luke isn’t much of a listener, or for using logic. Danny isn’t either, so maybe they’ll get along eventually.
Luke tells Danny that Cole was just trying to feed his family, so Danny should have gone easier on him. While I’m sympathetic to Cole’s situation, that argument could be used by everyone but the worst supervillains.
That being said, Danny is a hot head who tends to punch first and ask questions later. He could stand to slow down and think things through more often, as will become clear later in the episode.
Luke walks out on the meeting, because he’s decided that he knows everything about “privileged” people: they are all selfish and terrible. “Privilege” is a word I’ve grown to hate. It’s used as a stereotype, and is used to silence and dismiss people, just like any other stereotype.
Luke goes to visit Cole in prison. Luke wants to know what kind of deal the DA is offering and says he knows a lawyer (Foggy!). He tries to get Cole to tell him what happened in the weaponry workshop, and who he was working for. Cole tells him that he’s asking too many questions, because they’re being watched. There is no deal, because there were dead bodies there, and the people he was working for are “next level dangerous.”
Luke answers, “So am I.” He’s gotten so used to being the strongest guy in the room and virtually unkillable that he thinks he can take on anyone and win. It’s made him overconfident and a bit of a bully, a phase superheroes often have to go through before they realize that they can be beaten.
Cole tells Luke that if he wants to help, he should take Cole’s mom some lottery tickets. Cole gives him very specific instructions. Luke says he wishes Cole would trust him, and Cole says he does.
Luke is the one who’s naive here. He’s not willing to believe the extent of the threat they’re facing, no matter how many people warn him.
Meanwhile, Danny is reflecting on what Luke said, and trying to figure out if there’s a way to use his connections and influence to get to the Hand. His money actually won’t help, because the Hand is ridiculously wealthy.
Danny and Colleen meet with an accountant at Rand Enterprises. They talk about Ward, but he’s out of town on business. 😟 The employee analyzes Rand’s business dealings from the past year according to the parameters Danny and Colleen give her, and they figure out where the Hand’s headquarters in NYC must be.
Jessica goes to a meeting at the firm where John Raymond worked. She meets with an architect and pretends to be a potential client. He shows her the last building that John worked on, the Midland Circle building in Hell’s Kitchen.
Luke brings lottery tickets to Cole’s mom, Delores, who’s the woman who Luke saved during the earthquake. She keeps the tickets in a box on a high shelf. Cole usually gets the box down for her, so Luke does it instead. There’s a wad of cash inside with a parking receipt from Midland Circle wrapped around it.
Just then, Delores gets a call telling her that Cole has died in his cell. All three of her children have died now. Luke holds her as she collapses in despair.
Danny dresses up in his big boy suit and goes to storm the Midland Circle castle, alone, without any back up. 🤦🏻♀️ 🤦🏻♀️ He announces himself at the front desk and is led to the top floor of the giant sky scraper, then into a full boardroom, where he promptly begins a hero monologue. 🤦🏻♀️ 🤦🏻♀️
Alexandra walks in, just as he’s threatening them with revenge for everything they’ve done to him and his family. She gives him a backhanded compliment (her specialty) and invites him to continue. He tells them that he’ll expose all of their crimes, and they won’t be able to hide anymore. He is The Immortal Iron Fist, Weapon of K’un-Lun.
Alexandra asks if it looks like they’re hiding, and just how is K’un-Lun doing these days? (At the end of season 1 of Iron Fist, K’un-Lun had been attacked and disappeared, leaving Danny stranded in the world.)
Danny tells Alexandra that the Hand will lose everything, just like he did. She says that he hasn’t lost everything, not yet. One of her minions holds a gun to Danny’s head. He quickly snaps around, takes it from her, and holds her captive.
Jessica arrives in the lobby of the building, quickly followed by Matt, her shadow, who has some idea of what this building is from his previous dealings with the Hand. He tries to convince her to leave, but she won’t, and wonders how a blind guy moves like he does.
She tells him she took pictures of him climbing to the rooftop to look for her. Her grabs her camera out of her purse and smashes it. They continue their lovers’ quarrel until Matt hears the fighting upstairs, then both take off for the penthouse. Matt grabs Jessica’s scarf to disguise his face.
Alexandra explains that she’s always killed the Iron Fists she’s run into before, but she wants Danny alive. Then everyone in the boardroom attacks. Just as things get a little tough, Luke bursts in and starts punching. Danny points out the irony of this.
Matt and Jessica get to the top just as Danny and Luke bust out into the hall. Everyone says their hellos, then Elektra joins the party, along with the rando goons.
Elektra hones right in on Matt. There’s some definite fighting in lieu of make up sex. Then Danny wrecks her sword with his fist, and sends her through a wall. The Defenders escape in the elevator, and Matt asks, “Who are you people? And why did you break up my reunion with my dead girlfriend?”
Jessica is so totally Matt’s type that Metamaiden has been shipping them since episode 1, and was melting into a puddle on the floor during the police station scene. Courtship through misunderstandings and verbal and physical sparring has already begun. I ship Jessica with Luke and Claire with Matt, but if we have to swap partners, I could live with this pairing. They are awfully cute together. I still think Claire and Matt bring out the best in each other, as do Luke and Jessica. Look at how excited Jessica was to see Luke at the end.
The only person Elektra brings out the best in is Stick. And possibly Alexandra. She brings out the obsessive, suicidal, survivor’s guilt-ridden basket case in Matt.
Krysten Ritter gets to pretend to be a hilarious obnoxious hipster millennial, who’s not just on the cutting edge, she is the cutting edge.
After his escape, Stick showed up at the dojo looking for the Fist, and then we didn’t see any more of him or Colleen. Hope Colleen gets a cool new sword as a thank you for the first aid.
Metawitches 
You must be logged in to post a comment.