1x06 Immortal Emerges from Cave

[7.4/10] I think we’ve found the formula for a good, if not necessarily great, episode of Iron Fist. First, keep it simple -- come up with a straightforward through-line for the episode that you can hang the rest of the plot on rather than jumping from random scene to random scene. Second, keep Danny’s dialogue to a minimum and when forced to have him speak, keep it basic and almost generic, where he doesn’t have to try to convey complicated emotions. And third, have RZA direct.

Alright, that third one may not be a sustainable choice for a TV show, but still. For an episode as action-packed as this one was, having a guy behind the camera who’s directed his share of kung fu stories and knows how to frame it was a real boon. Even the cold open, which featured the four warriors Danny would have to face in his little gauntlet of doom, had more visual care in introducing those baddies than Iron Fist has shown in its previous five episodes.

It also gains strength from the simplicity of that story. For once on this show, the goal is simple, the stakes are clear, and the emotional element to the proceedings is comprehensible, if not necessarily poignant. Danny is fighting in a battle royale against The Hand’s chosen champions. He’s doing it to rescue the synthetic heroin-maker’s daughter. And the entire time he’s fighting, he’s seeing visions of his old master telling him to be strong, confident, and fulfill his mission.

Is that the most avant garde or novel storyline there’s ever been in a superhero story? Certainly not. But it’s a story on a level that this show can handle and progress through without devolving into nonsense or character work it’s not really equipped for.

What it is equipped for, especially with RZA holding court on set, is to throw out a bunch of video game-style pugilistic action. Sure, some of it is a little silly or inconsistent, but each “round” of the duel has a purpose and a theme, and that gives the episode direction. Again, this is not groundbreaking stuff -- in fact, it’s pretty rudimentary -- but it matches the show’s weight class, and tying it to Danny making peace with the lessons he was taught in Kunlun is a nice choice to boot.

The fight with the pair of Eastern European guys was probably the weakest of the three. For one thing, the whole “don’t step outside the circle” bit was kind of odd. But it and the blood circle fit with the level of camp this episode was embracing. They didn’t seem to obey that rule too closely (I’m pretty sure one of the guys landed on a box that was clearly outside the circle) but RZA gave us lots of different angles of the fight, and the back-and-forth of it was done nicely.

The strangest was probably Danny’s fight with the sexy spider lady. It was an interesting misdirect, and added some variety to what could have been just a series of beat-em-ups with goons. That’s another element that helped out this episode -- it’s a little Mortal Kombat, but each fighter at least had a distinct identity (and a distinct arena) which gave the battles flavor. Sure, the spider lady was a pretty exploitative character, but between her lascivious style and her poison-tipped attack, it gave her a unique vibe that distinguished her from the other folks Danny has faced.
The last guy Danny faces is probably the most generic, but he gets the best introduction of any of the fighters in the cold open (singing karaoke after having taken down a room full of opponents) so I’m willing to cut him some slack. It doesn’t hurt that he and Danny have the best fight of the three, replete with interesting weapons, multiple settings where the environment becomes a part of the fight, and an intensity that carries the day.

The surprise, of course, is Madame Gao, who continues to be one of the most mysterious, intriguing, and badass characters in the Defenders sub-universe. The way she cagily interrogates Danny about his presence in New York, threatens the daughter and laughs out “what do I care about honor?”, and sends Danny reeling with the flick of her wrist are all intriguing finishing flourishes to Danny’s Street Fighter-style battles.

Of course they all tie in to the heavily-underlined theme of the episode of not giving into doubt, and plunging ahead unthinkingly, and the dangers of that sort of path. On the one hand, it makes Danny an unstoppable weapon; it makes Ward a lion in the boardroom, and it makes Colleen a strong fighter when she unleashes it. But it also damages each of them, or leads them astray.

When he see Danny conversing with the image of his old master, he’s taught a single-minded focus, to let go of the connections to his old life and the world and focus on beating his enemy. But beating his enemy means losing an innocent life, and Danny can’t let go, despite his master’s (real or imagined?) disapprobation.

By the same token, Ward is on all sorts of pain pills to cope with the father who demands the same sort of single-minded focus and the life that leads to, and his drug-seeking behavior after Joy figures him out is disturbing in the lengths he’s willing to go to in order to get what his body tells him he needs. The way the normally exquisitely-groomed Ward looks disheveled and out of sorts is a nice dramatization of that.

And even Colleen, who enlists Claire to help her with the heroin-maker, finds herself fighting off a series of Hand or Rand-influenced orderlies only to realize that their companion has been taken out from under their noses. The argument over whether to take him to the hospital is a little forced, but it’s a nice enough side dish to the main event with Danny.

That main event serves as one of the best story engines Iron Fist has been able to offer so far. Again, it has more in common with 90s arcade games than prestige television, but between the clear progression of the story and RZA’s superb action direction, it comes together as a very nice bit of pulp.