1x03 Worst Behavior

[8.0/10] One becomes two, two becomes four, four get into an epic hallway battle. So goes The Defenders, as we reach our big team up beat-em-up moment. I have to once again compliment the season-long pacing, as the show reestablishes the characters independently, establishes them as duos, and only then brings them together as one big, happy, bad guy punching family.

But before it gets there (or to the opening credits) it gives a little series of vignettes on how Elektra became The Black Sky. It’s a pretty standard slow burn training montage kind of thing, but it has a lot of evocative imagery that makes it work. The image of Elektra’s bloody hand emerging from the sarcophagus, her baffled feral person slipping in a puddle of blood on the ground, the soothing but forceful struggles with Alexandra who goes from pugilistic to calming nicely.

This is where I’ll admit that I’m a fan of Sigourney Weavers, but I’m not loving her in this. There’s something kind of stilted and unnatural about a lot of her delivery, and while I suspect she’s going for a certain superior aloofness, and the writing for her character isn’t great (ugh that Constantinople line) it only really works when she’s calling Danny Rand on his bullshit, which everyone looks great doing. Still, Elektra had the same problem and The Defenders has the good sense to mostly keep her quiet, expressing her character’s journey through candle-ringed ninja fights and well framed action. It’s a nice choice that give us some backstory and makes her The Hand’s yin to The Iron Fist’s yang.

But Danny gets another foil here, this one more directed at his personality and position, in the form of Luke Cage. Again, the plotting so far has been solid, as the episode doesn’t beat around the bush but instead has Claire organically figure out the connection between Luke and the guy who punched him and bring them together. There’s a certain retrograde “oh you boys” quality to Claire and Colleen leaving the two guys to hash things out, but it provides one of the most interesting scenes in the episode, to I’m willing to excuse it a bit.

That scene comes when Luke and Danny disagree with one another’s perspective with regard to Cole, the young man who Luke was trying to protect and Danny was trying to strongarm for information. What I like about the scene is that while I tend to side with Luke (and lord knows Danny is just the worst), the show gives both characters good reasons to feel the way they do about this. Danny knows that The Hand can’t just be bought off; he has resentments for these people since they killed his parents, and that taints anyone who would associate with them in his eyes, or at least makes them a means to an end to cut out the cancer that’s plaguing New York City.

Luke, just as understandably, doesn’t see it as a mystical warrior (and Luke’s chagrin at hearing about dragons and chi is well-played by Mike Colter) out for justice. He sees it as a privileged white boy beating up a good kid wrapped up in something bad who ends up in jail while Danny gets to continue on his one-man crusade (give or take Colleen). Look, I’ve thought Danny is kind of a dweeb, to say the least, for a long time for it’s easy for me to side with Luke here, but I appreciate the way the show dramatizes his feelings about what Danny’s doing, and gives Danny good reason to approach this the way he does. It’s a good outing for the fated series of personality clashes.

It works with the other half of The Defenders equation as well. I get a big kick out of Daredevil and Jessica Jones playing cat and mouse with one another. As Mrs. Bloom observed, Matt and Jessica make pretty great foils for one another too, with the caustic sarcasm of Jessica blending nicely with the martyr-y do-gooderness of Matt to create some real sparks. We don’t get that much of the two of them here, but Matt being able to track Jess to the bad guy hideout, Jessica being able to figure out that Matt isn’t what he seems, and the contrast between Matt borrowing Jessica’s scarf (with amusing repartee about it) and parkouring his way to the top of the building while Jessica just takes the elevator is brilliant.

Again, in terms of plotting, the episode parcels out good reasons for all our heroes to make to the Midland Circle building. Luke finds Cole’s money box with the name on it. Jessica uses her P.I. skills to ferret it out from an architect. Matt follows J-Jo with his super-hearing. And Danny uses his corporate connections to figure out who they are and, idiot that he is, just walks in and declares that the jig is up, much to Alexandra’s amusement. (Again, he really is an idiot, though I like the idea that Alexandra wants him alive since he’s the key to the mystic wall thing.)

So we get our big fight, and while it doesn’t match the best hallway fight of the Defender-verse we’ve already seen, it’s still cool to see our heroes actually teaming up to take on the bad guys. Iron Fist hiding behind Luke to stay safe from bullets, Jessica and Matt walking down the hall when Luke just bursts through a wall, Matt going toe-to-toe with Evilektra -- it’s all well-done with the right “the gang’s all here” note to go out on.

The Defenders has pretty well mastered the escalation game over it’s first three episodes. It’s planted seeds for the conflicts, provided convincing reasons for our heroes to coalesce, and hinted at the bigger badder stuff that is progressing on the periphery (I forgot to mention Stick’s badass, handchopping escape!). It’s been a stellar build so far. Let’s see if The Defenders can pay it off now that all the pieces are where they need to be on the board.

And here it is. And it's better than expected.

The duos parts work great. Nice Luke/Danny cockfight. And Jessica/Matt really click. Jessica being her usual asshole to lawyer Matt that comes to help. And him instantly breaking her camera when she said she had pictures. (Though seriously, letting himself be seen like this ?)

And more importantly the final encounter, in the end they don't all meet through Claire, but just end up in the same place by following their own enemies. What could be better for a great but temporary alliance ?

Apart from that, the separate storylines of each pretty much follow their separate show style. What will prevail now that they met ?

A nice fight. Well, pretty convenient that guns only arrive when Luke is here and not when Danny is alone. And this "Something is coming" moment from Matt ? Perfect. And his fight... it was already seen in Iron Fist, but how come he fight so much better than Danny ? He doesn't recognize her there, and the way he reacts, she's definitely not human anymore.

As for the Hand, well, they got Elektra, we already knew that. And it's really nicely pictured (though I really didn't buy the Weaver's fighting part). The training a little less so. Suspicion confirmed, Alexandra has known Constantinople. She's pretty old.

Interesting that Danny goes to fight them on the corporate side, and none of those who are there deny it nor are surprised, and they're all fighters. So we're past the corporate front. Are these people Gao level executives ?