Marvel’s Iron Fist (Netflix)

[Silver Nemesis]

The outfit that's most well known from his comics is... well, it looks strange, put it that way.

True, but I think they could make it work. If they were to translate the original Bronze Age costume into live action, complete with oversized collar and pumps...

...then yeah, that would look silly. But there have been revised designs in more recent comics that could work quite well. This one, for instance:

The TV series has already established that previous Iron Fists wore the costume, and now season 2 will show Danny himself wearing the mask in K'un-Lun. The season 2 pic showing Danny concealing his face, combined with the plot point about him taking over Daredevil's role as protector of New York, suggest Iron Fist now has a legitimate reason to conceal his true identity. All they need do is combine the historical Iron Fist costume we glimpsed in season 1 with Danny's outfit from the final scene of The Defenders...

...and the result would look something like this. Perfect.

If they did this, the show would instantly become more visually appealing, the fans would stop complaining about the lack of costume, and the stunt team would be able to bring in an experienced martial artist to double for Finn Jones, which would result in more impressive fight scenes. Most people seem to love Daredevil's black 'vigilante' costume, which really isn't all that dissimilar from the classic Iron Fist outfit.

At this stage, I can't think of a compelling reason not to just use the costume. It should never have been a point of controversy in the first place, and further fan backlash could easily be avoided if they just did it. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it wouldn't work. I'd just like to see them try.

I do wonder that Finn Jones doesn't regret taking this part sometimes though. The insane reaction to season 1 is probably the exactly opposite of what he needed heading into Defenders. And now all this costume stuff people keep dumping on him... I mean, people, he's not Tom Welling, he's willing to do it. But it's not really his call.

Ugh.

Fans...

I feel his frustration. He's said numerous times that he'd love to wear the costume. But as you say, it's not his call. Jones had been nothing but enthusiastic about the show since day one and you can tell he badly wants it to be a success.

I still haven't seen Luke Cage season 2, but I've heard a lot of positive things about Jones' guest appearance in it. The consensus online seems to be that they finally got the character right and that Danny is far more likeable than he was in IF season 1 or The Defenders. If they can keep that going, then season 2 should be an improvement. Based on the Comic-Con reports, it sounds like it has a lot of advantages over the first season:

•   New (better) showrunner
•   Better fight scenes
•   Better pacing from the reduced number of episodes
•   A stronger visual identity
•   A lead actor who's more comfortable in the title role
•   Better villains (Steel Serpent and Typhoid Mary)
•   The Daughters of the Dragon
•   The Iron Fist costume (fingers crossed)

I enjoyed the first season enough to give the second a chance. It's only six weeks away and I'm starting to look forward to it.

[Silver Nemesis]

[Silver Nemesis]

The episode titles for the second season have been revealed.

[thecolorsblend]

The use of store-front signs is kind of clever... and could suggest a bit of a comedown for Danny. Will he no longer be involved with Rand?

[Silver Nemesis]

I expect they'll downplay the boardroom drama after the way fans reacted to it in the first season. And with the reports of Danny taking over Daredevil's role as the protector of New York, that should leave us with a lot more gritty street-level action.

The use of restaurant signs in the marketing makes me hopeful that this time they'll capture some of the retro kung fu atmosphere that was missing from season 1.

[Silver Nemesis]

[Silver Nemesis]

Iron Fist has been officially cancelled after two seasons.

"Marvel's Iron Fist will not return for a third season on Netflix," said the Disney-owned comic giant and the streamer in a joint statement to Deadline today. "Everyone at Marvel Television and Netflix is proud of the series and grateful for all of the hard work from our incredible cast, crew and showrunners," Marvel and Netflix added. "We're thankful to the fans who have watched these two seasons, and for the partnership we've shared on this series. While the series on Netflix has ended, the immortal Iron Fist will live on."

https://deadline.com/2018/10/marvel-iron-fist-canceled-netflix-daredevil-disney-finn-jones-jessica-henwick-1202482048/

There are rumours the show might be retooled for Disney's new streaming service, or that Danny will return as a supporting character in Luke Cage season 3. But one thing's for sure – Iron Fist's Netflix series is over.

This is the first Marvel Netflix show to get the axe. It's a bit harsh that they're cancelling it barely a month after season 2's release date. It might have been more tactful to wait a while before making the announcement. I can't help feeling sorry for the cast and crew who worked so hard on the project. Finn Jones posted the following on Instagram:

I binge watched the second season the weekend it came out. I was going to post a review at the time, but never got around to it. Basically I thought it was better than season 1, but still deeply flawed. There are certain very obvious fixes they could have implemented to win back the fans, but for some reason the show's makers remained steadfastly averse to using them. They had two seasons to get it right (3 seasons if you count The Defenders, not to mention a guest appearance in Luke Cage season 2), so it's not as if the series was cut short before it had a chance to find its footing. The MCU Iron Fist appeared in 32 episodes altogether. That's not bad, all things considered. And the MCU is a big place, so I'm sure we'll be seeing these characters again at some point.

[thecolorsblend]

I regard this as bad news. It blows my mind that somehow Luke Cage makes the cut (I couldn't make it past the second episode of the first season) while Iron Fist gets dropped.

Oh well.

And it's not like Jones himself is out yet. He might have guest appearances and supporting roles. But considering what he's been through on this show combined with his solo show's cancellation, I doubt he'll stick around for the long haul.

Still, Marvel has launched and then cancelled Iron Fist comic books over the decades. So maybe there's a literary legacy which the MCU Iron Fist is living up to here.

[The Laughing Fish]

I watched the second season shortly after finishing up with Daredevil. I suppose it was a little bit better than the first season. I have to give it credit for the improvement of Danny Rand's dialogue, and he no longer spoke in this goofy, mystical zen speak like he did in Season 1. I always thought his dialogue was overdone, and felt out of place with the rest of the other heroes in Defenders, so I was glad they ditched it. It confirmed my suspicions all along about Finn Jones, it's not that he's bad as the critics made him out to be. The dialogue did him no favours.

I thought the standout actor was Alice Eve as Mary/Walker. She was terrific, as was her storyline with her borderline personality disorder. I did like the ending of episode five or six where she and Rand had Davos incapacitated, but then she turns back into innocent and confused Mary when it began to rain; resulting Davos premature defeat a missed opportunity.

I had some criticisms like Davos was defeated in the final episode way too early, and I didn't care for Joy Meachum's plot. For all the criticism Trish Walker gets for selfishness in Jessica Jones Season 2, I thought Joy was too irrational. At least Trish Walker suffering from addiction makes her behaviour understandable. But I suppose it would've been fun to see Joy's mistakes coming back to haunt her every time as Walker manipulates her for her own needs. But the show's cancellation means we'll never know.

Pity. Despite I was never a huge fan of the show, I still would've been keen to see a third season. Like Luke Cage, it ended with so much unresolved.

[thecolorsblend]

I watched the second season shortly after finishing up with Daredevil. I suppose it was a little bit better than the first season.

Same. I went on the record early on lamenting the show's cancellation.

Looking back at it now though, the show's cancellation wasn't an execution; it was a mercy killing. Notwithstanding whatever other factors might've been at play with cancelling Iron Fist, the simple fact of the matter is that the second season started off on pretty strong terms but the wheels came completely off the wagon by the season (and series) finale, which isn't so much a story of its own as an episode comprised of a bunch of different endings and conclusions.

Seriously, did any of you think Return Of The King ended too many times? Just watch this season finale of Iron Fist and get back to me.

But it's fair to say that somebody somewhere lost the point before the finale was written. Now, there are certain realities inherent to working in Hollywood. There always have been and there always will be. In today's world, women must be written in a particular way. All women have to be strong, career-minded and no good at cooking. You can fight against that all you want but that's how things are. If you won't write that way, either you lose the gig or else your work will be rewritten by someone else.

The impression one gets in watching this season is that women are malicious, capricious and should never be expected to apologize or even explain their actions. And those qualities should not be considered negative in any way.

Ward took one hell of a bullet in hiding his father's existence from Joy. It COST him something to keep that secret. Cost him a lot of things, actually.

Ward's pain and sacrifices were not all for naught either. The Rand Corporation was eventually freed from the toxic control of The Hand. So some legitimately good things did come from all that.

But Joy acknowledges and accepts precisely none of it. Because having girl parts means you're always right. She treats Ward like an enemy even though his actions may very well have saved her life. The narrative point of view here seems to be that Ward's most admirable actions come from accepting Joy's point of view of him as a major league SOB even though Joy does far more damage to him than he ever did to her.

Ward is no angel but he made the best of a horrible situation in the first season. His decisions usually have a logical or at least a sympathetic aspect to them while the best you can say for Joy is that she's reckless at best, utterly heartless and disloyal to her own family at the worst.

Danny probably takes a bigger hit than anybody from Joy. "Betrayal" doesn't even begin to cover it.

All this is bad enough but both Ward and Danny bear Joy absolutely no ill will... even though her actions at different times could have gotten Danny, Ward and even Joy herself killed by any number of people any number of times. Joy is right, Joy is beautiful, Joy is perfect, Joy is justified. Even Ward's confrontation with Joy is framed primarily as Ward taking responsibility for ever driving Joy to such drastic measures.

Frankly, I don't think Ward is the one who should be apologizing here.

Colleen's arc this season is overall better than Joy's, not least because she does put aside her family issues to help Danny. In the context of this season, that's probably the most noble decision any woman makes on this show. But even she makes idiotic decisions about interjecting herself in the Triad wars when, in fact, those groups killing each other off is probably for the best. Their actions seemed targeted against each other, avoiding civilians as much as possible. There are worse ways to solve the Triad problem in the city than stepping aside and allowing them to finish each other off.

Davos, for as big an SOB as he might be, ultimately just wanted to use the power of the Iron Fist to protect the city. His mode of doing so was killing the Triads himself. This shows some character growth on his part. He's always envied Danny for becoming the Iron Fist. Then he resented Danny for abandoning Kunlun in order to return to New York. He has contempt for Danny's decision to use the power of the Iron Fist to protect New York.

But Davos puts every single one of those things aside and arguably does Danny's job more effectively than Danny himself did. I'm not saying Davos was in the right. Just saying that Davos was achieving real results in eliminating the Triads while also beginning to offer the lost youth a better path than the crime, drugs and other toxic things that they were heading toward.

In a certain sense, he was the better Iron Fist, though far more brutal. Something tells me that Iron Fists of previous eras didn't allow would-be attackers of Kunlun to survive to tell the tale. Davos doesn't seem like a radical departure from tradition.

Mary/Walker is probably the most interesting element of the season. She's a truly flawed person, she was weaknesses, she does horrible things because she's ultimately trying like hell to escape from a hellish existence. Walker has basically no conscience whatsoever. Walker is the dark side of Mary. Walker does terrible things in order to allow Mary to have a clean conscience. Mary can live her life somewhat as a Pollyanna because Walker will always be there to make the hard decisions.

The fascinating part is that Walker sees her own redemption in Mary's purity while Mary is fully aware of Walker's dark deeds. Neither side is completely pure... but neither side is completely evil either. Mary/Walker probably symbolizes the balance of yin-yang more than any other character. Truly fascinating and this season uses her well. It would've been interesting to see her return for future seasons. In fact, at the rate we're going she may have been the only interesting part of future seasons.

Overall, the season had some good moments and it's worth a watch. But after this season, I honestly have a hard time imaging how I would ever give a crap about a third season of the show.

Daredevil ended arguably on its best note ever, mostly unaffected by modern sexual politics. Iron Fist is ending on an undeniable low note, hopelessly crippled by those same politics. It's sad. Iron Fist always had a ton of potential, arguably second only to Daredevil. It deserved better.

And so did we viewers.