Review of Iron Fist Season Two [SPOILERS]

in comics •  6 years ago  (edited)

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First off, this will not be an in-depth review of the second season of Iron Fist. As I watched the second season, I made some notes about some of the thoughts going through my mind. There will certainly be spoilers. I did not enjoy season one of the series, and neither did most people. I was dreading another Rosario Dawson appearance. Her character "jumped the shark" for me in season one of Iron Fist when after a few days/weeks/months of training she was able to go toe-to-toe with highly trained ninjas. And after the continuation of the poor acting job by Finn Jones in Defenders, I did not hold out much hope for season two. However, the appearance of Iron Fist in the second season of Luke Cage gave me a glimmer of hope. Unlike most people, I prefer the solo Iron Fist, as in the Immortal Iron Fist series by Matt Fraction, over the Power Man and Iron Fist team-up. But for TV, it looks like the team-up makes the character stronger. It was also not a good sign that even though I have watched every other Marvel Netflix series at least once, and some seasons three times, Netflix never bothered to advertise to me in my queue that the new season was about to start. It seems to me that Netflix has lost all faith in the series as well.

Episode 01 - Fury of the Iron Fist

We finally have a respectable fight scene out of Finn Jones. Clearly he is not a strong martial artist, but I at least felt like he had put in some time training after the first season. In season one, I felt like he was practicing Tai-Chi and not Kung-Fu.
In episode one, we are introduced to Mary. Those who were spoiled in advance knew right away this was supposed to be Typhoid Mary. I was not impressed by here first scene. I really felt like she was playing the character as Harley Quinn.
Overall, the first episode, really the first several, were slow moving. But, I felt like it was an improvement over season one.

Episode 02 - The City's Not For Burning

One thing I did differently this season was read the episode titles before I watched the episode. I thought we would get to see Typhoid Mary's powers at work in episode two. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
For whatever reason, Danny is clearly hitting on Mary, even though his is supposed to be madly in love with Colleen. This really seemed off to me. Danny is sometimes a womanizer in the #comics, but this version of the character was not being played that way.
Again, we get a few decent fight sequences, and they finally introduce the Iron Fist mask. However, both Danny and Davos are wearing the same mask in their flashback fight sequence, and the masks look terrible.

Episode 03 - This Deadly Secret

The episodes are still moving along slowly, but still better than the first season.
We learn Joy Meachum is bankrolling Mary to spy on Mary and that Mary is in fact the mysterious Walker we have been hearing about.(No real surprise)
And, we get Danny in a mask again, but this time, the mask covers the lower half of his face. WHY? If he is going to wear a mask, let him wear his traditional mask.

Episode 04 - Target Iron Fist

In this episode, Mary finally starts to feel like a legitimate threat; Still no powers, though.
Hooray, we get an appearance from Misty Knight. My first thought on seeing her show up was that maybe we will not have to put of with Claire any this season. I also like the idea of getting the Daughters of the Dragon together. Also in this episode we see Davos remove the tattoo from a deceased Iron Fist. This harkens back to the Matt Fraction Immortal Iron Fist series establishing the legacy of the Iron Fist.

Episode 05 - Heart of the Dragon

We get Davos in a mask, but he is wearing yellow mask. Not sure why they could not put him in a green or purple mask, but they chose to use the same color. It was just a little thing, but it bugged me.
Davos manages to steal the power of the Iron Fist from Danny. At this point, I am starting to think they can give the Iron Fist power to someone else and write Finn Jones out of the series. I would be OK with that. He has been better in season two so far, but still not up to the level of any of the other title characters from the other series.
I also noticed my first Easter Egg in this episode. The police call for a super-powered individual is 616, which is of course the area code for New York, and the main Marvel Universe is often referred to as the Marvel-616.

Episode 06 - The Dragon Dies At Dawn

Surprise, surprise, Mary replaces Walker an inopportune moment. I am sure nobody saw that coming.
Davos immediately shows he is more adept with the Iron Fist as he is able to go two-fisted.
I was really glad to see Misty Knight stick around. Her and Colleen together are a pretty solid pair. I really feel like Simone Missick brought out a better performance from Jessica Henwick.
The fight scenes with the Daughters of the Dragon and Typhoid Mary are much better than any of the Iron Fist fight scenes.

Episode 07 - Morning of the Mindstorm

Not much to say about this episode other than the fact the Colleen is training Danny? Really? Danny has been training in K'un L'un but Colleen is wiping the floor with him. I know he is injured, but this was a big stretch in my mind.

Episode 08 - Citadel on the Edge of Vengeance

Ok, Colleen still training Danny. You already know what I think about that.
Danny suggests that when they take back the Iron Fist that she should have it instead of him. I would be 100% OK with that.

Episode 09 - War Without End

So, season three of Iron Fist could be all about the Daughters of the Dragon. This would almost certainly be better than what we have so far, and the best parts of season two do not include Danny.
Still no powers from Mary. :( She is basically just a female Punisher in this story.
We do get a nice Turk appearance. I like seeing Turk throughout the Marvel Netflix series.
OK, they are still talking about Colleen getting the Iron Fist. At this point I was suspecting that they were going to have to kill her off to force Danny to take the power back, but I was still holding out hope to see Colleen with the Iron Fist. I was a bit surprised to see Colleen with the Iron Fist at the end of the episode. I immediately wondered how long that would last.

Episode 10 - A Duel of Iron

And Colleen's fist is gone, so literally about 30 seconds of screen time. However, by the end of the episode Colleen ends up with the power of the Iron Fist. I was more than a bit surprised.
We also learned that Mary has a third personality. Since we never saw the powered Typhoid Mary in this series, maybe this third personality is the powered version of the character.
Then I realized, that this season of Iron Fist was only ten episodes.
At the end of episode ten we get a bit of an epilogue where we see Danny again has the power of the Iron Fist, and he is able to channel the power into guns, ala Orson Randall in Matt Fraction's series. We also know that Danny was out searching for Orson Randall as well. I am all for adapting portions of the Matt Fraction written #comics to the Netflix series, but doing so might further distance those expecting a good Kung Fu series. But there is some hope for season three.
We also get our first post-credits scene in a Marvel Netflix series with a teaser for the quickly upcoming third season of Daredevil. I guess Netflix knew in advance that Iron Fist was not going to be enough to tide over the Marvel fan for very long.

Conclusion

While season two of Iron Fist was very mediocre, it was still an improvement over the first season. If they focus less on Finn Jones and more on the Daughters of the Dragon, or recast Danny Rand, then there is some hope for season three. Overall, I grade season two of Iron Fist as Very Good (4.0). For those unfamiliar with the comic grading scale, that is a scale up to 10, so not really very good. :) And if you would like to hear more about season two of Netflix, subscribe to our podcast Campus Comics Cast on your favorite app. We will be discussing this season in an upcoming episode.

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Obviously in episode two The City's Not For Burning I knew you expected to see Typhoid Mary's power and obviously they kept people in suspense for even more episode, because people really were expecting it and that's what I loved, the unpredictablity is thrilling and I guess that's why it was named the city's not burning obviously a round about way of saying hey we're not revealing her powers yet but that's entirely my opinion really.
Amazing spoilers by the way.

I am hoping that when they reveal Mary's 3rd, currently unknown personality that was discussed in the later episodes of the series, it is revealed this is the character that has the powers. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Thanks for sharing your review! You mentioned Rosario Dawson whom I like quite a bit in the movies. She has some qualities of independence, sometimes darkness, she might be fierce at times but always has integrity.

I like Rosario Dawson in most of the roles she has played, and I think she is an outstanding actress. However, in season one of Iron Fist where she was able to go toe-to-toe with ninjas after only brief training and then in season two of Cage she was around only to whine about Luke using too much violence. I blame the writers for using her poorly, and not Rosario Dawson.

I just recently finished Iron fist season 2 and I have to a agree it was rather mediocre. I'm not too familiar with the content of iron fist so to me its all-new concepts but I felt like nothing was on the line in this season, the story didn't offer me much or further my interest in the origin of the iron fist

I also wasn't a fan of how quickly people just master the ability of the iron fist. I mean Danny could bearly use it once and he'd be drained now anyone can just pull it out on a whim. I'd be fine if you explained to me that they have better control over their chi or had better training but everyone was just iron fisting left right and centre

I did like the addition of Mary she brought with a different dynamic but as you said was awfully harely quin in a way.

Overall I was disappointed! The last Marvel series I enjoyed was the punisher. Hopefully its set right again with the series that started it all, Daredevil!

Yes, after Daredevil season 2, Punisher has been my favorite of the Marvel Netflix seasons. Daredevil season 3 will hopefully be as good as the first two. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Hey @burgcomics thank you for sharing your review of "Iron Fist 2". I never heard about that comic until two years ago when I watched the First season of "Iron First", that was really interesting, I love all mystical stuff as well as a secret societies with their holy aim and warriors. That was a real adventure. But after that I actually never had enough time and lost the track, that is why it was nice to see your post and I immediately read it. Was nice to read that there is a bit more about Daughters of the Dragon and also was nice to learn that the season three is approaching too.

Cheers from art-supporting blog @art-venture
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  ·  6 years ago (edited)

When I heard Iron Fist, I could remember, I'd seen this before!

I could as well remember our President here in our country during his candidacy, he used to stretch his right hand and show his fist to the people before and after he made a talk. It represents I guess on how dedicated he is in serving the people with strong and will power.

I thought comics will be gone in the next 10 years when I was in college. It didn't happen. It shows that there's something to it more valuable and entertaining. It grows, not dying.

I have a nephew 20 years old who really love comics.
By the way, how old are you Burg?
Are you a kid? lol

I like your review buddy!

Nope, not a kid. I purchased my first comic off of a spinner rack at a local grocery store in 1977. Thanks for the comment.

You're very much welcome Burg!

I purchased my first comic off of a spinner rack at a local grocery store in 1977.

1977?
I was born 1976!
How old are you then now?

I have a few years on you.

Thanks for letting me know Burg!
I guess you have plenty of kids now.

Its very enjoyable playing with kids, especially the little ones. It adds life and happiness.

Congratulations @burgcomics!
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I did not enjoy season one of the series, and neither did most people

I was one of them who watched first 2 episodes of session 1 and decided to stop.

Out of curiousity, did you write down your thought after watched each episode? or you finished all episodes only you started your review. Your summary review of each Episode was good and it explained what the Episodes tried to delivered. So, after your reviewed @burgcomics, I decided to give session 2 another try. Hope I can finished the whole series this round. Oh it not spoiler at all. It did help to promote this session 2 to who have an bad impression after watched the first session.

I was primarily writing down my thoughts as I was watching. Of course, I added to my thoughts after the fact as well. My advice to get you through the seasons is to focus less on Iron Fist, and more on the supporting cast.