Except no one is saying that this is the worst show ever.
Very little in the show is subtle. The callbacks don't really explain any of the set up and don't even line up with some of the stuff that was established.
Like how Bakuto mentions Madame Gao blinding her disciples. Except Gao said in Daredevil that her followers blinded themselves because they had faith.
There was also that scene in Daredevil where Gao said that she was going to her homeland, which was a considerable distance from China. But then they reveal that she was banished from K'un Lun, so where was she going?
The treatment of Black Sky is not consistent with what was established. In Daredevil season 1, Nobu had a map of the city and the word "Black Sky" written over the property where they dug the hole, suggesting that Black Sky was somehow related to the hole. In Daredevil season 2, Nobu wanted to make Elektra the leader of the Hand. Not to mention how the first Black Sky they tried to acquire was a little kid.
Nobu needed Fisk's help to acquire that property. But then they reveal in Defenders that the Hand has always had big corporations operating in New York, with Alexandra transferring assets between them.
In Daredevil season 2, Claire mentions that the kidnapped kids didn't just have their blood drained, but that an unknown substance had replaced the blood and that it seemed like the kids were being used to incubate it. They never explained that.
Also, the showrunner actually admitted in an interview that they were just making stuff up as they went along. He also made a bafflingly idiotic comment about how Gao was using "the substance."
That dragon skeleton — that wasn’t Shou-Lao the Undying’s, is it? It’s just a pile of bones implying that there had been dragons all over the world and one wound up buried under New York? Yeah, it’s the second one. The idea of that was that there had always been this kind of mystery that the Hand can bring people back from the dead, but we never knew exactly how, and it made sense to connect the life-force idea of the chi in the Iron Fist to the idea of the life force [the Hand members] use for various purposes, so we’re just saying it’s dragon bone that they use, that that’s the substance. That felt like the cleanest way to tie everything in.
And it’s been set up since Daredevil season 1; Gao operates in the background of New York with drugs made from that ground into powder.
So according to the Defenders showrunner, Madame Gao was wasting the very limited quantity of the precious substance she needs to stay alive, by grinding it up and putting it into the heroin she's selling. How does that make any sense?
Very little is subtle ... so things that don't seem easily explained are not examples of subtlety?
o.O
This is the kicker, all those inconsistencies are readily acceptable when its considered that we are dealing with mystical ninjas that partake in dark arts. That's almost the very definition of a wizard did it. Seeking consistency out of the ether that is the dark fog of war surrounding such a purposefully obscure set of power brokers as The Hand is a lesson in futility. They are by their very purpose meant to be unknowable and what few clues we pick up, we have to by inference try to decipher if its laced with misinformation. Deception, assassination, spying, and espionage where they would be fools if they had a perfect trust between their cells is The Hand's bread and butter - why should they be written as being anything other than spotty as to their true purpose and methods, they would be terrible demonic ninjas then! Whose real crime is not using more dark settings for their fights in addition to judicious use of smoke bombs and gust of wind ruffled curtains!
Pointing at that and proclaiming "terrible writing, just inconsistent improvisations all through" misses the point of what makes the bloody bastards such a challenge to begin with - they won't be true to themselves, much less allies and their enemies, The Defenders, and so are unreliable narrators for even us, the audience. Its why I insist on keep calling The Hand "shadowy", we were never supposed to get the full details on them and instead let our dark imaginations loose instead. Now hopefully never will know their remaining details laying deep under New York with the exception of maybe Gao and Elektra escaping along with Matt to wherever the hell they are.
Given the reception here for The Hand being so lost on so many posting, I'm hoping the next set of big bads is full on the opposite of subtle just to hammer the point home, like a day time city wide invasion from the makers of The Purple Man while the Avengers are visiting another planet or something while The Kingpin's less direct approach relaxes in Club Fed. Stan Lee forbid the audience not have its Hand held, yeesh.
Someone is not being subtle when they outright lie for no reason.
Also, I don't know what show you were watching, but the Hand sucked at "deception, assassination, spying, and espionage" in Defenders.
The Defenders figured out their plan quite easily. They failed to follow up on their threats about going after the Defenders' loved ones. They didn't know who Daredevil was even after seeing Matt Murdock's face, having security camera footage of Matt with Jessica in Midland Circle, and previously having attacked all the people associated with Daredevil, so they must suck at spying and espionage.
That's obtuse, Defenders is just the 4th and possibly/hopefully the final act of the saga of The Hand's endeavors as our Big Bad Guy. Would you rather our Defenders fail in the end to prove that The Hand were effective at deception, assassination, spying, and espionage in the past?
That's obtuse, Defenders is just the 4th and possibly/hopefully the final act of the saga of The Hand's endeavors as our Big Bad Guy. Would you rather our Defenders fail in the end to prove that The Hand were effective at deception, assassination, spying, and espionage in the past?
I for one found the Hand a bit underwhelming as the big bad guy here. I would have preferred if they had played up the internal disagreement between the five leaders. Internal strife would be a good justification for rendering the Hand unable to deal with the Defenders at full efficiency without breaking the illusion that they are masters of deception, assassination, and espionage. They'd just use these talents to undermine one another. Then in the end have Madame Gao walk off with a piece of dragon bone with a smug smirk on her face. Something like this would help me believe that the Hand was indeed a terrifying threat, and that it took a lot of courage for the Defenders to face them, and in the end they still only won because the Hand was also rotting on the inside. Instead, I was left thinking that these guys sure seem incompetent to be a centuries old global espionage organization.
That's obtuse, Defenders is just the 4th and possibly/hopefully the final act of the saga of The Hand's endeavors as our Big Bad Guy. Would you rather our Defenders fail in the end to prove that The Hand were effective at deception, assassination, spying, and espionage in the past?
Wanting the villains to be smarter does not mean wanting the villains to win. How about you make both sides smarter? Instead of having the heroes win because the villains were crap. Make it so that the villains were smart, powerful, dangerous, but the heroes still win by being more resourceful, clever, and tenacious.
Hans Gruber is smart, competent, almost overwhelming, but the hero has grit and determination plus a bit of luck on his side.
The Defenders Hand are fucking worthless idiots.
They could even have looked much closer for a suitably dramatic example. Kilgrave was arguably smarter than Jessica Jones, and much much more powerful than her, the scariest villain I've seen in these shows, but Jessica prevailed and it felt earned.
Hans Gruber is smart, competent, almost overwhelming, but the hero has grit and determination plus a bit of luck on his side.
The Defenders Hand are fucking worthless idiots.
They could even have looked much closer for a suitably dramatic example. Kilgrave was arguably smarter than Jessica Jones, and much much more powerful than her, the scariest villain I've seen in these shows, but Jessica prevailed and it felt earned.
I agree except for the kind of ill-defined immunity, but it was a great ending against overwhelming odds. The Hand issue is worse because the Hand is in other programs where they are deadly and competent.
I'm about halfway through. I loved DD, enjoyed DD2 and thought Luke Cage was strange though ultimately enjoyable. Haven't seen the others.
I'm glad subtlety came up on the page where I end up posting, because this is something I wanted to bring up myself.
The show sucks, and one big reason why is that it is not subtle at all. While watching Defenders I found myself looking wistfully back on DD, so I went and watched random parts of random episodes from that show, as a comparison. It was like night and day.
One part that bugged me (defenders, ep 4 or earlier)
When the heroes all met up for the first time in the tower penthouse. All of them just sauntering into a building, the corporate headquarters of super dangerous secret ninjas, was dumb already for how easily it was done. Then Danny gets there, makes his pronouncement. "I'm going to stop you." Christ. Then came the threat from Alexandra that her minions would "tear through him". This being the secret headquarters, with the main enemy right there, I expected a big dangerous fight. But no, the people she holds meetings with in the penthouse are generic D level goons with fucking batons as weapons. Terrible lead up, terrible dialogue, and with such nonthreatening enemies and such poor fight scenes, no tension to be had there. Then the pals waltz in, Alexandra waltzes out, and the whole achieves nothing except for getting everyone in the same room.
DD1 was so much better at setting the scene. We don't even know the bad guys name at the start. But we see the results of his handiwork. We see Matt struggling with basic goons (but in very entertaining fights) and getting badly hurt by special goons. His fight against Nobu was brutal. All these things put together amounted to a sense of tension in the show. The enemy was really powerful, the hero didn't seem up to the task. This wasn't done by having a character get all expository and just say it, they showed us these things. Which is what writers are supposed to do.
The Defenders is a mess. Most of it feels like filler. There's no tension because the enemy doesn't appear to be a threat. The plot advances mostly by characters telling the camera its advancing. Whereas Daredevil was subtle, Defenders is vague, and these are not the same thing. Alluding repeatedly to big evil plans doesn't actually give the audience much to work off. Its incredibly ham fisted, like how it drops hints like anvils with the Beethoven or Constantinople thing. Or having JJ look in a library for 5 minutes. So much screen time is wasted with nothing actually happening.
I stopped Luke Cage after a few episodes, and only some time later did I return and finish it. Maybe I'll do the same with the Defenders. But I am really disappointed, I had very high hopes coming into this, a sort of Daredevil on steroids with pals. Instead its just a cobbled together mess. The only positive is that it introduced me to JJ, so maybe I'll go watch her show instead.
This is silly, you're treating Defenders like the first of a series when its the final chapter, the big showdown for all the marbles. All The Hand's build up, showing their street cred, getting filled in on how they are vulnerable, and such appears to be lost on this thread. That's even with The Hand putting the Defenders on their heels in numerous episodes in the lead up to the final fights in just The Defenders.
Iron Fist really did a number on the lot of you, huh? God damn it Scott Buck.
Its that or its like someone only reading the the last of the Lord of the Rings, The Return of The King, and wondering why anyone should give a rat's ass about who kills the Witch King or whatever. Of course the big battles aren't going to be subtle by that point and anything that is a finer point will fly right on by your pretty head! Augh!
Bah, enjoy your sour thread, I'm done, bookmark removed, I've had my fill of this nonsense while I hoped that I might be able to discuss some of the finer points of the show, like that scene where Luke Cage meets with the mother who lost her son - thank goodness I didn't watch this with this thread ... I wonder if this is what its like to have me poking holes in a CW show while she's having a good time watching the vampires be dramatic whispering idiots, thanks for that I guess.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
They established pretty well that Matt is still hung up on Elektra, even if she's bad for him.
And then she dies and comes back and the fucking Hand have brainwashed her?
There was no way he was leaving her down there alone. I suspect if she came around quicker they'd have tried to survive.
Matt is consumed by the things that hurt himself and the people who love him. Elektra is as much a manifestation of that as his addiction to being Daredevil.
That they didn't make him an actual addict on top of it like Iron Man is a great show of restraint by his writers.
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
This is silly, you're treating Defenders like the first of a series when its the final chapter, the big showdown for all the marbles. All The Hand's build up, showing their street cred, getting filled in on how they are vulnerable, and such appears to be lost on this thread. That's even with The Hand putting the Defenders on their heels in numerous episodes in the lead up to the final fights in just The Defenders.
Iron Fist really did a number on the lot of you, huh? God damn it Scott Buck.
Its that or its like someone only reading the the last of the Lord of the Rings, The Return of The King, and wondering why anyone should give a rat's ass about who kills the Witch King or whatever. Of course the big battles aren't going to be subtle by that point and anything that is a finer point will fly right on by your pretty head! Augh!
Bah, enjoy your sour thread, I'm done, bookmark removed, I've had my fill of this nonsense while I hoped that I might be able to discuss some of the finer points of the show, like that scene where Luke Cage meets with the mother who lost her son - thank goodness I didn't watch this with this thread ... I wonder if this is what its like to have me poking holes in a CW show while she's having a good time watching the vampires be dramatic whispering idiots, thanks for that I guess.
If you wanted to talk about that scene then you should have brought it up. Instead of whatever it is you've been doing up until now. Because saying something is nuanced and complex and amazing isn't the same thing as actually providing proof of those things.
@CanadianWolverine, you're allowed to like whatever you like. I know it can be a bummer if you love something and then go online and find out that lot of people thought that thing wasn't good. It sucks because it can take away from your own enjoyment of the thing, and can even feel like a bit of an attack on yourself for having liked it. But it isn't, so there's no need to take it so personally. It's a Debate & Discourse forum and people aren't shy about pointing out what they perceive as the problems with movies and shows around here.
I love little moments like the one you mentioned, and I would have been interested to hear your thoughts on what you appreciated about it.
This is silly, you're treating Defenders like the first of a series when its the...
I'm treating it like a TV show. That I watch for entertainment.
Watching boring fight scenes that are poorly set up by the plot doesn't get more fun if a character says "the Hand is weak".
The writers had a lot of potential and I think they blew it. Partly its that the Hand is not the strongest villain, I didn't find them very effective in DD2. But they could have had any villain and this show would have been bad, it was clearly poorly planned and executed. I hope Marvel gets their shit together if they end up doing this again.
This is silly, you're treating Defenders like the first of a series when its the final chapter, the big showdown for all the marbles. All The Hand's build up, showing their street cred, getting filled in on how they are vulnerable, and such appears to be lost on this thread. That's even with The Hand putting the Defenders on their heels in numerous episodes in the lead up to the final fights in just The Defenders.
Iron Fist really did a number on the lot of you, huh? God damn it Scott Buck.
Its that or its like someone only reading the the last of the Lord of the Rings, The Return of The King, and wondering why anyone should give a rat's ass about who kills the Witch King or whatever. Of course the big battles aren't going to be subtle by that point and anything that is a finer point will fly right on by your pretty head! Augh!
Bah, enjoy your sour thread, I'm done, bookmark removed, I've had my fill of this nonsense while I hoped that I might be able to discuss some of the finer points of the show, like that scene where Luke Cage meets with the mother who lost her son - thank goodness I didn't watch this with this thread ... I wonder if this is what its like to have me poking holes in a CW show while she's having a good time watching the vampires be dramatic whispering idiots, thanks for that I guess.
It's not nonsense. I'm one of the few that did enjoy it more than most, but I noticed the flaws th show had, too. How they dealt with the Hand was a major blow, especially since the show runners were the same ones from DD S2, not new people to the MCU. The Hand in this act like this is their first go around, and their actions and motives undermine the previous incarnations radically. The Hand's been inconsistent AF outside DD. Iron Fist got this ball rolling, and Defenders (despite their flaws) added to this, because on top of what the writers were doing they count ignore IF being canon.
This isn't about Iron Fist, either. And yes, Scott Buck deserves our ridicule.
This isn't only about the big battles, though if they were badly done like Defenders were they would be nailed to the wall for being silly. You're forgetting that unlike with Sauron the Hand is a complex organization and they're not solely an army. Sauron's forces had consistency, their plans were straight forward and how the group functioned and goals weren't changing incredibly with every single movie, like they have in with the Hand in the MCU. If Sauron's aim ended up being anticlimactic and stupid like the Hand's, yeah, people would poke holes in it. Entertainment is not made to be viewed at the surface level, it's to be absorbed, and analyzed and given scrutiny. That's part of the fun, actually.
CW shows get poked at regularly in this forum, and so do brilliant show like Game of Thrones. This forum is pretty great for wide ranging opinions on media since nothing is safe from analysis or critique. Nor should art be. When people find things inconsistent and flawed they have a right to call it out, even if I disagree with them. Sometimes this helps define my opinion on shows, letting me see it from a unique angle to catch things I missed or interpret something with a new set of eyes. That's invaluable insight.
Defenders and IF aren't the only Marvel Netflix shows to get this type of harsh review here, or elsewhere. JJ and LC were put through the grinder. Though nothing beats Iron Fist at being pure embarrassment, well, maybe Inhumans if that is as bad as I've heard.
If Vampire Diaries/The Originals had threads on these forums you can bet this forum would be tearing them to pieces on a regular basis based on their writing. Like they do with Flash, Arrow, Supergirl etc.
Maybe its because I choose to watch older tv shows from time to time or just some personally enjoyable schlock like the recently canceled Dark Matter, but some of the standards for what constitutes "worst show evar" expressed in this thread leave me with a o.0 face. Maybe its also fair to say I set the bar too low but damn me if there weren't some moments in this show that after watching all the other Netflix Marvel stuff had me cheering for the characters as they went balls to the wall blow out with their fights and social interactions which far excelled past much of what was in the previous seasons and gave me hope that there could be improvement in character's prospects as entertainment value of future Netflix Marvel shows.
Dark Matter is a show which runs rings around Defenders in world building, they're former Stargate tv show/s show runners. Their antagonists have crazy plans which make sense in-universe and act consistently season to season - had Defenders gotten the writing on that level you'd see less complaints.
No, this isn't the worst show ever. It needn't be to get complaints about writing or world building, that comes with the territory of being shown to the public.
This show redeemed Iron Fist for me (though they screwed Colleen in the process), and my optimism for IF S2 has improved tremendously. This in no way hinders others, or myself, from pointing out the numerous flaws this show has.
Seriously, in the fantastic super powered worlds beset by ET invasions, secret spy ring death cults, and mad scientists' experiments run amok that these characters exist in, the line somehow gets drawn at exotic herbal remedies for death from dragon bone powder mixed with the blood of innocent incubators for a relaxing spa day in a blood bath administered by cagey, tight lipped ninjas in power broker suits (yes, ninjas do wear more than just black pajamas) doing their five semi-immortal shadow masters' sometimes competing, cryptic, and undead insane orders? o.O
All of those things are done which made sense, are consistent and had some logic in the world building. This...didn't. Having crazy shit isn't as important as making sure that crazy shit makes sense in an IP, without the latter the former fails.
This is silly, you're treating Defenders like the first of a series when its the final chapter, the big showdown for all the marbles. All The Hand's build up, showing their street cred, getting filled in on how they are vulnerable, and such appears to be lost on this thread. That's even with The Hand putting the Defenders on their heels in numerous episodes in the lead up to the final fights in just The Defenders.
Iron Fist really did a number on the lot of you, huh? God damn it Scott Buck.
Its that or its like someone only reading the the last of the Lord of the Rings, The Return of The King, and wondering why anyone should give a rat's ass about who kills the Witch King or whatever. Of course the big battles aren't going to be subtle by that point and anything that is a finer point will fly right on by your pretty head! Augh!
Bah, enjoy your sour thread, I'm done, bookmark removed, I've had my fill of this nonsense while I hoped that I might be able to discuss some of the finer points of the show, like that scene where Luke Cage meets with the mother who lost her son - thank goodness I didn't watch this with this thread ... I wonder if this is what its like to have me poking holes in a CW show while she's having a good time watching the vampires be dramatic whispering idiots, thanks for that I guess.
It's not nonsense. I'm one of the few that did enjoy it more than most, but I noticed the flaws th show had, too. How they dealt with the Hand was a major blow, especially since the show runners were the same ones from DD S2, not new people to the MCU. The Hand in this act like this is their first go around, and their actions and motives undermine the previous incarnations radically. The Hand's been inconsistent AF outside DD. Iron Fist got this ball rolling, and Defenders (despite their flaws) added to this, because on top of what the writers were doing they count ignore IF being canon.
This isn't about Iron Fist, either. And yes, Scott Buck deserves our ridicule.
This isn't only about the big battles, though if they were badly done like Defenders were they would be nailed to the wall for being silly. You're forgetting that unlike with Sauron the Hand is a complex organization and they're not solely an army. Sauron's forces had consistency, their plans were straight forward and how the group functioned and goals weren't changing incredibly with every single movie, like they have in with the Hand in the MCU. If Sauron's aim ended up being anticlimactic and stupid like the Hand's, yeah, people would poke holes in it. Entertainment is not made to be viewed at the surface level, it's to be absorbed, and analyzed and given scrutiny. That's part of the fun, actually.
CW shows get poked at regularly in this forum, and so do brilliant show like Game of Thrones. This forum is pretty great for wide ranging opinions on media since nothing is safe from analysis or critique. Nor should art be. When people find things inconsistent and flawed they have a right to call it out, even if I disagree with them. Sometimes this helps define my opinion on shows, letting me see it from a unique angle to catch things I missed or interpret something with a new set of eyes. That's invaluable insight.
Defenders and IF aren't the only Marvel Netflix shows to get this type of hash review here, or elsewhere. JJ and LC were put through the grinder. Though nothing beats Iron Fist at being pure embarrassment, well, maybe Inhumans if that is as bad as I've heard.
If Vampire Diaries/The Originals had threads on these forums you can bet this forum would be tearing them to pieces on a regular basis based on their writing. Like they do with Flash, Arrow, Supergirl etc.
For a certain kind of person, the sincerest expression of love for something is dissecting it to within an inch of it's life.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Watched the first four or five episodes of Iron Fist.
It's pretty god awful. Finn Jones is soooooo slooooow in his fight scenes. I could do a better job, and I'm 15 years older with a desk job. Then there's the acting, which isn't great, the characters, who are poorly defined (at best), and the plot, which has finally gotten rolling now that
Danny met up with Papa Meachum
. Everything prior to that might as well have been thrown in the garbage since it mostly consisted of Danny acting like an idiot (or jerk, or idiot jerk), and the Meachum characters whipsawing from cartoonishly stupid evil to vaguely sympathetic and then back again.
There are three bits I can think of that showed actual promise (as opposed to just being OK).
1) The scene when he breaks out of the mental institution. There was a lot of stupid in there (Papa Meachum tells Ward he has cameras in the hospital and Ward ups and disobeys him where he can see), but him coming into focus as he was getting beaten and then running down the hallway to punch out the door was pretty cool. It could have been done better, but that was still pretty good.
2) The first scene with Papa Meachum had some really good interaction between him and Ward. It actually felt natural and it flowed well.
3) Carrie-Anne Moss, who shows what happens when you have a legitimate actress who is dialed in on her character.
I'll probably flog my way through the remainder (it's looking like a rainy weekend here), but right now it's bad and everyone involved should feel bad.
Seriously, how the fuck did Jones get cast in this? He's not a great actor and he can't sell a fight scene for crap. I'm not expecting John Wick worthy fight scenes staring the second coming of Bruce Lee, but his stuff is Learning Annex dropout bad.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
He's shown flashes of something interesting. Definitely more so than anyone else on the show. It doesn't help that he's distilled 80's businessman bad guy whose stick up his butt has a stick up its butt. He shows a lot more life in the scenes when he's out of the office (and not on official Rand Corp business), so I'm hoping that they'll do something interesting with him (like maybe flip the obvious baddie with the obvious sympathetic person or something).
Still though, I'm a third of a way into it and it's all been pretty bad. The Netflix shows generally aren't as good on the back half, and there's also the tendency for two or three 'filler' episodes where things reset and nothing much happens, so things are looking pretty dire for the show.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
That being said, what aggrivates me about Iron Fist and Defenders MOST is that all of the problems are SUPER EASY fixes. And just the regular kind of tropey problems of TV shows like this done by people who's #1 priority is on-time and under-budget.
It seems aggravatingly clear to me that the show runners don't really understand the subject matter. They read a few issues, got the cliff notes version, and a list of "must haves" by the MCU brass and went to work.
There is 100% ZERO EXCUSE for Danny to not have a costume at this point. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. He should have seen Daredevils scarf wrap in the building fight and went "ooo i need one of those". Tack on 10 minutes of extra story to show how his identity is starting to get tied to vigilante-ism and a funny and light hearted conversation of him picking out colors with Colleen. Show the enthusiasm that is supposed to be Danny Rand.
But, show runners want some super serious "i'm so moody" series so they have to do what every other tv show does.
That being said, what aggrivates me about Iron Fist and Defenders MOST is that all of the problems are SUPER EASY fixes. And just the regular kind of tropey problems of TV shows like this done by people who's #1 priority is on-time and under-budget.
It seems aggravatingly clear to me that the show runners don't really understand the subject matter. They read a few issues, got the cliff notes version, and a list of "must haves" by the MCU brass and went to work.
There is 100% ZERO EXCUSE for Danny to not have a costume at this point. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. He should have seen Daredevils scarf wrap in the building fight and went "ooo i need one of those". Tack on 10 minutes of extra story to show how his identity is starting to get tied to vigilante-ism and a funny and light hearted conversation of him picking out colors with Colleen. Show the enthusiasm that is supposed to be Danny Rand.
But, show runners want some super serious "i'm so moody" series so they have to do what every other tv show does.
End of Defenders spoiler
There was no fucking reason whatsoever for him to not be rocking the head wrap with his jump suit for that rooftop shot. None. If there was a moment in Defenders for him to do that, it was right there. Completely blown opportunity, and I cannot believe that there wasn't an argument over it behind the scenes, and some dumbass won. Okay, don't give him his costume, just give him the head wrap! You fix so much that's wrong about Finn with that head wrap! You can have stunt doubles pull off insane shit like the DD S1 hallway scene. Frustrating. Especially when it costs like a $10 piece of cloth to get it done right.
That being said, what aggrivates me about Iron Fist and Defenders MOST is that all of the problems are SUPER EASY fixes. And just the regular kind of tropey problems of TV shows like this done by people who's #1 priority is on-time and under-budget.
It seems aggravatingly clear to me that the show runners don't really understand the subject matter. They read a few issues, got the cliff notes version, and a list of "must haves" by the MCU brass and went to work.
There is 100% ZERO EXCUSE for Danny to not have a costume at this point. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. He should have seen Daredevils scarf wrap in the building fight and went "ooo i need one of those". Tack on 10 minutes of extra story to show how his identity is starting to get tied to vigilante-ism and a funny and light hearted conversation of him picking out colors with Colleen. Show the enthusiasm that is supposed to be Danny Rand.
But, show runners want some super serious "i'm so moody" series so they have to do what every other tv show does.
End of Defenders spoiler
There was no fucking reason whatsoever for him to not be rocking the head wrap with his jump suit for that rooftop shot. None. If there was a moment in Defenders for him to do that, it was right there. Completely blown opportunity, and I cannot believe that there wasn't an argument over it behind the scenes, and some dumbass won. Okay, don't give him his costume, just give him the head wrap! You fix so much that's wrong about Finn with that head wrap! You can have stunt doubles pull off insane shit like the DD S1 hallway scene. Frustrating. Especially when it costs like a $10 piece of cloth to get it done right.
ARG SO MUCH. Just makes me soooo mad. Like people are going to suddenly go "whoa man whoa! COSTUMES?!? That's a bridge too far now. I'm out."
Yea, i have to disagree there. DD costume looks 100% fantastic since S02.
I think its one of the better ones in the whole MCU (not the best, just one of the better ones)
That being said, what aggrivates me about Iron Fist and Defenders MOST is that all of the problems are SUPER EASY fixes. And just the regular kind of tropey problems of TV shows like this done by people who's #1 priority is on-time and under-budget.
It seems aggravatingly clear to me that the show runners don't really understand the subject matter. They read a few issues, got the cliff notes version, and a list of "must haves" by the MCU brass and went to work.
There is 100% ZERO EXCUSE for Danny to not have a costume at this point. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. He should have seen Daredevils scarf wrap in the building fight and went "ooo i need one of those". Tack on 10 minutes of extra story to show how his identity is starting to get tied to vigilante-ism and a funny and light hearted conversation of him picking out colors with Colleen. Show the enthusiasm that is supposed to be Danny Rand.
But, show runners want some super serious "i'm so moody" series so they have to do what every other tv show does.
End of Defenders spoiler
There was no fucking reason whatsoever for him to not be rocking the head wrap with his jump suit for that rooftop shot. None. If there was a moment in Defenders for him to do that, it was right there. Completely blown opportunity, and I cannot believe that there wasn't an argument over it behind the scenes, and some dumbass won. Okay, don't give him his costume, just give him the head wrap! You fix so much that's wrong about Finn with that head wrap! You can have stunt doubles pull off insane shit like the DD S1 hallway scene. Frustrating. Especially when it costs like a $10 piece of cloth to get it done right.
ARG SO MUCH. Just makes me soooo mad. Like people are going to suddenly go "whoa man whoa! COSTUMES?!? That's a bridge too far now. I'm out."
Meanwhile one of Netflix most successful Marvel shows wears
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Finished up Iron Fist over the weekend. Strangely enough it got better towards the end, but it still wasn't very good. The best parts of the show were those that were least related to Iron Fist. The Meachum family drama was pretty well done, Middle-Eastern Hand guy was much more interesting than Chinese Hand lady, and Claire was excellent as always.
Iron Fist continued to suck. I don't know exactly what they were trying to go with for his character arc because they were all over the place with things and they seemed to settle on something like 'he cho-cho-chooses not to kill and therefore becomes the True Iron Fist' (or something) and it didn't really work. Plus the VFX they started up again in the last few episodes were just annoying. What were they supposed to represent, bad chi? PTST? Road Rage?
Colleen Wing had a better arc, but I didn't really care since so much of her stuff had been hanging out with Danny that I sorta tuned her (and him) out towards the end.
One huge issue that you could also see in The Defenders was that Rosario Dawson and Carrie-Anne Moss absolutely outshown the leads whenever they were on screen together. The cast of Daredevil and Jessica Jones did not have this problem, and it's a pretty glaring problem. Jones and Henwick just don't have the same presence that the others do and it's painful when you see that contrast.
I guess I'll spoiler stuff from here on out.
Joy Meachum got seriously sidelined by Ward as the show went on. It makes sense because the show had a lot of moving parts, you needed to keep Ward running solo to show his breakdown and you couldn't really have Joy hanging with either Harold or Danny. It's also unfortunate because there was a lot of internal conflict between what the company did and her suposed niceness (suposed because it's not like she really did that much that was nice). The first two episodes of the show kind of went nowhere, so I would have prefered that they condense some of that down and use the time to setup Joys heel turn at the end. As it was it didn't make much sense, because if Ward is back in the company then there's no reason she couldn't be there too, at least not with the way they showed her just noooping out of there in the second to last episode. You can't just have her chatting with random monk guy and agreeing that Danny needs to die, you gotta build the foundation for that.
Danny's childhood buddy showing up at the compound was silly. I hadn't remembered the guys name from Danny's stories, so I was stuck looking at the screen and wondering what the hell was going on. I can definitely appreciate his hatred for Danny though.
I thought the short lived bait of a 'nice' Hand was interesting. They're like a kinder, gentler Hydra, plus they have ninjas. They're certainly more interesting than Madam Gao's drug dealing ninjas. Between this and The Defenders, just what the hell was the Hand all about? Their leaders had lived for millenia, and yet a majority of their activities seem to be focused on drugs, real estate (and not just for dragon bones), and necromancy; and on top of it all for some reason they require the assistance of legitimate businesses because a few thousand years isn't enough time to setup a world spanning global empire or amass enough of a fortune that you could just buy one yourself. I've seen Highlander, I know how this works. And some of this is the Looper 'why don't they just time travel the guys they want dead into the ocean' problem, where dumping them in the ocean (or having enough of a business empire that you no longer need Rand) means that there isn't a movie (or show); but some of it is a problem as far as the Hand's status as the super scary big bads of these shows goes. As far as I could tell, the Hand's big plan over the last 15 years was running heroin into NY via Rand. The Hand were in Daredevil 1 and 2, but this is the first time we see the Hand as the primary antagonist, and they're just a bunch of drug runners who are really into martial arts.
Madam Gao was annoying. She's short, needs a cane, has telekinesis, and was somehow able to know what people were thinking. She was like Yoda but with out the personality. Seriously lady, what's with all the heroin running? If your heroin packet has the symbol of the dragon on it, but nobody from Kun-Lun is around to see it, does it really count as a sick burn?
The fights in the back half were all pretty horrible. Dark, quick cuts, dark (no parents), just awful.
Minor pet peeve: The insistance on not killing is getting mildly annoying. They're the good guys, I get it, but Bakuto and Gao are Outside Context problems for your average justice and penitentiary systems. By the time that IF and crew are really considering what to do with them, they've been established as generally horrible people with increadible power and influence, and in the case of Madam Gao they even set up her magic telekinesis powers. Plus there's that whole zombie ninja army with resurrection capabilities thing they've got. Daredevil at least has a strong character motivation not to kill, which is great because it meshes with his love of beating the crap out of people. Danny has spent the last 15 years being raised as a soldier to destroy the Hand and yet when given the chance to take out two of their leaders, he doesn't. Motivation, we hasn't it. And at least Daredevil does a good job of taking criminals out of circulation via extended hospital stays. Most of the people Danny takes out are probably back up and ninjaing in an hour or two.
I will probably not watch season two.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I noticed that he was being played by Ramón Rodríguez, vaguely wondered if that counted as some form of [color]washing and then moved on. Between this and thinking that the guy playing Cassian in Rogue One was French, I've obviously got some weird ass gap in my ability to ID Spanish speakers.
They ruined Madame Gao in Iron Fist and Defenders.
Both Madam Gao and the Hand. Weaver salvaged them a little bit, but as a group they hit Peak Villain in Daredevil 2 and went sharply downhill from there.
It didn't help that we find out the Hand's goal in The Defenders, but their goal is both underwhelming and doesn't make mesh with their actions in both Iron Fist and The Defenders.
In The Defenders, four of the five leaders say (or at least Gao says and nobody contradicts her) that their goal is to return to Kun-Lun. In Iron Fist, at least two of those leaders discover that the way to Kun Lun is open and that it is no longer being defended by the Iron Fist. Their response to what should be the greatest opportunity to achieve their stated goal is to dial up their heroin scheme and whatever it was that Bakuto was up to.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
the way to Kun Lun was never open. The way to Kun Lun is not open as a matter of fixed time for anyone to pass through but open for individuals when they are ready (or need) to leave and return.
When Gao said to Danny, "you saw what they wanted you to see" she was referring to Kun Lun as the "they". The way was blocked because it was not his time to return.
Similarly the Hand cannot return to Kun Lun without a way to force open the gates. The way will not open willingly for them as they will never be ready to return
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Two issues with that.
That would seem to undermine the importance of the Iron Fist. It doesn't sideline him, but his utility increases if Kun Lun has periods when it's definitely vulnerable and it decreases if the Hand (or whoever) needs some sort of metaphysical battering ram to get in.
It also leaves the question of the two Hand bodies that they discovered when they returned to Kun Lun.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
That would seem to undermine the importance of the Iron Fist. It doesn't sideline him, but his utility increases if Kun Lun has periods when it's definitely vulnerable and it decreases if the Hand (or whoever) needs some sort of metaphysical battering ram to get in.
It also leaves the question of the two Hand bodies that they discovered when they returned to Kun Lun.
With the advert of modern technology Iron Fist really shouldn't be the ultimate deterrent to guard the entrance, besides the Hand's access to practically to an unlimited and undying army of ninja they have the resources to buy things like - grenade launchers and heavily armed military helicopters. This is especially true with baby Iron Fists, like Danny.
That's why Defenders was wise to give the Hand an excuse to keep him alive.
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Very little is subtle ... so things that don't seem easily explained are not examples of subtlety?
o.O
This is the kicker, all those inconsistencies are readily acceptable when its considered that we are dealing with mystical ninjas that partake in dark arts. That's almost the very definition of a wizard did it. Seeking consistency out of the ether that is the dark fog of war surrounding such a purposefully obscure set of power brokers as The Hand is a lesson in futility. They are by their very purpose meant to be unknowable and what few clues we pick up, we have to by inference try to decipher if its laced with misinformation. Deception, assassination, spying, and espionage where they would be fools if they had a perfect trust between their cells is The Hand's bread and butter - why should they be written as being anything other than spotty as to their true purpose and methods, they would be terrible demonic ninjas then! Whose real crime is not using more dark settings for their fights in addition to judicious use of smoke bombs and gust of wind ruffled curtains!
Pointing at that and proclaiming "terrible writing, just inconsistent improvisations all through" misses the point of what makes the bloody bastards such a challenge to begin with - they won't be true to themselves, much less allies and their enemies, The Defenders, and so are unreliable narrators for even us, the audience. Its why I insist on keep calling The Hand "shadowy", we were never supposed to get the full details on them and instead let our dark imaginations loose instead. Now hopefully never will know their remaining details laying deep under New York with the exception of maybe Gao and Elektra escaping along with Matt to wherever the hell they are.
Given the reception here for The Hand being so lost on so many posting, I'm hoping the next set of big bads is full on the opposite of subtle just to hammer the point home, like a day time city wide invasion from the makers of The Purple Man while the Avengers are visiting another planet or something while The Kingpin's less direct approach relaxes in Club Fed. Stan Lee forbid the audience not have its Hand held, yeesh.
Someone is not being subtle when they outright lie for no reason.
Also, I don't know what show you were watching, but the Hand sucked at "deception, assassination, spying, and espionage" in Defenders.
I for one found the Hand a bit underwhelming as the big bad guy here. I would have preferred if they had played up the internal disagreement between the five leaders. Internal strife would be a good justification for rendering the Hand unable to deal with the Defenders at full efficiency without breaking the illusion that they are masters of deception, assassination, and espionage. They'd just use these talents to undermine one another. Then in the end have Madame Gao walk off with a piece of dragon bone with a smug smirk on her face. Something like this would help me believe that the Hand was indeed a terrifying threat, and that it took a lot of courage for the Defenders to face them, and in the end they still only won because the Hand was also rotting on the inside. Instead, I was left thinking that these guys sure seem incompetent to be a centuries old global espionage organization.
Wanting the villains to be smarter does not mean wanting the villains to win. How about you make both sides smarter? Instead of having the heroes win because the villains were crap. Make it so that the villains were smart, powerful, dangerous, but the heroes still win by being more resourceful, clever, and tenacious.
The Defenders Hand are fucking worthless idiots.
They could even have looked much closer for a suitably dramatic example. Kilgrave was arguably smarter than Jessica Jones, and much much more powerful than her, the scariest villain I've seen in these shows, but Jessica prevailed and it felt earned.
I agree except for the kind of ill-defined immunity, but it was a great ending against overwhelming odds. The Hand issue is worse because the Hand is in other programs where they are deadly and competent.
I'm glad subtlety came up on the page where I end up posting, because this is something I wanted to bring up myself.
The show sucks, and one big reason why is that it is not subtle at all. While watching Defenders I found myself looking wistfully back on DD, so I went and watched random parts of random episodes from that show, as a comparison. It was like night and day.
One part that bugged me (defenders, ep 4 or earlier)
DD1 was so much better at setting the scene. We don't even know the bad guys name at the start. But we see the results of his handiwork. We see Matt struggling with basic goons (but in very entertaining fights) and getting badly hurt by special goons. His fight against Nobu was brutal. All these things put together amounted to a sense of tension in the show. The enemy was really powerful, the hero didn't seem up to the task. This wasn't done by having a character get all expository and just say it, they showed us these things. Which is what writers are supposed to do.
The Defenders is a mess. Most of it feels like filler. There's no tension because the enemy doesn't appear to be a threat. The plot advances mostly by characters telling the camera its advancing. Whereas Daredevil was subtle, Defenders is vague, and these are not the same thing. Alluding repeatedly to big evil plans doesn't actually give the audience much to work off. Its incredibly ham fisted, like how it drops hints like anvils with the Beethoven or Constantinople thing. Or having JJ look in a library for 5 minutes. So much screen time is wasted with nothing actually happening.
I stopped Luke Cage after a few episodes, and only some time later did I return and finish it. Maybe I'll do the same with the Defenders. But I am really disappointed, I had very high hopes coming into this, a sort of Daredevil on steroids with pals. Instead its just a cobbled together mess. The only positive is that it introduced me to JJ, so maybe I'll go watch her show instead.
Iron Fist really did a number on the lot of you, huh? God damn it Scott Buck.
Its that or its like someone only reading the the last of the Lord of the Rings, The Return of The King, and wondering why anyone should give a rat's ass about who kills the Witch King or whatever. Of course the big battles aren't going to be subtle by that point and anything that is a finer point will fly right on by your pretty head! Augh!
Bah, enjoy your sour thread, I'm done, bookmark removed, I've had my fill of this nonsense while I hoped that I might be able to discuss some of the finer points of the show, like that scene where Luke Cage meets with the mother who lost her son - thank goodness I didn't watch this with this thread ... I wonder if this is what its like to have me poking holes in a CW show while she's having a good time watching the vampires be dramatic whispering idiots, thanks for that I guess.
That they didn't make him an actual addict on top of it like Iron Man is a great show of restraint by his writers.
If you wanted to talk about that scene then you should have brought it up. Instead of whatever it is you've been doing up until now. Because saying something is nuanced and complex and amazing isn't the same thing as actually providing proof of those things.
I love little moments like the one you mentioned, and I would have been interested to hear your thoughts on what you appreciated about it.
I'm treating it like a TV show. That I watch for entertainment.
Watching boring fight scenes that are poorly set up by the plot doesn't get more fun if a character says "the Hand is weak".
The writers had a lot of potential and I think they blew it. Partly its that the Hand is not the strongest villain, I didn't find them very effective in DD2. But they could have had any villain and this show would have been bad, it was clearly poorly planned and executed. I hope Marvel gets their shit together if they end up doing this again.
It's not nonsense. I'm one of the few that did enjoy it more than most, but I noticed the flaws th show had, too. How they dealt with the Hand was a major blow, especially since the show runners were the same ones from DD S2, not new people to the MCU. The Hand in this act like this is their first go around, and their actions and motives undermine the previous incarnations radically. The Hand's been inconsistent AF outside DD. Iron Fist got this ball rolling, and Defenders (despite their flaws) added to this, because on top of what the writers were doing they count ignore IF being canon.
This isn't about Iron Fist, either. And yes, Scott Buck deserves our ridicule.
This isn't only about the big battles, though if they were badly done like Defenders were they would be nailed to the wall for being silly. You're forgetting that unlike with Sauron the Hand is a complex organization and they're not solely an army. Sauron's forces had consistency, their plans were straight forward and how the group functioned and goals weren't changing incredibly with every single movie, like they have in with the Hand in the MCU. If Sauron's aim ended up being anticlimactic and stupid like the Hand's, yeah, people would poke holes in it. Entertainment is not made to be viewed at the surface level, it's to be absorbed, and analyzed and given scrutiny. That's part of the fun, actually.
CW shows get poked at regularly in this forum, and so do brilliant show like Game of Thrones. This forum is pretty great for wide ranging opinions on media since nothing is safe from analysis or critique. Nor should art be. When people find things inconsistent and flawed they have a right to call it out, even if I disagree with them. Sometimes this helps define my opinion on shows, letting me see it from a unique angle to catch things I missed or interpret something with a new set of eyes. That's invaluable insight.
Defenders and IF aren't the only Marvel Netflix shows to get this type of harsh review here, or elsewhere. JJ and LC were put through the grinder. Though nothing beats Iron Fist at being pure embarrassment, well, maybe Inhumans if that is as bad as I've heard.
If Vampire Diaries/The Originals had threads on these forums you can bet this forum would be tearing them to pieces on a regular basis based on their writing. Like they do with Flash, Arrow, Supergirl etc.
Dark Matter is a show which runs rings around Defenders in world building, they're former Stargate tv show/s show runners. Their antagonists have crazy plans which make sense in-universe and act consistently season to season - had Defenders gotten the writing on that level you'd see less complaints.
No, this isn't the worst show ever. It needn't be to get complaints about writing or world building, that comes with the territory of being shown to the public.
This show redeemed Iron Fist for me (though they screwed Colleen in the process), and my optimism for IF S2 has improved tremendously. This in no way hinders others, or myself, from pointing out the numerous flaws this show has.
All of those things are done which made sense, are consistent and had some logic in the world building. This...didn't. Having crazy shit isn't as important as making sure that crazy shit makes sense in an IP, without the latter the former fails.
For a certain kind of person, the sincerest expression of love for something is dissecting it to within an inch of it's life.
It's pretty god awful. Finn Jones is soooooo slooooow in his fight scenes. I could do a better job, and I'm 15 years older with a desk job. Then there's the acting, which isn't great, the characters, who are poorly defined (at best), and the plot, which has finally gotten rolling now that
There are three bits I can think of that showed actual promise (as opposed to just being OK).
2) The first scene with Papa Meachum had some really good interaction between him and Ward. It actually felt natural and it flowed well.
3) Carrie-Anne Moss, who shows what happens when you have a legitimate actress who is dialed in on her character.
Seriously, how the fuck did Jones get cast in this? He's not a great actor and he can't sell a fight scene for crap. I'm not expecting John Wick worthy fight scenes staring the second coming of Bruce Lee, but his stuff is Learning Annex dropout bad.
Still though, I'm a third of a way into it and it's all been pretty bad. The Netflix shows generally aren't as good on the back half, and there's also the tendency for two or three 'filler' episodes where things reset and nothing much happens, so things are looking pretty dire for the show.
That being said, what aggrivates me about Iron Fist and Defenders MOST is that all of the problems are SUPER EASY fixes. And just the regular kind of tropey problems of TV shows like this done by people who's #1 priority is on-time and under-budget.
It seems aggravatingly clear to me that the show runners don't really understand the subject matter. They read a few issues, got the cliff notes version, and a list of "must haves" by the MCU brass and went to work.
There is 100% ZERO EXCUSE for Danny to not have a costume at this point. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. He should have seen Daredevils scarf wrap in the building fight and went "ooo i need one of those". Tack on 10 minutes of extra story to show how his identity is starting to get tied to vigilante-ism and a funny and light hearted conversation of him picking out colors with Colleen. Show the enthusiasm that is supposed to be Danny Rand.
But, show runners want some super serious "i'm so moody" series so they have to do what every other tv show does.
Well then Netflix should stop making comic book shows.
Scott Buck should, definitely.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Punisher sort of gets his because its mostly pretty standard military gear with a skull T shirt.
End of Defenders spoiler
ARG SO MUCH. Just makes me soooo mad. Like people are going to suddenly go "whoa man whoa! COSTUMES?!? That's a bridge too far now. I'm out."
I thought so until he had the S2 hallway scene, and then, nah, it's badass.
Still looks badass in Defenders, too.
I think its one of the better ones in the whole MCU (not the best, just one of the better ones)
Meanwhile one of Netflix most successful Marvel shows wears
Iron Fist continued to suck. I don't know exactly what they were trying to go with for his character arc because they were all over the place with things and they seemed to settle on something like 'he cho-cho-chooses not to kill and therefore becomes the True Iron Fist' (or something) and it didn't really work. Plus the VFX they started up again in the last few episodes were just annoying. What were they supposed to represent, bad chi? PTST? Road Rage?
Colleen Wing had a better arc, but I didn't really care since so much of her stuff had been hanging out with Danny that I sorta tuned her (and him) out towards the end.
One huge issue that you could also see in The Defenders was that Rosario Dawson and Carrie-Anne Moss absolutely outshown the leads whenever they were on screen together. The cast of Daredevil and Jessica Jones did not have this problem, and it's a pretty glaring problem. Jones and Henwick just don't have the same presence that the others do and it's painful when you see that contrast.
I guess I'll spoiler stuff from here on out.
Danny's childhood buddy showing up at the compound was silly. I hadn't remembered the guys name from Danny's stories, so I was stuck looking at the screen and wondering what the hell was going on. I can definitely appreciate his hatred for Danny though.
I thought the short lived bait of a 'nice' Hand was interesting. They're like a kinder, gentler Hydra, plus they have ninjas. They're certainly more interesting than Madam Gao's drug dealing ninjas. Between this and The Defenders, just what the hell was the Hand all about? Their leaders had lived for millenia, and yet a majority of their activities seem to be focused on drugs, real estate (and not just for dragon bones), and necromancy; and on top of it all for some reason they require the assistance of legitimate businesses because a few thousand years isn't enough time to setup a world spanning global empire or amass enough of a fortune that you could just buy one yourself. I've seen Highlander, I know how this works. And some of this is the Looper 'why don't they just time travel the guys they want dead into the ocean' problem, where dumping them in the ocean (or having enough of a business empire that you no longer need Rand) means that there isn't a movie (or show); but some of it is a problem as far as the Hand's status as the super scary big bads of these shows goes. As far as I could tell, the Hand's big plan over the last 15 years was running heroin into NY via Rand. The Hand were in Daredevil 1 and 2, but this is the first time we see the Hand as the primary antagonist, and they're just a bunch of drug runners who are really into martial arts.
Madam Gao was annoying. She's short, needs a cane, has telekinesis, and was somehow able to know what people were thinking. She was like Yoda but with out the personality. Seriously lady, what's with all the heroin running? If your heroin packet has the symbol of the dragon on it, but nobody from Kun-Lun is around to see it, does it really count as a sick burn?
The fights in the back half were all pretty horrible. Dark, quick cuts, dark (no parents), just awful.
Minor pet peeve: The insistance on not killing is getting mildly annoying. They're the good guys, I get it, but Bakuto and Gao are Outside Context problems for your average justice and penitentiary systems. By the time that IF and crew are really considering what to do with them, they've been established as generally horrible people with increadible power and influence, and in the case of Madam Gao they even set up her magic telekinesis powers. Plus there's that whole zombie ninja army with resurrection capabilities thing they've got. Daredevil at least has a strong character motivation not to kill, which is great because it meshes with his love of beating the crap out of people. Danny has spent the last 15 years being raised as a soldier to destroy the Hand and yet when given the chance to take out two of their leaders, he doesn't. Motivation, we hasn't it. And at least Daredevil does a good job of taking criminals out of circulation via extended hospital stays. Most of the people Danny takes out are probably back up and ninjaing in an hour or two.
I will probably not watch season two.
(I was also condused at first)
I noticed that he was being played by Ramón Rodríguez, vaguely wondered if that counted as some form of [color]washing and then moved on. Between this and thinking that the guy playing Cassian in Rogue One was French, I've obviously got some weird ass gap in my ability to ID Spanish speakers.
Both Madam Gao and the Hand. Weaver salvaged them a little bit, but as a group they hit Peak Villain in Daredevil 2 and went sharply downhill from there.
It didn't help that we find out the Hand's goal in The Defenders, but their goal is both underwhelming and doesn't make mesh with their actions in both Iron Fist and The Defenders.
When Gao said to Danny, "you saw what they wanted you to see" she was referring to Kun Lun as the "they". The way was blocked because it was not his time to return.
Similarly the Hand cannot return to Kun Lun without a way to force open the gates. The way will not open willingly for them as they will never be ready to return
It also leaves the question of the two Hand bodies that they discovered when they returned to Kun Lun.
That's why Defenders was wise to give the Hand an excuse to keep him alive.