Created by: Scott Buck
Directed by: David Dobkin, Rachel Talalay, Toa Fraser, MJ Bassett, Marzee Almas, Phillip John, Stephen Surjik, Julian Holmes, Sanford Bookstaver, Jonas Pate
Written by: M Raven Metzner, Jon Worley, Tatiana Suarez-Pico, Jenny Lynn, Declan de Barra, Matthew White, Rebecca Dameron, Melissa Glenn, Daniel Shattuck
Starring: Finn Jones, Jessica Henwick, Jessica Stroup, Tom Pelphrey, Sacha Dhawan, Simone Missick, Alice Eve, Christine Toy Johnson, Giullian Yao Gioiello, Jason Lai, James Chen, Rob Morgan, and more
Network: Netflix
Duration: 10 episodes, 55 mins
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What everyone has been wondering is, will season 2 of Iron Fist be better than the disappointing first season of the comics-based series? The answer to that question is yes it does show signs of improvement overall. Is it entertaining? Yes, it is pretty enjoyable, but it still hasn’t achieved that quality that makes it a revelation like its fellow Marvel series have done in the past.
Marvel/Netflix’ Iron Fist is not a ten-hour long martial arts movie if that’s what you were hoping for like I was in the show’s freshman season. After seeing Daredevil and while still waiting for the first season of Iron Fist to premiere I found myself wondering what they had planned to do with the character because Daredevil had already established itself as a top-notch martial arts series. As we now know, the answer was to make it a ten episode long soap opera focused on the show’s supporting characters and to make it a show with minimal martial arts in its content.
The opening shot of season 2 was rich with promise, a long loving shot of a dark street in Chinatown serves as the setting of a crime scene. When a masked Danny Rand shows up and interrupts the departure of a recently stolen armored truck, and when the bad guys try to run him down he hits the truck with his glowing fist and stops it dead in its tracks, and that’s just the beginning of a decent fight sequence. That promise does not go unfulfilled, season two is better in that regard, there are a few pretty satisfying fight scenes and lots more action this time around. Season two serves up a steady diet of violence; it depicts multiple murders and brutal assaults. There were a couple of times that made me grin and exclaim out loud ” Now that’s more like it!” The pacing of the season two narrative was excellent and presented drama of a different sort this time around, more Shakespearian with themes of dark revenge and betrayal, although it did still occasionally drift into soap opera territory. Once again, the series got a little off course when it was depicting the neurotic issues of the Meachum siblings, which catalyzed the season’s events.
This time around the series narrative spent a lot of its focus on Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick), and she did a remarkably good job carrying the season on her back. She had the juiciest and most enjoyable fight scenes, and beyond that, her acting was memorable enough in the role to almost steal the show. For the most part, the entire second season belongs to the supporting cast who were plain more exciting and, in a dark manner, fun. For example, Sacha Dhawan was excellent as Davos the Steel Serpent who played his character convincingly as if he were a religious fanatic. Also, Alice Eve was memorable as the scary ‘Typhoid’ Mary Walker; her performance was a truly frightening statement about PTSD and mental illness in general. Simone Missick as Misty Knight was also a welcome addition to the show. Oddly, Danny Rand, the supposed chief protagonist of the show, was the least interesting part of the season.
The tenth and final episode ended on a strange note with a surprising twist that I am not sure I entirely understand, but needless to say, it was designed to keep us interested in seeing a third season of the series, and it worked on me at least, more, please.