(Comic book) Issues.
Full spoilers for Iron Fist's eighth episode follow.
Iron Fist’s eighth episode was a step back in quality and pacing after its strong seventh entry. It was also fraught with bad dialogue and corny Issues (yes, with a capital “I”), ones that are even pointed out by a character as being “cliche” and “pathetic” at one point.
The characters discuss their Issues — dead parents, abandonment, control — as if they were in the middle of a therapy session. While I usually like it when the characters stop to actually just talk to one another, the dialogue here was painfully on the nose. Indeed, Ward seemed to be channeling both the audiences’ and maybe even the writers’ frustrations by calling out not only the contrivance of these Issues, but also the stupidity of both Danny and Joy’s decisions. As a result, I actually found myself more interested here in what happened next to Ward (a character I haven’t cared about so far) than I did Danny.
The show seems to be straining to make Ward a tragic character, one who is trying to escape his family’s hold on him, with first Harold and now Joy taking his escape routes away from him. Ward was so close to revealing the truth to Joy, that is until he started seeing blood that isn’t really there. At this rate, I’m expecting Ward to next be seen reading Macbeth.
Joy’s blackmail materials on the Rand board — provided to her by an unseen Jessica Jones — seems like fairly tame stuff (affairs, Lawrence’s arrest) to wave over the heads of people who don’t seem to care about poisoning an entire town. I suspect the ace up her sleeve will lead to them calling her bluff (sorry, too many gambling references).
I’m still not quite sure why Madame Gao fled New York for China to begin with since she’s clearly not intimidated by Danny. Did she really goad him all the way there just for him to realize that, as he suspected, she helped kill his parents? There seemed to be a simpler, more direct way if that was part of her plan (which I don’t think it was). And what happened to that powerful backhand of hers that she showed off in episode six? Being cornered by Iron Fist at the end seemed like a good time to summon that skill again.
The highlight of the China scenes was Marvel Comics character Zhou Cheng (played by Lewis Tan), who was like The Hand’s answer to the perpetually inebriated Doc Holliday. The story seemed to be setting him and Danny up as two sides of the same coin, but Zhou Cheng simply isn’t in the episode long enough for that to be either earned or paid off. Still, at least he had some personality, which is more than can be said for Danny Bland. (More on that in a bit.)
And did anyone really buy for a moment that the cast was actually in China and not in Brooklyn or Queens doubling for it? I suspect if the camera had tilted a few degrees left or right it probably would’ve given away something distinctly New York.
I liked Claire reading a letter from Luke Cage (aka inmate Carl Lucas) and her chiding Danny about hooking up with Colleen. That said, Claire, Colleen, and Danny each had their own grating I Will Announce My Character Motivation moment in explaining why they’re going to China.
Danny had some truly groan-inducing lines in this episode. “It doesn’t suck, OK?!” “The waiting. It’s hard” (Is he a Tom Petty fan?) “Talk. Or bleed.” “I have to stop the greatest threat to my people.” “I’ll die before I let you touch them.” (Um, Danny, they’ll definitely end up dead then if you die.)
As mundane as the Meachums have been overall, there is a case to be made that Danny Rand is the worst, most poorly drawn character on Iron Fist. He’s not only devoid of any discernible personality, he’s also impetuous and clueless. He has no informed plan, doesn’t seem as bright as he does headstrong, and, as he was with Harold, is so gullible as to believe anything Ward, Gao or anyone else tells him. Eight episodes into a thirteen-episode series, it would be nice to actually like your protagonist by now.
The Verdict
There was A Little Trouble in Big China (or, more likely, Brooklyn) in this eighth episode of Iron Fist, which was marred by bad dialogue and ham-fisted issues. But at least the appearance of Zhou Cheng livened things up for a few moments.
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