#danny rand i love you please come back we miss you (literally just me)
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
white boy save me save me white boy save me
#iron fist#the immortal iron fist#nmcu#netflix iron fist#iron fist netflix#nmcu danny rand#nmcu iron fist#iron fist edit#danny rand edit#danny rand#danny rand iron fist#danny rand i love you please come back we miss you (literally just me)#hes my sillay meow meow
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
Tik Tok Pranks with the USM Team
Peter Parker / Spider man (”Is there something you need to tell me?”)
“Is there something you need to tell me?”
He froze, “What?”
You bit your lip to keep yourself from laughing, “I know that you’re hiding something. I already know so don’t even try to lie. Just tell me.”
“I’m not hiding anything from you.”
“Pete I already know, so just admit it.”
He looked like he was going to have a heart attack and suddenly you were starting to wonder if he actually did do something.
“Who told you?”
“It doesn’t matter who told me, because I want to hear it from you.”
“Okay, but please don’t be mad. I’m Spiderman.”
You rolled your eyes, “Ha ha very funny.”
You turned, to get your phone and show him it was just a prank but he shot a web at your hand to keep you from leaving.
“Oh my god... Pete please don’t be upset.”
“What? Why would I be—?”
“This was a tik tok prank.”
“WHAT?!”
Sam Alexander / Nova (Moving his hand from your leg)
You were sitting through a mission debriefing and as usual Sam’s hand was resting peacefully on your leg
You moved it away the first time, pretending that you needed to move a little away to get some water and then moved back after which he prompt put his hand back
The second time, you pushed his hand away he looked at you confused but you just ignored his gaze and he put his hand back
The third time you pushed his hand away, he literally interrupted Fury in the middle of the debriefing
“Push my hand away again! One! More! Time! I Dare you!”
You were giggling when he set his hand back down and then pushed it away again once more after which he slammed his hand back down on your thigh so hard there was a loud slap
“Ouch! Sam!”
“That’s what you get for refusing my love!”
Danny Rand / Iron Fist (”Ask me what I would do if we broke up”)
“Ask me what I would do if we broke up”
“No. I don’t wanna ask.”
You laughed, “Just ask me.”
He shook his head again, pouting
“Come on! Ask me, it’s a joke.”
“Okay, fine, what would you do if we broke up?”
“I’d go back to my ex.”
When you saw his face fall, your heart hurt in your chest and you felt bad for pulling this kind of prank on your poor boyfriend who very obviously loved you so much
“Heh...funny joke.”
“You would be my ex.”
“Oh. This is why I didn’t wanna ask, because you’re a very mean person.”
You laughed, kissing him quickly and watched as his pout turned into a smile, “I’m sorry.”
Luke Cage / Power man (Walking in on him while he’s showering)
You tried to keep yourself from giggling as you tiptoed into the bathroom
You pulled open the shower curtain and stepped into the tub, laughing when he screamed
“SWEET CHRISTMAS!”
“Hi honey—Ouch why is this water so hot?!”
“What the heck are you doing in here?!” He screamed and ripped the shower curtain off the rod to wrap it around himself
“I missed you...”
“Well go miss me in the living room please!”
You laughed and nodded, stepping out and grabbing your phone along the way
“Did she seriously wear her socks before doing this...?”
Ava Ayala / White Tiger (”I feel like you could have been nicer to me today”)
”I feel like you could have been nicer to me today” You told Ava and her head perked up with a surprised Pikachu expression
“What? What did I do?”
You tried to look sad but it was so hard when she was staring doe-eyed at you
“I just think that you could have been nicer to me today.”
She pulled you into her arms immediately, kissing your forehead and you cooed, pressing a kiss to her lips
“I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t mean to.”
“Aw, you’re so sweet, I’m sorry, I was just pranking you.”
Her face was laughable, you laughed so hard that you couldn’t even stop when she dropped you onto the floor
“You suck.”
#ultimate spider-man#ultimate spiderman x reader#ultimate spider man#ultimate spider man x reader#ultimate spiderman#peter parker#peter parker x reader#peter parker headcanon#danny rand x reader#danny rand#danny rand headcanon#sam alexander x reader#sam alexander#sam alexander headcanons#luke cage#luke cage x reader#ava ayala#ava ayala x reader
356 notes
·
View notes
Text
at last, beth, the triad is complete
gay lawyers
Kevin Punt was an asshole. Violent. Angry. Sadistic.
You know, an asshole.
When Nelson and Murdock put him away for a few years, Foggy started resting a bit easier. Not much, because, well. Drop in the ocean. And. Well. Crime fighting partner with a masochistic streak. And. W e l l.
He didn’t sleep much.
But he slept better after locking Kevin Punt behind bars.
So when his parole hearing came up, he and Matt were quick to retake the case. The evidence was irrefutable, and the last thing they wanted was a monster like him back on the streets.
Kevin Punt’s family was, to say the least, not pleased.
“Ma’am,” Matt interjected in his best ‘I am a sexy blind lawyer, please give me your attention and listen to me and maybe take your shirt off if you want haha just kidding but seriously listen to me’ voice (although that may just be Foggy’s interpretation). “I’m sorry you have to go through this again. But the fact of the matter is, your cousin was guilty. No one wants to face their family members’ dark side, but in Mr. Punt’s case, his violent tendencies and criminal persuasions make him a danger to the public.”
“My cousin,” the young woman hissed back, tears burning in her eyes like rage, “Was innocent. You’re liars. You’re as corrupt as everyone else in this damn city!”
“Hey,” Foggy began, “I know it’s hard to hear-”
His frankly very soothing tone apparently did not work. It was possible his frustration was poking through.
“He’s innocent! He would never hurt anyone, he’s just confused!”
“Sure,” Matt sighed, exhausted, “He didn’t commit egregious acts of violence. He just stumbled into that store owner with a baseball bat. Multiple times.”
“That’s unsubstantiated!”
“There was VIDEO!”
“Doctored evidence!”
“Miss Punt,” Matt broke through, a hint of his alter ego breaking through the thin veneer of civility, “I offer my condolences again. One can’t choose their relatives, and I admire your support. But I’m going to have to insist you leave.”
She stiffened.
“Fine,” she snapped, “But we’ll see how you silver-tongued lawyers do in court when the truth comes out.”
“Pretty sure we’ll rock it, ok, thanks for coming in! Bye!” Foggy watched as she stormed out the door. “Aaaaand she’s gone. Jesus, the whackadoo apple must consist of the whole family tree.”
Matt hummed.
“It was a little weird though, wasn’t it?”
“What?”
“What she said. That last bit.”
Foggy shrugged.
“You didn’t see it, but she had desperate written all over her. She’s just another grieving family member with false hope. Sad, but not exactly uncommon. I expected her to say fake news next.”
Matt stared at the door, considering.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“Anyway, are you hungry? I could murder some pad thai.”
Matt snorted, and the daily lunch argument began. The strange encounter soon fled to the back of his mind.
For the moment.
-
When Matt came in for work the next morning, his body was still sore from a relatively painful night. Not too much activity, with his reputation, but it just meant the people who were out and about were more prepared than usual. The armor could only do so much against a taser. Still, the ache was good. It was the ache of a job well done, an ache that saved lives. He took a quiet pride in it, in what his body could do. That said, the day would look much better after a cup of coffee.
“Wow,” Foggy remarked fondly, “You look like hell.”
Matt groaned.
“Do you ever get sick of making that pun?”
“Nah,” he said, “It feels fresh every time. Besides, you like the puns.”
“No, they’re childish and lame,” Matt says.
This is not what comes out of Matt’s mouth.
“Yes, the teasing is a comforting reminder of how far we’ve come since you first discovered my vigilantism. I was afraid of losing you, and the fact that we can now openly joke about it is reassuring.”
Foggy stared, cup halfway to his mouth.
“Uh. Wow, buddy. Thanks for the. Honesty?”
Matt frowned.
“That’s. Not what I meant to say.”
“No, don’t wig out now. It’s kinda refreshing, not having to guess what you’re thinking.”
“Yeah,” Matt said dubiously, “I keep a lot of things private from you because I fear for your safety, and I know it frustrates you but I’m not willing to put you in harm’s way for my own sake.”
Matt glared down at his hands. Foggy’s eyes widened in shock.
“Are you feeling okay?”
Matt’s eyes snapped up.
“Foggy.”
“Matthew,”
“Lie to me.”
Foggy stood up, leaning over his desk.
“What’s that?”
“Lie to me. Something’s wrong. I need to make sure it’s just me.”
He could feel Foggy look him over.
“You look the same, pal. And by that I mean extremely attractive.”
Foggy breathed in sharply. Matt smirked.
“Let me guess.”
“I didn’t mean to say that!”
“Foggy. Something is very wrong.”
“I stole your pillow in college because it smelled like you and it helped me fall asleep!”
“Fog, I. You. Jesus, Foggy!”
“I need to leave right now immediately.”
Before he could stop him, his partner had grabbed his jacket and was out the door.
“Wait!” he called out. But Foggy was already gone.
-
Danny hummed thoughtfully over the phone, staring in consideration at the paper in front of him.
“Well, it’s a good thing you called me.”
Matt sighed.
“I couldn’t think of anyone else, and if I could have I would have called literally anyone else.”
“Hey!”
“Rand, I can’t help it! I’m compelled to honesty!”
“Doesn’t mean you have to be a jerk. Well, more of a jerk than usual.”
Matt grit his teeth.
“You’re a man with the heart of a child and the power of at least a MINOR god, I don’t think you’re very responsible and quite frankly while I’m very proud of the strides you’ve taken with your company and wouldn’t want it in any other hands I’m morally opposed to billionaires.”
Danny nodded, beginning to fold creases into the paper.
“Yeah, sounds like a truth spell buddy. You piss off any witches?”
“None that I know of.”
Danny shrugged.
“I just shrugged.”
“I could hear it.”
“You can hear shrugs?”
“Danny.”
“Look, best I can say is let it runs it’s course. These type of things are meant to teach us lessons.”
“I don’t have time for zen bullshit!”
“Sure, Catholic. Also tampering with the spell might make it permanent. Which.”
“Fuck.”
“Have fun saying your Hail Mary’s for that.”
“Good bye, Daniel.”
“Bye, Matt!”
He waited for the click before presenting the table with a perfectly folded paper football.
“You ready for this, Luke?”
“Oh, I was born ready.”
-
“Foggy,” Matt’s phone politely informed him. “Foggy. Foggy. Fo-”
“Answer,” he snapped.
“It’s a truth spell!” Foggy blurted.
“Yeah, I know. I talked to Danny.”
“Rand? Really?”
“He was on a magical temple for most of his life. How did you figure it out?”
“I just asked Stephen Strange.”
“What?”
“I’m his lawyer. And I never grumble at him, so he likes me better.”
“What did Strange have to say?”
“He said it would probably run about a week, and if he tampered with it it might become permanent.”
“Sounds about the same.”
“You know who did this, right?”
“Punt.”
Foggy growled.
“I am getting really sick of that family, Matt.”
“It’ll be over soon.”
“This is going to make working on the case hell.”
“Why?”
“Because now I have to actively resist telling everyone I know that you’re Daredevil. And I have to actively resist telling you that I-”
The dial tone clicked.
Foggy had apparently found a loophole.
-
It was awkward. They both left the room multiple times. Matt didn’t know what Foggy was keeping secret, but he sure as hell wasn’t about to admit he was in love with him. Even if it was obvious to everyone else.
“You know,” Foggy remarked over noodles, “This curse sucks, but like. It kinda evens the playing field.”
Matt quirked an eyebrow.
“Well, I mean. You can tell I’m lying whenever you want. But. Now I know for sure you’re not lying to me, either.”
“I’m sorry I hurt your trust enough that you worry about that.”
“I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t trust me.”
“I didn’t want to put you in harm’s way.”
“I’d put myself in harm’s way for you any day. We’re bros.”
Matt bit his tongue.
“Matt?”
Matt bit harder.
“Matt, what the fuck your mouth is bleeding! What’s going on?”
“I’m trying to keep things to myself,” he grunted, hoarse.
“Jesus, Matt, do I need to leave?”
“I never want you to leave.”
“What?”
“I never want you to leave.”
Foggy paused, wheeling the chair around the desk to be knee to knee with him. He radiated caution.
“Well. I never want to have to leave you, buddy.”
“I don’t,” Matt choked out, throat closing from the strain of keeping the words down, “Want to be your buddy.”
Foggy smelled hurt.
“What?”
“Foggy. I don’t just want to be your buddy.”
Foggy gulped.
“I’ve been trying really hard, here, Matty.”
“I know.”
“I don’t. Want to misunderstand. But it hurts to not say what I want to say. What I’ve always wanted to say. And I don’t. I don’t want to say it, if you’re. If you’re not gonna say it back. Not gonna feel it back.”
“Foggy,” Matt whispered.
“Matt.”
“I knew you took my pillow.”
“I know you knew.”
“I never asked to switch back.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Foggy’s hand shook as it reached forward and rested on Matt’s. His skin nearly screamed at the sensation, aching all over from the long time sense he had last been touched like this. Carefully. As if he were fragile. As if he could break.
“Foggy,” he breathed.
“I really want to kiss you,” he admitted, half hope and half rue.
“I’ve wanted you to kiss me for almost 7 years.”
“Well,” Foggy leaned in, “Better late than never.”
It was soft, and firm, and a little wet. It was an everyday, normal, average kiss.
Matt lit up everywhere like an electric panel, gasping as the sensation washed over him. Gripping his hair, he pulled Foggy in deeper, opening his mouth in an attempt to steal back his breath.
“I love you,” he whispered into his mouth, “I think I might have loved you my entire life. I just didn’t know it yet.”
Foggy’s hands tightened around his thighs.
“I love you too. I’ve loved you since we first met. I’ve loved you for so long I don’t know how not to love you.”
“Don’t learn,” Matt hissed, fierce. “Don’t learn how. If you left I’d be lost.”
“Don’t worry, Matty,” Foggy laughed, pulling him in closer by his tie, “You’re the fast learner.”
-
The trial wasn’t very long. They presented the evidence, spoke of the victim’s family, mentioned his irrational behavior, spoke of the personal threats they’d received in the mail.
Every word of it was honest and true.
Kevin Punt did not receive parole.
His cousin stood in the audience, crying as he was taken away, screaming threats.
“It’s true,” she whispered. “He really did those terrible things.”
Foggy lay a comforting hand on her elbow.
“I’m sorry you had to find out this way.”
She nodded, sniffling.
“Also, you’re a bitch for placing that spell on us.”
She stiffened, before sighing and nodding again.
“I just wanted him to have every chance.”
Foggy squeezed her elbow and left.
“I guess I deserved that. You make someone speak truth, he’ll call you a bitch.”
“Oh, he would have called you that anyway.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, he doesn’t like it when his privacy is invaded. I should know, I’m Da-”
“MATT. I need you to come take me home until this thing wears off!”
Matt turned towards the door.
“Be right there, sweetheart.”
He offered his arm to the woman.
“Thank you.”
“For what? I need you to lead me to my partner.”
“Oh! Right, I’m sorry.”
“Not a problem.”
Bitch, he added silently.
“We’re going to have victory sex after this,” he added.
“The spell wore off after the hearing!”
“I know,” he was giddy, “I just wanted everyone to know. I’m a very lucky man.”
“That you are, Matt,” Foggy took his arm from the stricken woman and gave his hand a squeeze. “That you are.”
“Did you just wink at me?”
“Yup.”
“Good.”
There were some benefits to honesty.
#mattfoggy#beth this is the final part of the honesty trilogy#a witch made them do it and by do it i mean communicate openly and honestly#daredevil
18 notes
·
View notes
Text
Kris Reacts to The Defenders (cont’d)
"For Whatever It’s Worth, I’m Glad You’re Here.”
![Tumblr media](https://64.media.tumblr.com/5b9196c8b5fcb25c94e525d87a5fd3cb/tumblr_inline_ov2qdtMECK1ul8tqq_540.jpg)
Find my off-the-cuff mini-Reactions to the first five episodes of The Defenders here. A full-sized Reaction with some others may be forthcoming later in the week. SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP for the rest of the season. Some non-spoilery, mostly Daredevil-related thoughts first.
I feel even more strongly than before that to get very much out of The Defenders, you really should watch both seasons of Daredevil. There are for sure lots of quality Jessica-Luke moments, don’t get me wrong, and in the unlikely event that your favorite Defender show is Iron Fist, Colleen Wing gets a surprising amount to do. But the most important non-Defender characters, including significant villains, are from Daredevil’s supporting cast.
I love Matt Murdock (although not as much as Caroline loves Matt Murdock), but he has got to stop referring to New York (or is it just Hell’s Kitchen, or Manhattan? I’ve never been sure) as “my city.” Especially when Daredevil never really gave us a sense of what either the Kitchen in particular or NYC in general means to him. In fact, I’d love a moratorium on all superheroes referring to “My City,” especially if we rarely see them interacting with the people and places of “their” cities in meaningful, specific civilian capacities. The bar here is set by Luke Cage, which in two episodes does more to flesh out Harlem than the entirety of either Daredevil or Jessica Jones (which are otherwise the best entries in the Defenders series) did for Hell’s Kitchen.
The Defenders shares a composer, John Paesano, with Daredevil. This is not surprising, as these shows also share showrunners, Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez (who were producer-writers under Drew Goddard and later Steven DeKnight in Daredevil s1). What is surprising is how much I like the music in these shows. It’s pretty melody-light, and vaguely “atmospheric,” and there’s a lot of repetitive percussion, which all taken together is generally a style that annoys me. But what usually annoys me about that style is that it’s intended to blend into the background, to not really be noticed at all. And Paesano’s music, while it isn’t always super prominent in the sound mix or anything, uses simple but still hummable leitmotifs that -- even if in your experience their overall impression is to blend in -- can be recognized as very Of This Show. In other words, unlike many movies that have melody-light or even effectively melody-less scores, often with aggressive percussion, things scored by Paesano actually have musical identities (including Mass Effect: Andromeda, whose musical identity is probably the second-best thing about it, after combat).
Take the first music we hear in season 2 of Daredevil, “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen”:
youtube
At first this seems like it’s just gonna be generic chasing-and-punching music, from literally any post-Bourne action franchise, but around 1:14, the ostinato that’s the backbone of the title theme kicks in. It’s much faster than in the titles, but instantly recognizable. Even if you don’t consciously recognize it in the moment, you probably feel a distinctly Daredevil vibe. It goes away again for a bit as the action of the scene ends, but returns as we see Matt (relatively) clearly for the first time in the season, a devil perched on a chapel.
This music from the climactic fight of the s2 finale, “They Have Nothing Now,” is another good example, riffing on both the ostinato and the main melody that starts about 18 seconds into the title theme.
Contrast this with the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, which do have a melodic instrumental theme, but which you almost certainly don’t associate with the movies or the characters. Partly this is because it’s just OK, but mostly it’s because what anyone remembers about those soundtracks are the needle drops of the Awesome Mixes. Don’t get me wrong, the Awesome Mixes are cool and all. But they also consist of music that most people would not specifically or exclusively associate with Guardians. Weirdly, the same composer worked on Atomic Blonde, which takes a similar approach to its music. This always seems to me like a missed opportunity. It’s like your movie or your show is somehow incomplete. What is Star Wars without John Williams? Or Batman: The Animated Series without Shirley Walker, 30 Rock without Jeff Richmond, Battlestar Galactica without Bear McCreary, Game of Thrones without Ramin Djawadi? What is Wonder Woman’s No Man’s Land without “No Man’s Land”?
Anyway, all this to say that I’m a weirdo who REALLY LOVES A LOT that when a character briefly plays an instrument late in The Defenders, what they play is the show’s simple, vaguely Danny Elfman-esque title theme, rather than some overused classical piece.
youtube
Moving on... spoilers below!
There’s a lot about The Defenders that doesn’t work, and we’ll get to some of it. But unexpectedly, what’s stuck with me -- perhaps its single greatest achievement -- is that after the shitshow of his solo series, it renders Danny Rand pretty likable. Or at least, much easier to empathize with, much more often, than in Iron Fist.
In episode 6 when he’s tied up and Luke is babysitting, Luke (sarcastically) asks him to recount again the story of how he earned the Iron Fist by punching a dragon in the heart. Danny has a very bad sarcasm radar, and complies, and Luke has to remind him that he doesn’t give a shit or even really believe him (EVEN AFTER ALL THE WEIRD SHIT THAT’S HAPPENED). And Danny gives this sigh that back in Iron Fist I probably would’ve found petulant and childish. It does still feel, for lack of a better word, very young here. But I also found myself honestly feeling bad for the guy. He’s trying so hard, and in episode 4 he was the only one who (this is crucial) like the audience was rooting for the team to be a team, yet everyone keeps treating him like an annoying little sibling. Also, he’s telling the truth, he’s been telling the truth since he got back to New York (admittedly in the least persuasive ways possible at the start of Iron Fist), and since he got back to New York almost no one has believed him. And finally there comes the one guy in The Defenders who doesn’t have to believe Danny because he knows that Danny’s telling the truth: Stick. But then Stick is the one who wants to take Danny off the board at the top of episode 6, pulling the rug out from under him just when it seemed he had an all-in ally and even a potential mentor (something he realized he still needed very badly late in Iron Fist). This can’t be a fun place.
So that sigh actually carried some decent emotional weight for me. All the more because Luke immediately realized he’d genuinely hurt Danny’s feelings, and not just “get over yourself, you privileged white boy” feelings but “this is a central part of his identity that I’m mocking mercilessly” feelings.
Now, to be clear, Danny is an annoying little sibling. But Iron Fist never really recognized this, because it wanted Danny to be an imposing, menacing badass when what it needed him to be -- what The Defenders makes him -- is sweetly goofy and eager-to-please, a puppy who just happens to also be a trained killing machine. Danny’s the kind of guy that the cast of Leverage would call “adorable” with equal parts condescension and fondness, the kind of guy about whom you might say “bless his heart” and actually kind of mean it.
It should surprise no one who knows me well that despite all of the above, I Extremely Approve of Elektra pretty easily outclassing Danny in their fight at the end of episode 7, Iron Fist or no Iron Fist.
But as Caroline mentions in her thoughts on her Patreon (and as she discussed in her Daredevil s2 reviews), it’s never super clear what it means for Elektra to be “the Black Sky.” For that matter it’s still unclear (though more deliberately) what the full potential extent of Danny’s Iron Fist powers is. And I think The Defenders could’ve gotten a lot more mileage out of parallels between Danny and Elektra as “living weapons.”
In general I’d hoped, perhaps foolishly, for a lot more from Elektra than we got. I didn’t have any problems with the acting, to be clear; I’m basically in love with Elodie Yung, entirely on the strength of her absurdly charismatic performance in Daredevil. But because Elektra doesn’t come back to life with her memories, Yung has to spend most of The Defenders keeping that charisma locked away, until a Plot Twist (Elektra killing Alexandra!) that I’m not convinced entirely works. I went along with it wholeheartedly anyway because it meant Yung got to unleash her full powers again. Or it would’ve been her full powers, if there’d been a lot more time to flesh out exactly what and who Elektra 3.0 is.
We get a complete-ish answer by the end of the show, when it becomes clear that Elektra not only has her memories of Matt back but is still in love with him. But this is a character whose main challenge in her first life was that she was never permitted to figure out for herself what she wanted to do with that life, and “hijack the Hand’s plan to return to K’un Lun, and more importantly become immortal” -- though immortality certainly makes sense as a thing Elektra would want -- doesn’t come close to concretely addressing the ultimately relatable existential crisis (what is my place in the world?) that she faced in Daredevil.
Sigourney Weaver is able to sell a desire for immortality as Alexandra Reid’s overriding concern because we meet her getting a (vaguely defined) terminal disease diagnosis, and because we spend a lot of time with Alexandra dwelling on her physical fragility and on her concerns about legacy. Yung’s Elektra doesn’t have that way in, and the writers don’t have the time or space in the last act of the season to do more than gesture broadly at Elektra’s desire to finally decide her own destiny. I think the reason this doesn’t land as well as it ought to is that it’s framed as a Villain Monologue, delivered to Danny, a character with whom she doesn’t have history. She doesn’t have this conversation with Stick (she just stabs him), and worse, she doesn’t really have it with Matt outside the chaos of a fight scene, though at least they get that last (?) kiss.
There’s a lot of lazy dialogue in The Defenders, especially in the finale, though thankfully these actors for whom we have a lot of banked affection just about pull it off. The last line of the cold open -- Luke’s “let’s go do something crazy” -- is... just kind of there? Which is a weird choice for the first big punctuation mark in the climactic chapter of this crossover event. He could’ve said that at basically any other point of the show; this should have been a line he could only say at this moment.
Trish’s “Jess is a good friend speech” to Karen is not great. It’s not awful, either, but it’s not all that specific: Jess doesn’t do any of the things most of us in the real world ask our friends to do, “but when it comes to the real stuff, the stuff that’ll last forever...” What is that stuff? That Trish is interrupted by Malcolm and Foggy with some Bad News feels a little like the writers just didn’t know how to finish that sentence. How exactly are Matt and Jessica good friends? Yeah yeah yeah, they save your life, cool, standard superhero. But what’s the last time Matt in particular was 100 percent emotionally there for you? I do remember Jess and Trish’s friendship being my favorite part of Jessica Jones, but it’s been almost two years and some details would’ve been nice.
Actively bad is the exchange that ends this scene: “That was the epicenter.” “Of what?” “Everything.” That’s just -- come on. That’s nowhere near as profound as it seems to want to be. That Midland was the epicenter of the earthquake is PLENTY to convey to the others that “ohhhhh that WASN’T a natural earthquake and shit’s about to go down.” In the abstract, “EVERYTHING” may sound more important than “the earthquake.” But the latter was a major inciting incident of The Defenders, and because none of these characters actually knows all of the other pieces the Defenders themselves are concerned with, the specificity of the earthquake is what should have been prized.
(In general, though, I did love that Karen and Trish got a scene together.)
Luckily the best lines -- or at least, the best line readings -- of the episode come in the scene immediately afterward:
JESS: If you’d told me a week ago that I’d be here, with you two, about to blow up some building and fight ninjas to save New York... LUKE: (sigh) MATT: (chuckle) For whatever it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here. JESS: What? MATT: No, circumstances could be better, I’m just saying, you know -- I’m glad we found each other. LUKE: I’m not hugging you. MATT: (resigned sigh) JESS: You guys ready or what? LUKE: No. MATT: ...No. JESS: Sounds about right.
The sheer endearing-ness and tonal perfection of this moment is hard to convey in writing. Charlie Cox’s delivery of Matt’s “No” in particular is just terrifically world-weary. The other thing I need to say about this scene is that I identify a weird amount with Matt’s series-long resistance to the team culminating in a belated moment of emotional openness, only for him to be met with the realization that the emotional availability of others doesn’t work on his schedule.
It’s possible I’m reading way too much into this. After all, I also identify with Luke’s resistance to hugging it out.
(My favorite dialogue in the show is probably still the “Are those pork?”-through-“God, you’re weird” exchange of episode 4.)
Another dialogue thing that stood out to me in the finale was the repeated trope of The Moment I Saw You.
Elektra, to Matt: “We’re together. Something I’ve wanted since I first laid eyes on you.”
Claire, to Foggy, about Matt: “But there was no talking him down. He had his mind made up the day I met him.”
This isn’t remotely unique to The Defenders, but it is a trope I tend to find annoying. I don’t think I believe in love at first sight, is probably part of my problem here, and I guess I get it if your mileage varies on that particular account. But it also feels lazy that it happens twice in a relatively narrow span of time, and about the same character, no less. Arguably more importantly, this is -- I know I lean on variations of this word a lot -- such an unspecific thing to say, in a show that had SO MUCH specificity at its disposal in the solo series. Why “since I first laid eyes on you” rather than a callback to something Matt said that night, or to their Sexy Sparring Session? Why “the day I met him” rather than a reference to Claire stitching Matt back together, or finding Matt in a literal dumpster?
(I liked that Claire and Foggy got an “our mutual friend” scene, but as others have said, it’s super weird that Claire and Matt never had a moment.)
There’s probably also something to say here about destiny and purpose, which ties into Elektra and Danny, and into the formation of the team itself, but again the show didn’t really make the time for that. I'm absolutely not suggesting that they needed 13 episodes -- I just don’t think they really managed their time well -- but with so many characters to serve, maybe 10 would’ve been interesting? To give Elektra a more robust arc post-Alexandra, if nothing else?
(About Alexandra -- I read some reviews to the effect that Sigourney Weaver held the first few episodes of The Defenders together through sheer force of will and Sigourney Weaver-ness, but I did not feel that way at all. I mean I thought she was very good, but the writing mostly wasn’t deep or clever enough for her to take the character of Alex anywhere near the level of Cottonmouth or Kilgrave or Wilson Fisk, and I think this “Sigourney Weaver is the best thing about The Defenders” take was mostly wishful projection on the part of people who know her corpus much better than I do. I’ve seen Alien but not Aliens; #sorrynotsorry.)
I did love that both in the premiere and the finale, Luke got to call back to Pop’s “Forward” mantra, without repeating the full “Forward always, always forward.” It was a nice way to show that Pop’s philosophy is thoroughly a part of him now, and that -- unlike Jessica, the person he’s with for the second callback -- he’s really deliberately thinking about his future.
I also liked, or wanted to like, that Jessica said maybe they could get coffee, but I wasn’t entirely sure what was intended by this. See, in Luke Cage, “coffee” turns out to be a euphemism Luke uses for sex, or at least a one-night stand. But he’s with Claire now, which may be a reason he doesn’t deliver the established winking response from his own show: “I don’t drink coffee.” (Misty said it to him back then; he replied, “Neither do I.” I don’t think Luke not drinking coffee was a thing in Jessica Jones, and even if it was, it would totally be in character for Jess not to remember.) Apart from the lack of a callback response, my uncertainty comes from “we should get coffee” almost inevitably meaning, in my experience, “we are definitely not going to make the effort to get coffee,” even if we’re both totally sincere about wanting to catch up, which seems like a relatable social phenomenon Jess would snark about.
To backtrack a bit -- that big fight scene in episode 7, against Gao and Bakuto and Murakami? It was... not shot well. Way too claustrophobic, and at least by the high standards of Daredevil, way too choppily edited. Most of the fights in The Defenders were underwhelming -- really missed Philip Silvera’s work -- but that one in particular stood out as a mess. (Caroline remarked that it’s a shame the fighting styles of the team aren’t better differentiated, at least in the show’s latter half; this is particularly true for Matt and Danny. It’s interesting that although Finn Jones is overall much better at the action here than he was in Iron Fist, the fights in The Defenders do lose a fair bit of the wushu character that previously distinguished his hand techniques, at least, from Matt’s.)
Anyway, I could probably say more -- I’m particularly sorry I haven’t done justice to the Jessica-Luke dynamic, or to the Daughters of the Dragon -- but I’ve lost most semblance of a train of thought here, so I’ll stop. I do recommend checking out all of Caroline's Random Thoughts, and, as always, the episode reviews over at The AV Club. (As of this writing the AVC is currently on episode 5.)
Though I did want a lot more from The Defenders in a lot of ways, as with the pretty strange and uneven Age of Ultron it was still a lot of fun to spend time with these characters, both alone and together. This was very much a show that did not manage to be more than the sum of its parts, but at least many of those parts were very pleasant. And frankly, I’m glad the run of episodes 6 through 8 was the last thing I watched this weekend, rather than the trainwreck (Tormund banter, zombie burning, and Dany’s winter wardrobe notwithstanding) that was this season’s penultimate episode of Game of Thrones.
I’m also cautiously optimistic about the possibility of a Luke Cage-Iron Fist team-up show, and to a lesser extent even -- I can’t believe I’m gonna say this -- the next solo season of Iron Fist (which will have a new showrunner -- Scott Buck is helming Inhumans, something about which I have strong feelings that we just can’t get into right now -- and add Simone Missick’s Misty Knight to its roster). If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is.
#The Defenders#Daredevil#Jessica Jones#Luke Cage#Iron Fist#John Paesano#Matthew Murdock#Danny Rand#Elektra Natchios#Charlie Cox#Krysten Ritter#Mike Colter#Finn Jones#Elodie Yung#Kris's Type?#Strong Soundtrack Opinions#reaction#Kris#TV#superheroes
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
kali watches iron fist so you don’t have to: episode 1x04
the plot is getting slightly more complicated now that the plot isn’t “danny yells at people that he is danny rand”, so i’m gonna break it up ep by ep i think.
episodes 1-3, if you missed it
the plot:
when we last left our intrepid hero he was being pushed out of a window on the meachum house a la the first episode of game of thrones. this picks up with him miraculously catching on to some kind of pillar a few feet below, and then slipping off of that onto a balcony, so his death-defying fall is only a few feet
he wakes up with ward and harry meachum. harry does his whole transparently manipulative abusive father schitck by being like oH GOD DANNY YOU’RE ALIVE I’M SO GLAAAAAD WELCOME HOOOOME while ward glares in the corner. harry retells how he died of cancer but struck a deal with the sinister Hand, and they revived him but on the catch that he is indebted to them and can never leave his house or reveal that he is alive to anyone except, for some reason, his shitty son and his manservant.
he whines about how he hasn’t seen joy in ages and begs danny not to tell joy that he’s alive, which danny agrees to.. because... whatever.
he also insists that danny be given his rightful stake in Rand (a gajillion dollars and majority shareholder status), which really doesn’t sit well with jealous longsuffering firstborn ward.
so now danny is the majority shareholder of a company that he loves because he misses his dead dad but which he knows truly fuck-all about. rand wants to have him be a figurehead with no official position, just raking in the cash, but danny, who has presumably no business experience or market knowledge literally at all, wants to insert himself in everything, for some reason.
he barges into a board meeting and does one of the most embarassing things i’ve ever seen committed to screen, which is walk over to the one empty rolly chair, drag it painstakingly all the way across the room and then demand everyone budge up so he can sit next to joy. saklfhalwrhlawt the awkward, embarassing nature of this scene is the first time iron fist has truly nailed creating emotional resonance
turns out Rand is Big Pharma. they are discussing some new wonder drug they’ve developed that costs $5 a pill to make and they will sell it for $50 a dose. capitalism’s bad. danny is mad. “we should sell at cost!”
no, other people explain, we need to make a profit, and we funnel most of that money back into our research labs where we find these miracle cures, argues Big Pharma
KILLING PEOPLE IS BAD, FUCK TRUMP, SELL AT COST yells danny, and uses his majority shareholder status to make it so.
everyone is mad because they love money.
ward INEXPLICABLY decides the way to get back at danny is to leak this story to the press. Ward Meachum, Businessman Extraordinaire thinks a story in which his company wanted to make huge profit off the sick and danny rand demanded they sell drugs at cost, honest to god thought this would be good press for his company and bad press for danny. ?!?!?! surprise motherfucker?
(i think karen page writes the article but i’m not 100% sure. it was definitely not karen who came to interview him, which was disappointing.)
meanwhile, danny and joy are friends again! turns out danny didn’t STEAL the craft that had his fingerprint on it, joy gave it to him. awww she’s nice now!! buddies! ?????!
i feel like i in the audience am the only one mad about danny’s trip to “hospital”. i don’t even like the dude, really, but what happened to him there was horrific and everyone’s just fine with it??? danny doesn’t care? joy feels no particular guilt and never even properly apologized for it??? WHAT IS GOING ON. THEY STRAPPED YOU TO A BED AND DRUGGED YOU OH MY GOD
anyway, danny tells his new bestie joy some horrific story about a “job” he really wanted (implied to be the “job” of being the iron fist, whatever that means) and how he had to work for years and it involved monks beating him up, like, all the time.
“that sounds like abuse,” says joy, who can recognize abuse in some contexts. just not at a pretend hospital.
joy goes to ... the hallway for some reason and gets jumped by a bunch of ninjas with hatchets. for real. danny, of course, rescues her, then he takes her to colleen’s place for safety
CAN COLLEEN PLEASE LIVE??!?! WILL THESE RICH WHITE PEOPLE LET HER LIVE
anyway, he ditches joy on colleen and goes to find the people who attacked joy, which is apparently a triad called “the hatchet men”??? very literal, i guess they want brand recognition
the hatchet men are mad at joy because she, on behalf of Rand, bought out some pier that the hatchet men were using for some nefarious criminal purposes. danny explains that the Hand blackmailed Rand (god.......) into buying that pier, and please leave joy alone or i’ll make my fist glow and punch you
the hatchet men ... are fine with this. i mean, it is supposed to be that the hatchet men don’t wanna fuck with the hand, but lol
danny asks what they want with the pier, and what the hand wants with the pier, and the hatchet men hand him a little packet of heroin and then disappear into the shadows
the characters:
no one new in this ep who is meaningful really
at this point in the show i find things are starting to get kind of... odd... with danny as a character. what he described IS obviously abuse, but we don’t see it, and we have no real context for it to make it emotional or compelling, and danny himself is cavalier about it, not even really in the ~hard exterior~ way, just. he doesn’t seem to have noticed. it sounds very similar to what we saw in daredevil with baby matt and stick, which is kind of an interesting comparison because i’d say daredevil was less consistent about portraying matt and stick’s relationship as abusive, yet emotionally i felt a lot more visceral “ugh no” than when danny’s describing his tribulations.
saving joy and demanding at-cost pricing is the first time danny has done anything that could be construed as charitable or not self-interested. it is starting to feel like they’re beginning to try with danny as a character, they’re just ....not succeeding.
he has a lot to overcome in terms of the sympathy level of a white billionaire who corrects chinese people on their own culture, but they’re also just not hitting emotional beats that they could be hitting. it’s hard to put my finger on what exactly isn’t working.
one of his biggest issues is that he continues to be a white man written by men, and thus his relationship with women is still fucked up in ways that the writers obviously don’t realize is fucked up
a good example is that now that he works at Rand, he has an assistant. he walks over to her and is like “hey you’re my assistant right? so does that mean you do whatever i tell you?”
obviously uncomfortable, she’s basically like no, it means i schedule your meetings. danny then LITERALLY asks “if i asked you to go buy me a box of fruit roll-ups, you’d have to, right?” to which the secretary is like “...........do you want a box of fruit roll-ups...?”
but he doesn’t even want fruit roll-ups!!! he instead then veers course and asks what info she has about the pier deal. she explains she has none but can set up a meeting for him with someone who worked on the file. he nods and wanders away, handing her an origami post-it flower, and she seems charmed.
WHAT THE FUCK @ all of that. it was the weirdest goddamn scene. his actual request (info about the pier) makes total sense, so why did he (the writers) cloud it in this weird gender dynamic? why did he start by making her uncomfortable? why did he come up with an absurd fetch-and-carry quest he didn’t even want her to do? what the fuck is happening?
joy is obviously meant to be sympathetic by now, as i expected, but she’s kind of a monster? i don’t know. i can’t get over how she 1) participated in institutionalizing danny, but more importantly 2) DID NOT EVEN CARE LMAO LIKE WHAT THE FUCK. plus that scene where she auctioned off someone’s liver!!!!! i guess her giving him the craft was her absolution? but we didn’t even see it happen. i don’t know.
colleen is doing very little besides helping out danny and going to fight clubs where she kicks ass. colleen taking on two huge men in a cage fight and breaking one’s arm was the most engaging fight scene on this show so far.
23 notes
·
View notes