Iron Fist, not as bad as all that.

 I binge watched Iron Fist, as I do with all of the Netflix Marvel series. I also read a number of reviews that pretty much hated it, and honestly I don't think the show quite deserved that.

To start with, I am not trying to say it is great by any means, particularly compared to the previous offerings, but that doesn't mean it isn't decent, the other shows are just good enough that "decent" doesn't compare.

Iron Fist may be the least well known of the heroes Netflix has made shows about so here is the short background: Danny Rand was raised by monks in a mystical city and rassled a dragon until it gave him super powers, those powers being the ability to make his fist glow and punch stuff real good, he then fucks off to New York to do... things. In the comics that meant hanging out with Luke Cage and becoming quasi-mercenaries, in this one it means taking a page from Arrow and attempting to take back the company his father owned.

To be quite honest, the TV show version of Iron Fist is pretty much the same as Arrow, at least as far as background goes, they are both billionaire children, both lost their family on an ill-fated trip, both learned martial arts from exotic places, both come back with the goal of fighting crime or something. I sort of feel like the writers maybe could have done something different with Iron Fist given the popularity of Arrow right now, but what do I know.

So, on to my complaints, Finn Jones is incredibly un-charismatic, I don't know if it is just me, but he reminded me a lot of Ed Sheeran, which is a bad thing because I want to punch Ed Sheeran pretty much one hundred percent of the time. Not like, just when I see him in a video or something, I exist in a perpetual state of wanting to punch Ed Sheeran. That feeling does extend to Finn Jones as Danny Rand. He's kind of a goober and I never properly identify with him.

That latter issue is more the settings fault than his though, the previous shows have all had really powerful themes at their heart, for Daredevil it was class warfare, the rich versus the poor, the landowner versus the tenants. In Jessica Jones the theme was sexual assault and abusive relationships, and of course Luke Cage was all about black culture and racism. I think they were trying to go for a corporate responsibility or critique of the influence they have over the government here, but it didn't really work, too much of the show was about Danny's personal problems, and I can't identify with a billionaire trained as a mystical warrior, there isn't a common ground there for me, and even though he says a bunch of times that he doesn't know what he is, he seems for the most part perfectly comfortable in those roles, even to the extent of abusing his wealth by purchasing his girlfriends building so she doesn't have to pay rent.

In the hands of a better actor and a better team of writers, there might have been more compelling stories to tell about him adapting to the corporate world and bringing the ideas he learned in K'un-Lun into his company, but outside of a couple scenes which mostly serve to get him promptly removed from a position of influence, that doesn't happen, and he basically accepts his removal from power without complaint, so his desire to change things doesn't really ring true.

Another issue is the setting, in the shows we have seen so far, New York City is just as important a character as the heroes, Daredevil couldn't have told the same story outside of Hell's Kitchen, and Luke Cage would not have had near the impact if it wasn't set in Harlem. But Iron Fist doesn't rely on New York for the story, there isn't any real character to the setting, the Rand corporation could have been located in any city, from NYC to Portland, and it wouldn't have made a difference. There isn't a feeling of connection here, if I am being generous I could see that perhaps that was the point, that corporate homogeneity is something that the show was trying to explore, but I don't think it was.

So, with all that said, why do I say I like it? Well first let's look at the biggest critique that I disagree with, the always present(and usually correct) accusation of white washing. I don't feel like that quite applies here, I mean, Iron Fist has been a white dude since his creation in the 70s or whatever, and I don't quite see how not changing him is offensive, mind you I wouldn't have been upset if they did, but being mad that they didn't seems odd to me. I actually feel like the idea was addressed in the show! Late in the series, Rand's buddy Davos shows up, he is a native of K'un-Lun and is in New York to try to convince Danny to return to the city because one of the jobs Iron Fist has is to protect it, and he kind of just skipped out on that duty for no adequately explained reason. Davos also has a problem with Danny being the one to get the position of Iron Fist, as he had trained for it his whole life and didn't quite think it was appropriate for an outsider to claim the honor.

So there is an acknowledgement, and judgement, of the colonial attitude white people tend to have about other cultures, basically as soon as Danny got what he wanted from K'un-Lun, he blew town to do his own thing, ignoring the literal centuries of tradition and expectation, and even neglecting his training to do so, it is stated several times that Danny Rand is not a very good Iron Fist, and honestly it shows, half the show he can barely do his fancy glowing hand thingy, and is constantly disadvantaged by what he doesn't know about his own powers.

It's subtle, but I think it is actually well done in that respect, and if they had explored that for more than a few episodes at the end the show might have been a lot better.

I also like the villains, the mysterious ninja assassin/drug dealing/generically sinister organization The Hand serve as our primary antagonists, with Harold Meachum, partner to Danny's father and crazy fucker, as their main catspaw, Wai Ching Ho as Madame Gao is the main face of The Hand and she is just lovely, affably sinister, at turns helpful and antagonistic, clearly working to a greater plan and for a greater power, she steals every scene she is in, she is also clearly having a lot of fun in her role, which sadly isn't obvious for most of the cast. That shouldn't matter but it does to me, I like to see people enjoying their work.

All told, the show is fine, just... fine. It could have been a lot better, it suffers in comparison to it's sibling shows, but it holds up okay on it's own I guess, it's not great, it doesn't need a second season, but it does what it needs to do and it kept me mostly entertained while I watched it.