Iron Fist: Immortal Emerges from Cave

March 21, 2017 2:16 PM - Season 1, Episode 6

Danny receives an invitation like no other. Colleen and Claire face a difficult choice. A worried Joy confronts her brother.

"You're serious? This is what you're gonna do?"
-- Claire Temple, who done with this ninja bullshit already and it's only episode 6.

Bonus Quote:
"Coming back to NY, I thought things were going to be different. It hasn't been what I thought."
-- Danny Rand. Yeah, Danny, this wasn't what we thought, either.

posted by Jugwine (11 comments total)

Danny Rand has to fight through three of the Hand's best fighters in order to rescue the heroin chemist's daughter. Danny comes face to face with Madam Gao, who lets him know that not only has she been to K'un Lun, but she also knew his father.

The Good: The brief Karaoke scene in the cold open signaled that they'd actually start having some fun with the fight scenes this episode. Danny's first fight with the Russians was much more stylish than his battles against random henchmen -- probably because the camera could pull back and let his stunt double do some actual fight choreography for a change. And the fight against the swordsman in the scaffolding was the most unique action set piece they've done so far.

Colleen got to take out a random henchman so much more easily than Iron Fist ever did.

The Bad: If you thought regular Ward was a dirtbag, just wait until you meet Withdrawal Ward! The whole meeting damage control meeting where they talked about how Danny is their best asset (despite the fact that he's the reason everything got screwed up) Felt like it was borrowed from the Poochie episode of the Simpsons: Whenever Danny's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking "Where's Danny"?

The Other: The Bride of Nine Spiders fight was pretty gross rote femme fatale stuff, but it was at least presented in an interesting way with the weird webby setting and the point of view switching between Danny's drugged up perspective and the neutral camera. Still, I'm not sure that it hit the mark.

When did Danny learn how to drive? Also, wasn't he supposed to reject material attachments?

"Find Fruit in Failure" Should be the key phrase for this episode, as it actually manages to take a pretty cliched 'mystical ninja has to fight a bunch of other mystical ninja' scenario and make it somewhat compelling compared to the five episodes it took to get here.
posted by Jugwine at 2:17 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

FWIW, this episode was directed by RZA, who actually knows something about martial arts movies, which might explain something of the higher quality hitting that takes place.
posted by Grangousier at 3:46 PM on March 21, 2017 [4 favorites]

(Ah, now I've looked at the things people have said about the movie he made. Maybe knowing something isn't enough. He is a fan, though.)
posted by Grangousier at 4:21 PM on March 21, 2017

Is it this episode or the previous one where Danny just bypasses the whole "Colleen won't let me pay her rent" by upping the Creepy Stalker factor about a million percent and buying the whole damn building? (genuinely can't remember, binged the first 6 in 2 days.)

"Hey don't worry about proving your independence because now you can't escape me ever and I won't even bill you for it Muahhahahahaha."

Face. Palm.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:28 PM on March 21, 2017 [3 favorites]

And yeah, when the fuck did he learn how to drive?
posted by soundguy99 at 4:29 PM on March 21, 2017

Is it this episode or the previous one where Danny just bypasses the whole "Colleen won't let me pay her rent" by upping the Creepy Stalker factor about a million percent and buying the whole damn building?

Don't remember, but I did actually cringe when that happened. Like, 'Whoa, dude, didn't the monks teach you not to force a gift on an unwilling recipient?'
posted by mordax at 5:50 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

I guess what I appreciated about this episode was that it knew what it was. It wanted to be a Kung Fu show and it put its Kung Fu hero through a series of Kung Fu tests. It wasn't perfect by any means, but when it failed it at least was bad in an entertaining way, and it failed in a way that was true to what it wanted to be.
posted by Jugwine at 6:37 PM on March 21, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh, come on, driving isn't hard to learn at all! Especially in NYC!
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:36 PM on March 22, 2017

I've finished the season, and I know we haven't discussed the rest on FanFare yet. I'm not going to spoil anything, but if you are on the fence with this show after this episode, just stop at this one. Seriously. It doesn't really get any more fun than this one. The rest of the season just goes into a lot of backstory for The Hand (which is nicely tied to what we've seen in Daredevil,) and a lot of not-fun and some occasional jaw dropping stupidity from Danny. He does not gain a personality or get any more likable. He's pretty much a bearded block of wood for the rest of the episodes as well.

There's maybe one more brief kung-fu fight (at the end of #8) that is fun, but after you've binged all of them you'll wish they'd let RZA loose on the whole show.
posted by Catblack at 8:38 AM on March 29, 2017

Like, 'Whoa, dude, didn't the monks teach you not to force a gift on an unwilling recipient?'

What, the monks that turned a ten year old boy into a weapon without much informed consent?
posted by corb at 9:32 AM on August 20, 2017

For those who decided to skip Iron Fist based on the less-than stellar reviews, but wanted a little taste before watching The Defenders, this is an amusing 12 minute recap
posted by kokaku at 8:55 AM on July 10, 2018