Iron Fist: Mystical Kung Fu Part Two, Chi Boogaloo
September 9, 2018 4:49 PM - Season 2 (Full Season) - Subscribe
The second season of Iron Fist picks up where the last one left off, with Danny, Coleen, Davos and Joy all doing what comes next...
I figured there wasn't a desire (nor merit) for individual episodes, so this is for the whole season, spoilers included.
As before, feel free to have a full and spoilerific discussion including critiques, opinions and summations of the show here.
I figured there wasn't a desire (nor merit) for individual episodes, so this is for the whole season, spoilers included.
As before, feel free to have a full and spoilerific discussion including critiques, opinions and summations of the show here.
Oh, and I was happy Misty was there, she's always great, but I was disappointed that Luke didn't make a cameo. But they did seem to imply that Colleen might have to confront Luke at some point, so that could be good.
posted by homunculus at 5:10 PM on September 9, 2018
posted by homunculus at 5:10 PM on September 9, 2018
For a second there, toward the end of the season, I thought "are they just going to replace Danny Rand with Colleen Wing?" Because I would be fine with that.
posted by axiom at 7:11 PM on September 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by axiom at 7:11 PM on September 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'm only two episodes deep, but this seems much better than the first season.
posted by figurant at 1:22 AM on September 10, 2018
posted by figurant at 1:22 AM on September 10, 2018
This was much better than season 1 and a big part of it is the shorter season.
For a second there, toward the end of the season, I thought "are they just going to replace Danny Rand with Colleen Wing?" Because I would be fine with that.
And of course all the fanboys are butt-hurt about Colleen getting the Iron Fist and crying "SJW/Feminazis ruined my show!!"
posted by Pendragon at 3:01 AM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
For a second there, toward the end of the season, I thought "are they just going to replace Danny Rand with Colleen Wing?" Because I would be fine with that.
And of course all the fanboys are butt-hurt about Colleen getting the Iron Fist and crying "SJW/Feminazis ruined my show!!"
posted by Pendragon at 3:01 AM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Two things I'd really like to see in future seasons: Colleen having a friendly conversation with Shou Lao, and Jessica having a drunken bar fight with Zhou Cheng.
posted by homunculus at 7:02 AM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by homunculus at 7:02 AM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Has ol' Fisty's annoyance level abated this season (he got a little bit less annoying in Luke Cage)?
posted by porpoise at 2:04 PM on September 10, 2018
posted by porpoise at 2:04 PM on September 10, 2018
I haven't watched this but I find it remarkable that Netflix isn't showing it to me in any category. Not new releases, not trending, not martial arts action, nothing. They know I've watched every single episode of all the other Netflix Marvel shows.
I must have given season one a đź‘Ž.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 2:59 PM on September 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
I must have given season one a đź‘Ž.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 2:59 PM on September 10, 2018 [2 favorites]
And of course all the fanboys are butt-hurt about Colleen getting the Iron Fist and crying "SJW/Feminazis ruined my show!!"
Hooray? I mean, I'm all for nailing two birds with one stone. Piss off a bunch of assholes AND make the show better.
posted by axiom at 4:29 PM on September 10, 2018 [5 favorites]
Hooray? I mean, I'm all for nailing two birds with one stone. Piss off a bunch of assholes AND make the show better.
posted by axiom at 4:29 PM on September 10, 2018 [5 favorites]
I'm almost done episode 4 but this is really not holding my attention at all. Super boring.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 6:11 PM on September 10, 2018
posted by sevenyearlurk at 6:11 PM on September 10, 2018
I like it better than season 1 but it's still not in the top tier of Marvel projects. I would watch Henwick's Colleen Wing headline this show.
posted by Justinian at 6:39 PM on September 10, 2018
posted by Justinian at 6:39 PM on September 10, 2018
Has ol' Fisty's annoyance level abated this season (he got a little bit less annoying in Luke Cage)?
Nope. He's pretty much back to the way he was in season one.
I'm almost done episode 4 but this is really not holding my attention at all. Super boring.
You could skip to episodes 9 & 10 if you just want to see Iron Fist Colleen. The first 8 episodes are basically filler.
posted by homunculus at 9:41 PM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Nope. He's pretty much back to the way he was in season one.
I'm almost done episode 4 but this is really not holding my attention at all. Super boring.
You could skip to episodes 9 & 10 if you just want to see Iron Fist Colleen. The first 8 episodes are basically filler.
posted by homunculus at 9:41 PM on September 10, 2018 [1 favorite]
Binged the season and I agree with the comments.
One bright spot was Mary Walker (Alice Eve), she was good.
Much better backstory than the comics.
posted by KaizenSoze at 4:49 PM on September 11, 2018
One bright spot was Mary Walker (Alice Eve), she was good.
Much better backstory than the comics.
posted by KaizenSoze at 4:49 PM on September 11, 2018
Yeah, I thought it was better, if only because there was less Danny elbowing his way into shit he doesn't understand? Ok, the whole "but he's my broooother" plot was stretched a bit, but I suppose it contrasted nicely with Joy and Ward's familial difficulties. Dude, just because he's your brother doesn't mean he's not also on a homicidal rage to cleanse the city blah blah blah. Suck it up and do what needs to be done. That said, the bits of Danny that were there seemed better intentioned and better written?
Alice seemed to be handled well, although I kept expecting more affect switches at inopportune times, and I really sorta expected the Sokovia-bustin' aspect to wake up and tear shit up during the two-Fists fight. (You thought you were getting Mary out of this? Ho ho ho - it's clobberin' time(tm).)
At the end of the day it feels like Davos' street gang didn't amount to anything special? I mean OK when you have a double Iron Fist on one side of the scale, the cannon fodder doesn't need to really be all that great, but Colleen just went through them like they hadn't even bothered training. You'd figure they'd be easily outmatched by a squad of tigers or hatchets. And there was a bit of nonverbal back and forth between BB and someone else (Rhyno?) when they were all getting taken into Davos' gang that I'm not sure if I was misreading or if there was something meant to happen there. (Like, ok, let's just play along with 'Shifu' until we get our score and we'll GTFO....)
posted by Kyol at 7:06 AM on September 18, 2018
Alice seemed to be handled well, although I kept expecting more affect switches at inopportune times, and I really sorta expected the Sokovia-bustin' aspect to wake up and tear shit up during the two-Fists fight. (You thought you were getting Mary out of this? Ho ho ho - it's clobberin' time(tm).)
At the end of the day it feels like Davos' street gang didn't amount to anything special? I mean OK when you have a double Iron Fist on one side of the scale, the cannon fodder doesn't need to really be all that great, but Colleen just went through them like they hadn't even bothered training. You'd figure they'd be easily outmatched by a squad of tigers or hatchets. And there was a bit of nonverbal back and forth between BB and someone else (Rhyno?) when they were all getting taken into Davos' gang that I'm not sure if I was misreading or if there was something meant to happen there. (Like, ok, let's just play along with 'Shifu' until we get our score and we'll GTFO....)
posted by Kyol at 7:06 AM on September 18, 2018
The Mary Sue: Iron Fist Season Two Finally Subverts the Myth of the Special White Savior, And everyone's better for it—even Danny Rand.
Colleen and Misty’s Friendship Was the Highlight of Iron Fist Season 2
posted by homunculus at 12:15 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
Colleen and Misty’s Friendship Was the Highlight of Iron Fist Season 2
posted by homunculus at 12:15 PM on September 18, 2018 [2 favorites]
Somewhere online - of course I can't find it now - I swear there was a review of this season titled something like "Iron Fist S2 improves greatly by spending a lot less time with Iron Fist". Which pretty much sums up my feelings about this.
No, wait (duh, how does teh googlez work?), I think I got it:
The Verge: Season 2 of Netflix’s Iron Fist recognizes that Danny Rand is the worst thing about the show; Netflix’s most derided Marvel Cinematic Universe show is back for season 2 with a new showrunner and a new strategy: sidelining its problematic protagonist
There's also the AV Club: Iron Fist is still the least interesting part of Iron Fist
Comment from the AV Club comments (regarding Ward), "The show works so much better if you watch it as the story of a guy finally breaking out of his father’s control, which is occasionally interrupted by some jackass who knows kung fu."
Also, Misty Knight is the best.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:47 AM on September 19, 2018
No, wait (duh, how does teh googlez work?), I think I got it:
The Verge: Season 2 of Netflix’s Iron Fist recognizes that Danny Rand is the worst thing about the show; Netflix’s most derided Marvel Cinematic Universe show is back for season 2 with a new showrunner and a new strategy: sidelining its problematic protagonist
There's also the AV Club: Iron Fist is still the least interesting part of Iron Fist
Comment from the AV Club comments (regarding Ward), "The show works so much better if you watch it as the story of a guy finally breaking out of his father’s control, which is occasionally interrupted by some jackass who knows kung fu."
Also, Misty Knight is the best.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:47 AM on September 19, 2018
I found season one so very good mainly because of Harold Meachum. A fantastically-written bad guy; the Patrick Bateman of comic book tv shows.
I basically started watching every episode of Season 2 by saying, "I wonder what Danny Rand the Idiot is going to do this time". Because Danny Rand is an idiot.
Started out the season hoping Ward and Joy bit the big one; ended the season hoping it was just Joy. Her character and that one-note butt-hurt attitude ended up being annoying af. LOVE Colleen, love Misty, love Walker. Just hand over the keys to the women and get it over with. I ended up being somewhat sympatico with Ward - he did suffer a lot of emotional and physical abuse at the hands of his father. Who he murdered. Twice.
The ending scene with Ward and Idiot Danny Rand was very cute though, ngl. I would watch the shit out of that.
Davos was not good enough as a bad guy especially coming right after Meachum. I'm thinking Walker's 3rd personality is going to be the antagonist of season 3, if there is one. *crosses fingers* She's Typhoid Mary, right? I remember reading about her before I had ever even heard of Iron Fist.
posted by the webmistress at 6:52 AM on September 23, 2018
I basically started watching every episode of Season 2 by saying, "I wonder what Danny Rand the Idiot is going to do this time". Because Danny Rand is an idiot.
Started out the season hoping Ward and Joy bit the big one; ended the season hoping it was just Joy. Her character and that one-note butt-hurt attitude ended up being annoying af. LOVE Colleen, love Misty, love Walker. Just hand over the keys to the women and get it over with. I ended up being somewhat sympatico with Ward - he did suffer a lot of emotional and physical abuse at the hands of his father. Who he murdered. Twice.
The ending scene with Ward and Idiot Danny Rand was very cute though, ngl. I would watch the shit out of that.
Davos was not good enough as a bad guy especially coming right after Meachum. I'm thinking Walker's 3rd personality is going to be the antagonist of season 3, if there is one. *crosses fingers* She's Typhoid Mary, right? I remember reading about her before I had ever even heard of Iron Fist.
posted by the webmistress at 6:52 AM on September 23, 2018
This was certainly better than the first season, but it's frustrating that when they gave me what I wanted out of the show - Colleen with the Iron Fist, the beginning of the Daughters of the Dragon, Orson Randall and the Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bay and the possibility of a Seven Capital Cities of Heaven storyline - the season was already pretty much over. If like the first third of next season is Danny and Ward's excellent adventure, then the middle third awesome Orson Randall pulp action and then the tournament, with Colleen and Misty kicking ass around New York the whole time (and also Colleen and Misty knocking sense into Luke next season on his show so we're lined up for Heroes for Hire after that), I think I'll actually be all in on this show finally - if they continue to improve as they did for this season.
What I really want from these Netflix shows is for one to finally be fun, and Iron Fist has so many possibilities for that. That Brubaker/Fraction run was a blast and a high water mark for the comics, and they've taken their sweet time getting there. But I do still worry that even if everyone's bringing their A-game next season and it has all the trappings of some really fun stories from the books, it'll still be a dour, overly serious storyline because they seem to just want to make more Daredevil with this show. At least we'll still have Jessica Jones where it earns being serious, and Luke Cage where Mike Colter's charisma is an unstoppable force that will always make you smile.
Daredevil as the gritty self-serious street level cheesy punchfest, Punisher as Daredevil But Guns And Also How Does Jon Bernthal Keep Making This Actually Good: The Series, Jessica Jones as the actually serious and well made character study that's also about punching the patriarchy in the dick, Luke Cage as the optimistic hero for change like a modern Superman, Iron Fist as the fun one and (hopefully) Daughters of the Dragon as the best one would be a great way for these to settle. Also like just throw Actual Wesley Snipes Blade in one of those shows for kicks, come on Netflix you know you wanna...
posted by jason_steakums at 8:27 PM on September 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
What I really want from these Netflix shows is for one to finally be fun, and Iron Fist has so many possibilities for that. That Brubaker/Fraction run was a blast and a high water mark for the comics, and they've taken their sweet time getting there. But I do still worry that even if everyone's bringing their A-game next season and it has all the trappings of some really fun stories from the books, it'll still be a dour, overly serious storyline because they seem to just want to make more Daredevil with this show. At least we'll still have Jessica Jones where it earns being serious, and Luke Cage where Mike Colter's charisma is an unstoppable force that will always make you smile.
Daredevil as the gritty self-serious street level cheesy punchfest, Punisher as Daredevil But Guns And Also How Does Jon Bernthal Keep Making This Actually Good: The Series, Jessica Jones as the actually serious and well made character study that's also about punching the patriarchy in the dick, Luke Cage as the optimistic hero for change like a modern Superman, Iron Fist as the fun one and (hopefully) Daughters of the Dragon as the best one would be a great way for these to settle. Also like just throw Actual Wesley Snipes Blade in one of those shows for kicks, come on Netflix you know you wanna...
posted by jason_steakums at 8:27 PM on September 23, 2018 [2 favorites]
Just finished it and pretty agree that Colleen and Misty and Mary Walker made the show very watchable. I was also surprisingly taken with Ward's story. The inner struggles of not being able to accept that someone close to you doesn't want anything to do with you and then pushing everyone away and then coming to terms with not knowing who you are, that was pretty intriguing and somewhat relatable, and so much better done that his character in season 1.
Joy was there and kind of annoying, at least when she was upfront with Chen and then Mary about her willingness to survive and get back to some semblance of life I had some sympathy for her.
But those three women really knocked it out of the park for me. Misty not taking any shit, coming off of the whole bullshit with Luke in his latest season, was refreshing. Colleen calling out Danny on all his bullshit, but eventually accepting that yes maybe she needs to be a part of this fight was nicely done, if a bit dragged out. Mary was an amazing character to watch, I'm not too familiar with DID characters but I thought she/they were well acted. I can't wait to see what that hidden alter is like in next season.
For the most part, the men felt like the writers recognized that they are just petulant white men, but they are also vulnerable and suffering and deserve sympathy, so they have to be broken and built back up, but in their redemption they have to accept that they are not the hero. This worked well with me for Ward, but not so much with Danny. I think the difference is that Ward had to witness those around him being hurt and his relationships destroyed because of things he's done and then accepting all that and go from there, whereas Danny had to literally be beaten into him that he's not some moral ideal, and then he had to be told by Ward of all people that he sounds like a damn addict.
It's a much better season than the first one, but still not as good as the other Marvel shows.
posted by numaner at 5:31 PM on September 24, 2018
Joy was there and kind of annoying, at least when she was upfront with Chen and then Mary about her willingness to survive and get back to some semblance of life I had some sympathy for her.
But those three women really knocked it out of the park for me. Misty not taking any shit, coming off of the whole bullshit with Luke in his latest season, was refreshing. Colleen calling out Danny on all his bullshit, but eventually accepting that yes maybe she needs to be a part of this fight was nicely done, if a bit dragged out. Mary was an amazing character to watch, I'm not too familiar with DID characters but I thought she/they were well acted. I can't wait to see what that hidden alter is like in next season.
For the most part, the men felt like the writers recognized that they are just petulant white men, but they are also vulnerable and suffering and deserve sympathy, so they have to be broken and built back up, but in their redemption they have to accept that they are not the hero. This worked well with me for Ward, but not so much with Danny. I think the difference is that Ward had to witness those around him being hurt and his relationships destroyed because of things he's done and then accepting all that and go from there, whereas Danny had to literally be beaten into him that he's not some moral ideal, and then he had to be told by Ward of all people that he sounds like a damn addict.
It's a much better season than the first one, but still not as good as the other Marvel shows.
posted by numaner at 5:31 PM on September 24, 2018
Just remembered this: Danny showed up in Luke Cage in the latest season to tell him to chill out and find his center, and that presumably took place before this season of Iron Fist. So it was a bit of a WTF for me to see Danny losing his own balance and being consumed by the power of the fist.
posted by numaner at 1:18 PM on September 25, 2018
posted by numaner at 1:18 PM on September 25, 2018
Alice Eve is really good in this. I like the way that the character isn't mad, but two (or three) people tag-teaming consciousness, and she really catches the difference between them (Walker really isn't Mary at all, and you can see one change to the other) but not in a way that alienates the viewer. It's interesting that Eve has been hired to play a lot more Maries of one kind or another in Hollywood, watching the two characters play off against each other.
posted by Grangousier at 2:55 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Grangousier at 2:55 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
Cancelled, no season 3
I wish they would just rewrite the show around Colleen and Misty and just go all in on Daughters of the Dragon, that would be amazing
posted by numaner at 10:32 PM on October 12, 2018 [2 favorites]
I wish they would just rewrite the show around Colleen and Misty and just go all in on Daughters of the Dragon, that would be amazing
posted by numaner at 10:32 PM on October 12, 2018 [2 favorites]
Netflix Cancels Marvel’s Iron Fist, Paving the Way for the Daughters of the Dragon Spin-off We All Want
posted by homunculus at 12:56 PM on October 13, 2018
posted by homunculus at 12:56 PM on October 13, 2018
Season 2 was much better than season 1, but the viewers never came back, so Netflix cancelled it.
But if people think Disney is letting Netflix create new Marvel shows, they're delusional. Disney is getting its own streaming service and any new shows will appear on that service.
posted by Pendragon at 1:34 AM on October 14, 2018
But if people think Disney is letting Netflix create new Marvel shows, they're delusional. Disney is getting its own streaming service and any new shows will appear on that service.
posted by Pendragon at 1:34 AM on October 14, 2018
Worst things about this season:
Danny Rand (ugh)
Joy Meachum
Best things:
Colleen Wing
Mary/Walker
posted by grouse at 7:10 PM on November 25, 2018
Danny Rand (ugh)
Joy Meachum
Best things:
Colleen Wing
Mary/Walker
posted by grouse at 7:10 PM on November 25, 2018
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I also liked the character of Walker. Not a credible portrayal of DID, but for a comic show I thought she was quite engaging.
My least favorite part was Kun Lun. Have these Buddhistish monks ever read the sutras? Their training methods pretty much guarantees that whoever has the biggest ego becomes the Iron Fist. And the writers seem to lay a substantial amount of the blame for Davos's actions ultimately on his mother. FFS.
I also just couldn't get myself to really give a shit about Ward until the very end. Maybe next time.
posted by homunculus at 5:06 PM on September 9, 2018