SOME SPOILERS AHEAD.
It’s here! All eight episodes of Marvel’s The Defenders have dropped on Netflix. We finally get to see Matt Murdoch, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Danny Rand team up to take on the Hand…kind of. As of this episode, our heroes haven’t actually met yet. There wasn’t much of anything going on. It focused on our main characters and caught us up to what they were doing.
Matt has returned to civilian life and is no longer the Daredevil. He just won an eleven million dollar lawsuit for his client and regularly goes to confession. Jessica is still a drunken mess, but because of her defeat of Kilgrave the press is clamouring to speak to her. Luke just got out of prison and finally had coffee with Claire. Danny is halfway around the world chasing the Hand, only to be told that the real fight was in New York City. He’s also having nightmares about K’un L’un (I don’t think that it was destroyed and it’s people massacred. Or rather, I’d like to think that it wasn’t. I think that it simply relocated).
Aside from letting us know where the four heroes are at in their lives, the episode started laying the foundation for the story. Three of our four heroes have something going on in connection with the efforts of the Hand. We also got to meet our main villain, Alexandra.
Danny’s is straight forward since he’s actively seeking out the Hand.
Mariah was name dropped twice in the episode. The first time I figured it was just to remind us of who Luke’s next villain would be. Two name drops however, I feel like has to be an indication of something. I think that she’s not only involved with the recent deaths of Harlem’s young men, but that whatever she’s doing with them is at the request of the Hand. Even if Mariah isn’t working with the Hand, it’s a given that they are behind the events in Harlem.
Jessica’s John Raymond case is connected to it as well. I’m not sure if the person who called her was John Raymond or an agent of the Hand, but it seems likely that it was Raymond since she was able to trace the call. Like she said, she’d only have been able to do that if the caller had been an amateur and Raymond is most certainly that. That was a lot of C4 she found in his apartment and I’m thinking that he knew that she was coming and fled. He did know that his wife went to her after all.
The first thing we learned about Alexandra is that she’s dying and she has anywhere from weeks to months to live. Because of her impending death, she insist that the Hand accelerate whatever it is that they’re planning. What surprised me about this exchange was that Madame Gao seemed rather docile next to her and agreed to her demand with little to no fuss. “Docile” is not a word that I would use to describe Gao. That Alexandra was able to make her so is fairly telling.
I wonder if the earthquake at the end of the episode had anything to do with the giant hole from season two of Daredevil. I’m also very curious to see what it caused and how it fit into the Hand’s overall scheme. It looks like the aftermath will get Matt back into the hero game.
I was surprised that we saw Elektra as early as we did and in the capacity that we did. I’m quite sure it was her that Danny fought in the beginning. As Black Sky isn’t she the Hand’s ultimate weapon? Why is she being used for relatively minor things like killing would be whistle-blowers? Surely a grunt could have done the job.
Speaking of Danny fighting, it looked better than it did in Iron Fist. I’m not sure if it was because Finn Jones actually got better with the choreography or if all of the quick cuts during the fight masked how he was doing.
Random thoughts:
- Are these prisoners cheering Luke as a hero or happy to see him leave?
- Aww. Luke asked for Claire.
- That kid looks way too big for that wheel chair.
- Coffee!
- Luke is wearing a yellow shirt!
- I cannot hear someone saying they send their regards without thinking of Game of Thrones.
All eight episodes of Marvel’s The Defenders are currently available for streaming on Netflix.
