Not quite the sum of its parts
Marvel’s TV super-team bludgeons its way through an uneven first season.
MUCH like how the Avengers came together on the big screen after solo outings of their individual members, Marvel’s The Defenders finally team up on TV – pardon, streaming platforms – after four individual shows featuring its components.
This “street-level” super-team brings together lawyer/crimefighter Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), super-powered private eye Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), bulletproof and super-strong Luke Cage (Mike Colter), and warrior Danny Rand a.k.a. the Immortal Iron Fist (Finn Jones).
The good news: for the most part, this eight-episode show is a gripping watch, with plenty of loathsome villainy and suitably high stakes for our heroes to risk life and limb.
The bad news: Iron Fist is still bratty. Hey, he had one job: protecting the mystical realm of K’un-Lun. And he messed that up.
You would think a lapse of such magnitude would have sobered him up a little but no, he’s still impulsive and whinges a lot.
Most of that is not on actor Jones, but on the writing. Come on, people, can’t you even try to crib from the other three successful shows – and winning characters – that this team is built upon?
The Defenders has numerous saving graces, though.
There’s the (generally) fine ensemble cast of heroes, and most of their uneasy dynamic is fun to watch, as is the interaction of their respective supporting characters.
The first couple of episodes take their time to reintroduce us to everyone, while giving glimpses of the antagonists moving ahead with their plans, and it’s nice to see the principal characters settle back in their respective groove.
Nice touches like the verbal barbs between Daredevil and Jessica Jones, Luke and Danny’s sit-downs (a nod to their shared Heroes For Hire comic) and iconic images from other classic comic-book moments provide lots of welcome fan service.
The villains are suitably arrogant and self-assured, given their nature. Tying in with Daredevil and Iron
Fist, the baddies here are The Hand, that ninja-like clan of assassins who have been poking around under New York City’s streets a fair bit.
The Defenders tells us just what all that subterranean skullduggery is about.
Also – no real spoiler here – the show brings back Elektra Natchios (Elodie Yung), the great love of Daredevil’s life, as the team’s most lethal opponent.
Pulling the strings is Alexandra Reid (Sigourney Weaver), an enigmatic woman whose history is ... long, to say the least.
With the lethal Madam Gao (Ho Wai
Ching) from Daredevil and Iron Fist appearing a little subdued – almost fearful – around her, we know from the very first episode that Alexandra is a dangerous force.
And Weaver, no stranger to conveying supreme confidence laced with elegant menace, gives the character those very compelling qualities throughout her gradually revealed (and suddenly surprising) story arc.
Yet, despite its strong elements, The Defenders does not always hold together as consistently as the first seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.
The second half is almost rushed and the “grand scheme” that’s supposedly too big for any one hero to handle on their own isn’t that awe-inspiring (nor does it make much sense).
And the finale is a bit slap-dash, with characters seemingly able to teleport from one point to another with no consideration given to distance, obstacles, or urgency for that matter (everyone who gnashed their teeth at Game Of Thrones’ recent sixth episode would know the feeling).
It’s shortcut-heavy writing and it just bulldozes through all our expectations built up to that point, just to set up subsequent seasons of the respective heroes’ solo shows.
Good thing then, that we still think highly enough of these troubled and/or flawed individuals, struggling to rise above their foibles and do the right thing, to forgive the blunt force trauma that The Defenders inflicts on us in its latter half. And speaking of skullduggery, do watch all the way through to the end credits of the final episode for a look at another upcoming Marvel/Netflix project. No half measures there!
All eight episodes of Marvel’s The Defenders are available on Netflix.