I binge watched ‘The Defenders’ over four days a couple of weeks ago. This is the latest Netflix series based on the Marvel comic books and the climax of the previous Netflix series featuring the adventures of two seasons of Daredevil and one season each starring Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. I thought the first season of Daredevil was great, really liked Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, was lukewarm towards the second season of Daredevil and found Iron Fist to have a maximum of teen angst and a minimum of action.
The long awaited 'Defenders' series has arrived via Netflix. Was it worth the wait?
The major villain of the Defenders is ‘The Hand’ which has been portrayed as the source of the never ending supply of ninjas in Daredevil 2 and the sworn enemy of Iron Fist’s city of K’un-Lun. This means that our heroes yet again get to fight against hordes of interchangeable ninjas but in this show we get to see the leaders (or the five fingers) of the Hand who are revealed to have been banished from K’un-Lun after finding the secret to immortality by using what is mysteriously referred to as ‘the substance’. The crux of the plot is the Hand trying to find more of the substance under Manhattan by digging a massive hole in the basement of a Hell’s Kitchen skyscraper which is causing tremors in Manhattan and will ultimately lead to the city’s destruction by earthquake.
We had already met two members of the Hand previously – Bakuto from Iron Fist and Madame Gao who has been featured as a crime lord in Daredevil and Iron Fist. The two are joined by weapons and fighting expert Murakami, Sowande, and the Hand leader Alexandra played by Sigourney Weaver. Alexandra is introduced at the series beginning as having a terminal disease with slow reveals that she lived a long time with references to Bach’s state of mind when he composed a particular piece of music and how a particular meal was better than the first time she ate it in Constantinople (instead of Istanbul). It is also revealed that Alexandra has used the last of ‘the substance’ to resurrect Daredevil’s deceased lover Elektra in order to make her the Hand’s master weapon and forfeited the group’s immortality unless more of ‘the substance’ is uncovered under Manhattan. Alexandra shows no special fighting abilities or skills which makes me wonder how she was chosen to be the group’s leader. There is considerable animosity among the fingers over her choice to use up the last of the substance to resurrect Elektra but no open revolt against her leadership.
The first half of the series is pretty slow moving. The first episode has to introduce Alexandra and Elektra, show Luke Cage’s release from prison where he ended up at the end of his series, and follow Iron Fist’s pursuit of the Hand from the end of his series. What little super hero action there is centers on Jessica Jones’s investigation of a missing architect only to find he has enough C4 to take down a certain Hell’s Kitchen skyscraper that is covering the giant tunnel to the ‘substance’. Over the next two episodes our heroes are slowly introduced to each other with a great battle between Iron Fist and Luke Cage, the reintroduction of Daredevil’s mentor Stick (a prisoner of Alexandra) and his escape by cutting his hand off, and more backstory for Electra and the Hand. Eventually our heroes converge on Alexandra’s headquarters at the top of the skyscraper where they fight an endless supply of ninjas while escaping and making their way to a Chinese restaurant where they spend the entire fourth episode talking while we wait for the inevitable attack by Elektra and the Hand.
Things pick up in the second half of the series. We get a lot less character interaction by talking and more character interaction by fighting as our heroes start to team up to take down the Hand and we get to see each character’s support groups get together as they are all tucked away in a police station for protection from the Hand. The problem I have with the all the battles is that they are almost exclusively martial arts matches with the occasional burst of gunfire so Luke can show off his impenetrable skin. The only super powered villain (discounting martial arts skills) appears to be Madame Gao who can summon a wall of force with a gesture very much like the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four.
The big plot twist happens at the end of episode 6 with a switch in villains as Electra takes over the Hand by killing Stick, kidnapping Iron Fist (whose power is needed to unearth the substance), and then run Alexandra through with a sword. The villain switch is fast becoming a staple of the Netflix Marvel shows with the same device used in Luke Cage and Iron Fist. There is a battle in the tunnel under the skyscraper with the good guys naturally winning although Daredevil is presumed dead. Daredevil and Elektra had a classic fight scene in the last episode with Daredevil trying to convince Elektra she is the good person he used to know instead of her current persona of criminal mastermind. Elektra for her part seems to still love Daredevil but wants to turn him into her partner in seeking power. It is the 21st century version of the Batwoman/Catwoman dynamic from the old Batman television series. Presumably Elektra, Daredevil, and the uninjured Madame Gao meet their end as the skyscraper is demolished and collapses on them but if Daredevil survived the blast (which we see in the final scene) there is the possibility that Gao and Elektra did also.
The Defenders was a good series that had some glaring flaws and is not something I could recommend except for fellow super-hero watchers. When it was clicking it was great – the heroes and their respective supporting casts had great chemistry and played off each other superbly. Daredevil and Jessica Jones made a great team of detectives while Luke and iron Fist played off their disparate backgrounds to explain their motivations. The action scenes were fun when Jones and Luke Cage were given chances to show their super strength. The scene with Jessica, Luke, and Daredevil riding the subway with Jessica stealing a can of beer from a passed out drunk was an instant classic. What made the show hard to watch was interminable amount of ninjas and having someone with no discernable paranormal skills in charge of the Hand. I can’t understand going to the trouble of getting a star like Sigourney Weaver to play the lead villain and relegate her to boardroom work. It seemed as ridiculous as having the other four more capable fingers of the Hand follow her lead. If Weaver had been given some sort of Killgrave-like mind control type powers then I could have understood her being in charge but her only super power seemed to be her refined taste and that was not enough to make her a super-villain I want to binge-watch. The series would have been far better served by having Alexandra be a lesser known actress that could be gutted by Elektra in the first episode. Nothing against Sigourney Weaver but the best episodes of the series were the last two when Elektra was in charge and the money saved by not paying Weaver could have been used for same special effects to keep the Stick’s arm with the decapitated hand from being longer than his unblemished arm.
Until 'The Punisher' arrives at Netflix later this year, we can all enjoy this 2012 Punisher short featuring the iconic Thomas Jane in the title role!
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