TV's Grittiest Heroes: Recapping the Impact of the MCU on Netflix (Power Man and Iron Fist)

Attracting opposites in more ways than one.

Luke Cage

“Luke Cage” establishes itself as a bit of an odd duck regarding the rest of the MCU’s adult centric Netflix experiment by being the most tonally and conceptually different entry of perhaps the entire franchise but ultimately makes for the strongest and most consistent debut season.

Mike Colter’s embodiment of the titular character serves as a rock solid backbone to a show held together by sheer charisma, earnestness, and conviction that he’s probably the closest thing that the television side of the setting will have to Chris Evans’ Captain America or Downey Jr.’s Iron Man. Coming from somebody whose 4 favorite MCU films are centered nearly exclusively on those 2 characters, that’s high praise.

The show’s momentum, stupendous sense of style with a hip hop and R&B infused soundtrack giving a modern edge to the shows evocation of blaxploitation era filmmaking tropes, and tight performances by the supporting cast, providing 3 excellent villains at a time when getting one right on film has been tasking, have all gone lightyears towards keeping it as a permanent fixture for my Watch Queue.

It’s only real flaws, apart from the occasional hokeyness brought on by lightly heavy handed but well meaning positive messages for Black community relations, lies in a third act twist that sadly shifts focus away from the show’s more interesting villains to Diamondback, a cartoon of a character so hammy that he feels more at home on a CW series than anything put out by Netflix. While his contribution to the plot fascinates, his presence throws off the tone and pace of the rest of the season in ways that it only manages to recover from by the final episode.

At this point, it’s becoming clear that Netflix is having its own 3^rd act problems regarding the MCU reminiscent of the films however, it’s the lowest moments of “Luke Cage” never make it anything less than an absolute treat to watch.

Iron Fist

The dark horse of the Defenders and perhaps even the entire MCU, although for what its worth, I still think the show is better than all 4 seasons of “Agents of SHIELD.”

“Iron Fist” is quite possibly the single most textbook example of how not to write, direct, produce, or otherwise handle a TV show in recent history.

Billionaire Danny Rand returns from the dead, portrayed as earnestly as possible by Finn Jones, trained in mystical arts and Kung Fu by an order of interdimensional monks at war with an international cult of zombie ninja assassins over the fate of western civilization. He returns home and takes control of his father’s company, hoping to use its resources in the coming battle against the evil of The Hand.

So with this material being the thesis of the property of course the subsequent production would be a “Mad Men” meets “Dexter” style corporate boardroom drama thriller about people spouting mystical exposition that never actually comes into play while talking about how they want somebody to meet them in order to tell them what to do, setting up follow up scenes of them following orders. I realize that Kevin Feige doesn’t exactly have control over the television division but screw ups like this come so far out of left field that you almost have to be sabotaging them deliberately.

I don’t come down quite as hardly as others seem to be on Finn Jones though. The guy is a decent actor and an excellent casting choice for Danny Rand and has plenty of shining moments here and there throughout the season.

However, when you’re cast in an action heavy role that asks you to learn an entire martial arts style in less than a month to shoot material that season 1 of “Arrow” would have found embarrassing, how great of a performance were you really bound to muster out.

“Iron Fist” is one of those rare shows that’s so astonishingly and unabashedly terrible that I was praying for it to get a second season just for the sake of redemption.

It’s like those instances in school when a teacher grades an assignment you’ve turned in so appallingly below your own standards that they refuse to log it and demand that you try again to force you to do better. This series is more than capable of serving up a solid urban fantasy kung fu narrative. It just requires competence to do and if that means scrapping everything season 1 puts forth, good riddance.