Two months ago, the aimless, wretchedly-written Iron Fist poured a bucket of ice water on the formerly white-hot anticipation for The Defenders — the Marvel Netflix Universe’s inaugural team-up series. But the most recent entry into the grittiest borough of the MCU isn’t really an accurate indicator of what to expect from this upcoming installment.
Here we have a program by showrunners Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez in which multiple crimefighters set aside their clashing personalities and individual agendas in order to combat The Hand — an army of ninja dicks conspiring to inflict yet-to-be-specified, bottomless-pit-related nastiness upon New York City. So the basic gist of Defenders is also the basic gist of Daredevil’s Season 2.
Did you like the second season of Daredevil? ‘Cos Defenders is gunna be basically that, ‘cept with Jessica Jones and Luke Cage instead of The Punisher.
Even if “Bad Guys Want To Blow Up New York” doesn’t sound like the most compelling or innovative story for a superhero thing, Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter, Mike Colter, Elodie Yung, along with their respective stunt doubles and fight coordinators can be counted upon for oodles of charisma and Awesome Punching. That alone should make Defenders miles upon miles more fun than just about anything remotely connected to Zack Snyder.
This trailer — which deserves credit for making me excited to hear “Come As You Are” for the first time in decades — lacks any significant reveals or surprises, but surely whets our collective whistles for the inevitable binge watch on August 18. When Jones (Ritter) gets arrested for somesuch well-meaning legal trespass, an interrogation conducted by Misty Knight (Simone Missick) gets interrupted by a dapper blind man. “Who the hell are you?!” demands Jones, and of course it’s her new lawyer buddy DAREDEVIL. THE MAN WITHOUT MOTHER FUCKIN’ FEAR WHO IS ALSO THE BEST AT PUNCHING, YA’LL!!! Yaaaaaay!!!! He’s great!!!
Going forward, Luke Cage (Colter) encounters Danny Rand (Finn Jones) as they engage in street-level vigilante do-gooderism, as is their wont. Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) formally introduces the the future Heroes For Hire partners, but just like anyone who slogged through Iron Fist, Cage can’t take Rand seriously. Later, obnoxiously mysterious old guy Stick shows up and tells everyone to get their shit together. Someone — perhaps Foggy Nelson? — really needs to point out all the obvious Ninja Turtles parallels at some point during this show.
According to IMDB, Elektra is the only character outside of the titular quartet and Sigourney Weaver’s cryptic Big Bad to appear in all eight episodes. This bodes well, given Yung’s suave, cosmopolitan take on the antihero assassin did wonders to erase Jennifer Garner’s dishwater performance in 2003 from our memories. Elektra’s got her fair share of trailer screentime here, most favorably in what looks a lot like A Really Big Hallway Fight. Every Marvel Netflix show needs a hallway fight…unless it has a David Tennant.
That was the real problem with Iron Fist. No hallway fight. No David Tennant. The fuck were they thinking?