Shaun Munro reviews the twelfth episode of Iron Fist…
Iron Fist‘s penultimate episode raises the stakes action-wise and certainly puts the wheels in motion for a fleet-footed, intense finale, but it’s also bogged down by more rancid peripheral drama that’s difficult to care much about.
For starters, Ward’s back (remember him?) in the frame after being sent to a psychiatric hospital by Harold, but his re-introduction to the core narrative is mostly forgettable, and his secondary plot with his sister and father almost soul-destroyingly tedious. At least this episode shows how far Ward has come as a character, given how much of a stuffed shirt dullard he seemed in the series’ opener. It’s just a shame he isn’t given more interesting things to do this late in the season.
Bakuto, meanwhile, gets to unleash some sheer brutality which finally injects some much-needed urgency into the focal narrative. Some serviceable fighting ensues, but at this point, having sat through so many similar fight scenes, it all feels pretty standard fare. An epic swordfight later on certainly hits the sweet spot, but it’s over too quickly, and rather predictably, ends up solving nothing.
However, Davos continues to be one of the show’s diamonds in the rough, truly coming into his own in this episode as he and Danny’s philosophical differences come to a head in a major way. Davos’ motives may not always seem thoroughly pure of heart, but at this stage, he’s one of the few vaguely rational characters left, and his sinister warning to Danny is probably the most intriguing thread that “Bar the Big Boss” leaves dangling.
Episode twelve unfortunately also compounds an issue with both the show and the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole: it’s difficult to get invested in the death of anyone when history has shown it meaning so little so often. Agent Coulson died in The Avengers only to be resurrected for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury had a frustrating fake-out death in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Harold was absurdly resurrected here just a few episodes ago.
This instalment’s big two battle scenes want to pose a sure life-or-death desperation, but when characters can potentially be magicked back into existence or survive a seemingly fatal wounding, it makes it hard to feel particularly invested in what’s going on. One suspects that, with the recent addition of the Eye of Agamotto to the MCU in Doctor Strange, this will only become a more pervasive problem in future movies (especially Avengers: Infinity War).
There are myriad issues here heading into Iron Fist‘s season finale, but at least the closing action was entertainingly theatrical, and at “only” 50 minutes in length, it didn’t feel needlessly excessive and bloated like so many of the other episodes. The frantic conclusion is a decent enough set-up for the finale, but you’ll probably want to feel much more excited about it than you actually do.
Fingers crossed it ends strong, anyway.
Shaun Munro
Originally published March 28, 2017. Updated April 11, 2018.
