Netflix Retrospective - Iron Fist Season 2 Episodes 1-2 - The Fury of the Iron Fist/This City's Not for Burning

A lot of changes happened behind the scenes with Iron Fist after the poor reception of series 1. Scott Buck was replaced as showrunner by M Raven Metzer, who’s filmography includes Heroes: Reborn and Elektra… see we’re off to a great start. The episode number was cut from 13 to 10 which if you’ve read any of my reviews of Netflix Marvel shows you’d know I think is a great move considering the pacing has always been a weaker element of these shows. Clayton Barber is the new fight co-ordinator, and with Black Panther a recent addition to his arsenal it’s a good choice, especially since the fights in the first season were rather weak.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to save the show as it had a low critical rating and it was among the first of the Netflix Marvel shows to face cancellation.

Unlike the first season, episodes are named after stories from the comics rather than martial arts moves. The names will hence will feel a little more relevant to what’s going on.

The Fury of the Iron Fist

We open with a green truck heading through Chinatown, it meets another truck and blocks it. The driver of the green truck gets out but it’s not the only thing to be worried as the co-driver of the other truck shoots the driver with a silenced pistol. Members of the gang come out of the Green truck and kill the guards inside the other truck, which we see here contains a significant amount of cash.

As the gang drive off with both trucks they confront the Iron Fist. Hey, Danny, there was a murder 50 yards away, you clearly knew something was going down, you could’ve saved that poor driver. Anyway, they try and run him down but he damages the engine with the iron Fist. We have a brief fight and it’s much better choreographed than anything from season 1. He finishes the fight with a shockwave punch. Pity the dialogue wasn’t upgraded to match, at least not here. “Apologise, or I’ll break your face” indeed. Roll credits

Danny arrives to Colleen back at the Dojo, he’s arrived with some garlic shrimp and is busy catching up on pop culture rather than looking for K’un L’un again, figured that would be their priority now the Hand are out of the picture but what do I know? Colleen is noticeably disturbed by it all, and we find out she’s been volunteering at a local community centre and has been out of the action after everything with Misty, funny given how she was with Misty in Luke Cage but I’ll buy it, just.

They go to have some sexy time before bed and… are you actually gonna eat that takeout, seems a shame to waste it all. We cut to Davos walking through a fish market. He wants to talk to a guy, Mr Yang, leader of the Hatchet gang. He wants more money for a shipment Davos wants smuggled in, Davos isn’t happy about it, and warns him that he’ll lose everything if he tries this again but agrees to discuss it with his partner.

Danny’s now working for a removal company, his boss warns that with Golden Tigers entering Hatchet gang territory (the armoured truck robbers were Golden Tigers and this was the reason Mr Yang raised his fee) a gang war could be imminent. Meanwhile Colleen is helping in the community centre where she stumbles across a black box containing an old brush and comb. Colleen wants to know who this is from.

A woman who seems unimportant but will be very important later stops by Danny and asks directions, Danny notices her camera and she takes a photo of him, her name is Mary. Danny gets a call from Rand Enterprises with a heads up. Colleen finds the box came from a place called Frank Choi’s furniture, but she finds it closed up. She gets some information from a nearby market salesman.

Meanwhile, some kids are shaking down a local restaurant owner in Tiger territory, he’s already paid up to the Golden Tigers. Colleen shows up and scares them away, he refuses to give her information about Frank Choi. Ward and Danny meet up, but find neither of them called, it’s Joy and if you remember the ending of the last season of Iron Fist, Joy is the exact opposite of what you might be thinking.

Joy wants to be bought out of Rand for a lump sum and various patents and bits and pieces Ward wasn’t planning to use anyway. Ward thinks it’s a load of nonsense whilst Danny is more than eager to sign, without it going through their legal team which is not exactly a smart business move. Thanks to Danny’s majority share in Rand, it just takes his signature to make it official so it becomes official.

Of course, we know that Joy is indeed playing an angle, but more on that to come. Mary arrives home with her groceries but finds a note stuck on her wall telling her not to leave the house. She finds a similar note on the fridge and begins to have a mental breakdown, she begins turning on the water to calm herself down.

Danny returns home to find Colleen on the phone trying to track down the previous owner of the box, we find out here it has her family’s crest on it, the same one as on her sword. It brought back some childhood memories, particularly of her mother. To help her, Danny offers to take her to dinner at the restaurant belonging to the guy Colleen saved earlier, and maybe another opportunity to question him will present itself.

Ward is at a meeting, but walks out. The councillor persuades him to start opening up, he’s been at these meetings for 2 months. She follows him into a closet and the two begin making out… This can only end badly.

Back with Joy, Davos arrives and complains about how much he hates this city and bla bla bla. Davos asks if she’s wavering after she remarks that lying to Danny and Ward was harder than she thought but she is not.

At the restaurant, Danny and Colleen debate over whose life was worse (Colleen wins with a clever lie) and the debate comes to the state of the city. The Hand being gone has left a power vacuum other gangs are making big moves trying to fill. The kids return to shake the place down, now with a clearer advantage in numbers.

The restaurant already called in the Golden Tigers but the staff aren’t gonna last that long so Colleen and Danny have to intervene. They manage to get the staff clear but the Tigers arrive and to avoid a bloodbath, Danny heads outside to head them off. Another impressive fight ensues, Colleen kicks the kids’ asses and gets them to leave but Danny’s having more trouble with the Tigers. He’s about to glow up but with the kids gone, there’s no need for the fight to go any further.

Turns out Frank Choi has gone into hiding, as he owes money to the Tigers. They agree to make date night every Tuesday then run right into Davos. Davos is well aware about the disappearance of K’un L’un and wants to talk with Danny alone, which Danny agrees to. Their talk soon evolves into a brawl, after which Davos asks if he’d willingly surrender the Iron Fist to him, Danny refuses and the conversation ends there.

Davos returns to Joy, having reaffirmed himself to their plan and I really still don’t know why Joy blames Danny for anything really but she does and here we are. Danny returns home to find Colleen already asleep. Or so he thinks, she’s awake as he leaves to his secret subway bunker, where the sound of the trains mask the sound of him punching a wall with the Iron Fist, guess that’s one way to let out some aggression.

Despite some hiccups, which are mostly issues from the last season, this is a pretty solid opener, setting up most of the elements for the rest of the season in both short and long term. The pacing is a tad faster than you’d regularly expect.

Rating 7/10

The City’s Not for Burning

A member of a gang, presumably Golden Tigers is collecting protection money when he’s ambushed by the Hatchet gang. He’s sent out into the street, bleeding heavily, Danny tries to help but he’s already dead before the police arrive. Roll credits

Danny walks away and sees Mary in the coffee shop window. Erm, stop flirting with her, carry on about your day, you dipsh*t. But we need to hear a little more about her and we get more insight into her struggles as an artist. As Danny walks her out of China-town she has a dizzy spell. Danny takes her inside for some water, so her and Colleen can meet. She gives them a drawing as thank you before asking to use the bathroom, using the water to calm herself down like she did back at the apartment. She quickly rushes out, claiming she has an appointment.

Colleen advises that maybe he should talk to Mr Yang, given their previous alliances. She then asks about Davos and we get treated to a flashback of the fight between them to decide who should face Shao Lao. This is a fight that they HAVE TO nail and points for having them wear a mask reminiscent of the Iron Fist comic design. We get the beginning of it, but before anything meaningful comes out of it we cut to Colleen at the community centre

Apparently, the file on Frank Choi is missing, presumably taken or destroyed to keep him hidden. They’re decorating the room for a gambling session, at the bequest of Mrs Yang, yes, that Yang. She decides to head back to Frank's brother, hoping for more intel. Before she gets there, she sees what she thinks is someone being harassed by the kids again, but it’s a trick and they hold a gun on her, wanting revenge for the restaurant debacle on behalf of a leader named Rhyno (because poor literacy is kewl and all that). It doesn’t last very long; Colleen gets the gun but sirens scare the kids away. Colleen ditches the gun and heads after them, following a convenient cable to their little hideaway.

She manages to smooth things over with Rhyno, but finds out they’re hiding in Tiger territory because the Hatchets are going to make a move, and they have the superior numbers to crush them. One of them, BB, apologises over the stunt as Colleen tries to make headway with reasoning with him, it kinda sorta works, with him at least.

Danny heads to fish warehouse Mr Yang runs and asks to talk with him alone. Turns out the inside man the Tigers had on the Hatchets is a f*cking idiot, riling the Hatchet men up by killing Yang’s nephew. Danny accidentally activates the Iron Fist and smashes Yang’s table, something which his him concerned as well. He walks away and we return to the flashback.

Davos has Danny on the ground, but Danny refuses to yield despite taking many body blows, Danny gets off him so the fight can resume. It’s more than half way through the episode before we find out what Ward is up to, he and his assistant are trying to dig into the divestment package, find out if Joy wanted something in particular, which Ward suspects she did. On that note, his assistant has found that she’s attending an auction tonight.

His attempts to hash things out with Joy aren’t going great, Joy is annoyed he wasn’t the one to tell her he was attending NA, even though a) that’s none of her business and b) the only chance he had to do so was during the divestment meeting. Davos interrupts and they go to see an old bowl, Davos wants it unrestored but it’s not going up for action for 3 months. Davos is about to make a violent move but Joy stops him, saying she’ll handle it

With Mr Yang a non-starter when it comes to the war, Colleen suggests another option, Mrs Yang at the community centre. She warns them that killing one guy on the street with a way to bring out leadership of the Tigers and they plan to attack the memorial being held for him. Colleen makes her case for her to tell Mr Yang to call it off, citing her duty to the community and the bloodshed a gang war could bring to the city. She agrees and makes a call, saving lives

Back with Joy and Davos, they’re having an after-party with Joy’s old friend and among the auctioneers, she has the hots for Davos and Joy wishes to use that since her husband is a public official and a scandal would make good material for blackmail. Davos dislikes this but ultimately agrees. It’s certainly an interesting version of sex, with Davos’ instincts kicking in, all whilst the laptop nearby is recording it.

The parlay has yet to happen, but at least a massacre has been prevented, and Danny is OK with that for now, as we flash back to the fight. The two of them are bloody, Danny’s down to one hand, but Danny uses the sunlight to blind Davos temporarily and knock him down. Davos refuses to yield but Danny is handed victory anyway. It’s a good fight, better than most of what we saw last season.

Mr Yang calls in Davos, giving him back his money as the parlay means they can’t guarantee his shipment through customs. Davos isn’t happy and taps him on the neck. Soon after he’s escorted out, Mr Yang has some kind of fit. Colleen gets a phone-call from Mary, asking for Danny, she quickly hangs up as she looks various photos of Danny she’s been taking, as well as a message telling her to stay away from Danny Rand.

This is another solid episode, with plot progression along various pathways. The Ward angle is probably the weakest but counterbalancing that it’s also the shortest

Rating 7.5/10