The second season of Iron Fist has been out for two months now so it is time to analyse and compare the two seasons. Did the show improve? In my opinion, it did and I will tell you know what is different and why Season 2 works. Be aware of possible spoilers if you have not seen The Defenders or the second season of Iron Fist!
When it comes to ranking the Defenders, it goes Daredevil, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, and then comes Luke Cage. It seems I prefer the two broken souls over the other two characters. I think they speak more to me. So even if I am here to defend Danny boy from everyone, I still see why people had a problem with him.
In the first season, you could make a drinking game out of how many times Danny had to mention that he is “The Immortal Iron Fist”. Yeah, well, whatever. If you are happy with it, right? I could not hear it anymore either. However, please do not forget that he was away from civilisation for most of his life, growing up with monks that had their own beliefs and traditions.
Fortunately, this has changed in the second season. Danny is just the boy from next door, moved in with Colleen, and works as a furniture mover. He seems to be grounded even though he is still on the board of his family company, but he does not live from its money. This goes hand in hand with his attitude. Yes, he is still the Iron Fist bearer, but he does not identify himself as it like he did in Season 1. This has to do with the events from The Defenders. After Matt was buried under the rubble, Danny took it upon himself to continue Matt’s work and protect the city from evil. He understands that he can combine his old and new life and take the best of both identities to become a whole new Danny Rand.
However, this new dedication of his does not go well with his relationship with Colleen. As Executive Vice President Jeph Loeb pointed out “When you look at Matt’s life, it’s really not anything you want to aspire to have”, and this leads him to overthink his choices.
Still, the show gets criticised for portraying a Danny where most of the audience are not satisfied. This has nothing to do with Finn Jones playing him, but more with the way the character is written. Still accepting that he is far from the path the monks have taught him to be, he is more grown up and does not think that he is invincible and learns that sometimes he does not need his glowing fist at all to help others in need.
Finn went adopted an all or nothing attitude to portray the best Iron Fist he is able to. He wanted to do the fight scenes by himself and trained with a sensei. The series also hired the fight choreographer who is responsible for how Black Panther fights his enemies, which results in way better fight scenes this season.
What seemed to be forced in Season 1 was that they tried to be funny while everything around them was dark. Thankfully, in Season 2 this change and the biggest jokester is Ward. Trying to stay away from drugs and being a better person, Ward really redeems himself. He goes away from the man everyone hates, to one of which you understand his motivation and he shows his vulnerable side. Especially, when it comes to Joy and Danny. Family is everything for him.
Now, the positions are switched. Joy is the one in the dark who feels lost and betrayed. She’s distancing herself from her family and the company, she wants to build a live of her own and this results in working with Davos. Joy brings one of the most interesting characters the show has had at this point. When she hires private investigator Mary Walker, who is a former special ops soldier, to follow Danny, but what she doesn’t know is that Mary has been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Season 2 explores just a tiny bit of Mary Walker’s past and leaves the audience with a lot of questions and the longing to know more about her.
Mary may not be essential for the story of this season, but for sure made it more interesting and unpredictable. In the end, Joy sees that she was blinded by her anger against Ward and tries to change the course that she has started.
For me, this shows how complex the Ward siblings are and to see their positions switched spices the season up. I am definitely looking forward to see them working together and this could turn out to be a very productive and positive business relationship.
Yes, Danny’s so-called-brother is also back and he has a mission. In his opinion, Danny is not worthy of holding the Fist. That is why he has to get the Fist from him and become the only true holder of it, as his parents always have seen him to be. The only true heir. He also got the honour this season of a hallway fight scene, which has started with the first season of Daredevil and now a tradition for every Netflix Marvel show. Davos being around also gives the audience a closer look to the trials he and Danny had to overcome in K’un-Lun. Through flashbacks more of the Iron Fist mythology is revealed and now literally everything is possible.
We learn that it is possible to transfer the power of the Dragon from one body to another through a specific ritual including a tattoo and the body of a former dead Iron Fist. So not only Davos was all in for a new life changing tattoo, that let both his fists turn red and made him incredible strong, but after some suspicions, Colleen was all in for it as well.
That is the point which I loved to see. I was looking forward to learn more about the legend of the Dragon. Of course the leading character is Danny, but now he has to share the spotlight with Colleen. Colleen learns that she is a descendant from the first and only female Iron Fist. Female Iron Fist? Yes. So at some point of the season we had three Iron Fists and every one of them has different kind of powers and it shows that Danny has much to learn.
As mentioned before, Danny goes through an identity crisis in which he comes to the conclusion that maybe he should not hold the power of the Dragon, Colleen would make a better fit. Colleen does not see herself in this position, but after knowing who her ancestor is, she takes Danny’s place. This not only starts an interesting storyline for Season 3, but also shows that she is a fast learner because after only a month she transports her chi through her Katana and lets it glow.
When you think that is badass enough, then you have not met the new dream team that I would seriously watch a spin-off for: Knight Wing Detectives. We live in a time in which women are able to fight on their own and take leading important positions. Danny made a one episode appearance in Luke Cage, while Misty was around for almost the whole second season of Iron Fist and I do not want it any other way.
As the fearless women pointed out, they do not really know each other and did not even have time to because they were busy helping saving the city, but they proved that they can and should work together. Seriously, these women are kicking butts and I am all up for a show featuring those two. As bad as situations may have seem, they always found a solution and fought their way out of it.
That leads me to take a closer look at the season’s finale. As mentioned, Danny gives up the Iron Fist and Colleen takes over. Danny realises that he does not know everything about the legend of the Iron Fist as much as Davos. Boarding his Jet, Ward does not want to leave him alone and goes with him. The mission is to find the man who seems to have corpses of dead Iron Fists in storage. The last scene we see is Danny reaching for two guns. Not only the fact that he now likes to use deadly weapons is surprising, but also that both his fist light up and he transfers his chi into the pistols. Wait, stop. What? How? These questions will be answered in Season 3.
So what does this mean for Season 3? As discussed on Comicbook, this could mean that they found another powerful artefact of Orson Randall’s, the dead former Iron Fist. As the article from Comicbook also mentions:
“The most important details of Randall’s story are these two points:
- Orson Randall adopted his “Gun-fu” technique from Wu Ao-Shi, Pirate Queen of Pinghai Bai – aka the first female Iron Fist, who the Iron Fist TV series has posited may also be Colleen Wing’s direct ancestor.
- Randall often teamed with or led “The Immortal Weapons,” the champions of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven who would fight alongside the Iron Fist.”
Immortal Weapons, if this doesn’t sound interesting, I do not know what does!
Iron Fist develops from a slow story building show into a complex faster moving forward storyline, which is clearer even though that it focuses on all its characters at the same time and develops them equally. Give Danny and his friends another chance, you may not regret it.
