To round out the
mini series of the Marvel shows we have the Defenders. The TV version
of the grittier Avengers. Allowing the Netflix Universe heroes to
meet up and fight a singular foe that has been built up over the
course of the individual character's shows. I'll be honest, I wasn't
expecting much out of this show. It's just the way these things go,
you have different narratives, and different characters from
different shows, written by different writers, and something is just
bound to got the way of Murphy's Law.
Fortunately, I can
say that it mostly hasn't, the characters are mostly intact. Save for
Jessica Jones going from being mildly abrasive to everyone to being a
full on bitch. Now that I mention it, all characters are a little
strange. Daredevil can't seem to decide if he wants to be the wise
crack of the group or a slightly more broody Batman. Luke Cage is
mostly untouched as a character, of course he's less comic relief
than his initial appearance, no doubt to make way for the hilarious
wise cracks of the Catholic Batman. With Iron Fist they seem to have
doubled down on the weird monk thing. Iron Fist and Luke Cage also
have this really contrived group dissent that really doesn't add up
to anything other than a fight.
The plot itself is
refreshingly simple compared to most plots of the super hero genre.
Evil secret group exists, they want to destroy a city, and our heroes
are trying to stop them. All characters and subplots can dance around
that. It has the same pacing that I've come to expect from the rest
of the shows except the smaller arcs are super condensed and the
larger arcs are really extended. To be honest I only really watched
the show as long as I did because I wanted to see these characters
fight as a team. You know how long that took to get them on screen
together? 3 hours, and it wasn't really them fighting as a team so
much as four people flailing around with other opponents.
To keep harping on
that overarching plot's pacing I'm going to talk about how the
subplots fit into it. They are the plot, and not in the good way.
They instead feel like miniature stories strung together in the same
vague way everyone gets into a fight during a fighting game. The
story feels disjointed in this manner, and it doesn't help if you
haven't watched all of the shows. To give an example in the vaguest
sense, Luke Cage and Iron Fist meet and fight in an alley. In the
last scene we saw Cage he was tracking down a kid that he didn't know
the location of. The same kid that Iron Fist was about to beat up. It
doesn't really flow and all it makes me do is wonder when they'll all
fight together. I know that the more work you put into something and
the longer you wait the more rewarding something is. At this point
all they have to do is slap a single guy in unison and I will make like a
butcher.
I know I seem like
I'm being hard on this show, but I feel like I have some pent up
aggression after watching these shows back to back for a month, or my increasing mental instability, (lets not dwell on that). If
there's a lesson here it's that, no matter how good an individual
scene is, if it doesn't fit the narrative, or generally doesn't make
sense you should remove it. If you have a show based on mostly strong
scenes with little connection, then the show will crumble if you
really look at it. Do I recommend it? To give the most bland and cop
out answer, if you liked the other Marvel shows you will like this
one.
I do feel like
there's an obligatory tier list expected of me after doing all the
shows mostly in sequence and here it is
1. Daredevil (no
surprise, I know I took some digs at the character this episode, but
I think he's the most interesting and has the most at stake as a
character)
2. Luke Cage (by far
the most fun, and I always liked Cage when he's on screen)
3. Defenders (For
the most part I scaled this by fun, and quality of the show itself. I
seemed hard on it, but I think that is Marvel fatigue. It's fun when
it wants to be)
4. Jessica Jones
(There are two people in this world, those who adore this show and
those that don't. I feel like I went the hardest on this show. I do
think it's well put together, and I can see why so many people enjoy
it)
5. Iron Fist (Yeah…
I know I talked all last week about how much I enjoyed this, but I
did say that is was mostly because how dumb it could be. I watched it
further past the review and it started to really show its cracks)
I like to think that these posts have varied in quality to match the show I was discussing. A perfect way to round out the series.
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