The Defenders Review Part Two: One Big (Glorious) Kung-Fu Party
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After reading comics book for a certain amount of time, you start to recognize how silly they can be. The costumes, the villains, their plans, none of it makes any real or practical sense. However, part of what has made the 21st Century the Golden Age of live-action comic book films and series is that they take it so damn seriously.
In my review of the first half of the eight-episode series The Defenders, produced jointly by Marvel Studios and Netflix, I was harsh in my view of how they bungled the roll out of this team-up, when compared to their big-screen properties. However, in the back half of the series, they maintain that slow pace (again, I think is mostly because of budgetary constraints) but deliver a comic-book-story at its core.
It’s a hell of a lot of fun, and it shows that even with the faster-paced world of television series Marvel Studios can deliver the goods. To be clear, The Defenders isn’t the best superhero television show of all time. It’s not even the best Marvel-Netflix show (seasons one of Daredevil and Luke Cage fight for that title in my heart), but it is an excellent example of how to blend the silly and the serious about these comic-book shows.
Spoilers below:
The villains in this series — as well as a season of Iron Fist and Daredevil — are the Hand, a ninja cult whose leaders want immortality and to return to a magical city from which they were banished. They also want to destroy New York, or what they want to do will destroy New York and they simply don’t care. The series doesn’t spend much time on the specifics of their plan, instead pitting the cold pragmatism of Madame Gao, played by Wai Ching Ho, and her allies against the enigmatic Alexandra, a woman of faith and a role that Sigourney Weaver acted the hell out of.
We only had a limited time to spend with all of these characters — less so than we even get when there’s just one hero and his/her supporting cast — so their motivations appear cartoonish if you dig into the details. The plan doesn’t make sense. But what the story does give us is a tale about the dangers of zealotry and hubris.
Part of the appeal of the Defenders as a group is that, unlike the Avengers, they are not the ones to stop an alien invasion or other similar global threat. Essentially, all four of these heroes are brawlers. With some significant detail differences, all of the main characters of these series are people who punch shit really, really hard. So, any solution to the villains’ nebulous goals was almost certainly going to end up in a massive fight scene. (Which you can see below if you want, at least until Marvel and/or Netflix DCMA’s this video into non-existence.)
This scene exemplifies the mixture of playing-it-straight and goofiness that makes for the best kind of live-action comic book story through the scoring. As the scene begins, we get a traditional film score, played by an orchestra. The strings swell the tension, playing faster and building to the moment when one of our heroes and one of the villains each throw everything they’ve got at one another. Our hero comes out on top (as you’d know if you watched the trailer for the show), but then the grandiose score disappears replaced by the original “Protect Ya Neck” by the Wu-Tang Clan.
It’s an odd choice, especially for the climactic battle scene of the series. Even Luke Cage — whose soundtrack was a cavalcade of dope cuts — went with “Bring the Ruckus” for their Wu-Tang fight scene and opted for original scoring for that show’s final battle. Then, as the heroes face off against the resurrected Elektra, played by Elodie Young, we switch back to original score, because one of the characters is going to get very serious and martyr-y.
Along with the fight scenes, the back half of the series offered the sort of character scenes I — and I believe many others — wanted to see from the start. Mike Colter’s Luke Cage and Finn Jones’s Danny Rand bond during one scene, where he’s actually Cage’s prisoner. After the villains are able to kidnap him, Cage feels a sense of responsibility towards the young man he spent so much of the first half of the show fighting. The show actually redeems Rand’s character somewhat, but that’s a discussion worthy of it’s own essay.
Similarly, Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock and Kristen Ritter’s Jessica Jones are forced together in ways that don’t necessarily make sense. However, the latter half of the series pairs them together more effectively, and actually provides one of the most touching scenes in this series, that builds on the foundation laid by their individual shows.
Both Jones and Murdock are tortured, and feel wracked with guilt for the things they’ve done because of their abilities. Murdock deals with this by dressing up in kevlar pajamas and beating the shit out of people. Jones deals with this by drinking, being a private investigator, and (ultimately) beating the shit out of people. Jones also constantly makes fun of the fact that Daredevil is the only costume-wearing superhero in the mix.
Yet in The Defenders, Jones tells another character a story about her “friend,” and ends up telling the story of Matt Murdock. In Daredevil all of the people in Murdock’s life who knows he’s a masked vigilante constantly yell at him for it. Except for his priest, who offers vague advice that neither encourages or discourages his hero antics. Ironically, his absolution comes from Jones, a character who has broken pretty much all of the seven deadly sins.
This scene also does double-duty, because it could also serve as absolution for Jones. In guiding Murdock down the path to forgiving himself, Jones seems to be in a place where she can forgive herself, as evidenced by the way she opens her office for business again in the final scenes.
Of the main characters, Luke Cage doesn’t really grow or change in any meaningful way. Other than shifting from wanting to smash Danny Rand’s face into the wall to being (kind of) his friend. He’s free of legal troubles, and he’s finally “getting coffee” on-the-regular with Claire Temple, played by Rosario Dawson. Of this team, Luke Cage is the Captain America figure, the moral heart of the team, which possibly explains his under-utilization. Unless it’s time to smack some heads, block some bullets, or act as the incredulous voice of the audience, Cage doesn’t really have much to do.
With the Marvel/Netflix relationship up-in-the-air for now, it’s unclear if we’ll get another outing from this group. If this is all we ever get, it was a gift and one I imagine people will find themselves enjoying, like all of those properties that were cut short before their time.
If Disney and Netflix can work it out, however, it’s a near-certainty that the Defenders will ride again. A report from Variety reveals that an independent firm that tracks Netflix viewership thinks The Defenders might be the streaming service’s biggest hit yet. If that’s the case, then the successive seasons of these Netflix series will only get bigger and better.
In the meantime, there’s The Defenders and the 42 worthwhile hours of Marvel superhero business that preceded it. Second seasons of these individual shows are all currently in the works, as well as the Daredevil spin-off, The Punisher with Jon Berenthal in the titular role. Marvel’s days at Netflix aren’t over yet, and for that we nerds should be grateful.
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