Iron Fist Improves Immensely; Still Not Really That Great

Let’s start this spoiler-free review of the second season of Iron Fist on Netflix with mentioning that it has the same problem as the second season of Luke Cage. The first episode is almost painfully bad. Bad enough to make you almost want to give up on the show.

But don’t — it gets much better. The problem is, that barely brings up to the level of lower middle quality of all the seasons in the Marvel Netflix universe.

In that first episode of Iron Fist Season 2, however, is some of the worst plotting, cheesiest dialogue and unbelievably stupid character decisions done just to drive plot as has ever been seen on TV. The first episode was written by new showrunner M. Raven Metzner, who wrote the awful movie Elektra, so that explains a lot. Thankfully Metzner doesn’t write any other episodes until the finale, which we will get to later.

It is a bonus that the new season is only 10 episodes long compared to the 13 in Season 1. That way the pace is faster and so the quality of each episode seems to rise rapidly.

That quality gets a booster shot immediately with the appearance of Alice Eve as Mary. She is much more interesting and engaging in that first episode than any other character — almost too much, in comparison. And she just keeps it up. It is a good thing that the other actors and the writing of their characters steps up to meet that challenge quickly. Even Finn Jones, who is still the weakest link in the show that he leads, has improved greatly — both in acting and martial arts.

The martial arts sequences are where Iron Fist really shines this season. It looks like the actors have trained much more than they did prior to Season 1, and the fight planning and choreography is also markedly improved.

Without spoilers, let’s speed toward the finale. As it gets close to episode 10, Iron Fist Season 2 finally delivers some real surprises. It pays off on the promises of those surprises quite well, leading to a satisfying final battle that encompasses almost the first half of that final hour. The denouement in the second half is moving, and exciting — right up until the very end, which has the stupidest, cheesiest surprise reveal I’ve seen since some late 1970s Doctor Who episodes. Like, I’ve watched dumb, cheesy anime shows that were smarter than that ending moment. That fact that the basis of that moment is actually comic book canon doesn’t help. Some things work in comics and never will in live action.

But don’t let that stop you from watching this second season of Iron Fist. Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing, and particularly the siblings Ward (Tom Pelphrey) and Joy Meachum (Jessica Stroup) have stepped up their games as actors and the writers have made their characters much more complex and interesting than in Season 1.

I give Iron Fist Season 2 a 3 out of 5.