Week 94: Immortal Emerges from Cave, Felling Tree with Roots

Immortal Emerges from Cave: That this episode turned out so well has to do with one credit at the beginning: "Directed by RZA." He's an inspired choice, given his longtime interest in martial arts movies that he brought into the Wu-Tang Clan and his previous experience directing The Man with the Iron Fists. He takes on the assignment like a man trying to make a mark, staging four impressive fight scenes in four different styles. (I'm counting Colleen Wing's rapid take-down of the fake hospital worker, since it has a brusque, matter-of-fact quality that serves as a nice contrast to the others.) The Bride of Nine Spiders battle is my favorite because it serves up something quite different than the usual punch-kick-repeat, but Scythe brings personality too, especially in his darkly comic introduction in a karaoke bar (with a clever song choice). I'd like to see more of both villains, but I fear that they've each served their sole purpose here. Madame Gao is intriguing in this episode, too; actress Wai Ching Ho communicates so much in her reaction shots, suggesting that for the Hand, this duel is mostly about learning information, and that Danny Rand has once again been outsmarted. Plus, the revelation of the severed head in the truck is as jolting as intended.

However, there's also a lot in this hour that doesn't add up: Who decorated part of the Hand's warehouse to look like a spider's web? How did the Hand know which hospital Radovan would be taken to? If they knew that Claire Temple had him and they chose Metro-General because she used to work there, why wouldn't they just attack the dojo to reclaim Radovan more easily? How did Joy Meachum know which urgent care clinic Ward Meachum would visit? If she has the ability to track the location of his phone or car, how come she hasn't discovered his clandestine trips to their father's penthouse in all these years? It seems to me like Ward's withdrawal symptoms after just a single dose of heroin are too exaggerated, but I don't have any experience with heroin to know for sure, and Google does not make it easy to find the answer amid all of the results offering to help me get treatment, so I surrender on that one. And lastly, is it really necessary to refer to Hulk as "the incredible green guy"? If this show insists on being oblique in its MCU references, I hereby proclaim that Claire really should have called "the devilish red guy" when she learned that the Hand was involved. (7/10)

Felling Tree with Roots: The plotting is more or less fine at this midpoint in the season, but I have growing doubts about how I'm supposed to feel about anything that's happening, or how the show feels. The revelation that Colleen serves a secret master is treated as casually as her ordering breakfast. Danny and Colleen attack the warehouse where the Hand is making heroin, but it's just another quick and generic fight in the dark, and besides, the Hand has endless warehouses and other resources (and now the heroin formula, which I find impossible to believe that they wouldn't have gotten earlier). The revelation that the Hand knows about Claire and Colleen feels intended to be chilling, but of course they know; they've had several encounters with both women already, and omniscience is kind of the Hand's deal. Danny breaking his vow of chastity to bed Colleen feels like it should matter more, but I do sense it in Finn Jones's performance. I don't know how Harold Meachum's interrogators wouldn't already know the answers to their own questions (don't the Hand surveil Harold in his own penthouse?), nor how Harold would get away with killing them, but it hardly seems to matter. The only things in this episode that really land are the brutality of the various killings (this show is not for the queasy!), the tenderness of Danny and Colleen's lovemaking and morning after even when they're repeating exposition to each other that they already know, the Rand board finally calling out Danny in the meeting for his idiocy and then ousting him from the company (I don't know why the Meachums would be out as well after many loyal years but whatever), and Ward's frustration with Harold finally reaching a breaking point in a satisfying and poetic resolution. The rest just drifts by. (5/10)