Week 106: Take Shelter, Ashes Ashes

Take Shelter: How good is that opening montage set to Brahms, the same composer that Alexandra was discussing a few episodes ago? Whatever else she does for this series, her taste in music is adding a lot of flair in the music department.

So, Bakuto is from South America. That answers my question from last week... but not really.

I will never get tired of asking this question in different forms: How did Murakami know which door Jessica Jones and Trish Walker would exit when running from the Hand assassins at the restaurant?

When Bakuto indirectly asked if Madame Gao forgave him for her imprisonment, it occurred to me that we never heard how she escaped; we just saw her again in an epilogue at the very end of Iron Fist season 1, drinking tea in a café. It doesn't really matter, but I am curious. She has slowly grown on me as a villain, precisely because we keep seeing new sides to her personality, and helped by the fact that she's pragmatic when so many other villains are fanatical.

How fun is it to see the supporting characters from the different shows in the same room? I wish they'd interact with each other more, but still, it's neat to see them recognizing each other and commenting on each other. That's a big part of the joy of this series to me.

Someone talking while being choked is as common in movies and TV as noisy sound effects in the vacuum of space, but man did it bother me that Sowande could still talk clearly and at length while Daredevil was choking him with the billy club. Also, how come Jessica was the only person who seemed to mind the heroes torturing their captive for information? Yeesh.

I didn't know Babs Olusanmokun the first time that I watched this series and saw his performance as Sowande. I know him now through Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Dune, and while I'm no fan of his hypocritical, badly written Dr. M'Benga on the former series, he's a damn good actor who deserved a bigger, better part than he got here. In another world, he would have made an interesting Diamondback, calmer and more intellectual playing against a livelier Luke Cage.

It's an anticlimactic ending, but I like Elektra Natchios exploring Matt Murdock's apartment and remembering their relationship. No flashbacks are needed, nor any dialogue, just Elodie Yung's reactions in medium shots. (6/10)

Ashes, Ashes: Is it me or is Danny Rand at his most insufferable in this episode? I hate, hate, hate the battle that kicks off this hour, partly because the team is unbelievably quick to break out into a fight against each other even by the standards of its source material, but most of all because it's based on Danny's obnoxious hotheaded attitude, which continues to make the episode difficult to watch even though he spends most of it tied to a chair. Danny's half-right that he shouldn't go into hiding as the other Defenders suggest, because the Hand will not stop applying pressure to expose him (kill his friends, kill the other Defenders and their friends, kill random New Yorkers, whatever it takes to draw him out), but his willingness to run right towards the Hand without any plan when they have openly said that capturing him is the key to their entire operation has to be the dumbest possible thing he could possibly do, and even he has to understand that on some level. I don't blame him for being a violent moron because that's what his life made him, but I cannot empathize with him or root for him, or watch much more of him at this point. He's the worst. The other Defenders making fun of him, like Luke's hilarious "dude, I was kidding" when he responds seriously to Luke's inquiry about the dragon, helps to make the episode more tolerable. (4/10)

What do you make of Stick's decision to kill Danny? I want to say that sending Danny's head to the Hand might be the only thing that will make them give up, and so Stick is the only one who sees the situation clearly. That might just send the Hand into a vengeful streak, killing every perceived enemy that they can before they succumb to bodily failure themselves, but at least they'd be dead for good. But honestly, what's so bad about the Hand's goal? Wanting to return to K'un-Lun is hardly some horrible, unacceptable, pull-out-all-the-stops-to-prevent emergency. What's evil about the Hand are their methods, not their mission. Help them get to K'un-Lun and the problem will be solved. This episode gives us more of a look at their relationships than we've ever seen before (we should have gotten all of this information back in Daredevil season 2), and they don't come across as bad people, just anxious people with disagreements that quickly turn violent… so, a thematic match for the Defenders, I suppose. They're the weakest part of the series, with their one-note personalities and generic-looking lair and constant posturing and lack of emotional reaction to one of their own being killed after two millennia of partnership. Elektra taking over their organization doesn't register because she's scarcely different from the rest of them; will it change anything to have her giving orders instead of Alexandra?

Assuming that Stick delivered Sowande's head by having it couriered to Midland Circle Financial, I feel bad for the poor intern in the mail room who had to open that and figure out where to send it upstairs. Speaking of the two sides in this conflict finding each other, how did Elektra know where to go to capture Danny? If the Hand knew where Danny was this whole time, why didn't they send an army? And why didn't Elektra stab dead the non-bulletproof members of the Defenders while they were all unconscious? And when Matt and Jessica ran towards her, why didn't Jessica fly to save time? (Oh, right. TV budget.) I do appreciate that the show remembered that not everyone on the team is indoctrinated in this battle against the hand, and had Jessica be repulsed by Sowande's murder and had Luke refer to it correctly as a homicide that would normally be reported to the police.

Erik, way back in Daredevil season 2, you asked about the purpose of that giant bottomless pit in the ground. I didn't answer at the time because I knew that The Defenders would ultimately explain it. Now that it has, what do you think? Worth the wait? Well plotted? The story goes back to Daredevil season 1, in the subplot about Wilson Fisk trying to evict Elena Cardenas until Nelson & Murdock take her case; that site became Midland Circle.

Scott, I agree that it was really cool to see everybody from the various shows together in a room: Trish and Foggy and what's her name, who I keep wanting to call Jessica because I think that was her name on True Blood, and I can never remember her name in this show!

Thank you for reminding me of the giant hole from season one of Daredevil! I knew it was from something, and I could not remember what it was. Even now, I still don't really understand what the hell is going on. Are the things down at the bottom the same dragon species, or whatever that Danny punched to become the Iron Fist? Is that how the Iron Fist comes to be? Do they just continually kill off the old version or the next generation of this dragon breed?

Does Gao choose to only use enough of “the substance” to keep her alive, or is there some rule about it that it only keeps you alive in the state you were in when you used it? I find it odd that she would choose to just keep herself in the state where she is hobbling around with a cane, unless it's part of her general ploy to make herself look weaker than she is.

The Hand is a global organization, right? And they’re all trying to stop them, right? In theory, they’re trying to save the world, as super heroes do. So why are they all just acting like saving NYC is the end game? If this were happening in Chicago would they just not give a shit?

I guess if that were the case, Danny would be in Chicago, teaming up with whatever random superhero group was hanging out there.

What happened with Luke and Jessica, you ask? “We had a moment, but then Disney thought it would be more profitable for us to have separate shows, so we went our separate ways.”

I don’t understand Stick stopping his swing just as he was about to kill Elektra. Other than needing her to live to continue the plot, there’s no reason for him to hold back.

I expected Elektra to come around eventually, but never like this. I’m assuming she’s gone full-Hand at this point and isn’t just playing the part to stop them from within. Time will tell, I suppose.

I don't fully understand Stick’s shift to killing Danny. It just doesn't make sense to me, considering how long he has been such a die-hard acolyte of the chaste and the fight to destroy the Hand. Did he choose to try to kill Danny just so the Hand couldn't get to him and use him? What'd he say right before he went after him? Something along the lines of, "If you can't beat them...," which means, "join them?" Which just doesn't make any sense whatsoever!

Does Gao choose to only use enough of “the substance” to keep her alive, or is there some rule about it that it only keeps you alive in the state you were in when you used it?

If this were happening in Chicago would they just not give a shit? I guess if that were the case, Danny would be in Chicago, teaming up with whatever random superhero group was hanging out there.

I don’t understand Stick stopping his swing just as he was about to kill Elektra.

I don't fully understand Stick’s shift to killing Danny.