Welcome to the Second Union Iron Fist Watchalong Event! Watch along with us for the next several weeks as we check out the next “hero in the making” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage). Iron Fist’s entire first season was made available for viewing on Friday, March 17th on Netflix. Every weekend (Saturday and Sunday) starting Saturday, March 25th we will post overviews and opinions of an episode of the series. WARNING: This article is full of SPOILERS!
Marvel’s Iron Fist is the long-awaited Netflix series based on the titular Marvel Comics character. The show follows Danny Rand, a man who, after fifteen years of being presumed dead in a plane crash, returns to NYC to reclaim his family business, Rand Enterprises. This is the last show in the line of Netflix Marvel shows (being preceded by two seasons of Daredevil and one season of both Jessica Jones and Luke Cage) before the team-up Defenders series kicks off later this year. So, without further ado, here’s my review of the first episode of Marvel’s Iron Fist! I’ll be breaking down the episode in terms of story, action, and writing. Let’s get into it.
STORY
Marvel’s Iron Fist got off to a bit of a rocky start with this first episode, titled “Snow Gives Way”. While the series’ debut has some undoubtedly promising qualities, the overall story isn’t that great at first. For me, the episode was pretty compelling, mainly because I’m a big Marvel fan, but I also am really holding out hope that this episode will bring out the best for the rest of the series. At this moment, the show has a 19% approval rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes, and I truly think that the show doesn’t deserve that terrible a score. However, I hope that the show will get better in the next few episodes, because, as far as the first episode goes, it does a “just fine” job of starting the series. Each of the Defenders series start out slow, but this one drags a little by ironically picking up the pace and not developing the characters as well when compared to other installments.
ACTION
The first episode of Marvel’s Iron Fist is light on action, as can be expected in the first episode of shows like this. That being said, it offers some relatively impressive, albeit short fight scenes that give a glimpse of what is to come in the following episodes. While the first episode has fewer action sequences than prior shows, the ones we get in “Snow Gives Way” are acceptable for the opening of this series. Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I hope that these later episodes will get better and more fun.
WRITING
I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about this show’s writing. I’m going to be completely honest, I don’t get it. Maybe my opinion will change in later episodes, but as for right now, I really don’t get the flak. Yeah, some of the character development is overlooked in this first episode, especially for the character of Colleen Wing (more on that in a bit), but overall, “Snow Gives Way” is a relatively strong opener. Now, about Colleen Wing. I know, she’s going to be a major character in the later episodes, and I’m totally fine with that. I just wanted so much more from her in this episode. Like I mentioned earlier, the episode was so focused on setting up the character of Danny and giving the audience perspective on his backstory, that it forgot to give the audience some development for the side characters, like Colleen.
Overall, the first episode of Marvel’s Iron Fist isn’t terrible. It has problems, the majority directed at character development and the lacking of action, but it isn’t terrible, and I don’t get the hate. I’m going to give the first episode of Marvel’s Iron Fist, “Snow Gives Way”, a 7.5/10.
Stay tuned for my review of episode 2, coming soon!
