Iron Fist 1x06 Review: Mortal Kombat

​“Immortal Emerges from Cave”
Written by Dwain Worrell
Directed by RZA
 
The Story
A series of people receive mysterious messages. Seems like they’re all Hand operatives, and they’ve been given a mission (which they have been impatient for). Some butchers, a creepy doctor lady, and a karaoke murderer. Danny is trying to find out where the chemist’s daughter is, and Ward comes along to make sure he gets back in time for a meeting to smooth over his blunder with the cancer victims. Claire is working on the chemist, but he’s not doing well. Danny finds an invitation to a duel from the Hand in the form of a stick clamped in the mouth of the severed head of the dude he fought. Claire can’t believe she has more experience fighting the Hand than Danny. Danny tells Claire and Colleen that he’s the Iron Fist, so he’s pretty confident that he’ll win. Ward tries to abuse more drugs to cope with this nonsense, but his drugs have vanished. No Danny at the meeting, but Joy smoothes that over fairly well. The crisis management guy wants them to spin this in a positive way, and he’s very optimistic. Danny keeps having conversations with one of his trainers, who isn’t actually there. I think. Claire and Colleen keep looking after the chemist, and Colleen is finally willing to take him to a hospital. Time for Danny’s duel. Madame Gao officiates. He wins, the Hand leaves town. They win (and Danny survives), he leaves them alone. First fight is the butchers. Danny seems sensitive about people insinuating that he ran away from his post. He wins the fight. Claire and Colleen get the chemist to Metro General. Next is the doctor lady, who has a spider theme. She poisons him with needles, but not enough for him to lose. Ward is losing it without his pills and tries to get more at a pharmacy by busting his own hand in his car door. (At least he’s not after heroin.) He fails to convince the nurse at the desk. Joy comes to get him. She’s very kind. The Hand tries to remove the chemist from Metro General. Colleen and Claire fight them, but they lose the chemist anyway. Last fight is against karaoke guy, who fights with a naginata, then a double scythe. Danny wins. Gao seems surprised to see that he’s the Iron Fist. She reneges on the deal. She forces Danny to withdraw or she’ll kill the hostage. She insinuates that she played a part in his father’s death, then force-pushes him away before he can confront her about it.
 
Okay, episode 5 was really awesome at making the Hand seem like a serious threat with tendrils reaching into everything and influence at all levels of society, and now there’s episode 6, which feels weirdly like a video game. Defeat three minibosses to rescue the hostage! They’re unique and interesting minibosses (although seductive spider lady is pretty annoying), but it turns out to be pointless because the Hand doesn’t honor its deals anyway, so it all just serves to make Danny seem as gullible as he is a good fighter. Was the point of this to illustrate the Hand’s lack of honor? Because we sorta already assumed that villains who use children as leverage didn’t have any of that. Is the point that “Are you willing to kill Danny Rand so that the Iron Fist might live” bit? He has to let go of any concerns unrelated to being the Iron Fist? He ends up with more doubts than he had at first, and doubts lead to defeat. I would’ve preferred a straight-up brawl that didn’t go entirely according to plan over this one battle at a time thing, if Gao was just going to cheat at the end anyway. This didn’t feel like the kind of escalation I wanted after episode 5, and I think that’s my main problem with it.
 
Things I Liked

• “I had the fastest donkey cart in K’un-Lun too.”
• Colleen’s concern for Danny. She knows how dangerous the elite Hand assassins are, I assume, so she’s terrified he’s really going to die.
• The cool thing Danny does where he makes all the needles shoot back out of him and bust some lights.
• Claire saying “Sweet Christmas”

 
Things I Didn’t

• Being frustrated that Danny is so flaky in the billionaire corporate shenanigans plot, even though I don’t even like the billionaire corporate shenanigans plot.
• Danny being so assured of victory kinda makes the fights less tense
• People slicing their own palms. (I don’t like this trope as a whole, not specifically in this show. Don’t they know how many important things are in the palm? I know it would be less dramatic, but it’d be way more practical to slice the outside of the forearm if you need blood for something.)
• Spider lady’s horrifying needle weapons, and Danny not removing them before he rolls over on top of them. Aaaaaaaaargh.
• Ward busting his own hand because he wants more drugs. Good grief.
• “My reasons are my own.” Okay, fine, but as an audience member, I WANT TO KNOW THEM.

 
The Characters
So does Danny have more doubts than he thought? Is it going to lead to defeat, or is the solution simply more complicated than “punch everyone in the Hand until the organization is no more”? I do like that Danny (and the show) is finally more focused on the Hand storyline. I also like Danny’s very rigid sense of honor. However, I would like to know his reasons for leaving K’un-Lun. If it was for Rand Enterprises, then why isn’t he making more of an effort in the company?
 
Colleen’s reactions to things have been very subdued ever since the Hand came up. Does she already know that there are different factions, or is she starting to get cracks in her worldview? Does she recognize the similarities between the assassins Danny had to fight in the duel and the kids she’s training? There’s a clear parallel between her restlessness and the way the Hand’s assassins were all jumping for the chance to participate in this duel. Is that what the Hand does? Train people and then let them sit until they’re so antsy that they’ll take any mission without question, even if it’s evil?
 
Joy is a good sister. She knows yelling at Ward for being so irresponsible won’t help, so she’s just there for him. Aww.
 
Well Ward’s getting pretty near hitting bottom, now, isn’t he? Hopefully it will make him a more likeable character.
 
Overall Rating
3.5/5