A Marvel show review
By Sonam Kaloti, Arts Editor
4.5/5
Luke Cage had only encountered characters with ties to The Hand, but not The Hand itself. He wasn’t persuaded easily about the true darkness and power of the villain at hand (sorry).
I’m not going to lie—I’d been excited to watch The Defenders for a good while now. After watching Jessica Jones, Daredevil, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage, it was like a dream come true to see how they would all come together. Their personalities at face level seem very incompatible, and yet… actually, they were pretty incompatible. In the best most entertaining way possible, that is.
The series starts with the same anticipation that I’d been feeling before I started the series waiting for these superheroes to finally meet each other. It was agony waiting over an episode for them to finally begin running into each other. However, when they did, it was worth the wait.
The story of their main villain—The Hand—had been growing in the background with all of the other shows (except Jessica Jones). Daredevil had already been fighting The Hand, and his show’s last season introduced us to Elektra, his ex-girlfriend, a master ninja, and more recently the “Black Sky,” also known as The Hand’s weapon. While the end of season two of Daredevil saw Elektra die, we got to see her being pulled out of her grave to be brought back to life by The Hand, unbeknownst to those who were close to her. This means she came back as a true secret weapon in The Defenders.
Matt Murdock (Daredevil) had also been trained for most of his life to fight the war against The Hand, similarly to Danny Rand (Iron Fist) who had been trained amongst warrior monks in another dimension called K’un-Lun to defeat The Hand as well. Danny Rand, however, had been given the power of the Iron Fist, being taught that it was the only power strong enough to ultimately end The Hand. His role was to be the guardian of K’un-Lun.
Luke Cage had only encountered characters with ties to The Hand, but not The Hand itself. Cage is also a character who tends to not believe in mystical tales, so he wasn’t persuaded easily about the true darkness and power of the villain at hand (sorry). Meanwhile, Jessica had been busy fighting her very real and dangerous foes with no connection to The Hand. Her personal distaste of being a hero and working alongside people made her the hardest person to be persuaded into the superhero team. She makes many hilarious Jessica remarks along the way such as, “Am I the only one left who doesn’t know karate?”
I was happy to see Daredevil and Jessica being partnered off often, as they are my two favourites. Their personalities also contrast the most, with Jessica having a very uninterested and negative energy, and Daredevil basically representing all the goodness, wisdom, and care a superhero could have. Though, we also see a side of Daredevil that is distant, secretive, and troublesome, which is refreshing.
The series only has eight episodes which is incredibly saddening because there was a lot of potential here. The story of The Hand had been built upon for a long time throughout many different series, so The Defenders’ eight-episode resolve feels rushed. My score of four and a half out of five is generous. The story is good, the acting is fantastic, the dialogue, effects, action, and every other aspect is great, too—but the series is just too short. Although, The Defenders got cancelled, it is still available to watch on Netflix.
