Jeffro Johnson Critiques with an Iron Fist

The real hero of the series.

Seriously, why aren’t you all on Jeffro Johnson’s Google+ yet? Great discussions of sci-fi and fantasy take place there on a regular basis, all from a prespective you don’t typically see in the SF/F critical space. Come on and join in the fun.

One thing Jeffro did on his Google+ was give an episode-by-episode critique of the recent Netflix series Iron Fist. For your convenience, I’ve gathered all of the critiques here. Now stand back and watch him rip this show apart!

Episode 1

This is not bad. I don’t see anything particularly objectionable about this series so far… which is RARE. Interesting data point: it almost passes the Jeffro test. Dude wants kung fu girl’s attention and he just can’t merit it. Then she spies him beating up security guards that are trying to kill him. This is insufficient… (more)

Episode 2

And now the ugliness reveals itself. China girl beats up a gang of thugs like something straight out of The Force Awakens. But wait…. One of the thugs is a girl!? What’s going on? Ah, she instructed them to attack her, Cato style. She then cuts them down like some sort of drill sergeant. I think she uses the word “shit” at some point. The other female character tells her brother to grow some balls. These women are not women at all. Or at the very least, they have no class… (more)

Episode 3

Everything collapses. Waifu girl beats up the security guards that Iron Fist needed super powers to beat. Why does ghetto kid dishonor himself by fighting for money? So he can support his two moms. Evil nasty monster dad? He obsequiously kneels on broken glass before a matronly specter… (more)

Episode 4

Sensei of the dojo of dumb returns to New York fight club, this time to take on two dudes at once in a no holds barred cage match. She totally loses it and destroys smart mouth city slicker’s face. Meanwhile, Iron Doofus plays office with zero business experience. He insists on selling wonder drug at cost. Everyone hates him. Disappointing son manages to turn this around into a propaganda victory… (more)

Episode 5

So dude comes back after a 15 year stint in Mythic Kung Fu Elfland. He doesn’t just have super powers. He isn’t just the best trained fighter in the world. He’s a billionaire. Here’s the thing I can’t believe. All the women around him fail to realize that (a) a chump this huge would be putty in their hands if only (b) one of them would step up and play the girlfriend bit. They could totally be Jezebel to his push-over Ahab. All they got to do is play footsie on a dinner date. Laugh at his jokes… (more)

Episode 6

This is the first episode that’s actually about Iron Fist. All the others were about his non-romantic love interest. She’s suddenly all fretful and worried over her man. Who’s new her man. It’s disorienting watching her transition into a purely “helper” oriented role. It’s like an entirely different series until she takes out a man three times as big as her in less than three seconds… (more)

Episode 7

Ah, this show. Five episodes of being treated like a dweeb. One episode where the the girl all of a sudden frets about his safety. And then boom. Hump time. Why did we have to endure that agonizing non-date dinner scene if there were just going to go straight to the humping? This makes no sense… (more)

Episode 8

Fight with 350 pound dude? Takes 2 seconds. Swordfight with another waif…? Takes five minutes PLUS it requires an assist from another dame. The show just rumbles on into deeper incoherence. Now that Danny has a girlfriend, he shows his softer side routinely. He’s out for blood, but only waifu girl knows how to control anger. Danny goes the full fight club on Drunken Master. He finally has Chinese Hitler woman right where he wants her, but he grows a conscience at the last moment… (more)

Episode 9

That’s the thing that gets me right there. The number of weenies that gush about this being the golden age of superhero television. Gack! Where is the hero? Not one episode of this is a comic book style superhero story. It’s just castoff characters fro Daredevil thrown into a blender with sort of half the idea of this third tier comic character. Why can’t this guy put on a green suit and a yellow mask and go beat up a bankrobber? Where is the costumed villain up to no good…? It aint there… (more)

Episode 10

This show! First we get a repeat of The Kingpin’s back story. Now we are dropped into the Inhumans arc from Agents of SHIELD. Iron Fist is like everything that sucks from the Marvel TV shows put together! This episode has one line that sums it all up. “You’re like the worst Iron Fist ever.” Why? That rings so true. It’s like the only theme that really matters in this show. Because the concept is Iron Fist: The Least Heroic Superhero We Could Come Up With. But it gets worse… (more)

Episode 11

More Iron Fist lore is revealed. Like… another eyedropper full. I don’t understand it. Or maybe I do. I have a theory anyway. They make this stuff up as they go. Like the Lost series. And they add to the backstory only as much as they need to have another episode. Because everything they add is just too much to keep up with… (more)

Episode 12

If the entire series were like this it wouldn’t be that bad. Here at any rate is the whole point of why everything was done the way it was. You get this big fight… three fights at once with the three protagonist fighting characters doing their thing. Everything before this was filler compared to this. Watching it, it’s like… why did y’all pull your punches in episode after episode with crappy themed weirdo fighters from the Hand’s second string…? But the moment where the hero was supposed to finally go do the hero thing…? No. Not happening. It’s time for waifu girl to come back into full status likable love interest and this is the only way… (more)

Episode 13

Last episode was a sort of a finale. This…? It’s like they go out of their way to roll back any semblance of forward movement and development.[…]The big moment of the series is supposed to be when Danny overcomes his anger and discovers mercy instead of vengence. But it’s completely empty because they always have a character in the extended cast willing to step in and do the deed when the plot dictates it. What should be sense of conclusiveness and resolution is reduced to mere anti-climax… (more)