What I’m Watching: Iron Fist

Iron Fist: Season 1, Episode 5 “Under Leaf Pluck Lotus” (B-)

So it’s true that this show has definitely improved from where it was, and I laugh every time someone says something like, “Oh, you’re Danny Rand?” This installment was mildly intriguing, though I’ll admit that, by the end of it, I didn’t understand why so much time had been spent on Danny and Colleen’s surveillance of the pier. That’s something that’s pretty standard for “Daredevil” and “Luke Cage” also, exhausting unnecessary effort on showing its characters staking somewhere out before a big battle ensues. In another connection to those two shows, we got to see Claire Temple, played by Rosario Dawson in what must surely be one of the coolest five-series deals ever signed, for the first time on this show. Her introduction was timed perfectly since they needed someone with serious medical knowledge to come in handy when they couldn’t take their newest ally to a hospital. Danny has been training for this his whole life, but it seems that the quick-to-decapitate Hand is also well aware of this fact. What Danny isn’t quite as adept at is navigating the new business world in which he exists, since he managed to get himself caught on camera promising to make something right that was supposed to be settled in a more official, legal setting. Even Joy seems to be losing some patience, and the emergence of her humanity after her initially cold response to the loss others suffered still pales in comparison to her business savvy and her vision of the big picture.