Iron Fist Lead Horse Back to Stable review S1, Ep. 11

April 9, 2017April 10, 2017 Jeffrey Lyles 0 Comments Finn Jones, Iron Fist, Jessica Henwick, Ramon Rodriguez, Rosario Dawson, Sacha Dhawan

As Iron Fist’s first season nears its conclusion, the stakes are getting higher and the drama is intensifying. Lead Horse Back to Stable did a solid job arranging the players on deck and clarifying the end game. But one major performance problems dulled some of the impact.

Still hobbled from Bakuto’s attack last episode, Danny is bleeding out. Good thing he knows there’s a doctor in the house. Claire doesn’t have to just be resorted to the doctor for the heroes, but this was easily her best contribution to this series. Granted, the bar was low with Claire being third wheel, moral compass and insta-ninja warrior in previous episodes. As usual, Claire had to check Danny on yet another idiotic plan.

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Danny is still too angry to focus his chi making him an Iron Fist in name only. The constant questions of whether he is also an Iron Fist starts to rankle Davos. If the writers aren’t setting up a betrayal, Davos got a lot of grief this episode for nothing. At least he had Lead Horse’s best moments.

Sacha Dhwan is actually playing Davos like someone detached from society. It’s the little things like his apprehension about eating pizza to wanting to drive. Those were the elements the show needed to bring to Danny instead of giving him this grand ‘I’m Back!!’ attitude.

Colleen, meanwhile, had to sort through her feelings for Danny and allegiance to The Hand. Lead Horse didn’t do Colleen any favors by making her look like a moron. Clearly she had to know when her students came to get her she was about to get whacked, but she blindly went along anyway. That’s the kind of dumb decision we’ve come to expect from Danny, not Colleen and it made her look uncharacteristically stupid.

Finn Jones showed some genuine charisma as Loras Tyrell in Game of Thrones, but none of that has carried over to his Iron Fist performance. His take on the character is too inconsistent as one moment he’s acting like a monk and the next he’s acting like a modern day billionaire who was never away from society. That’s not good. For whatever reason, Jones isn’t up to the task for the more dramatic scenes. He plays Danny like a child throwing a temper tantrum and his final confrontation with Colleen was less than soap opera quality.

I hated that all of Danny’s paranoia about The Hand proved correct. Danny has been dense all season and this episode would have had far greater impact if Colleen didn’t need to nearly get killed before committing to Danny. The Meachums were largely low key this episode although Joy isn’t happy with Harold’s plan to kill The Hand. Wake up Joy.

Lead Horse Back to Stable finally got Colleen and Danny on the same page as they brace for the big showdown with The Hand.