★★☆☆☆ Danny Rand is too stupid to live

Iron Fist

Scott Buck, Netflix, Marvel

Iron Fist is the last and unquestionably least of the four Marvel Netflix TV series featuring various sub-Avenger-level New York heroes: Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist. It consists of 23 episodes, a first season of 13, like all the other Marvel Netflix series, and a mercifully truncated second series of 10 episodes.

Danny Rand/Iron Fist has an origin story so stupid that my IQ drops 20 points when I think about it, so I'm not going to explain him. Danny is always going on about his chi (気) and making mystical hand gestures. He has all the authenticity of a seven-dollar bill. But that's not Danny's biggest problem.

Danny's biggest problem is that he is stupid. Now, Matt and Jessica and Luke occasionally do stupid things because of lack of information, or because they're carried away by emotion. Danny needs no excuse. Danny does stupid things because he is a stupid person. He has the strategic intelligence of a recently decapitated chicken. When he perceives a problem he runs at it and follows his first impulse, which is almost always to whale on it with his fists. He is incapable of asking himself, "If I do this, what will they do, and where will that leave us?"

Everyone realizes that Danny is stupid (although they use kinder words), even eventually Danny himself. Wiser characters advise him over and over to slow his roll, but he can't do it. It's obvious that the writers intentionally wrote Danny this way. Many of the other other characters are smart and strategic. Now, I will not argue that this is unrealistic. As Larry Summers famously wrote, "THERE ARE IDIOTS. Look Around." My complaint is not that Danny Rand is unrealistic. It is not even unrealistic that people listen to him. He's a billionaire, and people listen to billionaire idiots: Look Around! My complaint is that plots that are based on solving problems created by the repeated stupidity of one main character are just infuriating. This defect is exacerbated by multiple gigantic plot holes.

Of the four Marvel Netflix series, the best, in my opinion, is Daredevil. Matt Murdock is the most complete and interesting of the four heroes. Also, (again, in my opinion), Charlie Cox, who plays Matt, is the most talented of the four main actors.

Iron Fist on IMDB

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