★★★★☆ Matt, Jessica, Luke, and (Ugh!) Danny

The Defenders

Douglas Petrie, Marco Ramirez, Marvel, Netflix

The Defenders is the name given by Marvel to its team of four Manhattan discount heroes -- discount relative to The Avengers. But seriously, although "Avengers" sounds badass, "Defenders" is better. Vengeance comes into play only after defense has failed and the folks being avenged are no longer around to be defended. If you're looking for help, you should logically prefer a team called "The Defenders" to one called "The Avengers". There's a reason the USA has a "Secretary of Defense" but no "Secretary of Vengeance."

I watched The Defenders (eight episodes) only after watching the four full series Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. In fact, this gets the continuity wrong. The Defenders is set and was released after season 2 and before season 3 of Daredevil, and is somewhere in the middle of the other three shows, too. Frequent mentions of "Midland Circle" in later episodes of all four shows refer to the events of The Defenders. But it wasn't really a problem. The shows are understandable in the order I watched them.

This was a lot of fun. It was fun to see how the very different characters of Matt Murdock, Jessica, Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand bounce off each other. They are a team only in the loosest sense of the word. Matt is the intellect of the team. Jessica is equally smart, but leans more towards low cunning than intellect. Luke, while not stupid, presents himself more as a good-hearted good guy. It was a great pleasure to see Charlie Cox in the role of Matt Murdock once again. But Krysten Ritter as Jessica was even more fun. I complained previously about "Ritter's one-dimensional performance". In Jessica Jones it was as if someone told her, "Dial it up to 11, and keep it there." Here she is allowed to be more subtle, and it works.

Danny is, as always, a thundering dumbass. That epithet is not chosen at random -- in fact, Stick calls him that. Ritter, as Jessica, expresses her opinion of Danny even more eloquently, not in words, but with her eyes and body language. It was impressive, and satisfying. Danny puts the "dys" in "dysfunctional team". In fact, he is not really a member of the team so much as the MacGuffin. He is the thing the bad guys need to steal to accomplish their nefarious plans for world domination.

So, this was fun. If you enjoyed the shows devoted to the individual heroes, you should certainly watch this one.

The Defenders on IMDB

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