Tensions between the Triads continue to rise when a one of The Tigers is brutally murdered in the beginning of the episode. Danny and Colleen do everything they can to figure out what’s going on and put a stop to the violence. Meanwhile Joy and Davos do whatever it takes to obtain an ancient artifact that’s purpose remains unknown.
After the man is murdered Danny runs into Mary again. While it may seem unrealistic that they keep bumping into each other in such a large city, this could be explained in the reveal at the end of the episode that Mary has been taking pictures of him. Danny walks with her because the streets are becoming dangerous, but he notices that she’s acting a bit loopy. He takes Mary back to his apartment and introduces her to Colleen. Mary still seems a bit out of it, but then her demeanor changes and she goes to the bathroom. We then get a somewhat subtle implication of what’s going on when she looks in the foggy mirror and wipes it down the middle appearing to split her face in half.
Once Mary leaves their apartment, Colleen asks what he and Davos talked about earlier. Danny tells her that it feels like his fight with Davos in K’un-Lun never ended. This triggers a flashback and we finally get to see Danny wearing the classic Iron Fist headband as he and Davos face off. Their fight was pretty well choreographed with a lot of the blows feeling like they had weight behind them. We also got to see a bit more of Hoon Lee as Lei Kung, which is great because he’s an incredible actor and he was only in one episode last season.
As their fight progresses Danny becomes increasingly injured and almost loses when Davos breaks his hand. But Danny doesn’t give up and wraps a cloth around it so he can still fight. Davos keeps telling Danny to yield, but Danny refuses and eventually gets the upper hand when he blinds Davos by maneuvering him into the sun. Davos refuses to yield, but the choice is stolen from him when Lei Kung declares Danny the winner. It’s not too surprising that Danny feels like their fight never ended since it was supposed to go on until someone either yields or dies. However, it is somewhat strange that Davos is only now upset at Danny, since last season they seemed to get along quite well. Did Davos overcome his anger after their fight only for it to be reignited once K’un-Lun disappeared?
While setting up for a charity event, Colleen finds out that the wife of Mr. Yang, the leader of The Hatchets, is on the board and will be attending the event. She then gets confronted by the gangsters who she beat up, but she scares them off and tracks them to their hideout. Instead of fighting, Colleen tells them that she’s just trying to help and that they’re only going to get hurt if they keep antagonizing The Tigers. Although they don’t still try and kill her, she doesn’t really seem to get through to them. Until she goes to leave and one of the kids introduces himself as BB and gives her some information about what’s going down with the Triads.
Meanwhile Danny goes to try and convince Mr. Yang to make peace, but finds out that that isn’t something mobsters are very comfortable doing. Danny again loses his temper and slams his glowing fist into Mr. Yang’s desk. This does seem to indicate that Danny may struggle with controlling his temper throughout the season, especially because he himself looks shocked that he was acting so violent. But despite Danny’s best efforts, Mr. Yang doesn’t make it out of the episode alive thanks to Davos’ sour mood.
The reason Davos is so upset is because Joy manipulated him into doing something he doesn’t deem honorable. It’s unclear exactly why he needs it, but Davos is after an ancient bowl from K’un-Lun that’s incredibly expensive. Joy devises a plan to ensure that they obtain the artifact because her friend Mika is the curator of the auction. However, her plan requires that Davos break his strict code of honor and sleep with Mika. It goes according to plan and their night together is recorded for blackmail. Throughout the episode both Mika and Joy make fun of Davos for being so abstinent and even though Davos seems annoyed at their behavior, he’s so focused on accomplishing his mission that he lets it slide.
However, Davos takes out his anger on Mr. Yang after the Triad leader refuses to continue working with him. In a Kung Fu move very reminiscent of the “Five Finger Death Punch” from Kill Bill or the “Death Strike” from The Men Who Stare at Goats, Davos lightly touches Mr. Yang on the neck and a few minutes later the man convulses and dies. This will probably have pretty big ramifications because of Mr. Yang’s position in the Triads.
VERDICT
3 magic bowls out of 5.
Overall this episode continued a lot of the plot lines that were set up in the first episode, but with markedly less exposition. However, it still feels like a lot of the gears are slowly turning into place much like the first few episodes of season 2 of Luke Cage. It was also pretty clear that a lot of time and effort went into the fight between Davos and Danny, which is great since it’s such an important event in their lives. Hopefully we’ll see the same care infused in the rest of the fight scenes this season.
ONE-SHOTS
- When Mika is showing off the bowl she mentions that it’s from the “Erskine Collection,” but it’s unclear why an ancient bowl from K’un-Lun would be associated with the inventor of the Super Soldier Serum that created Captain America.
- Sacha Dhawan is so good as Davos that I wouldn’t really mind if he takes out Danny and becomes the Immortal Iron Fist.
- The scene in the bathroom where Mary wipes the fog off the mirror was very well executed. It’s a great way to hint at what’s going on with the character without being too overt.
- Hopefully we’ll get to see more banter between Ward and his assistant. Even though she held her own when he was being a jerk, it was really cool that he recognized the way he was treating her was wrong. The dialogue in that scene was also kinda funny.
