TheBloodyCritique’s ‘The Defenders’ Season 1 Review
The Defenders is the culmination series of Marvel’s individual shows Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, unfortunately The Punisher doesn’t make an appearance. Shit’s going down in New York when an ancient and powerful shadow clan of ninjas known as The Hand start causing a nuisance which threatens the city. Set directly after the events of Iron Fist the show picks up where all the stories left off with the exception of The Punisher. Luke’s released from prison, Jessica’s not doing much at all, being a bad PI and an alcoholic? Danny (Iron Fist) is fighting his way to the truth behind the destruction of K’un-Lun and Matt (Daredevil) is doing his lawyer gig. Events bring them together, reluctantly, and united they must defeat Sigourney Weaver and save the city from destruction!
I’ve watched all of these now including The Punisher and my overall feeling is that it’s well executed in sharing a universe but individually there are a lot of problems, Daredevil’s first season was about as good as I think this series gets, I also really enjoyed The Punisher but everything else is average at best, The Defenders is also average, it’s enjoyable and as someone who dedicated time to watching all the individual stories I thought it paid off but it’s still average. I didn’t like Luke Cage or Jessica Jones as characters in their own shows and honestly I didn’t here either but it was easier to stomach them, they work better as part of an ensemble, they’re tolerable that way and their personalities have something to bounce off of.
I won’t spoil anything but Sigourney Weaver’s story arc is ultimately disappointing, I don’t feel she was utilized as well as she should have been, she didn’t have much impact and as the main villain that was a problem. I also felt like Jessica and Luke didn’t have much invested in the story other than having to save the city, emotionally there’s nothing whereas it makes sense for both Iron Fist and Daredevil, they both have something more invested in this story, Luke and Jessica just had nothing better to do I suppose, I enjoyed their presence though don’t get me wrong it’s just that at times that felt very out of place and it was noticeable.
Outside of the four heroes all their sidekicks make appearances as well and pretty much everyone was great, Rosario Dawson as Claire is one of the highlights of this entire series of shows, I really liked Elodie Yung as Elektra, Elden Henson is fantastic as Foggy, Deborah Ann Woll was good as Karen, Rachel Taylor is great as Trish, Jessica Henwick is excellent as Colleen and I liked Eka Darville as Malcolm too, they were all great! I of course hated Misty, she’s my least favourite character in this entire series, she’s poorly written, irritating performed and unjustifiably held on some pedestal as a great detective but it’s based on nothing, yeah, I hate this character and they keep shoving her down our throats.
There were some really enjoyable moments throughout The Defenders and I appreciate the planning that must have gone into connection these universes but it’s just not quite a must see show, it doesn’t leave enough of an impression, there’s pretty much nothing in the way of emotional impact and the story is too convoluted and all over the place to find any investment in it, I did however enjoy this on an extremely surface level way, I liked seeing these characters bump heads and be forced to work together, it was a decent ensemble piece, it’s a novelty and it kind of works.
Would I recommend The Defenders, if you’re a fan of Marvel and you have any prior investment in these characters then definitely, especially if you’ve seen any of the others. If you don’t then I wouldn’t, it’s not a must-see or anything like that, it’s a bit of fun I suppose, it’s poorly written story-wise but character-wise it works, it looks great, it’s very well directed with decent cinematography, nothing new but it’s crisp and all the performances were good too, it’s okay! Good even but if you have no investment I’d probably just recommend you watch season 1 of Daredevil and leave it there, maybe The Punisher too but the rest you can give a miss and not miss much at all, I’m giving The Defenders 6.9/10.
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