Kickass TV Heroines: Claire Fraser (A Guest Post by Kimothy Gohlich)

I have worked with many amazing people over the years, but rarely have I worked with anyone as cohesively as I do with Kimothy. We have made two successful short films together as co-writers, so when I needed an extra pair of hands (and set of opinions) writing Kickass TV Heroines, he was the first person I turned to. Kimothy has a unique way of seeing things which influences all he creates, and I am incredibly lucky to be able to feature it in both my films and my blog. 

In this post, he discusses the female lead of his favourite show, Outlander.

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Name: Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser

Location: Scotland, France, Scotland again, Boston, Scotland AGAIN and The West Indies (She gets around…geographically speaking.)

TV Show: Outlander

Actor: Caitriona Balfe

 

“Sing me a song of a lass that is gone

Say, could that lass be I?

Merry of soul she sailed on a day

Over the sea to Skye”

This is the second (or third, depending on how you count drafts) version of this post that I’ve written. The first version was the one I wanted to write when I was first approached about writing a guest post on Claire. It was an arrogant statement about the way that we view characters as people when they are in fact not, and how the characters we refer to as “strong” are often less so when “strength” refers to the depth and complexity of how they are written and portrayed. That’s not to say that these ideas were wrong or not worth examining, but they were presented in a way that was…well…arrogant.

I’ve always had a…shall we say…conflicted? relationship with art criticism. On the one hand, we have the age-old argument that “art is subjective”, but on the other hand, we are able to point to specifics that make a work “good” or “bad” by some sort of culturally agreed upon metric. Now, saying that “art is subjective” is not a particularly new or interesting thought, but people are weird and fickle, often we love stories that are by critical consensus considered bad or hate those that are considered good.

The point that I’m getting to (in my own, somewhat long-winded way) is that my first version of this post, which was supposed to be a celebration of one of my favourite characters from my favourite TV show, instead became a haughty examination of Claire’s writing and portrayal without expressing any of the love and joy I have for both the character and the show and some of the weird and fickle reasons for that love and joy. Because I genuinely adore Outlander. It is (as I said about a sentence ago) my favourite TV show. But here’s the thing, I’m not sure it’s the best TV show. I think it’s very good (even great), but it’s not without its flaws…and yet I still adore every minute of it, because being good means nothing if I don’t care.

There’s a part of me that just wants to turn the rest of this post into a copy/paste of me writing “HOLY FUCK, I LOVE OUTLANDER SO MUCH!!!” over and over again, but I also realise that I’ve gone three paragraphs talking about me and barely mentioned Claire. Which is stupid, because I love Claire, she makes me care, but I’m also having a hard time trying to express why. So this is where we come back to “art is subjective” and “people are weird and fickle”, because some of the reasons I love Claire ARE subjective and weird and fickle, like the fact that her go-to curse is “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!” I find it endearing and hilarious every time she says it and it makes me love her even more despite being a relatively minor detail.

Wait, let’s back up…some of you may not know Outlander or what it’s about and are now wondering “who the fuck is Claire and what is going on and can I get some goddamn context please?” Well, here we go…Claire is a WWII combat nurse (who was raised by her archaeologist uncle…another great, minor detail that I love) who time-travels through a stone circle in Scotland and finds herself 200 years in the past. Whilst there she meets and falls in love with a gorgeous highlander named James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser (Jamie for short) and despite her being married to another man in her present (he’s called Frank, he’s actually quite lovely) she marries Jamie (though the marriage is largely to keep her out of the hands of the redcoats who want to “rescue” her) and many adventures ensue.

On the surface, it’s a Mills & Boon-esque romantic fantasy, but the show creates something much greater and epic by making the story of Claire more than just a simple romance (even if the romance is still the heart of it). It elevates Claire to a heroine who does more than swoon and gets swept off her feet and it’s not just because she’s strong-willed, but also because she’s sometimes not. There is an emotional weight to the moments when Claire shows her strength because we know she’s not just being strong because she just is strong, but because she’s making the choice to be strong. We know because we see the moments when she’s not strong…aaand I’m starting to feel like I need a thesaurus so I stop writing “strong” so much…anyway, watching Claire take charge of a situation and put the men around her in their place (something that happens often in the course of the show) feels meaningful because we’ve seen times when she’s been too scared to do so. Knowing that she’s overcoming something within herself gives her choice that weight and meaning.

But also Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan (who plays Jamie) are both fucking gorgeous and watching two beautiful romantic leads make out and get sexy with each other is great. Claire is a character that appeals to both my superficial side (She’s gorgeous and says “Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!” and is a time-travelling WWII nurse who was raised by an archaeologist and I still can’t quite get over how awesome I think that is) and my craves-depth-and-complexity side (her strength, her lack of strength and a whole host of other things that I didn’t talk about in hopes of keeping this post to a reasonable length) and Outlander is a show that appeals to both my superficial side (the one that wants to watch pretty people do things in pretty pictures with pretty music playing) and my craves-depth-and-complexity side (the romance between Claire and Jamie which is far more than just star-crossed lovers and actually feels like an honest-to-god real relationship) and HOLY FUCK, I LOVE OUTLANDER SO MUCH!!!

“Billow and breeze, islands and seas

Mountains of rain and sun

All that was good, all that was fair

All that was me is gone”

If you are interested in seeing more of Kimothy Gohlich’s work, please check out his intermittently used Twitter.

Kickass TV Heroines: Wynonna Earp

Name: Wynonna Earp

Location: Purgatory, USA

Show: Wynonna Earp

Actor: Melanie Scrofano

 

 

 

Wynonna Earp is significantly different from all the heroines of television this series has previously looked at. Not only because I haven’t finished watching all of her show, but because her heroism comes from a very different place. As I haven’t been able to watch the second series of the show (it isn’t on Australian Netflix) this post will focus on Wynonna throughout the first season.

Interestingly enough, when I was coming up with the idea for the Kickass TV Heroines series, Wynonna was one of the first that came to mind, even before others that I’d loved for longer and was more invested in. I think that’s because, to me at least, she seems to stand alone as an average woman in the heavier supernatural genre. To quote Doc Holliday, “There ain’t any like Wynonna Earp.”

The interesting thing about Wynonna is just how normal she is. She doesn’t have any superpowers, she’s not adored by her town and she’s not completely hated. She likes dancing and drinking too much and men, and loves her family fiercely. She’s traumatized by her past but not without hope for the future. She’s the type of person I could imagine bumping into on the street or becoming friends with over a couple of drinks. Other than the fact she carries a magical gun called Peacemaker and is surrounded by undead criminals called revenants most of the time.

There have been many attempts to write normal characters into supernatural fiction over the years, but often they have some sort of training to make up for their lack of supernatural powers. While Wynonna is aware of revenants from them attacking her family when she was young, and her family’s history of putting them down, she hasn’t had any sort of special training. In fact, she doesn’t even initially realise that she has the power to return revenants to hell, and as fled Purgatory just in case she has to helplessly face them again. She’s only fired a gun once, with disastrous consequences, and hasn’t done it again since. She’s not uniquely qualified in any way to be a heroine, other than genetically being the only person who can kill revenants by firing Peacemaker.

That lack of special training or superpowers makes for one of the most compelling heroines of the last few years. It’s very rare to see a female character on television take on something so much bigger than her and win, and rarer for it to be a woman is quite so grounded in reality. In recent years, as shows like Supernatural have become popular, we’re seeing less and less of the female hero in the supernatural/paranormal genre. It’s more likely to see women in supporting roles, as cannon fodder or love interests, if they appear at all. Wynonna Earp is not only a grounded female hero but doesn’t fit into any of the classic female roles of her genre. She’s not overtly sexualized like the romance interests and she’s not phenomenally stupid like the cannon fodder (because seriously, who walks out from a nice safe house into the woods at night). She has these things in some measure, as do we all but none of them define her.

Wynonna Earp is defined only by herself, and that makes her an incredibly powerful hero. It means that she’s much closer to being real than many of the kickass TV heroines as she doesn’t have any special abilities or skills that define her. She’s a hero because the situation called for it, and she was the only one who could answer. Wynonna Earp: The every day kickass heroine.

 

Kickass TV Heroines: Jessica Jones

 

Name: Jessica Jones

Location: Hell’s Kitchen, New York

Show: Jessica Jones

Actor: Krysten Ritter

 

I’ve written about Jessica Jones and why I love her so much on this blog before, but I can’t write a series about kickass heroines and not include her. She’s just too awesome. She’s super-strong, can kinda fly and is one of the most independent women on television today. Not only that, she’s an ace-detective, working most of her cases with ease.

All of that sounds like a pretty perky superhero to someone who hasn’t watched her show, but that isn’t the real Jessica.

I could say the real Jessica is the woman who puts protecting herself above others, drinks too much and suffers from pretty severe PTSD. She’s the woman next door that stalks the local bartender and picks fights too easily. She doesn’t play well with others, not even her best friend, Trish, or her neighbour Malcolm, whom she’s barely a friend to at all.

But that isn’t the real Jessica either.

The real Jessica Jones lies somewhere between the two extremes, neither totally heroic or villainous. Neither totally selfish or selfless. She exists in the grey where all the best characters do. She’s someone who has wanted to good, but who has gone through an immense amount of suffering. Therefore she exists purely in survival mode, just trying to get through the day until something bumps her off her path.

At the beginning of Jessica’s titular series, that something’s name is Hope Schlottman, a young girl that Jessica hopes she can prevent from going through the same horror she did. After failing, Jessica desperately tries to right her wrong, and her true strength of character is revealed. She doesn’t want to bring down her aggressor just because he hurt her, she wants to bring him down for all the damage he has done to others. She wants him dead because of all the pain he has caused the people around her and because of all the hurt he could potentially cause others. She never fully exits that grey between hero and survivor, but she certainly has the strength of personality put the wellbeing of others before her own personal safety, even against her better judgement.

Jessica’s better judgement also tells her to cut ties with her best friend and adopted sister, Trish, but it’s something she cannot bring herself to fully do. Prior to the beginning of her series, Jessica has managed to successfully stay away from Trish as to not put her in danger, seriously pissing off her friend in the process. Jessica only contacts her in the first episode to ask for money to flee the man that hurt her, and it’s Trish that reminds Jessica of her true nature, that she will never forgive herself if she allows this new victim to come to harm. When her contact with Trish puts her in danger Jessica instantly shows her true colours. She is the most loyal, strong and protective best friend anyone could ask for, and she values Trish more than she values herself.

In many ways, Jessica’s biggest weakness isn’t her alcoholism or her abrupt and aggressive nature. It’s the fact that once you get past the heroic powers, and the aggression and the sense of self-preservation, you begin to realise that Jessica doesn’t value herself very highly at all. She seems to see herself as weak and worthless, and it couldn’t be further from the truth. Even though she doesn’t necessarily see herself that way, Jessica is her own brand of hero. She helps people without realising it and is incredibly important to those close to her. She may not be a traditional superhero, but she is definitely a kickass heroine.

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Of course, you can’t talk about kickass heroes and Jessica Jones, without mentioning her best friend Trish. Trish has not only managed to survive being a child star, she’s a successful journalist and more than anything wants to have some positive impact on the world. Oh, and she’s training in krav maga because she wasn’t kickass enough already.

 

Kickass TV Heroines: Lagertha (minor spoilers)

 

Name: Lagertha

Location: Kattegat, Scandinavia

TV Show: Vikings

Actor: Katheryn Winnick

 

 

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for seasons 1 and 2 of Vikings. Vikings is set in a very time in history where violence and rape were common, this article contains mentions of both. Please read on at your own discretion.

I defy anyone to watch the first episode of Vikings and come out of it not thinking Lagertha is insanely awesome. She is introduced as a loving mother and wife, but within a couple of scenes, she is kicking the asses of two would-be rapists after they enter her home when her husband is away.  She only gets stronger as the series goes on.

Her husband, Ragnar, longs to explore the land to the west and Lagertha has just as much longing for adventure. She has fought alongside the other warriors in Kattegat as a shield maiden and doesn’t see herself as any less than any of the men. In fact, when Ragnar initially decides to sail west without her, Lagertha is furious. It was a dream they both shared, therefore they should be taking the risk of the journey together. It’s unsurprising then, that when given the chance to join Ragnar on his second invasion of England, she jumps at the chance.

It’s on this second journey that we see Lagertha’s other strength, her sense of honour. Lagertha believes strongly in the laws of her Gods, as well as in her own sense of what is right and wrong. She has one of the strongest moral compasses in the show, so when she comes across the Earl’s right-hand man trying to rape a Saxon woman on a raid, she struggles against and eventually kills him. When Ragnar later falsely confesses to the crime to the Earl Lagertha can’t stay silent and claims responsibility (although she is not believed). She cannot bring herself to do what she believes is wrong, even at great personal cost.

At the beginning of the second series, Ragnar sleeps with another woman (Aslaug) who bears him a child. As Lagertha has lost her ability to have children, and their daughter has passed away, Ragnar accepts Aslaug and her child into their home as part of their family. He even suggests to her that he take Aslaug as a second wife while drunk. To save her honour Lagertha divorces Ragnar (Viking women had the right to decide to divorce their husbands) and sets out on her own from Kattegat, without her son, Bjorn, who chooses to stay with his father. After Ragnar chases after her to in order to try and win her back, Bjorn decides to stay with his mother, who refuses to return. Despite it causing her great personal pain, as she clearly still loves Ragnar, Lagertha cannot bring herself to act against her honour or what is right. It’s one of the first times we see her sense of morality bring her pain, but it’s certainly not the last. It happens again and again as the series progresses and Lagertha takes on more responsibilities as a leader.

Lagertha initially rises to power alongside her husband and is trusted with the rule of Kattegat while he is away. After her divorce, however, Lagertha gains power of her own. For a while, she is married to the rich-yet-abusive Earl of Ingstat, whose abuses she does not suffer lightly. He denies her the right to lead troops to help Ragnar when Kattegat is invaded. She takes them anyway. When she returns, he threatens her and rips her dress off in the middle of the great hall. She responds by stabbing her through the eye and claiming his Earldom as her own. She becomes an important figure in Scandinavia as the only female Earl, as well as a valued military leader and advisor in the assaults on both England and Frankia.

Despite Lagertha’s toughened exterior she never loses her love for her son or her family. It is one of her strengths as a leader. She clearly cares about those who serve under her and is not willing to throw their lives away for nothing. She has a strong sense of right and wrong, and believes strongly in her Gods, and never shies away from a fight or an adventure if she can help it.

Kickass TV Heroines: Maze (minor spoilers)

Name: Mazikeen (more commonly known as Maze)

Location: Los Angeles, California

TV Show: Lucifer

Actor: Leslie-Ann Brandt

 

 

Most of the time, this series will look at shows with female leads but Maze is proof that sometimes the most kickass character in a show isn’t the lead. Don’t get me wrong, the female lead of Lucifer, Chloe Decker, is pretty damn awesome, but no one can match Mazikeen for pure power, loyalty or simply speaking her mind.

Maze may be a simple demon, rather than an almost-all-powerful fallen angel like her boss/best friend, Lucifer, but she’s certainly more capable of finding her place in the world. While Lucifer’s confident facade occasionally drops, confidence oozes from Maze’s every pore. She’s comfortable being a demon and thinks everybody else should be cool with it as well, be they angel, demon or human. She quite happy being aggressive, overtly sexual and the first to jump into a fight and not just because it’s in her demonic nature, but because it’s what she enjoys in life.

But Maze doesn’t just have incredible physical strength, she also has strength in her convictions and is unwilling to change for anyone. Despite deciding to try to properly integrate herself into the human world later in the series, she still wants to be uniquely Maze, and if that means hanging sex hammocks in her shared living room then so be it.  She also stays true to her realisation that she is more than Lucifer’s servant, even turning down the chance at gaining Lucifer’s beloved convertible to make her point to him by making him pour her a drink. She remains happy to follow his lead but refuses to be treated as less than equal.

That brings us to Maze’s biggest strength: her loyalty. Her friendship once gained is almost impossible to lose, even for those trying to. Maze fights fiercely for those she loves, from stepping in front of blades to protect Lucifer, to jumping into a bar fight to defend Chloe, to glaring down a random to get more trick-or-treat candy/cash for Trixie (Chloe’s daughter). Even when her human best friend, Linda, becomes scared of her after realising Maze’s true nature, Maze sticks by her, determined that their friendship is more important than being from different dimensions. Maze’s loyalty knows no bounds, but it is also her biggest weakness.

Despite being incredibly blunt and aggressive, it’s not Maze’s own choices that get her in trouble the most, rather it’s her loyalty to those around her. Sticking up for Lucifer and making sure he stays safe is pretty much the main cause of all the problems in Maze’s life. It’s what gets her stuck on earth, it’s what gets her into the most fights and it’s certainly what causes the most problems in the other relationships in her life.  Even when it’s inconvenient or even downright dangerous for her, Maze drops everything to help her supernatural best friend and it doesn’t always end well. With Lucifer, the long-term nature of their friendship means that Maze often puts his needs before her own, even if means causing pain to herself or others. It fully destroys her first chance at friendship on earth, and possibly her only chance at love. In this case, her loyalty to Lucifer is almost closer to co-dependence, neither can fully make sense of the world without the other.

Having said that, none of this ultimately takes away from Maze’s internal strength. She is someone who is unashamedly confident in who she is and isn’t afraid to stand out in the human world. Once she has made up her mind about something, be it friendship or knowledge about the workings of the world, nothing shakes her convictions. She may be incredibly physically strong, but it is her strength of character and quality of friendship that makes her such a kickass female character.

 

Kickass TV Heroines: Nomi Marks

Name: Nomi Marks

Location: San Fransisco, California

TV Show: Sense8

Actor: Jamie Clayton

 

 

Nomi Marks is a kickass TV heroine for the 21st century. She’s a self-proclaimed hactivist (and a successful one, given that after being caught in her younger years, she now works freelance in cybersecurity). She’s a successful, eloquent blogger. She’s a proud trans woman, and her relationship with her girlfriend Amanita is probably one of the most healthy ones you will ever see on television. Oh, and she is a member of a psychic cluster which means she can access the abilities of and communicate with seven other people all over the world.  She’s one of the most amazing and capable women you’ll see on television at the moment (or on Netflix as the case may be).

Nomi was the first character that drew me into Sense8, which quickly became my favourite TV show of all time. But it’s not just because the first time you see her is a somewhat graphic sex scene with her partner (Freema Agyeman, who I still thought of as Martha Jones at the time). It’s because Nomi, despite being incredibly charismatic, is still very grounded and relatable. In the first episode, we see her vulnerability as a trans woman in circles where people wouldn’t necessarily expect to see it. In a flashback to Nomi and Aminita’s first Pride as a couple, we see Aminita excitedly introduce her girlfriend to her friends only for one of them to call her a “tranny” and a “colonising male”. Nomi is moved to tears after Aminita stands up for her as no one ever has done it before. In the next episode, we see how she has used her traumatic experience to help others, as we see her recording a vlog, which I still listen to when I need inspiration to this day.

“I am not only a me,” says Nomi, “I am also a we.” That quote has come back to me again, and again and again, particularly in recent days when my country has been having a non-binding poll on marriage equality, the ability for people of the same gender to get married. It reminds me that my actions don’t just affect me, they affect the human race, and that as a fellow human I should fight as hard as I can for the equal rights of those around me. It reminds me that other people in their turn have fought for the rights I have today. It makes me feel less alone in the world. It’s very rare that a single quote from a character can make you totally fall in love with them, but that’s what Nomi Marks accomplishes in her blog about Pride.

In many ways, that is why Nomi is such a strong character. She isn’t the most physically strong of her group, or the most independent (having to rely on the skills of the others in her cluster frequently throughout the first season), but she is definitely the beating heart of the group. She’s the one with the most emotional intelligence and quick wit which make her the natural leader. She has an unparalleled ability to balance the emotional needs and the practical needs of her cluster, and she does it all quietly, without pushing her leadership or agenda on anyone. It’s a true example of respect being earned rather than given.

Sense8 has its finale special next year, after being cancelled at the end of season 2 by Netflix. I love all of the August 8th cluster, but it’s Nomi that I think I will miss the most. Not having her quiet leadership or strength of character around anymore will feel like losing a friend, and an inspiration. While there is only one Nomi, I hope that she inspires other writers to make more female characters like her, women who don’t lead through being aggressive but rather through empathy, wits and emotional strength. It would be great to see more women who kickass with their heart and mind, not only with their fists.

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Of course, it’s impossible to mention Nomi, without talking about her fantastic girlfriend Amanita Caplan. Amanita is the loudmouth version of Nomi, having grown up in a much, MUCH more supportive family. She is happier to loudly argue with life’s antagonists face to face than to publish blogs and videos, and never shies away from telling people what she thinks. She also supports Nomi through the whole series, never doubting her girlfriend’s abilities, strength or sanity. Both Nomi and Amantia show what true love looks like and are willing to face any danger or obstacle in order to be together.

Kickass TV Heroines: Buffy Summers

 

Name: Buffy Anne Summers

Location: Sunnydale, California

TV Show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Actor: Sarah Michelle Gellar

 

 

As pretty much anyone who knows me knows, I love Buffy. Buffy is pretty much the TV show that made me want to be a writer. There are vampires, and cool demons, and witty dialogue and a whole bunch of kickass women. It was also one of the first fantasy shows I ever watched.

As a little girl, I was totally addicted to fantasy, particularly the high fantasy books my father read me (hello genetic Tolkien obsession). The one problem with them? There weren’t really any female heroes, or if there were they had somewhat diminished roles. I would argue with you til the cows come home (and still will) that none of these books are sexist, rather just books of their time.  But I still missed having a female hero that I could look up to.

Enter Buffy.

I was just about to turn thirteen and my best friend started telling me about the show her father had just introduced her to. It was set in a high school. It was a fantasy. Best of all, it had a female hero. And not just any female hero, this was the type of girl who I was used to seeing falling over while running and being lured into dark alleyways, and here she was, not only fighting for herself but kicking her attacker’s butts. For the first time, I saw a woman being one of the most physically capable characters in a show. It was pretty amazing.

On top of being a great warrior, Buffy also grows into a great leader as the series progresses. At the very beginning of the show, she starts out facing her destiny alone but very quickly finds a few friends, as well as meeting her watcher and mentor Giles (Anthony Head). Her group (affectionately named the Scoobies) only grows as the show does, and by the seventh season, Buffy is leading an army.  While she often makes mistakes (emotional intelligence is definitely an area Buffy struggles in), she sticks to her convictions and ultimately puts others needs above her own.

I think that leadership is ultimately the reason I was so drawn to Buffy, who despite her flawed leadership, still inspires friendship and faith in others. Even if she makes mistakes, and she does often, she is able to recover from them and ultimately come back stronger. It may take her time, and help, but Buffy always eventually deals with what the world throws at her. It’s that quality that makes her an inspiration for me, and for many others who love the show, and definitely one of the best TV heroines.

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Of course, I can’t mention Buffy without mentioning two of the other amazing women on the show, Willow Rosenberg and Tara McClay. They’re two incredibly powerful, strong and emotionally intelligent characters (someone has to balance out Buffy), both of whom make priceless contributions to the show and are very much kickass heroines in their own right.

 

Kickass TV Heroines: A New Blog Series

Who doesn’t love watching incredible women on television? I know I certainly do. But while in recent years we have seen a rise in strong female leads, it’s still not the most common thing to see. There are many, many shows where women purely exist to be love interests, eye candy or worst of all, disposable characters useful only for a hump and a bump off the show. But throughout the years, there have always been amazing women who shone through, whether they existed as a strong lead or a distractingly awesome side character.

This blog series aims to celebrate the women of the small screen, both past and present, and talk about what they mean to me as a lover of the medium. In this series, we will explore science-fiction, fantasy, historical fiction and drama, and look how different writers portray female roles. We will discuss how characters are influenced by their genre, role in the story and time of their shows release, as well as looking at what sets them apart.

Week 1: Buffy Summers

Week 2: Nomi Marks

Week 3: Maze

Week 4: Lagertha

Week 5: Jessica Jones

Week 6: Wynonna Earp

GUEST POST: Claire Fraser (post by Kimothy Gohlich)

 

Television: Defenders, and why it makes its characters better

Pretty much as long as there have been Marvel movies, audiences awaited a team-up film in the form of the Avengers. When they started releasing Netflix shows, everyone held their breath for a new, darker team-up of heroes and now it’s here. The biggest difference between the Avengers and the Defenders (other than the massive tonal shift, different characters and different medium), is the big-budget MCU movies had a whole two films before they realised that there was going to be a meeting of heroes. Netflix knew about their super-team-up from day one, and as a result, Defenders feels like the final episode of a series made up of all the prior Marvel Netflix shows.

Defenders opens a couple of months after the events of each show, but Iron Fist is the most direct lead into it (and for that reason alone I’m glad I watched the show). The main antagonists are The Hand, who were the main villains Danny Rand struggled against throughout his series, as well as Daredevil’s focus for season two. As a result of not having come across them before, and being more focused in their heroic efforts (Jessica on killing Kilgrave and Luke on protecting Harlem) neither of the other two heroes are particularly interested in this fight at first. Neither is Matt Murdock, although to be fair after the traumatic events that we last saw him in at the end of Daredevil season 2, it isn’t surprising that he has bowed to pressure from his friends to stop being the red vigilante.

That leaves Danny. And boy, if you have had to sit through his whinging in Iron Fist, will this be the show for you. Danny spends a good eighty percent of the show telling people what they should do, assuming because he is the Iron Fist he is the natural leader. Unfortunately for him, Matt is the better leader, Jessica has no interest in noble causes (and constantly surprises him with both her strength and rudeness) and Luke takes him to town on white/rich privilege. In other words, Danny Rand’s main role in the series is to be the butt of every joke. As he is someone who’s idiocy never ended up biting him in the ass in his own show, it is an absolute pleasure to see the other heroes take him to task for his shoddy work.

The main person arguing with Danny is Luke, as they meet early in the series through their mutual connection with Claire Temple. Luke is uniquely positioned to talk about privilege, not only being the only black superhero on the team but having just returned from an unfair jail sentence. This experience has made Luke realise that it is much easier to be a hero from a position of privilege, and while he remains determined to help Harlem, he is much more aware of what getting involved might mean he has to sacrifice. This isn’t a world where superheroes hide behind masks after all, and Luke doesn’t want to go back to prison for his part taking down the Hand. This is a more cautious, more world-weary Luke Cage, with the only real light-heartedness coming from his interactions with his girlfriend, Claire and former love-interest Jessica.

I am a big fan of Jessica Jones, both the show and the character, and she continues to be my favourite part of this series. Despite this she probably has the smallest role of any of the protagonists, mainly being there for story exposition (her client is the catalyst for many of the events of the show). I wonder whether this is also because the showrunners aren’t fully sure what to do with her yet, considering she and Luke are often part of a package deal in Defenders comics and Luke currently has a girlfriend preventing that from happening. It’s sad to see Jessica develop least of all the characters though simply because she gets the least screen time.

On the other hand, we have Matt Murdoch probably getting the most screen time. After a couple of episodes, you could probably call Defenders “Daredevil series 2.5”, as Matt often feels like the main character with the other Defenders featuring heavily like Punisher and Elektra did in Daredevil season 2.  If it had been set up in any other way, this might have felt disappointing but as Matt goes on the most emotional journey through the show it works perfectly. Not only does he struggle coming to terms with being the defacto leader of the Defenders, as he has the most hands-on experience fighting The Hand (pun intended), he also struggles with feelings of loss and grief throughout the show, due to the events of Daredevil season 2. He feels like the character with the most to overcome at the beginning, and by the end, it feels as if he’s completed the arc Daredevil has been on since the first episode of the Defenders, but the first episode of his show.

Ultimately Defenders was a good series. Although not managing the highs of Jessica Jones and Daredevil it was a solid show. Best of all it gave us insights into the characters that we might not have otherwise had the chance to see (and I’ve only mentioned the heroes in this blog). I hope that next time it’ll be a little more balanced showing us new character traits and power shifts (okay, let’s face it, I just want more Jessica), but that will probably be something that comes with time as more Marvel Netflix shows continue to come out and be bound together into more Defenders series. That’s the great thing about television, not only do we get to see the characters grow, we get to see the shows grow too, and I can’t wait to see what the next round of Marvel Netflix shows will grow into.

This is the final post of the Defenders series that I’ve run for the last five weeks. If you want to read the other entries they can be found here:

Daredevil

Jessica Jones

Luke Cage

Iron Fist

Television: Iron Fist, and why it’s the weakest Marvel show

I have to admit, despite all of the negative stuff surrounding Iron Fist, part of me was excited to see it. I didn’t know anything about the Iron Fist hero, but I liked Finn Jones who plays the titular role of Danny Rand. I was excited to see him in a more meaty role rather than just playing a side character. It was exciting too to see a martial arts based Marvel show, having had an, albeit brief, background in them myself.

What a letdown it was.

I wanted to like Iron Fist, I really did. It wasn’t even any of the controversial stuff that made it almost impossible to watch. It was that it was so, SO boring.  The show moves along at snail’s pace for the first four episodes, covering in four episodes what Daredevil covered in one. Even when the pacing speeds up, the main storyline doesn’t become any more interesting, only more confusing.

On top of that, Danny Rand is one of the least charismatic lead characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general. He veers between two moods, psychotically chipper and teen angst, and very rarely demonstrates anything else. He also consistently fails to recognise how stupidly privileged he is, and while that’s adorable at first, it quickly becomes cringe-worthy. Many people have also drawn attention to the fact that in a show about martial arts, the martial arts master (Danny) is kinda crap. I don’t think that’s fair, as Finn Jones had significantly less time training than any of his Defenders counterparts, stating that the choreography of some fights was taught to him in fifteen minutes flat. It does point to the main thing wrong with Iron Fist though; the whole thing feels rushed.

Iron Fist is ultimately a direct lead up to the story of the Defenders, and it feels like it. Defenders was already being hyped up as Luke Cage arrived on Netflix. It was the show everyone was waiting for, and very few people were excited for Iron Fist by comparison.  As a result, it feels like a lot less effort was put into everything from the casting (sorry David Wenham, I love you, but I don’t buy you as a villain), to the stunts, to the writing. Particularly the writing.

The worst part of the whole thing is Iron Fist could have been a good show. Some of the characters are absolutely brilliant, particularly Danny’s first friend after his return to New York, Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick). She’s complex. She’s strong. She’s an insanely talented martial artist. Ultimately she’d make a much better main character than Danny does. There’s also the additions of Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) and Jeri “J-Dog” Hogarth (Carrie-Ann Moss) from previous Netflix Marvel series. We get to see the stronger side of Claire, actually being the person who knows what she’s doing while the superhero is an amateur, and a significantly softer side of Jeri, actually showing affection for once in her life.

If the creators (Scott Buck and M. Raven Metzner) had changed the focus of the show slightly or been able to spend more time on it, who knows, they could have had a success on their hands. As it is, Iron Fist fell flat and has been panned by critics. Ultimately I think its first series will only be remembered as a lead into Defenders. Hopefully, there’s something better planned for the second one.