‘Marvel’s The Defenders’ Recap Season 1, Episode 2: Songs In Chi Minor

Friends, I have experienced my fair share of satisfying television moments–when April and Andy got married on Parks and Rec, when incestual bastard boy king Joffrey Baratheon choked to death on Game of Thrones, hell, when they originally revealed who killed Laura Palmer on Twin Peaks—but I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced such genuine euphoria as I did while watching Danny Rand’s baby punches and kicks bouncing harmlessly off a confused Luke Cage. The final ten minutes of The Defenders‘ second chapter is such a pitch-perfect hodgepodge of character moments that it basically recontextualizes the way we thought we knew these characters. The problem with Iron Fist, as a whole, was that it took material begging to be fun and delivered it through misplaced intensity and mumble-grumbling. But watching Danny Rand do his fourth-grade parkour around a stoic brick wall like Luke finally painted this pre-costume Iron Fist in the correct light; he is, in fact, a straight-faced try-hard, but the world isn’t in awe of it, the world is sort of chuckling at him and saying, “well, you’re trying.” So when Danny actually does light up his chi and clock Luke Cage across the face, it isn’t groan-worthy. It’s a realization that for all his goofy-ass bouncing around, Danny Rand might be worth something after all.

Overall, The Defenders episode 2 (“Mean Right Hook”) was everything the first episode was not: a fun, forward-moving bit of momentum that gave Marvel’s most street-level heroes a reason to be in the same room. Now, in fairness, a few of those pieces came together just a bit too conveniently: the man Colleen and Danny encountered in Cambodia fought with a Tsukamoto sword, extremely rare, maybe ten in the entire world. Luckily, there’s a workshop that makes them right in New York. I also love that the incident that brings Matt Murdock out of retirement is a shopkeeper chasing looters across several blocks and alleyways. I’ve lived in New York. On the list of things shopkeepers here don’t like, “looting” is well below “running.”

But there are still enough intriguing narrative threads here, and they all lead, somehow, back to Alexandra and The Hand. The bad Hand. Not the summer camp Hand run by Bakuto. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that Alexandra seems to have snaked her influence into every corner of the city. She caused an “earthquake” that wasn’t an earthquake beneath Manhattan, but a geologist calling into Trish Talk is silenced immediately. This grand plan, whatever it is, has utilized everyone from no-record family man John Raymond to the disenfranchised youth of Harlem, with no one able to actually put a name to it. In a city that has literally watched Tom Hiddleston rip open the sky to allow aliens into our dimension, something much more sinister has apparently been brewing underground.

But is Alexandra really the top of it all? The usually unflappable Madame Gao seems properly shook in her presence, but the conversation these two women have in the music hall points to something larger; not your average dope-slinging, street-level threat but something cosmic, the Marvel big-event, $5.99 for single issue-sized menace. The Hand have run into a sealed door—most likely at the bottom of that cavernous hole from Daredevil season 2, which now lies beneath the offices of Midland Circle Financials— that is “full of inscriptions…familiar phrases about kun Lin.”

This all points to something mystical; it reeks of The Beast, the interdimensional demon worshipped by The Hand in the source material that grants its members abilities like resurrection and immortality. The Hand is into some nasty shit, is what I’m saying, and in most cases are thwarted by an opposing crew called The Chaste, led by Stick. Unfortunately, Stick is currently tied to his namesake in a basement somewhere. “Everyone else on your side is dead,” Alexandra tells him, which doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence.

Meanwhile, back on solid ground, Jessica has remained halfway-sober enough to dig into the the explosives in John Raymond’s rented apartment. It’s a search to nowhere—with an ever-watchful Jeri Hogarth only making matters more difficult—that becomes unnecessary when John Raymond himself shows up in Jessica’s apartment with a gun. “There’s nowhere to go. They’ll find me,” he says, before Elektra arrives to prove him right.

Again, The Defenders is leaning just a little too hard on spooky pronouns—pretty much every scene is filled with ominous but unspecified theys, thems, and its. But the destination is well worth the bumpy road: Jessica Jones across the table from Luke Cage M.V.P. Misty Knight. Like the confrontation between Luke and Danny, this scene adds another layer to every character involved. In each of their respective series, neither Misty Knight or Jessica encountered another woman as firm in their respective mission. Jessica and Misty are more similar than they are each willing to admit, so naturally, neither can give an inch to the other.

“You are walking into some weird ass shit,” Jessica warns. And, right on cue, in walks Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who puts tiny horns on his head to roundhouse pickpockets in the chest. It’s the perfect note to end on.

Basically, watching these characters slowly come together is like Alexandra, eyes closed, listening to the Aeolus Quartet perform Brahm’s Piano Quartet No. 3 (in C Minor, because Brahm was a petty man that I’m pretty sure Alexandra knew personally). Sure, four movements can each be beautiful separately. But together? Now that’s a goddamn symphony.

Vinnie Mancuso writes about TV for a living, somehow, for Decider, The A.V. Club, Collider, and the Observer. You can also find his pop culture opinions on Twitter (@VinnieMancuso1) or being shouted out a Jersey City window between 4 and 6 a.m.

Watch Marvel's The Defenders on Netflix