‘Marvel’s The Defenders’ Recap Season 1, Episode 6: Excuse Me, While I Kiss Black Sky

The sixth chapter of Marvel’s The Defenders opens on Alexandra listening to classical music on vinyl, before the record begins to skip. I’ve likened this show to classical music before—how four contrasting heroes coming together is as satisfying as four movements gelling into a symphony—but by “Ashes, Ashes” this record has definitely started to skip, to repeat itself, become garbled to the point I’m tempted to take it off the turntable and look at it funny, trying to decipher just where this thing got so warped.

Really, the biggest issue lies in the writing (this particular outing was penned by executive-producer Drew Goddard). It’s so un-Marvel-esque, so timid, like the creative team didn’t trust its audience to understand what it had already taken five solo series and two years to establish. Luke Cage carries most of this burden on his shoulders, having been placed into the “person who is confused by everything” role, despite the fact he has bulletproof skin and can lift cars over his head. Unfortunately, this means Mike Colter is forced to act less naturally charismatic and more like an idiot. “So you literally think Danny opens something?” Luke asks Stick, and then literal seconds later asks “So The Hand is in New York because he gives them access, or opens something up?”

Yes, that is the general idea.

This tendency to over-explain things we know while brushing over details we don’t renders moments that should feel momentous as cheap and unearned, like bullet-points on a script outline. Take, for example, this episode’s final moments: Elektra, apparently having broken through of the Black Sky thrall, murders Alexandra and takes control of The Hand.

In a show with any semblance of internal logic, brutally removing Sigourney Weaver from the narrative with two episodes left would be shocking. Here, I’m mostly confused. Mostly about what it means to be a “Black Sky” in the first place. Do you know? Does anyone know, including the people who wrote this show and/or the two Daredevil seasons that came before it? “The Black Sky has always been your prophesy, your vision,” which just straight up isn’t true, because Nobu attempted to bring a Black Sky into New York during Daredevil season one, and Murakami was the one pulling Nobu’s strings. But shoddy continuity aside, I don’t even think Alexandra knows what a Black Sky is; the only details she offers is that it took a little bit more magic goo than normal to bring Elektra back from the dead. And even then, one nap and a trip to the cemetery later and Elektra is no longer a vessel, she’s just a slightly meaner version of her old self.

It’s all just…so lazy. It’s the CliffsNotes Avengers, offering all the high points and none of the substance. Poor Stick went through a reluctant betrayal arc and a death scene over the course of five minutes. Scott Glenn deserves something meatier to chew through. So does Sigourney Weaver, for that matter. And, look, I’m not going to sit here and say it isn’t absurdly satisfying to watch the rest of the team band together to kick the constantly-backflipping ass of Danny Rand. I want to shout into the ruins of K’un Lun how funny it is that the protector of an entire mystical city can’t get past a blind lawyer.

But it takes a lot more than brief flashes to cook an entire steak; the initial glow of seeing these characters in the same room is fading fast, and now  we need a concrete reason to push the story forward. For the record, pushing the story forward is not the same thing as Matt Murdock conveniently interrupting a young girl’s tearful story about her dead father to go play the piano.

But, okay, fair enough, The Defenders has set up an explosive two episodes underneath Midland Circle. Way underneath, actually, at the bottom of the mysterious hole that Matt Murdock definitely should have kept a closer watch on. But, at this point, the best moments of The Defenders are the quiet moments, because they hint at a better show, one unburdened from forced bickering and backstory. Matt and Jessica walking down the Manhattan streets, two polar opposites slowly agreeing to meet in the middle. Or Luke and Jessica, reflecting on the fact it took a mystical ninja cult apocalypse to get them to say two words to each other again. Or, hell, the best scene of “Ashes, Ashes” belongs to Luke and Danny, who just happens to be tied to a chair at the time.

Finn Jones somehow seems to have more chemistry with Mike Colter than he does with Jessica Henwick, and the budding, begrudging friendship forming here is the most natural thing on this show. Colter manages to pack about a dozen conflicting emotions—annoyance, warmth, and skepticism chief among them—into the question “molten heart huh?”

But in the end, these interactions aren’t what The Defenders seems interested in. They’re just brief pit stops on the road between “big” moments that make little sense. These twists and turns feel like The Black Sky itself, empty vessels that we’re told are a big deal with very little evidence to back that claim up. I just wish the reason for these characters to come together was as well thought out as their micro-interactions themselves. At this point, when Elektra turns to the surviving members of The Hand and, like a blood-covered David S. Pumpkins, asks “any questions?”, the answer is a resounding “yes,” but I’m no longer holding out hope for any answers.

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 The Defenders Episode 6 ("Ashes, Ashes") on Netflix