The Defenders Review: Not with a Bang But a Whimper (Season 1 Episodes 5-8)

Good news: The second half of Marvel’s The Defenders is certainly a much more exhilarating ride than its first. Bad news: as an overall series, however, it definitely feels less than the sum of its individual parts.

The Defenders’ back half builds on many of the things that worked in the season’s first four episodes. Having kept the front end relatively low key, there’s a great deal more action in the final four episodes. There are fight scenes everywhere – one particularly entertaining one even involves the Defenders throwing punches amongst themselves.

And as for our titular heroes – their connection remains the series’ most intriguing element. They have great chemistry with one another, and their dynamic as a group is crisp and interesting, serving to illuminate the lives and choices of each specific hero in new and thoughtful ways. (There’s a reason the series’ best moments feature the group sitting around talking, not fighting.)

The main problem with the conclusion of The Defenders, however, is that the story is kind of awful.

(Warning: There are major spoilers for all of The Defenders Season 1 past this point.)

Going into this series, we all probably knew that the plot was going to be…shaky at best. With nebulous mystical group The Hand set up to be our heroes’ primary adversary, that seemed like a given. And the addition of a resurrected Elektra and the ongoing – equally nonsensical – prophecy surrounding her probably wouldn’t help things much either.

Both of those concerns turned out to be valid. But the thing is, The Defenders took all of those problematic elements and aggressively made each one worse. So much so that not even the charming team interactions can make up for them all.

In this series, the goals of The Hand become increasingly more convoluted, instead of clearer. Rather than world domination, corporate power, or some other tangible real-world achievement, it turns out that the group is chasing after a mystical substance buried deep beneath New York, one that will grant them all eternal life.

Oh, and that substance happens to reside in the bones of a mystical dead dragon. That everyone then has to fight in. Underground. In the words of Jessica Jones: Are you on lithium?

Now, if you squint, you can maybe argue that the introduction of Alexandra and her brush with mortality by way of extremely aggressive cancer could justify the Hand’s sudden and total interest in immortality-providing McGuffins. After all, she can’t take over the world or bring New York to its knees if she’s dead.

There’s just one problem: Long before we descend into the bowels of the Earth for hand-to-hand combat inside a dragon skeleton, Alexandra is dead.

Yes, in a move that I will never understand, The Defenders decides to kill off its lead villain in Episode 6. The waste of Sigourney Weaver feels almost criminal, though I suppose there’s a certain boldness to hiring an actress of her caliber and then bumping her off for shock value. But the thing is, in order to do that successfully; you have to be able to back up that bait and switch with a better story.

The Defenders… does not do that. Instead, Elektra – having successfully murdered her mentor and personal resurrectionist – takes over the Hand. And where Alexandra liked to go on at some length about her grand “plan” for the group’s future, Elektra seems to revel in not having one at all.

Perhaps by having Elektra kill Alexandra, the showrunners were trying to make a larger statement about rebellion, or how fraught the mother/daughter relationship can be. Maybe we’re supposed to see this as the next stage in Elektra’s evolution as a villain in her own right. But the problem is, we haven’t seen enough of her POV to know for sure.

It feels so strange to say this about a Marvel Netflix property, shows which so often suffer from episode bloat. But there just wasn’t enough time in this series to devote to these issues. So it just comes off looking as though Elektra is schizophrenic.

In general, the rise of Elektra as the major villain of this series makes sense. She was a major character in Daredevil Season 2 and is super important to this universe. It’s why her return here is so affecting, and why her relationship with Matt is still so interesting, despite its frequently problematic elements.

But by not doing the work to make her takeover of the Hand feel organic, The Defenders does her and its viewers a disservice. We see so little of Elektra’s inner life – either before she gets her pre-death memories and personality back or not – that her decisions feel as though they’re basically whatever the script needs them to be at the moment.

Does she just want to live forever? (Surely Alexandra would have given her “the substance” once they got it.) Protect Matt at all costs? Or basically make sure no one else can ever tell her what to do anymore?

There’s such a good story here – about a woman who died trying to do the right thing, who was brought back against her will and rebelled against the idea that anyone else got to dictate her destiny. But The Defenders doesn’t seem to want to tell a story like that. And it’s a shame.

On the plus side, The Defenders does a great job of setting the wheels in motion for Netflix’s next crop of individual superhero shows. (Plus, now that they’ve at least all met each other, maybe individual Defenders can occasionally pop up on one another’s shows. A girl can dream, right?)

Matt’s disappearance is explained with a scene that indicates the next season of Daredevil may be based on one of its most popular comics runs (“Born Again”). Jessica finally accepts that, like it or not, she’s in the hero business, and she and Luke mend fences before he heads back to Harlem. And Danny finally gets a purpose that’s both personal (protecting NYC in Matt’s memory) and that doesn’t have anything to do with K’un Lun. Huzzah!

And maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll never hear from The Hand again.

Stray thoughts and random observations:

• The scene where Jessica tells her client a story about how Matt’s father turned out to be a good person in the end was maybe my favorite character moment in the entire series.
• The Matt and Jessica relationship is really just the best all around.
• The final battle was so poorly lit I honestly had problems telling what was going on at several points.
• How does Madame Gao have what appears to be telekinetic abilities when none of the other Hand leaders demonstrate supernatural powers?
• The fact that Elektra manages to open the secret subterranean door because Danny is dumb is…kind of fitting, actually.
• Netflix can go ahead and give Misty, Colleen and Claire a Daughters of the Dragon spinoff any time now.

What did you think of the conclusion of The Defenders? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Reviewer Rating:

User Rating:

The Defenders is currently streaming on Netflix.

Follow us on Twitter @telltaleTV_

Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!