Ironheart Season 1 Episodes 4-6 Review: An Unfocused Disservice to Riri’s Story

Ironheart Season 1 Episodes 4-6, “Bad Magic/Karma’s a Glitch/The Past is the Past,” throws away what is otherwise an intriguing story about Riri Williams’ quest to forge a new suit in favor of setting up yet another MCU big bad.

Episode 3 leaves Riri at her lowest, after having been responsible for the death of Parker’s cousin and protector, John. She has to deal with the aftermath in the next three episodes, along with having to finally face her grief of losing her stepfather and her best friend, Natalie.

This is, unfortunately, too grand a task for the second half of Ironheart‘s tiny six-episode arc.

The show falters in its characterization of some of the secondary characters and cheapens Riri’s story for a villain reveal that no one really asks for.

At its core, Ironheart is about Riri’s struggle to make her reality match her soaring ambition, and her suit is a very clear manifestation of this struggle. After facing five of Parker’s crew members and living to tell the tale, Riri’s suit (and life) is in disrepair.

The only part she has left of it is the container for the new AI she made in her best friend’s image. 

At her lowest, Riri finally has to be honest with herself and her mother (brilliantly played by Anji White) as to what it is she is running from, and why exactly she needs a suit of armor. It’s an answer that is obvious to the audience as a response to the trauma of watching two people she loved bleed out in front of her, but seeing Riri come to this conclusion on her own feels earned anyway.

The sequence with Riri, her family, and friends coming together to build a suit from the car that she and her stepfather worked on is probably the best part of the show, as it conveys to the audience everything at stake for Riri.

The season loses its charm when it moves away from the more down-to-earth story of Riri in favor of tying in magic and much bigger universe-wide storylines. It feels like an unnecessary detour until it becomes the primary focus rather than Riri herself.

The moments where the show has to slow down and force Riri to confront her grief and the reasons behind her desire to create the suit are its strongest.

Dominique Thorne makes her expressions shift from a bold, upturned nose to a quivering jaw with lightning-fast speed, and she convincingly portrays Riri’s trauma to the audience.

Making Ezekiel Stane follow in his father’s footsteps feels like a lazy choice for a show that previously seemed interested in interrogating the value of following the previous generation’s legacy.

Even Alden Ehrenreich’s charisma doesn’t do enough to make for a convincing villainous turn.

There are some really stark (get it?) parallels to Tony Stark, down to the legacy character facing down the legacy villain, but that doesn’t fully take away from Riri’s own story, even though it does get awfully close.

In retrospect, killing off John is a bad choice, too, mainly because it causes such a huge shift within the crew. Almost as soon as John is gone, the crew takes a considerable backseat to Parker and his thirst for vengeance.

This makes sense for the 6-episode formula, but when Clown accuses Parker of lying about them being family, you really don’t buy it, having only known the whole crew for a couple of episodes.

And then there is the Mephisto of it all. Making Mephisto’s powers specifically a test for Riri’s grief is an intriguing premise. Still, the ending’s ambiguity also irked me, considering we would not get another season (if there is one) for at least two years. Clearly, Mephisto’s reveal serves a purpose beyond just Riri’s story.

For a story that was always specifically about a girl from Chicago making a suit from scraps in her garage, tying it to magic to get to a Mephisto reveal in the finale feels like a cheapening of Riri’s otherwise very compelling story.

This is, unfortunately, a pattern with Marvel shows. Ms. Marvel was used to reveal the existence of mutants in the MCU, Hawkeye was used to reveal the return of Kingpin, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier to introduce Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Val, and now Ironheart reveals Mephisto.

The MCU continues to build upon itself, which is part of its appeal, but it seems that this constant need to grow overshadows the stories of its most interesting characters.

While Episodes 4-6 bring a compelling, more emotionally grounded story for Riri and her grief, Ironheart stumbles in its attempt to connect itself to the towering MCU, meeting a fate similar to many Marvel series before it.

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All episodes of Ironheart are streaming now on Disney+. 

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