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I'm working on a vid for Iron Fist, because of course I am, and it's giving me unexpected feels about Davos, who I was more or less indifferent to the first time around.
I think what's really getting to me, more than Davos qua Davos, is his relationship with Danny, because we know how gregarious and people-focused Danny is, and how miserable and isolated most of his life in K'un Lun was. In the middle of all of that, Davos must have been basically his everything, and watching the flashbacks back when they were happy -- especially coupled with how much Danny clearly adores him and tries so hard to resolve the entire Iron Fist situation without killing him ... it just hurts.
I remember being deeply worried the first time I watched the show that the last couple of episodes of season two, with Ward gunning for Davos, were setting up a conflict that would've involved either Ward killing him and having a falling-out with Danny over that, or Danny essentially having to protect Davos from Ward and basically having to choose between Davos vs. Ward and Joy, or worst-case scenario Danny would've had to kill one of them to protect the other one, which would've hurt me. I'm glad it didn't go that way.
The vid I'm making is focused on the various sibling pairs (Danny & Davos, Ward & Joy, Danny & Ward) in a compare-and-contrast kind of way, and it's really interesting how collecting clips from the early episodes is driving home how completely the show upends the various character relationships. The ones who start out sympatico (Danny & Davos, Ward & Joy) are the ones who end up a disaster, while the sibling relationship that's a complete trainwreck at the beginning (Ward and Danny) are actually the only ones who manage to end up salvaging something good out of all of this, mostly because they are the only people in the entire mess who are actual decent people (even if it's a one step forward, five steps back thing for Ward).
ETA: Of course it's also breaking my heart because of the cancellation. Collecting clips has also been making me think about how the showrunner they got for the second season just seemed to be completely on the same page with me in terms of what I wanted out of this show and these characters, in a way that almost never happens, and a third season would've been so likely to give me a bunch more of what I wanted ... and, just, aargh. I know it'll hurt less, eventually. It's just frustrating that this had to happen right after I discovered the show and right when I wanted to just kind of roll around in happy feelings for it. I have obviously been through this a bunch of times with a bunch of shows, but the timing on this one is just so bad, and it's rubbing salt in the wound that all of the others get to go on but the one I desperately want more of ... doesn't.
I think what's really getting to me, more than Davos qua Davos, is his relationship with Danny, because we know how gregarious and people-focused Danny is, and how miserable and isolated most of his life in K'un Lun was. In the middle of all of that, Davos must have been basically his everything, and watching the flashbacks back when they were happy -- especially coupled with how much Danny clearly adores him and tries so hard to resolve the entire Iron Fist situation without killing him ... it just hurts.
I remember being deeply worried the first time I watched the show that the last couple of episodes of season two, with Ward gunning for Davos, were setting up a conflict that would've involved either Ward killing him and having a falling-out with Danny over that, or Danny essentially having to protect Davos from Ward and basically having to choose between Davos vs. Ward and Joy, or worst-case scenario Danny would've had to kill one of them to protect the other one, which would've hurt me. I'm glad it didn't go that way.
The vid I'm making is focused on the various sibling pairs (Danny & Davos, Ward & Joy, Danny & Ward) in a compare-and-contrast kind of way, and it's really interesting how collecting clips from the early episodes is driving home how completely the show upends the various character relationships. The ones who start out sympatico (Danny & Davos, Ward & Joy) are the ones who end up a disaster, while the sibling relationship that's a complete trainwreck at the beginning (Ward and Danny) are actually the only ones who manage to end up salvaging something good out of all of this, mostly because they are the only people in the entire mess who are actual decent people (even if it's a one step forward, five steps back thing for Ward).
ETA: Of course it's also breaking my heart because of the cancellation. Collecting clips has also been making me think about how the showrunner they got for the second season just seemed to be completely on the same page with me in terms of what I wanted out of this show and these characters, in a way that almost never happens, and a third season would've been so likely to give me a bunch more of what I wanted ... and, just, aargh. I know it'll hurt less, eventually. It's just frustrating that this had to happen right after I discovered the show and right when I wanted to just kind of roll around in happy feelings for it. I have obviously been through this a bunch of times with a bunch of shows, but the timing on this one is just so bad, and it's rubbing salt in the wound that all of the others get to go on but the one I desperately want more of ... doesn't.
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(The difficulty is going to be that whoever wins our nightly ping pong match chooses the nightly TV viewing, and he's been annihilating me consistently and wanting to finish S3 of the anime Overlord, ahahahahaha. I will play harder, but I may have to settle for wheedling him into watching something I pick once we get through Overlord S3 and hoping he takes pity on me.)
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So far my track record for talking people into watching this show has gone as follows:
- One person really liked it from the beginning. Win! \o/
- Two people bounced hard off the first few episodes of season one. One of them skipped ahead to season two and liked it much better.
- One person is currently watching season one and enjoying one of the storylines, but aggressively fast-forwarding through everything to do with China and kung fu (which, I will not lie, is legitimately ... not good), and sending me plaintive "this gets better eventually, right?" emails. (It does. But not for awhile.)
So, yeah. Basically it's a hit-or-miss experience. I've met a few other people in the fandom who (like me) embraced season one in all its gloriously OTT batshittery - like someone else said in my comments, this show is basically a soap opera with kung fu; this is accurate XD -- but it seems to be a love-or-hate kind of thing.
Also, my huge caveat is that season one is pretty bad with the Asia stuff, which is like the whole reason the show exists (like my plaintive-email friend said, how hard would it have been to have hired an actual Asian writer or two?). It's not precisely racist so much as just clueless and somewhat tone-deaf, at least that's my general take on it (I actually thought Daredevil was worse; at least here there are nuanced Asian characters all over the good-to-evil spectrum rather than just bad guys - like, it's just that it's the more sort of thing you'd expect from, say, an 80s Karate Kid type martial arts movie instead of something made by the same company that made Luke Cage). Season two improves greatly on this, but ... yeah.
I don't know how you and Joe are with skipping around on shows, but if you're not total completionists and you do end up watching this, you might want to either skip directly to season two, or watch the first episode and last two episodes of season one (which sets up the character relationships for the second season while skipping most of the egregiously WTF China stuff, as well as giving you a feel for how thoroughly batshit season one was) and then skip ahead. There's a lot of good stuff in this! It's just not the kind of show where I feel like I can say "Yes, it's great, watch it all!" XD
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So yeah, I'm really not trying to talk you out of it, just making sure you don't go in unprepared. XD
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But it didn't bother me? Like, I think I went into this with the right motivation (to squee on the squee-able) and I just flat out handwaved stuff like that. I think I watch older movies the same way -- I just don't judge it as a piece of art, I judge it by the entertainment value. It also helped my expectations were at rock bottom XD
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I think I went into this with the right motivation (to squee on the squee-able) and I just flat out handwaved stuff like that.
YES EXACTLY. That is pretty much my viewing mode as well, as long as I'm getting the squee-feelings, and this show was totally giving me the squee-feelings. There are definitely things I could've gotten hung up on, if I were so inclined (today I was wondering how exactly it works for the company's board of directors to fire the people who literally own the company, like ... how does that work ... exactly XD) but honestly, I wanted feels and the show delivered them with a shovel, so I was very easy for that.
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If ever there was a show that heavily depends on your mindset going in, this is it.
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The first time around, I was too focused on certain other aspects of the plot to really get that invested in Davos, but on the second viewing I just found my heart breaking for both him and Danny.
So much unchecked emotion driving the bus with these characters a lot of the time, whether they would admit it or not, which can I just say is so soap opera.
Hahaha, I KNOW, I think honestly this is one of the things that's got me so hooked on the show, because the characters just FEEL STUFF all over the place, and I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I'm so used to genre shows where the characters stoically refuse to emote that a show where they have long talks about feelings and fraught, shouted conversations with tears in their eyes is turning out to be 1000% my cup of incredibly emo tea.
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Since then, I gather that some of the other Marvel TV shows have also been canceled, for no reason that anyone on our side of the screen understands, so hopes of the TV Iron Fist characters continuing on in canon as recurring characters in sibling series has narrowed, too. I'm doubly sorry for that.
Whenever we love a story, our love makes it at least as much us as its creators.
Good luck hanging in there, and continuing creating for it. ♥
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(All Forever Knight fans understand the feeling of being jerked around by the creators/networks anyway. XD)