Television Thoughts: The Defenders Review

I binge-watched the first—and only—season of The Defenders on Netflix, and when I say binge-watched, I mean binge-watched. I woke up at 4 a.m. the morning it released, and I watched all eight episodes right in a row. Yikes. Needless to say, I love me some Marvel.

Here’s one of The Defenders’ trailers, just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about. (#Shame) Also, my review is really for people who have watched at least one of the four shows, either Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, or Luke Cage.

Okay, so the first thing I want to talk about is how glad I am that we finally got a season with all the Defenders. While I enjoy them all separately for different reasons, them together is a lot more fun. It also leads to a more fast-paced story compared to Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage.

The elements of the show that I enjoyed the most mainly revolve around Daredevil. I love me some Matt Murdock. Daredevil’s like the Batman of the Defenders without the money and fancy gadgets. He’s racked with guilt and so sullen that it’s almost annoying, but you still love him anyway. I loved his scenes, and I wish there were 20 more of them.

As for the other three, Jessica was her sassy, charming self, Luke was the rational one, and Danny was… Danny. While I’m not a huge fan of what the showrunners did with Iron Fist, I didn’t hate the character or his show.

That being said, some of Danny’s scenes were painful to watch, mainly because of his immaturity. That aspect of his personality made one large part of the overall conflict in The Defenders a little too predictable. HOWEVER, only that major part of the story was predictable. Stuff like how the Defenders got together wasn’t. I knew very little beyond what I’d seen in the trailers.

Speaking of trailers, I was worried about the villains in the show because of Sigourney Weaver. She just didn’t have that “evil” quality I expect from a Marvel bad guy. Yet, each villain was interesting, if not 100% unique. And Elektra. Well, I love Elektra. She’s bada$$, even though her full potential wasn’t highlighted very well. She surprised me. Oh, and that ending. Ugh. I need to know what happened!

I will say that some of the aspects of the show that I was looking forward to didn’t really pan out, though. I wanted more humor than I got. While Jessica was sassy and slightly funny, nothing about the show really made me chuckle. I also thought the plotline went by ridiculously fast. Most of the story took place in less than 72 hours… I think. I would have liked more team and character development through a longer period of time, but I can see why the writers decided to go for a faster pace. It’s a direct contrast to the way the individual Defender shows operate. It’s also more Avengers-esque.

All in all, if you haven’t watched the other, individual Defender shows, definitely don’t start out just watching The Defenders. I’d highly suggest watching both seasons of Daredevil and, even though it’s not the greatest, Iron Fist as well. Those two are the ones you’ll need to watch to understand the villains and overall plot of The Defenders.