The first episode of Marvel and Netflix’s crossover event series “The Defenders” may not deliver all the goods right out of the gate, but that’s a good thing. Instead, “The H Word” chooses to slowly build up each hero individually before throwing them together.
Plot wise, the meatiest stuff went to Jessica Jones, as she is still reeling from her encounter with Kilgrave and is shutting out her detective business. But a concerned housewife gets to her soft spot and Jessica agrees to track down her missing husband. She eventually finds his apartment, which of course is loaded with explosives. And Jessica’s reaction to seeing this is so Jessica.
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Character wise, Matt Murdock was second in line. He’s hung up his horns as Daredevil, is kicking ass in court, winning a lawsuit from a paralyzed kid, and is slowly rebuilding a relationship with Karen, who seems to have taken his reveal of his secret identity rather well. But he does lie to her and say that he doesn’t miss his alter ego, which he later confesses to a priest.
Luke and Danny got the short end of the stick here, as Danny and Colleen chased down a Hand suspect, only to see him get killed and Luke is released from prison and hooks up with Claire. Danny and Colleen were pretty much non factors throughout, but Luke did get an interesting scene of him trying to talk to a kid who may be in deep with the wrong people.
We also got a glimpse of Sigourney Weaver’s Alexandra, who we now know is dying of some ailment and is working with Madame Gao. Their plan involves a resurrected Elektra and some kind of earthquake, which cleverly affected all the heroes, with Matt being especially rattled by his helplessness.
“The H Word” threw us back into the Marvel/Netflix world and gave us time to get settled before playing the big team up. It delivered new avenues for these characters and introduced new ones and was a solid first outing for the crossover.
“The Defenders” is now streaming on Netflix.