The Defenders S01E02: Mean Right Hook – Recap And Review

In the last minutes of the series premiere The H Word, an earthquake shook part of New York City, each of the protagonists of the series felt it in differents parts of the city and this episode opens out directly after that.

Beware spoilers for this episode ahead

A recap of what happened in the episode:

• Matt, after hearing all the trouble caused by the earthquake, goes out to the streets to saves two kids who were having an altercation with armed men. That confrontation seems to awaken the Daredevil.
• After Jessica finds explosives in a room where John Raymond was staying, she calls the police to alert what she has found and runs into Misty Knight, who sees Jessica stealing evidence from the crime scene. She investigates more and finds some files about a company that appears to have been operating for more than a hundred years with different names. Jeri Hogarth shows up and warns Jessica to not pursue the case anymore and when she doesn’t listen, Hogarth tasks Foggy with keeping an eye on her and keep Jessica’s troubles away from her law firm.
• Madame Gao informs Alexandra that they’ve run into a “wall” and that it had inscriptions from K’un-L’un. Alexandra reasons that perhaps it isn’t a wall at all, but a door.
• When Jessica returns to her apartment she finds John Raymond holding Malcolm hostage. She tries to get some information from Raymond, but he keeps babbling about “they” are dangerous, that he’s good and loves his family. The door’s lock is broken with a sword and Elektra comes in meaning to kill John. This results in John killing himself, Jessica chasing Elektra with no success and she’s arrested by Misty.
• Danny and Colleen try to figure out who was the man that was killed in Cambodia. They have a deep conversation regarding Danny’s sense of guilt for what’s happened in K’un-L’un and it teases the future team up between the four heroes of this show. They go to sword shop in hopes of uncovering some clues regarding the man in Cambodia and his death. When they get there, they discover dead bodies.
• Luke helps the people in Harlem after the earthquake and pursues the case Misty told him about. While investigating he learns about a man known as White Hat. He follows the lead and finds White Hat and sees some kids and Cole, the brother of one of the latest victims found. He follows them and gets to the sword shop where Danny and Colleen are. The kids were being used as cleaners for murder scenes. Danny grabs Cole, thinking he’s part of the Hand. Luke sees this and he starts fighting Danny. After that Cole gets arrested and Danny and Luke have to leave to avoid the police.
• In the police station, Jessica is interrogated by Misty until Matt shows up as Jessica’s lawyer.

This episode really picks up the pace of the story. The main plot starts forming and the cases that each of these heroes was working on slowly converge. Viewers get to learn a bit more about The Hand and about who Alexandra is.

What I found particularly pleasing is that our heroes didn’t meet all at once, but they set up the foundations of this team-up in duos. Some people complain that their meeting takes too long, but I truly believe the pace is perfect because this allowed for viewers to catch up with a bit of what’s been going on in each of their lives. It was also just really fun to see Luke and Danny fight each other because viewers know that, although their meeting was unconventional, a great friendship awaits. This is building up to a truly epic team-up.

Written by: Cecilia López Closs

For more The Defenders reviews, follow me on Twitter @MCLCloss and don’t forget to follow @GEEKMOTIVATION as well.