The Defenders S01E06: Ashes, Ashes – Recap And Review

WARNING: This article contains SPOILERS for this episode as well as previous episodes of The Defenders.

Previously on The Defenders:

After their second fight with The Hand, Matt, Jessica, Luke and Danny retreated to Colleen’s Doju with Sowande, one of the leaders of The Hand as their captive. Fearing Sowande’s warning, our heroes went to get their loved ones to a safe place before The Hand got to them. Sownade gets killed by Stick while trying to sneak up on our heroes. Elektra left The Hand’s HQ against Alexandra’s will and went back to Matt’s apartment.

In this episode:

• With The Hand needing Iron Fist for their nefarious plans, the group decides to hide Danny in a safe place. But Danny is not keen on the idea and decides to go after The Hand alone. But rest of the group stops him and then ties him up, hiding him in a safe place. While Luke Cage and Stick stay with Danny, Matt and Jessica continue to investigate Raymond, the architect who built The Hand’s HQ Midland Circle before he killed himself to avoid getting caught by The Hand.
• As she goes through Matt’s apartment, Elektra starts to remember her past. She later visits her own grave and is then approached by Alexandra, who tries to convince her she’s not the person she was in her past life anymore.
• Meanwhile in Midland Circle, the other leaders of The Hand learn of Sowande’s death and once again start to question Alexandra’s leadership.
• Matt and Jessica got to Raymond’s house and ask his daughter some questions. Matt then discovers Midland Circle’s plant hidden in the piano, which reveals an underground infrastructure below Midland Circle that has something The Hand is trying to access using The Iron Fist and it also reveals that Raymond was trying to plant explosives in the building to blow it up and stop The Hand for good.
• Matt and Jessica return to the hideout with the building’s plant, only to find out that Stick managed to knockout Luke using incense and is trying to kill Danny so The Hand can’t have him. But then Elektra shows up and defeats the heroes one by one and kills Stick afterwards
• She then takes Danny to Midland Circle as her captive and Alexandra demands that the other leaders of The Hand never question her again. But in a surprise twist, Elektra stabs Alexandra in the back and declares herself the new leader of The Hand.

The first great thing about this episode is a great thing of the show overall which is the improvement in Danny Rand’s character. In this episode the others are desperate at the point of locking Danny way and don’t hesitate to do this because they’ve done questionable things in the name of good in the past. But Danny seems to be the more optimistic and is confident that together they can defeat The Hand, which is an improvement considering he was usually pessimistic and full of self-pity in Iron Fist. And we also get to have a great showdown between him and the rest of the Defenders where knocks out Luke with his iron fist, again. Another great showdown is between Elektra and the Defenders. She really gets to show her prowess by defeating the super-powered heroes one by one.

What I also liked was the interaction between the Defenders. Luke shares his doubts with Danny and Danny even says Luke is starting to sound like him. This shows that Danny has improved since Iron Fist and it shows that he’s the light when the team is in darkness. Another great example is when they’re talking to Raymond’s daughter. Jessica tells her the story of Matt’s father (without referring to him as Matt’s father) telling her that if he’s a good guy then maybe so is her father. Matt asks her how did she know about his father and she tells him she investigate about who he was so they could trust each other better.

There are a few problems with this episode, namely the sometimes unnecessary scenes. We see Alexandra trying to persuade Elektra to fight with her, again. The leaders of The Hand question Alexandra’s leadership, again. This is stuff we’ve seen before in the previous episodes and the scenes act more as fillers in this episode.

And Alexandra’s death, while a great twist, is a bit disappointing. Alexandra was such a great character and I would’ve loved to see her in the final confrontation against the Defenders or at least get more screen-time.

But in the end, this is overall a good episode, for its great story, themes, action scenes and performances. It proves once again that this is a great Marvel Netflix series.

Written by: Miguel Coelho

If you liked this review, be sure to read the recap and review of the next episode of The Defenders: “Fish in the Jailhouse”.

And for more marvel-related articles, be sure to follow (@GEEKMOTIVATION) and me (@Miguel420Coelho).