Title: Marvel’s The Defenders Season 1 Episode 5: “Take Shelter”
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Superhero
Platform: Streaming – Netflix
Director: Uta Briesewitz
Writers: Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, Douglas Petrie, and Marco Ramirez
Rating: TV-MA
Release: August 18, 2017
Cast: Charlie Cox, Krysten Ritter, Mike Colter, Finn Jones
Feature image: Source
[Spoilers]
“They say you can’t be broken, we’ll see about that.” Sowande – The Defenders
Sowande (Babs Olusanmokun) is in a van full of his people. Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho) and her people are getting into SUVs. Murakami (Yutaka Takeuchi) stands on the Red Dragon roof; he jumps through the skylight. A big fight inside the restaurant ensues. Sowande’s men enter with machine guns firing indiscriminately. Gao shoots one of Sowande’s men and turns to him, “We want him alive.” The Defenders and Stick (Scott Glenn) form into a combat circle. Stick: “We work together; we get out of here alive.” Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) breaks ranks so he can talk to Elektra (Elodie Yung). Matt and Elektra fight in an alley behind the restaurant. Matt keeps calling her Elektra, him repeating her name makes her stop. It seems her memories could be returning. Murakami runs into the alley, Elektra hits him and she disappears. Luke Cage (Mike Colter) and Sowande fight against each other. Sowande:“They say you can’t be broken, we’ll see about that.” They fight into the street and a truck hits Luke. Gao uses her mystical powers and strikes Danny Rand (Finn Jones), knocking him down a hallway. Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) bursts through the door before Gao’s men can get him. Stick opens a man cover; they escape through the sewers. Gao asks where they have gone; a pissed off Murakami says that is a question for our leader. Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) saw what happened in the alley from her vehicle. She looks worried. At her dojo, Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) is hitting the heavy bag when Danny and the rest of them come in. To everyone’s surprise, Luke also shows up, and he has Sowande tied up in a van.
“Did you know Jessica knows Daredevil?” Trish Walker – The Defenders
The Defenders
In a new location, the Defenders question Sowande. He laughs at them. He threatens all their friends, “How many mice must drown with you?” Though tied up, he is the one in control. Luke leaves to get Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson). Danny and Colleen talk. She doesn’t want the others around. Her reasoning; it’s not their fight. A Hand operative shows up. Danny fights them. Colleen runs into Bakuto (Ramon Rodriguez) in the alley. She gasps, “You’re dead.” Bakuto answers with a smirk, “I tried death; it didn’t take.” She attacks him with her sword; Bakuto says he is there to talk. He wants her to rejoin him. She refuses and accuses him of taking her life. He says not yet and slashes her stomach. Before he can kill her, Luke knocks him off her. Claire and Danny are also surprised to see him alive. He tells Danny that he serves a purpose that they didn’t tell him about in K’un-Lun; Bakuto disappears. They take Colleen to get medical assistance.
Matt had left earlier to get Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll). She is upset he is doing it again. She is also mad that her life could be in danger because of him. Luke goes to the police station to talk to Misty Knight (Simone Missick), but he won’t tell her the whole story. Danny and Claire bring in Colleen. They promise her that more people are coming. Stick and Sowande talk, he brags about the time the Chaste captured him. He was able to make them come over to his side. Matt walks in and he and Stick talk; he’d like Matt to be the leader of this war.
Jessica goes to a restaurant where Trish Walker (Rachael Taylor) is in a meeting. She tells Trish they have to go. The Hand shows up. Jessica and Trish run up some stairs, where Murakami attacks Jessica. They fight and he is able to knock her down; before he can stab her, Matt shows up as Daredevil. Trish: “No way!” Daredevil and Jess team up on Murakami. With Daredevil’s martial art skills and Jessica’s brute strength, they turn the tables on him. Jessica knocks him over the railing but he escapes. Jessica looks at Matt, “You looked better with the scarf. Nice ears.” Daredevil: “They’re horns.” At the police station, Claire patches up Colleen. Claire gives Colleen some encouragement. She tells Colleen who is feeling weak that she isn’t weak. Colleen is feeling lost, she wants something that is stable. Claire calls Colleen the foundation. Malcolm Ducasse (Eka Darville) joins Trish at the police station. Trish asks Malcolm, “Did you know Jessica knows Daredevil?” She thinks the tremors connect to this. They watch Karen walk into the room. Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) joins Karen and they talk about Matt being involved again. Misty tells all of them to sit tight. Misty asks Colleen to tell her about the people they are fighting. She won’t tell her for Misty’s sake. Claire seconds that. Misty is tired of people not telling her things for her own good.
Back where they are holding Sowande, Daredevil throws a rope device around Sowande’s neck. Danny: “It’s so cool.” Luke: “It’s kind of cool.” Matt tells him that the Black Sky didn’t kill him when she could have, “You’re weapon is defective.” Sowande responds that if their weapon is defective, they will get rid of her. Sowande blames Daredevil for not protecting Elektra on the roof. Matt gets angry and chokes him unconscious. Stick tells Matt it is time to tell them the truth. Once he tells them that the Black Sky is Elektra, his girlfriend that the Hand killed; they all start arguing about Matt not telling them about his relationship to Elektra. Danny asks how he can trust Matt. Luke and Jessica freak out about Stick and Matt continually using the word ‘resurrection’ about Elektra. While they are arguing, Sowande wakes up and grabs Danny. Instead of trying to leave swiftly, he decides to monologue about the war being over. Stick sneaks up behind him and chops off his head. Stick: “Not yet.”
“If you do not fulfill that role, you’re of no use to the Hand, or to me.” Alexandra – The Defenders
The Hand
Elektra is sharpening her sword, when Alexandra walks in she places it under her neck. Alexandra tells her that she is well trained. Elektra responds that Alexandra trained her well. Alexandra eases the sword away from her neck and tells Elektra that she had a daughter in her first life. Her daughter died, people told her that she was too good for this life. Alexandra realized she wasn’t meant to raise her daughter. She was meant to raise the Black Sky. Alexandra places the sword against Elektra’s neck and says, “If you do not fulfill that role, you’re of no use to the Hand, or to me.” Murakami enters and announces that the Iron Fist and his allies have Sowande. Alexandra is confident that he’ll escape and come back to them. They have a friend from South America (Bakuto) arriving soon and they can expand the search for Iron Fist.
Bakuto and Madame Gao do not have a warm reunion. Madame Gao is willing to overlook their past (when Bakuto’s faction of the Hand fought Madame Gao’s faction of the Hand in “Iron Fist”) as long as they have the same goal. The only way they can go back to K’un-Lun is to get Iron Fist. Alexandra and Murakami enter the room. He tells them that Iron Fist has a new ally, Daredevil. (They must not know that Matt is the Daredevil) Alexandra goes to Elektra’s room; she is not there. Elektra is standing on the edge of the building looking over the city. She leaves and goes to Matt’s apartment. She looks around his living room; she goes into his bedroom and lays down in his bed. She proceeds to go to sleep.
After the big battle in the restaurant and Luke capturing Sowande, he suggests to them that not only are they in danger, but that they have put their friends in danger too. It’s clear the Hand will use their friends to get back at them, so Matt, Luke, and Jessica leave to get their friends and take them to the police station for Misty to protect. Colleen meets up with Bakuto and has her confidence shattered. When she talks about needing something stable, she sounds like an ex-cult member needing something to replace what they had in the cult. The Hand is not only a criminal organization; it also operates as a cult. She is lucky to have Claire there to restore her confidence. Most of the cast of the four shows are in one location together. The different worlds of the Defenders have now collided. They should soon start interacting with each other.
_________________________________
One thing that annoyed me, and has been annoying me throughout this series are Karen and Foggy. Their attitude is that Matt’s vigilante activities are some kind of addiction that they have to help him overcome. I understand them not wanting him to do it, but it is a choice he makes to help people. It might be destructive, but it is a choice a grown man made. They should treat it that way. Matt seems to treat it the same way, and he should stop it too. The writers should also stop. It is not an addiction; it’s a choice. I don’t blame them though for being mad that he being the Daredevil has put them in danger.
The action was excellent as usual. The fight scenes are well choreographed and shot. Even Finn Jones looks good in his fight scenes. That is a good sign for “Iron Fist” season two.
Grade: B+
- Moon Knight: Steven Grant of the Giftshop - April 6, 2022
- Eternals: Through the Ages - April 3, 2022
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: Slackers - March 12, 2022