Marvel's Iron Fist almost had a third season that rectified the missteps from the previous two. The Netflix series Iron Fist was the last to introduce its titular hero before adding him to the crossover miniseries The Defenders, a ragtag team of street heroes that consisted of the somber private investigator Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), powerhouse fugitive Luke Cage (Mike Colter), fearless ninja lawyer Daredevil (Charlie Cox), and mystical martial arts expert Iron Fist (Finn Jones). The businessman behind the glowing fist, Danny Rand, provided the esoteric elements to the squad as well as an intimate knowledge of the team's common enemy - The Hand.
Both Iron Fist seasons centered on Rand's conflict between his duty as "the immortal Iron Fist, protector of K'un-Lun, sworn enemy of the Hand," words he loved to namedrop every so often, and a city that had changed drastically since he disappeared as a child. The first season focuses on his return to his former life after being presumed dead in an airplane crash when he was only ten years old and his clash with the executives who want to keep him away from his parents' corporation. The second season focuses on his role as New York's new protector after battling Alexandra Reid (Sigourney Weaver) and The Hand alongside his fellow Defenders. Despite being under the renowned Marvel label, the Iron Fist solo series received the poorest reviews and later got cancelled in late 2018 after only two seasons.
The other Marvel titles on Netflix were cancelled too, ending the grounded narrative universe that Marvel had established on Netflix. Nevertheless, a little more than a year later, new information arose from actor Tom Pelphrey, who played Danny Rand's frenemy Ward Meachum in both seasons of Iron Fist and now shines in the third season of Ozark. Pelphrey explains - in an exclusive interview with ComicBook - how his role at the end of season 2 left him with clues about the future for his character in a potential season 3.
Iron Fist Season 3 Plans
Iron Fist showrunner M. Raven Metzner clarified that the show was cancelled before having the chance to discuss a season three with Netflix and Marvel. However, Pelphrey refers to the abandoned story as the beginning of a true comradery between his character Ward Meachum and Finn Jones' Danny Rand. He ventures to compare their revamped relationship to that of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. His presumption is backed up by the ending of season two, where the show's plot picked up speed to tease a bigger, more intense adventure for both characters. The few details that were actually shown in the final episodes of the series serve as clues to reconstruct that missing journey.
Ward Meachum had a bumpy story with Danny Rand. First, Meachum bullied Rand throughout their childhood friendship, going as far as physically assaulting him and putting dead frogs in his food. When Danny returned fifteen years after the plane crash, Meachum used threats, sabotage and even attempts on his life to keep Danny away from his own company, only to find themselves in need of an alliance in order to gain the upper hand against Bakuto (Ramón Rodríguez), a mystical warrior even more tenacious than the Iron Fist himself. After many ups and downs, the last episodes of the show foreshadow a crucial and more definitive truce between the two in an effort to find the mysterious Orson Randall, Danny Rand's biggest foe to date.
In the comics, Orson Randall is Danny's predecessor as the Iron Fist. Orson met Danny's father and taught him about the legend of the Iron Fist, way before his son received his training and became the famous hero himself. In the Netflix series, this key player was teased as a mysterious figure whom Danny needed to find, requiring Ward Meachum's collaboration to go on a journey across the world. Along the way, the third season would have developed all the new feats, abilities, and subplots that the end of the second season left on the burner, such as Danny's twin guns and Colleen Wing's (Jessica Henwick) depiction of the Iron Fist title.
Why Iron Fist Was Cancelled
Although its two seasons received the lowest ratings of the six Netflix Marvel titles, Iron Fist was still a valuable part of Marvel Television. The show held its modest number of dedicated fans who defended the first live-action portrayal of Danny Rand, but it lacked what the other shows were being praised for. The first season was heavily criticized for its slow pace and lack of action; the second season improved on these shortcomings but still never reached the heights of Daredevil, the nuance of Jessica Jones, or the cultural relevance of Luke Cage. Finn Jones' acting was deemed wooden, and the plot tipped the balance a little too much in favor of grounded realism instead of fantastic superheroism. Overall, Iron Fist had too much corporate talk and not enough dragon-fighting.
The show was cancelled along with its higher-rated companions; however, it wasn't a coincidence. At the time, Disney was working on the construction of its streaming service Disney+. Every property owned by Disney, including all of Marvel, found its home on the new platform. Although never directly explained by the higher-ups at either company, cancelling the Marvel Netflix shows made sense because the Netflix adaptations of Marvel titles were providing a home and sustained promotion for Marvel, which is owned by Netflix's incoming competition, Disney+.
Also, though the Netflix shows referred to events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the films never incorporated the Defenders. When Disney promoted MCU-architect Kevin Feige to Marvel's Chief Creative Officer, who indicated that the Marvel Disney+ shows would be MCU canon, which opens up a world of narrative possibilities that require careful planning in order to keep a logical continuity and a strong dramatic evolution within its universe - even more so when alternate realities and alternate versions of known characters come into play. But it also means that the tangential existence of the Netflix shows and their vague sense of interconnectivity with the bigger MCU titles needed to go to better fit the global scope.
How Iron Fist Season 3 Could Have Saved The Series
In retrospect, the second and final season of Iron Fist built a solid setup that took its time and effort to establish a stronger interest for Danny's motivations and relationships in the future. The development of characters like Colleen Wing, Ward Meachum and his family, and emerging side figures like Typhoid Mary (Alice Eve) and Davos (Sacha Dhawan) had the appropriate momentum to drive a full season without falling into the same pitfalls of the previous two seasons. While it felt like nothing was happening in the first season, at the end of season two everything was moving forward towards an exciting journey that proved the titular hero and his allies could take a fond place in fans' hearts. Even Pelphrey mentioned how the whole series "ended in its biggest cliffhanger."
The hypothetical third season could have brought more action and more comic accuracy. What little was revealed was enough to prove that the wait for a more comic-accurate Iron Fist was worth it. Season two was one of the releases with the most Easter eggs in a Marvel TV show, and this attention to detail could evolve into the series' equivalent to Daredevil's critical acclaim and Jessica Jones' deeper insight into the titular character's inner world. Looking back, the long wait could have been regarded as suspense for what was coming. A third season full of action and fan service would have taken all the attention from past creative missteps, contrasted to the tone and the pace from the first two.
The reception of other similar shows on the same platform, such as The Punisher and the third and final Daredevil season, could have inspired Iron Fist to learn from their rights and wrongs. By the time the third season would have begun production, enough reference material would have influenced the show to get back on the tried-and-true track. On the other hand, the mistakes of its fellow Netflix titles could have also provided an extensive guide of decisions that ultimately failed. From both points of view, Iron Fist could only improve, for whatever road the show would have taken, the chances to keep sinking in quality would still be narrower.
After all the Netflix cancellations of Marvel shows, the discussion is hypothetical. Fans could argue that after its first two seasons Iron Fist was unable to be saved. For instance, one big thing that is missing is the iconic Heroes for Hire duo, which consisted of Iron Fist and Luke Cage, an emblematic team-up in comic book history that only got teased in The Defenders but didn't amount up to anything substantial aside from Danny's one-episode visit to Harlem in Luke Cage's second season. After Tom Pelphrey's comments, it's safe to assume Danny Rand's alliance with Ward Meachum probably would have replaced the iconic duo. In any case, all the possibilities - both feasible and unrealistic - are just speculation, but enough details suggest that Iron Fist season 3 could have been a worthy addition to Danny Rand's live-action run.