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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 325334" data-attributes="member: 23">Iron Fist Felling Tree With Roots / The Blessing Of Many Fractures / The Mistress Of All Agonies / Black Tiger Steals HeartAs with Daredevil, the casting and writing is such that the lead character, while perfectly serviceable, is among the least interesting. For all the attempts at barefooted eccentricities in the first couple of episodes, he is surrounded by far more flawed and fascinating people than he has proven to be.Take the Meachums. Harold killed a couple of would be attackers then summoned Ward to help smash their faces and bash out their teeth with a hammer. Ward baulked at the very idea (actually, he barfed at the very idea. But only in his mouth, since the bin he almost used contained the finger Harold had sawn off himself). Ward does manage to dump the bodies, in a body of water at night à la Norman Bates. Further channelling Norman, Ward then stabbed his father to death and dumped his body in the same lake.The mid-season twist of the secondary antagonist stepping up to murder the primary antagonist comes right from Luke Cage. It’s a little less surprising here - in fact with the benefit of hindsight it was almost inevitable - but it’s solidified Ward as a character of note. In early episodes I found him a bit irritating, and I suppose as the insecure, jealous bully he was supposed to be. Besides popping pills, he was always seen with a drink in hand, continually taking large sips with loud, dry slurps.But in the middle part of the series, as his addictions escalated and it was clear he was falling apart under the pressure of keeping Harold’s secrets (not least the fact that Harold had been resurrected by The Hand) while simultaneously unable to escape (he tries and fails) and bearing the brunt of his father’s anger. He’s also dealing with being the less functional sibling as well as Danny’s return.Ward has emerged as a fragile, pitiful and consequently sympathetic person. Even before he killed his father, I was finding him one of the more interesting characters in the series. His guilt over having done so - seeing drops of fresh blood on his clothing (where there actually isn’t any) like Lady Macbeth, or gallons of blood emerging from a lift like Danny Torrance in The Shining has made him fall apart even more and the psychology has been very watchable.But in this series, even the twist of Ward killing Harold has its own twist: Harold has emerged drooling from the lake like a cross between Lazarus and Melrose’s Richard Hart, to reveal he cannot die as a result of The Hand’s treatment. He simply gets resurrected each time with a darker personality than the time before.This, too has proved very watchable. Harold’s tearful embrace of his murderer to apologise for the pressure he’s put him under was followed up by an even more uncharacteristic display of kindness to his adorably Milquetoast young assistant Kyle by serving him a choice of a zillion different ice cream flavours. Unfortunately for them both, Kyle requests vanilla which Harold hasn’t got in. And Harold is so incensed at Kyle’s ingratitude he beats him to death with the ice cream scoop. I was reminded of the senseless and violent death of Jessica Jones’s adorably Milquetoast neighbour.There’s been a lot going on for Danny, Colleen and Claire. A trip to China, the capture of Madame Gao, Danny learning of new healing abilities through Colleen’s sensei who takes them to his facility, which turns out to be possibly run by The Hand. And Danny’s escaped with the help of the strange Mancunian, but only after being stabbed.Most watchable among all this, of course, has been Madame Gao herself. Even under capture, she remained her usual combination of serene, wise and threatening, getting into the heads of Danny, Colleen and Claire with her sage observations about their failings and insecurities. She’s proving one of my favourite things about the entire Netflix saga.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?