Hi, I’m Kya.
And I’m Andrew, and we're here together because YOU demanded it!
And because we're going to need all hands on deck for this one.
With five long seasons of content to sift through, a lot of info can fall through the cracks.
But now that the gang’s all together for ‘The Defenders,’ you might want to bone up on everything that went down in their individual series.
So let’s run through 'The Defenders' Timeline.
And get you up to speed on everything you might not remember about:
the Hand,
Madame Gao,
that big giant hole in the ground,
and everything else that’s important to Marvel’s huge TV team-up.
Now there’s going to be spoilers all over this video.
Duh.
And we’re not gonna start at the very beginning of the MCU, but we should at least touch on The Incident.
Otherwise known as “The Battle of New York” and “the shit that went down during the first Avengers movie.”
For some reason, characters in the Netflix shows don’t like to use the proper name for things.
I think someone mentions “the green guy” and “the dude with the hammer” in every show.
Like, I don’t get it, if you’re talking about public figures who literally saved the world on national television, why do you need the cutesey nicknames?
Anyway. The Chitauri invasion on May 4, 2012 changes the city forever, and it sets the stage for the first Marvel Netflix show:
'Daredevil' Season 1
Close your eyes, Matty!
Blinded as a child, Matt Murdock’s other senses were heightened to superhuman levels.
And he’s thirsty for street justice after his boxer father was murdered for refusing to take a dive.
By day, he’s a lawyer representing poor folks in Hell’s Kitchen with his partner Foggy Nelson.
Please stop giving my mom cigars. She'll outlive us all.
And at night, Matt dons a black disguise and takes his battle for justice into the streets of Hell’s Kitchen.
Casual Friday night.
In real life, Hell's Kitchen used to be one of the roughest neighborhoods in NYC.
It was the perfect setting for Frank Miller’s gritty noir take on the character.
Today, it’s super yuppified.
But in the MCU, it got hit hard in the alien attack.
And a brilliant crook named Wilson Fisk saw big bucks in the wreckage.
He formed a fake construction company that took charge of the restoration.
It was a huge cover for drug deals, human trafficking, ninja death cults, and basically whatever heinous shit you can think of.
Ninja death cults? The f*ck?
“The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen” puts the pieces together, with help from Foggy, his client-turned-secretary Karen Page, and his night nurse, Claire Temple.
Keep track of her because she’s basically the Nick Fury of the Marvel Netflix shows. And I'm in love with her.
Like, seriously, take a shot every time you see Rosario Dawson.
Matt busts a ton of heads in his quest for the Kingpin, with the big highlight being that dope hallway fight that’s straight out of ‘Oldboy.
It's rad, long takes are how you do action.
And just when he’s about to get some answers, Matt’s old sensei Stick come back into his life.
I need a soldier. Committed. Not some bleeding-heart idealist hanging on to half-measures.
You don't know anything about what I'm doing here.
Stick taught Matt how to fight with his enhanced senses, and he’s back in New York to hunt down the Black Sky.
It’s a powerful, living weapon that’s fallen into the hands of… Well, the Hand.
They’re an ancient clan of evil ninjas who specialize in resurrecting the dead.
Again, just another casual Friday in Hell’s Kitchen.
It really is just like that in Hell's Kitchen. Every day.
A possibly immortal old lady named Madame Gao runs The Hand’s drug operations in NYC.
She doesn’t have a ton to do in ‘Daredevil,’ but she’ll be a major player in ‘Iron Fist’ later on.
Stick takes out the Black Sky, and Matt torches another Hand boss, Nobu.
Fisk beats the shit out of Daredevil. He beats the devil out of him.
Beat the devil out of it.
That's clever! It's funny to someone.
That's how Matt's best friend Foggy finds out about his nocturnal pastime.
They whine about secrets and friendship for a while, but they get over it.
And when it’s time to take down the Kingpin for good, Matt shows up in an awesome new costume and kicks his ass.
So Fisk is in jail, Foggy and Matt are pals again,
Nelson and Murdock. Avocados at law.
And we’re all caught up for the next show, 'Jessica Jones.'
This is the best one. This is my favorite. I love how the writing is so strong, they have beautiful relationships and feminism.
The chemistry between Jessica and Kilgrave is so great, I hate to say it but it's a well written abuse storyline.
All of what you just said is very valid. Thank you! Okay, so:
After her family died in a car crash, Jessica realized she had superpowers.
Her adoptive sister Trish encouraged her to use her gifts to help people, but that led her straight into the path of Kilgrave, the Purple Man.
His parents' experiments gave him awesome mind-control powers, but he ended up being a dick and using them for sick shit like making human slaves.
Like Jessica.
He kept her as his mental prisoner for months, forcing her to sleep with him and obey his every word.
His superpower is basically he's just a huge creepazoid.
But she was able to break free of Kilgrave’s control after he made her kill a psychiatrist who knew about his past.
Now, Jessica!
With an assist from the MTA.
She’s extremely messed up from the trauma, and opens up a P.I. biz to pay for her liquor bills.
She hooks with up a superpowered bartender named Luke Cage, but things go sour when they find out that the woman Jessica killed was his wife, Reva. Awkward!
You are a piece of shit.
That’s okay though, because Jessica’s busy clearing the name of another innocent girl with blood on her hands thanks to Kilgrave’s mind control.
Smile!
She snaps his neck and ends his influence over her life once and for all.
Smile.
And he doesn't regenerate.
There's your Doctor Who reference!
Boo ya!
And she doesn’t even do time thanks to her client Jeri Hogarth, a powerful lawyer who helps her beat the charges and get back to work at Alias Investigations.
Hogarth is another recurring character throughout the Netflix shows, and she’ll be back for ‘The Defenders.'
Now, if you’re keeping track, ‘Age of Ultron’ happens in between ‘Jessica Jones’ and 'Daredevil: Season 2.'
And despite an army of killer robots threatening to crash a city into Earth, it doesn’t really affect Hell’s Kitchen much.
Matt Murdock has a bigger problem on his hands.
Bigger than Ultron?
Bigger than Ultron.
All over the city, gangs of criminals are getting wiped out with military precision by a psychopathic vigilante.
His real name is Frank Castle, but you know him better as THE PUNISHER.
He’s a war hero turned mass murderer after his family was killed in the crossfire of a drug sting gone wrong.
He's like Batman, but cooler.
Any scumbag, lowlife, maggot piece of shit that I put down, I did it cause I liked it. Hell, I LOVED IT!
Daredevil wants to stop him before someone innocent gets hurt, but Castle keeps getting the upper hand.
That’s where we get the awesome scene from Garth Ennis’ ‘Welcome Back, Frank’ storyline.
Matt catches him eventually, and even serves as Castle’s defense attorney until Fisk springs him from prison.
I've given you a chance to walk free. To put that gift of yours to work. To kill your way to justice! For yourself. For your family.
This is where the other main plot of the season takes over, and I wish it was as interesting.
Seriously, the Punisher is so awesome that he makes ninjas seem boring.
But, they’re going to be extremely important in ‘The Defenders,’ so here goes.
Matt’s old flame Elektra pops up again.
This poor guy just gets a whole bunch of people coming back into his life at the worst possible time.
Elektra was raised by Stick as a warrior of the Chaste, an ancient order devoted to battling the Hand.
You said we're going to war. We are. And there will be a time and place for you to turn yourself loose.
The two get into some seriously boring corporate intrigue, but at least there’s a sarcophagus filled with blood at the end.
I like that. I know you do.
It turns out that the Hand are still searching for the Black Sky, and somehow that involves a company named Midland Circle and giant gaping hole in the ground.
We don’t know what it means yet, but it’s probably going to be a major element of the Defenders.
We find out that Elektra is another Black Sky, and that the Hand wants to make her their leader.
But she’s loyal to Matt above all else, and the two battle a zillion ninjas and a resurrected Nobu in one epic rooftop battle.
By the end, Nobu is dead.
This time, you piece of shit...
Again.
Elektra is dead too, so we know she’ll definitely be in ‘Defenders.’
And now Daredevil and the Punisher are cool with each other for… some reason. Catholic guilt, maybe. I don't know.
Matt reveals his secret identity to Karen, and that’s it for 'Daredevil.'
Next up in the timeline is 'Luke Cage.'
Cage was originally known as Carl Lucas, a cop from Savannah, Georgia.
He gets sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit, where he’s nearly beaten to death after exposing an underground fight club run by crooked guards.
Someone broke the cardinal rule of Fight Club: Don't talk about Fight Club.
An experimental treatment gave him bulletproof skin and superhuman strength, which he naturally used to break the f*ck out.
Side note, that scene was also awesome because we got a quick look at a homage to his comic book costume. Which was dope. For me. I like costumes. Especially ones with tiaras. Anyway moving on.
She does like costumes.
Reva Connors, his prison psychologist and future wife, set him up with a new identity in New York City.
He changed his name to Luke Cage, and the two lived quietly until Reva’s murder at the hand of Kilgrave and Jessica Jones.
Flashback!
When Luke’s brief stint as a bar owner in Hell’s Kitchen didn’t work out, he hopped on the A train back to Harlem.
That’s where he hooks up with Misty Knight.
She’s a badass NYPD detective investigating Cottonmouth, a vicious mob boss who owns the club where Luke works.
Everybody wants to be the king.
Luke and Cottonmouth wage an all-out war for the soul of Harlem, ending with the gangster’s death at the hands of his cousin, crooked councilwoman Mariah Dillard.
It's such a shame because Mahershal Ali is so good in this thing, he does this mouth thing...
It's so cool because his name is Cottonmouth and he's a snake and it makes sense and it's a damn shame he gets killed so early.
Once Cottonmouth is gone, the season goes downhill fast when it shifts focus to Diamondback.
I sent you to Hell and you came back with superpowers!
He’s Luke’s half-brother, who grew up with a burning jealousy of his father’s favorite son.
Now, he’s an arms dealer selling Justin Hammer’s high tech weapons to street criminals
Sam Rockwell from ‘Iron Man 2?’
Yeah, I barely remembered him too.
In the season finale, D-Back puts on a super-powered Battle Suit to fight his brother one-on-one, but Cage gets the better of him.
Luke doesn’t have long to celebrate though, because the U.S. Marshals show up to arrest him for escaping prison all those years ago.
He’s still in jail as of ‘The Defenders,’ but Matt Murdock is working hard to clear his name, thanks to their mutual friend Claire Temple.
I know a really good great lawyer in town. I'll call him.
Cage probably won’t stay locked up for long, though.
He’s still got to meet his ‘Heroes for Hire’ partner, the immortal 'Iron Fist.'
'Iron Fist.' Yayyy.
This is that last show in the Netflix timeline, so ‘The Defenders’ doesn’t exactly have a tough act to follow.
Here’s what you need to know:
Danny Rand was just a kid when his family’s plane crashed in the Himalayas.
His mother disappeared, his father died and Danny himself was on the verge of death when he was rescued by monks from the interdimensional city of K’un-Lun
He stayed for 15 years, learning the secrets of the mystical city and becoming a master of the martial arts alongside his best friend, Davos.
Not... That Davos. Not the Onion Knight.
But you have a duty now. And we'll face it together.
He gained the power of the Iron Fist after bear-hugging the ancient serpent Shou-Lao in a scene that probably would have ruled if we could actually see the dragon.
Come out of the darkness so I can see you.
But it gave him the power to channel his concentrated chi into his hands.
It also gave him a job.
The Iron Fist’s duty above all else is to guard the secret gate to K’un-Lun.
So of course he bails immediately and heads back to New York.
Danny wants to claim his birthright, the massive Rand Enterprises left to him by his parents.
But everyone still thinks he died in the crash, so we spend the next million hours in psych wards and boardrooms while Danny tries to convince people he’s the real deal.
You are not Danny Rand. Yes, I am!
Show me a DNA test that proves it. I have no living relatives!
Fingerprint test. I was ten when we crashed! I never had fingerprints taken!
Then you've got nothing. Aw, man!
Once that’s finally sorted out, Danny gets down to business fighting the Hand.
Turns out, they were in cahoots with Harold Meachum, an old friend of the Rand family who arranged the plane crash to cover up his heroin deals.
That's not what I call a friend. That's what I call a Chinese heroin trade.
After Meachum died of cancer, Madame Gao brought him back to life and used him to control the vast resources of the Rand Corporation.
Meanwhile, another, more chill sect of the Hand tries to recruit Danny through his friendship with Colleen Wing.
But of course, their leader Bakuto turns on Danny and Colleen.
I find partnership to be a more effective method.
Because you can’t spell “evil ninja” without “evil."
Once Danny defeats the Hand, the Meachums and his former friend Davos, he returns to K’un-Lun with Colleen.
Or at least he tries, because all that’s left of the city is a smoking crater.
He literally had ONE JOB.
It’s like if you worked at Chipotle and just let everyone reach over the counter and grab beans with their bare hands.
Ugh.
Now that we’ve got through ‘Iron Fist,’ thank God, we’re ready to rock with ‘The Defenders.’
But we’ve still got all sorts of questions, like:
Who is Sigourney Weaver’s mysterious villain, Alexandra?
How is Luke Cage going to be best friends with a whiny bitch baby like Danny Rand?
Will they ever call the Hulk by his name?
The real, hard-hitting questions!
We’ve got no idea, but at least there’s only 8 episodes instead of f*cking 13!
Sure, these Netflix shows can be kind of a slog, but something about 'Defenders' still feels special.