Ironheart Episode 1 Review

[00:00:00] This is the Defenders on TV Podcast Industries. We're back for Marvel's Ironheart. Episode 1, Take Me Home. Hey Trevor! You in there? Sup? I'm Trevor, MIT's teaching robot and virtual operational resource and your very own AI assistant. Please say or enter your student ID to proceed. Come on, bruh. Don't you recognize my voice? Sup? I'm Trevor. MIT's... Okay. 30216RW. Access granted. How can I help you today? Take us home, Trevor.

[00:00:29] Home is not a known location. Chicago. Chicago is an American Rothband. Set a course to Chicago, Illinois. You got it, Rayree. Setting course to Chicago, Illinois. Thank you.

[00:01:02] News break break. Get the glow sticks. New show, new theme. Welcome back, fellow defenders, to Defenders on TV Podcast Industries. We've got a new show. We're talking about Ironheart. Episode 1, Take Me Home. I'm one of your hosts, Derek. Hello there, fellow defenders or ravers, maybe. I am one of your hosts, John.

[00:01:27] And we have the birthday boy joining us for our first episode, definitely, on Ironheart and definitely the first three episodes. Chris, welcome back to TV Podcast Industries. Yes, I missed the last series, but very happy to be back for this fun and games that is Ironheart. Yeah. You are our Ironhearted member of the team. I really mean you're the Iron Man fan of the team. And I found it really interesting going back through our... He's got a cold steel heart. Cold steel heart.

[00:01:56] But I found it really interesting going back through all of the stuff we've covered over the last 10 years of Defenders TV Podcast and TV Podcast Industries. We've never covered an Iron Man movie. We never covered Iron Man 1, 2, or 3 that had all been finished by the time we started podcasting on the Marvel Universe. So this is kind of our first iron point of view character. I wonder why that is, Derek. We started late. That's why. Yeah, it's not like you're team cap or anything. Captain America side boy. Yeah.

[00:02:25] And the Civil War was won by the producer of the show. Yes. Absolutely. No, we started with The Avengers, I think, was our first Avengers Age of Ultron, which was after the end of the first three Iron Man movies. They all happened before Avengers Age of Ultron, interestingly. Well, the second one, the less said about that, the better. First one, good. Third one, I love. So that's great. We don't need to go back and do those again. Exactly.

[00:02:51] Third one being because it's like Die Hard for me. It's that Christmas Iron Man movie. Absolutely. Yep. I like that order. Depending on the day of the week, one and three are interchangeable. But yes, two would be below. But that's just because there are some spectacular scenes like Monaco, Whiplash. That is still classic.

[00:03:21] In episode two. Absolutely. In Iron Man 2. That's a great scene. I really, really enjoy it. I actually prefer that moment in Monaco than most of Formula One in Monaco. It's my least favorite of the city user. So I'm quite happy. I wish occasionally the Whiplash would come out and just take out Verstappen on that track where there's no passing. Wouldn't that make it interesting? They get us all Dutch audience. At some point in the race, a Marvel supervillain will come out and take out Verstappen or maybe somebody else. Probably Verstappen.

[00:03:49] But anyway, the only reason I mention it is we're 17 years into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And here we are with a show called Ironheart. There are some references throughout the first three episodes of the show back all the way to those first three Iron Man movies. I want to think what's interesting about it is that Ironheart in the comic books, Riri Williams, is actually mentored by Iron Man. She's not taking over the mantle of Iron Man. She's not someone to put on Iron Man's suit or anything like that. She's a very intelligent character who gets some support from Tony Stark. I think after he's dead, in fact.

[00:04:19] I think he's a ghost during this period. He's an AI construct. Exactly. So, yeah, that's probably much better than a ghost. Yes. I just looked at it in the comic books really quickly. So he's giving her some support. So she's never supposed to be the new Iron Man by any means. But interestingly, they just make some interesting references that I think we'll talk about as we go through these episodes. All three of these episodes, episode one, two and three, released on the same day on Disney+. We are going to podcast about them each individually, but we have seen all three.

[00:04:49] So we may make mention of things that happen in the other two episodes. I'm sure you've watched them before you started listening to a podcast about the first three episodes. But just in case you haven't, there may be some mild spoilers for the upcoming episodes. But just a reminder, if this is your first time joining us on TV Podcast Industries or defenders on TV Podcast Industries, make sure you subscribe to the podcast by going over to tvpodcastindustries.com. You'll find all of our podcasts over there for the last 11 years of TV Podcast Industries and all of our Marvel coverages over there as well.

[00:05:15] You can send in your thoughts on any of the episodes of Ironheart to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com or pop it over to our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash tvpodcastindustries, where we'll have a feedback post for each episode of Ironheart for you to leave your thoughts as we go through the episodes. They are being released in two weeks. We're just getting six episodes of this show, three episodes this week and three episodes next week. But we do want to hear your thoughts on each of the episodes. We'd love to have you join along with us for this season of Marvel TV.

[00:05:44] Yeah, absolutely. Let us get into our spoiler-filled discussion, I think. Derek, take us away with some of the episode details. Sure. Well, the character of Riri Williams and Ironheart was created by Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mike Dadalio in 2016. So over 10 years old. Almost 10 years old. Yeah, interesting. The old Bendis. Like Marmite. You love him or you hate him, I think, is the usual thing. I think he's great. Spread thickly on toast.

[00:06:14] He's really nice. I think, actually, it's more of a Dark Knight thing. You either become the hero or you live long enough to become the villain. I think that's partly what it is with any comic book writer. If they stay too long in any comic book company, eventually the audience starts to turn on them. It seems to be that way. Brian Michael Bendis has done some of the most epic storylines in Marvel Comics. Absolutely brilliant storylines. I really, really enjoy loads and loads of his work. But not every comic book is going to be a hit. I suppose that's probably the way I'd say it.

[00:06:44] But he is one of the creators of Riri Williams. The executive producers for this show, of course, are Kevin Feige, Louis Desposito, Brad Winterbaum. And also for this show, we have Zol Negelhout, Chanika Hodge, who's the head writer of the show. Ryan Coogler, of course, and his wife, Jinji Coogler. And Sev Hossainian. Ryan Coogler, of course, brought the character Riri Williams to life in the last Black Panther movie, which we also covered here on TV Podcast Industry. So her first live action appearance in Black Panther Wakanda Forever.

[00:07:13] We watched that a couple of weeks ago, actually, to kind of get caught up on Riri Williams' character. I really enjoyed it going back to that movie. I love that. I love that movie. I think Nemo is brilliant. I love the whole concept of it. Yeah. Yeah, fab. And it was just cool to see Shuri work with Riri Williams as well. I think Shuri had a completely different character arc in that movie, where she had to be the one dealing with the loss of her brother in the first movie. She's much more of the fun-loving teenage character.

[00:07:40] So bringing in Riri Williams to be the fun-loving teenage character who's able to help out Shuri in the things she needs to do, I thought was a great idea and a great way to introduce the character. So what a cool way to do it. Yeah, definitely. I'm going to have to re-watch it now. I didn't get a chance to re-watch it before jumping into Iron Heard, so I think it's about time. There's no callbacks, but there's definitely the same flavor, and I think that's coming from Coogler.

[00:08:06] Yeah, there's literally just one callback, which we'll get into as we get into our notes for the show and our discussion points on the show. The head writer for the show, as I mentioned, is Chanika Hodge. She was a writer on Snowpiercer for 10 episodes, a really good TV show spinning out of the Chris Evans movie. And she also wrote an episode of Mike Flanagan's The Midnight Club, which was another fun teenage show from the new horror master, Mike Flanagan. So she's got lots of experience in different types of genres.

[00:08:36] Excellent stuff, yeah. And this episode was directed by Samantha Bailey, known as the director for Grown-ish and Dear White People. She's also an executive producer on this show and directs the next two episodes as well. Lovely stuff, yeah. And as I mentioned, head writer Chanika Hodge is the writer of this episode as well. John, do you want to give us the synopsis for the first episode of Iron Heard? Season 1, Episode 1, Take Me Home. Sure.

[00:09:00] After returning to college from Wakanda and getting a taste of her true abilities, Riri Williams realises she's unable to achieve her goals without a major influx of money. She sells projects all around the area, but when MIT finds out, Riri is expelled. Riri takes her iron suit that she built with her college grant money and flies it back home to Chicago.

[00:09:24] But when her expulsion kicks in, Riri is locked out of the AI in the suit, sending it crashing to the ground in the city. Her flight through the city gets the attention of criminal boss The Hood, who recruits Riri to his crew with the offer of extensive cash reserves. Before she joins the team, Riri has to fix the AI in her suit. To make a leap in this programming, she uses her own brain scans.

[00:09:53] While the suit charges, Riri falls asleep, but she's rudely awakened hours later by the face of her best friend, Natalie. The only problem is, Natalie has been dead for five years. It's a ghost! Mmm. It's a ghost. Or an AI, yeah. I really like this, actually. Yeah. I really like this setup with Natalie. Mm-hmm. I loved it. Yeah. I was kind of like, ooh, what's going on here? Yep.

[00:10:23] Because I don't think it was that clear what she was trying to do, or at least I just kind of missed it initially. Yeah. Like, it's nice that the episode opens with her, with Natalie when they're a bit younger, and then closes with Natalie waking her up. Well, the flashback, yeah, exactly. But I think that... I just love this relationship over the next three episodes and beyond. Absolutely. I think it's a good construct, and Natalie's great. Yeah, she is. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:10:51] Overall, Chris, what did you think of the first episode of the show? So, I enjoyed it. I'll preface with that. My grumble, weak grumble, is they make some... Like, essentially what you're talking about with Natalie, they make some assumptions that you're going to go, oh, I understand what that is. They didn't really basil exposition some of the points. Mm-hmm. Which we have seen in, again, the audience...

[00:11:20] Not calling the audience dumb, but sometimes audiences need to be smacked in the face with a piece. Mm-hmm. And they were just trying to be very smart. Additionally, they didn't, in my opinion, set what we in kind of TV podcasts have always called that Netflix ending.

[00:12:05] Mm-hmm. Because it just wasn't as explained. Right. As much as I would want it to be. And again, I wasn't on my phone. Right. I was watching this. So, there was parts of it where I'm... And again, I know who Natalie... Like, I know who Red Hood is. I know Natalie from the comic books. I'm like, I understand where these characters are based on. Yeah. So, parts of me, I'm like, oh, I knew that is. I guess what that is. I understand that. Blah, blah, blah.

[00:12:35] And still, for some of it, I'm like, ooh. I know exactly what you're saying. I think I definitely have that. But mine was almost the reverse, is that this was a little bit too much set up in the first episode. Okay. But I'm guessing... So, but that suggests that there's quite a lot of exposition. And I think, like, just the whole flying to Chicago and da-da-da-da-da. Like, I think there was a lot of exposition.

[00:13:05] It was very much an introductory episode. And... Well, absolutely. You've got to move the character from where she was. Wakanda forever being given a suit by the Wakandans as a prize for her helping them out, taking care of Namor. She gets her way back. She now got the world at her feet. Okay, you've got to set up that she doesn't have the world at her feet. How do we get her to her new situation? How do we get her moved out of where she is? And I think that's what a first episode has to accomplish. Just slightly contrary to yourself, Chris. Of course.

[00:13:33] I do think that ending with Natalie had me going. I am so glad the second episode is available right now for me to watch. Because what the hell just happened here? Is she having visions? Is she having a dream that Natalie's alive again? And I love that the second episode explains that quite quickly. So, I was instantly pressing my button to go on to the next episode to find out what exactly happened right there. But, with that said, let's get into discussing the episode itself.

[00:13:59] Now, we've got a little bit of a loose structure because we've got lots of episodes to talk about. So, we are going to talk about our first case note. And this actually came from a discussion that me and Chris had a couple of weeks ago before we'd seen really anything to do with Ironheart. All we knew was this is a Disney Plus show with a person in an Iron Man-like suit. We know the comic books. But an Iron Man-like suit. What are they going to do in the show to take the suit away from Riri? Because she can't be walking around in it every episode.

[00:14:26] She can't do the thing that they do in the $200 million movie where they have Robert Downey Jr. sitting at home with a blue screen and then 200 CGI artists are in an office fixing up the Iron Man suit to fill in for him in the movie. So, how are they going to take away the costume? How are they going to take away the suit for Riri? So, our first case note is Riri loses access to her suit. So, we get the setup. We get her talking about what happened. That she was working abroad, which is her working in Wakanda.

[00:14:55] And now she's back. She knows what she can accomplish. She had the entire resources of the Wakandan nation, a very wealthy nation, and a nation-state supported by Vibranium, which is massively powerful. And here she is, now back in MIT, now a student again, on grant money. What does she do to get the money together to realize her dream? She's not a billionaire like Tony Stark, as she calls out. What's she going to do? So, what she does is basically does everybody else's coursework and sells it to them.

[00:15:25] I love this setup. It's a good setup, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I really liked how this played out, to be honest, where, you know, her ambition is there, what she wants to do. She doesn't have the resources. You know, she's raising her funds for experiments and so on. But ultimately, it leads to her getting expelled from MIT.

[00:15:54] And I kind of, like, you know, this is very kind of, like, montage-y with, you know, all the things she's selling. But I do also like just the expulsion. I just think it's good because I like the fact that she starts, in a sense, whining and whinging. Mm-hmm. And the dean is, hang on, I fight for you to be here. Yeah.

[00:16:22] You have shown nothings in the however many years you've been here. All your promise. Mm-hmm. I think it's also the fact that she's gotten this taste from Wakanda. Exactly.

[00:16:48] That's probably what's pushing her into going, I could do anything at all, but I can't actually do anything because I don't have any money. And so I'm going to get money. And then I'm going to contravene. Like, I loved just one thing in the dean's point that she makes to her. I'm going to call her dean just because Jim Rash is sitting right beside her. I think she's not the dean. I think she's ahead of school or something like that. But anyway, she says to Riri, you've been here three years and you've had as many disciplinary hearings. So this isn't the first disciplinary hearing either. She's been called out every single year for doing something.

[00:17:18] So, but their big thing is that she's basically encouraging people to copy her work and use it as that. Yeah. I like the fact that the dean calls out the BS, in a sense, here. And it's almost that actually Riri is in the wrong place at the wrong time after the Wakandan experience. What she's got, you know, there's the mentor, Shiri, not Tony Stark.

[00:17:43] And so actually, you know, she's in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing. She can do all this. She doesn't need the cert at the end of it because she is that intelligent prodigy. Well, I think it's the level of work that she's at, the amount of intelligence she has, the things that she can focus herself on.

[00:18:10] If she doesn't come out of this college course with something behind her that someone can invest in, she's not going to be able to realize any of it because she can't just walk out. She doesn't have another grant to rely on. She doesn't have a company. Agreed. She doesn't have a billion dollars behind her. Like, agreed. But that's what I like is that it's not just the money.

[00:18:31] It's the notion of why she doesn't have any money because that connects her with ultimately Parker later on. Exactly. And I think that's really, I just like how it plays out. And that just, it worked for me for sure. Yeah.

[00:18:52] I also just, as a point, I liked that Trevor, the AI assistant in her suit, does also look like the word paper clip. Yeah. Oh, back from the 90s. Yeah, back from the 90s. Our wonderful word paper clip. I can help you out with anything. Clippy. There was no AI at the time, so it couldn't really help you out with anything at all. Chris, what did you think of this opening here? It looks like you are.

[00:19:16] The jokes we made back when we were talking about this, which is, were they going to literally pull an Iron Man 3 where they were just going to kind of crash her in the middle of nowhere? Yeah. And just kind of strip it down. And to a degree, they kind of did. Not in the middle of nowhere. They put her back in Chicago, hometown. But they strip her of an arc reactor of all the pieces. So, it's a unique way of doing it.

[00:19:47] Again, we've seen the other episodes, and I'm so happy with even just giving us this extended period in the first episode. Where it is, it's Iron Man-esque flight. I was almost expecting a downgraded CGI piece from what we got in Macon and Forever, per what you said, Derek.

[00:20:12] Which is, there's a difference between the Disney Plus show and the budget for Black Panther 2. So, I was expecting... A lot of that is because it's six hours that they're putting on screen rather than two. Yes, exactly. If you have her on screen in the CGI Iron Man outfit for half of the running time, that's a massive, massive flight. Interestingly, behind the scenes, they have said that they built a more rubberized suit. So, there is a suit on set that they can get into and walk around in, which is really interesting.

[00:20:42] Something that wouldn't even have been possible when they were doing Iron Man back in the day. So, they were able to find a practical solution for that, which I think is kind of cool too. Yeah. And for me, it's just... There's a... I wanted to say there's something about Riri's character that really just... It works that you're stripping her back to bare bones. It worked with Tony.

[00:21:08] Like, these people are, in the best way possible, arrogance personified. They know they are sometimes the smartest people in the room. Yeah. They know that it is their job to change humanity. And to be fair, you're just getting in their way. Yeah. And the biggest thing in Riri's way right now is lack of funding. Mm-hmm. And she knows, I'm going to change the world.

[00:21:36] I did it when I was in Wakanda, where I didn't have a lack of funding. I'm back here now, and I have a lack of funding, and I'm going to do whatever is possible to get things done. But... Yes. And her big thing, and she calls it out with her conversation with Xavier when she arrives back in Chicago. Just a quick thing to say, when she asked the AI to call Xavier before we saw his picture on screen, I was wondering, is that how they're going to introduce Professor Xavier? Yeah.

[00:22:04] Call Xavier as she leaves Chicago. It's not. It's a friend Xavier. But she calls it out to him later on that her plan to get investment is actually to build the Iron Man suit, to build a version of the Iron Man suit. If she can build that with better AI, with better armor on her budget, from her background, then everybody will pay attention to all the other things that she does and can do. And I do wonder, you know, in the light of a massive movie and a massive success of this year

[00:22:32] that came out of Ryan Coogler, I wonder if this is something that he came to the project with. Do we have Riri Williams here knowing what she can achieve because of what Wakanda did? Do we have her coming back to her own world and going, well, no one's going to pay attention to me unless I fit into that mold of Iron Man? In the same way that Ryan Coogler, who started out his career as an indie filmmaker, made two massive Black Panther movies and then had to make his own movie Sinners,

[00:23:01] which he made this year and has now become one of the most successful solo movies of all time. But no one believed in him being able to do it. Did he feel he had to fit into that machine that is Marvel in order to get the responsibility to make his own movie? Is that what they're putting on Riri here? That Riri feels she can't possibly do the inventions that she wants to do until she's at least given one to them, showing them that she can achieve the same goal as Tony Stark had in the past. And then she can move on and make the inventions that she wants.

[00:23:30] She calls out to Xavier, once she gets the funding, she's moving to Dubai to just focus on all the other things she wants to work on. So I wonder if that was a little thing from Ryan Coogler's experience. He's moving to Dubai to focus on what he wants to focus on. Well, no, moving to the South of America to focus on Sinners was the basic one of that. And now he can probably do whatever he wants to after Sinners. Yeah. Excellent movie, by the way. Yeah. No, I mean, it definitely feels like that.

[00:23:57] And I think the other interesting sort of layer with Riri as well, in addition to that, is that she's still not over the death of her friend or a stepfather, which comes out with her mother, Ronnie. Yeah. And also that all this stuff feels ever so small to her and wants to make more, it feel big like Wakanda. So it's like feeding into what you've just said as well.

[00:24:26] That additional, those kind of additional layers here. And, you know, maybe even just the resentment that while she's back in her mother's apartment, in her old room and so on. So like, it's, it's just a nice layering of stuff that's eating at this really sort of talented girl. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's really tough, isn't it?

[00:24:55] Like that's the experience that lots of people have when they go away to college for the first time. They have their own responsibility the first time, especially someone at this level of talent that Riri has being the big fish actually in college and then coming back home to your hometown, living in your, in your parents' bedroom, basically the one that you grew up in as a kid. You suddenly feel like that big fish in a tiny pond. And how do you get out of there as quickly as possible? So Riri is a character in this first episode. She's got lots going on,

[00:25:21] but a lot of it is about how does she find her place in the world now after all of the experiences that she's had, which is the right way to set up this character, I think. Yeah, definitely. I think on to case note number two, because as she does return home, crashing as the AI is effectively deleted from the suit as she is expelled and all her access is removed, she is spotted by the hood and his bro, John. Great name.

[00:25:51] And so yes, on to case note number two, the hood at Masters of Evil. I've called them Masters of Evil here in our, in our case note number two. No slight on the actual crew that's here, but in the comic books, the hood's team are called the Masters of Evil. That's the reason why I wanted to mention it. But we do get a bit of an introduction to them because they're on their first heist. And as we know, this is something that's a function of the show. We will see heists from this group as they go on.

[00:26:17] But the intro to each of the members of the team is they're on the heist and who they are and what they're, and what they're there for. I love this. I love that this is a way of introducing all of these brand new characters into the show, as well as Riwi and her family. We get the introduction to the hood and all of his team. What a cool idea. I have been waiting for this because I, like for me, Brian K. Vaughan's Max series of the hood is really good.

[00:26:44] And like this leans into it very, very heavily. I think that's really good. It leans in that around him effectively, in a sense, wanting to sort of put it to, you know, the corporate bosses or, you know, those destroying communities. It seems very Robin Hood-esque as well in that sense.

[00:27:11] Like he's not as such giving the money that he steals to the poor. It is to make him rich. But it's kind of almost about that equalization and distribution of wealth a bit. And that's what the comic books kind of comes in on. You know, yes, we're saying he's a criminal boss and so on. But it's almost like it's just very street level. Yeah. It's like the start of a criminal organization. Exactly.

[00:27:39] That would sort of get bigger over time, you know? Yeah. Given that he seems to be going after bigger and bigger fish that we find out as we move through episodes two and three, for example. Yeah, absolutely. But I also like that we have a bit of a comedy side of the episode under the hood and his team as they stand at the moment. Introduced first member of the team we kind of meet is Stuart. Don't call me Stuart. It's Rampage played by Eric Andre, the comedian.

[00:28:08] So interesting to see him in a Marvel show. But he's not very dependable as a member of the team. He's not very good. Yeah, he's not good at all. But the rest of the team seem like a well-oiled machine and it depends on him taking down the alarms, making sure the alarms stay off while they carry out the job. But that's not what happens at Rampage. No. For me, I'm just happy with how it all comes together. I'm happy with the team. It's fun. It's a fun introduction.

[00:28:40] I don't know if this is the best place to say here, but the hood's hood. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I did honestly expect them to almost contemporize it, kind of make it into the hoods. It turned like initially it's a suit and then by the end of the series it becomes a hood.

[00:29:01] So to basically stick very closely to the comic books and make it a red, kind of burnt, red, fiery hood. I was like, cool. Definitely. That image actually of the hood on the stand in that kind of vaulted area where Parker and the Masters of Evil are. It's like, it's very cool image. Like for me.

[00:29:32] I thought it was really cool. Just that wire sort of mannequin stand with the hood on it. It just shows the reverence that Parker has for the hood as well. It does. Treating it in a certain way. It does, but it's just the shape of the stand. It's kind of, it's like, it's unnatural, which is kind of makes sense for that. It's not a human mannequin. It's not a coat hanger. It's, it's this wire kind of stand.

[00:30:01] Yeah. And I just thought it looked really, really good, that image. And yeah, no, I mean, I thought it was really good. I mean, even just having the sort of impact of him wearing it that you see with, and John, his, you know, his best friend. And second in command. And second in command. And he personally likes to play with knives. Plays with knives and plays with tattooing.

[00:30:31] You know, doing the tattoos to try and sort of cover that up. Again, really cool. Yeah. Yeah. As for Anthony Ramos, who's playing the role as Parker, what do you think, John? I know this is something that you've been looking forward to because we saw Twisters this year. And I think he's in Top Gun as well. But we saw him in Twisters in the last year. And the minute we saw him on screen, John went, that's the guy that's playing the hood. So did you like him in the role? No, I did. I mean, that's the thing.

[00:30:59] One of those actors that has been in Twisters was, I think, in one of the Transformer movies as well. Oh, that might have been it, yeah. He's been in a few. And, like, at the moment, I'm kind of really enjoying his take in these first three episodes of him playing the hood. So, yeah, I mean, I've got no complaints at all. I like, as I say, just seeing the impact of the hood on him, you get that from him.

[00:31:29] Yeah. That's what I mean. Yes, he's a criminal, but he's one that you kind of warm to. I like the way that he talks about their mission. Yeah. It feels quite reasonable to me. Not that I'm kind of starting to get into it. I thought I'm going to be setting up a similar thing.

[00:31:49] But, like, there's a rationale to it that makes sense, and he's also, he seems outwardly in these moments to be sort of fairly rational about things and sort of fair with people. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a little bit eat the rich at the moment, and it's still quite mysterious as we get through the episodes of what the actual plan is. Oh, great. Exactly.

[00:32:17] But I really like them as the character. One of the touches I do really love about it is that the haircut that the hair and makeup team have given him actually looks exactly like the hood when he pulls the hood down as well. It's still in the same shape, so he's kind of got hat hair or hood hair when he takes it off. Can't say I noticed that, but well done. That's a deep cut. That is very deep. Not that deep. It's like I imagine the Lego figure of the hood, and you just put it on. Exactly. There's his Lego hair. Exactly.

[00:32:45] No, no, I just meant it was a deep cut of the actual hair. Yay! I like it. I like it. Thank you. As for the rest of the team, John, as you mentioned, is a second in command. He's a very forceful character, kind of does the planning for the mission and kind of brings everybody on board. He's HR as well, which I really like. We do. We have Shea Kool-Aid girl, which was very cool. Because she was on, I think, and won RuPaul's Drag Race. Yep.

[00:33:13] So she's playing Slug, which was great. Absolutely. Slug's from Madjipur, another mention of Madjipur, the city where Wolverine lived for a while, where Sharon Carter was a master of crime. Power broker. Power broker. So the power broker, that's it. I wonder if Slug worked with Sharon Carter over there at one point. Oh, sure. They're going to try and make that connection at some point. That would be kind of cool, wouldn't it? Yeah. As long as Shea Kool-Aid does not get killed, Slug get killed off at some point in this series.

[00:33:42] They are so popular enough that they could bring them back multiple times. Absolutely. As that kind of, I want to say, bit part is wrong, but smaller part across multiple anytime they need a hacker from Madjipur. Yeah. Get them in. Absolutely. Yep. That'd be cool. That'd be cool. We also have Clown, who's the explosive genius. Very cool character as well. I like her as the season goes on. She's really cool as well.

[00:34:08] And we have the blood siblings who were kicked out of professional sport and then turned to blood sports, effectively, and then were taken in by the Hood. I like these two characters as well. There's only a little bit of them. They're the big bruisers of the team. And interestingly, they're based on the blood brothers who were members of the Hood's team in the comic books. So they were the big bruisers. They kind of look like the Mauler twins from Invincible Chris, actually. It's quite interesting looking at them. But here we have the blood siblings.

[00:34:38] These two characters who are ready to fight at a drop of a hat, which I think is a cool set of characters. Again, they're almost like the Ocean's Eleven type team. Everybody has their place. Everybody has their thing they have to do, except for Rampage, who ruins it. And just after Rampage ruins it and they decide to fire him, there we have Riri Williams coming in out of the sky in her iron suit coming into the city. And yes, exactly as she thought.

[00:35:04] Someone takes notice and someone with a lot of money takes notice of her designs to bring her on board. It's a really cool way of tying those two stories together. Yeah, well, that's it. A fun way of it. Exactly. It's attractive, isn't it? You know, he's like, join me and I'll give you the tools you need, you know, so that you can stop feeling small, stop feeling trapped, develop and work on that suit.

[00:35:27] Which, the only thing is, you know, we need to suit for tomorrow's heist that you're on, which is to go after this organization or this corporate organization called Tunnel. Yeah, and that doesn't seem like a thing he's just saying to Riri, looking at the rest of the crew. That is the feeling of what he's done with all of the crew to take them on board. Everybody was going through their experiences where they were being treated badly by the people that were around them.

[00:35:55] He's creating this family, this group together under the banner of this team, knowing that they have special skills and special abilities that wouldn't be wanted or wouldn't be needed in other groups. So he's extending that to Riri as well, bringing her in and making her part of this group. But yeah, I do love that eventually he just goes, look, here's a massive box of money. We'll call it a signing bonus. That's obviously what you're here for. Well, I say, come work for me when you're ready to get the money you deserve.

[00:36:25] Yeah, that's it. And that's kind of it for our second case note. Let's move on to our last case note. A little bit about the family, really. Our last case note is your best friend's back, which will culminate, of course, in what happens at the end of the episode. But I do want to talk a little bit about the family because this is something that is really important in Riri Williams' story here. Her returning after college to her mom. And just that the intro to her mom and the intro to her friends that are left behind in Chicago.

[00:36:51] I just thought it was a great way of showing the city of Chicago and how much of a character it's going to be. Yeah, absolutely. And we have that opening scene where she crashes down and it spells out Ironheart on the ground behind her, which is a cool little touch as well. I really like that. And we have all of the people that see it happening all want to have their spoke. All want to either slag her off for crashing or see if she's okay. Does she need a bandage?

[00:37:16] She meets up with this kid, Landon, who rips her off, giving her suit a lift home. Oh, it wasn't just a lift. This economy? Yeah, exactly. I want $20 for that. That was really good. I did as well really like that as she arrives at the apartment, Ronnie's there with her friends and Maddie. One of them is like, well, you need black obsidian for grieving.

[00:37:43] But I'm just using this to clear the stank aura you dragged in. And I was like, welcome home. Absolutely. That was just really good. That was such a great line. But I really liked it as well because her mom's laughing away. She knows this is just them having a go at Riri, just having a bit of a laugh with her. I thought that was a really good scene with this team of her moms. That was really good. Taking care of her, I guess. Yeah.

[00:38:08] And also just not to forget the flashback right up at the start, you know, where we see Riri with her best friend as well. And, you know, sharing their wishes and dreams. Like I think she says, like a knight with Thor and his hammer. Absolutely. And those drapes.

[00:38:29] I really, I really, really enjoyed, as you said, they're setting up the community as a secondary character around Riri. I can already see some form of Riri's in trouble in episode five or six and goes to and gets advice from her moms and her moms group.

[00:38:53] Like she'll get that kind of push because it is that kind of familiar kind of, I want to say knitting circle, but that's not what it is. Wine group, book club, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. Yeah. It's that community. Yeah. I'm kind of thinking of the barbershop back in the cage days. Exactly. Exactly. It was poppy, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of thinking, you know, this is, it's her coming back to a community that she knew in the past and they're all still there.

[00:39:20] They're all still really tightly knit and they're all still open for her being involved. And yeah, I think you're right, Chris. I think there's going to be moments with this group and with some of the other groups. There's even that moment when she goes into the junkyard guy and he remembers this kid from when she was a kid, when she was a kid coming to him. He remembers her making a big deal, going off to MIT. And then he's kind of saying to her, oh, and I always knew that you'd come back and spend all your money with me and buy all of my stuff. And she was about to ask him to give him some stuff for free until John comes in and pays the bill.

[00:39:50] But I do love that he remembers her. And again, part of the community. But they call out, because John turns around and he goes, who hasn't heard of Riri Williams? Who blah, blah, blah, science fair, blah, blah, blah, graduates college or goes to college at 14. It's that. Like she is a local legend in her own right. So it's fun to see that the community knows her, will support her. And I'm hoping if we ever were to get Ironheart season two,

[00:40:20] then you get that similar way we got Luke Cage, where Luke Cage became a figure within the community. And it's that. So then we do get that up and beyond point of the art. This is very much the origin season. So it's where we go from here is going to be interesting. Absolutely. Absolutely. Definitely.

[00:40:43] And then, of course, the big character at the end of the episode, Natalie, the arrival of Natalie at the end of the episode. Just to kind of call back to that again and just to mention that again, that effectively Riri's talking about the fact that she's been trying to recreate the AI that she had in Wakanda when she had the suit there without any of those resources. So what can she do? Maybe she can use her own brainwaves to kickstart that.

[00:41:11] And at the end of the episode, she's awoken by the voice of Natalie. Yeah. Because, I mean, that was just where I got slightly confused because I know that Xavier had given her a tape deck with Natalie's voice on it. So I thought she was listening to that. For some reason, I just didn't clock that they were on her temple. Yeah. I thought they were earbuds. I just didn't really notice it. Maybe she invented it.

[00:41:41] I thought she had earphones in rather than there was this sort of synaptic brainwaves were sort of feeding into the suits. So I thought it was coming from the tape deck. Maybe she's also trying to create a new version of Dre's beats that just feed the music directly into your brain. I can do it better. I can do it better. So that's where I got kind of confused when the AI of Natalie appeared. See, I think you've actually called out what did happen. She was listening to the tape deck.

[00:42:10] She realizes that the suit has to take another four or five hours to charge. She's going to have to sit there doing nothing. She listens to the tape. And yes, that spark that kicks into her brain of Natalie is Natalie's voice on the tape deck. That's bringing it all back to the forefront of her mind. She gets that flashback to the trauma of the drive-by shooting. Yes. Yes, she does. And yeah, I think that's what inspires her.

[00:42:36] I think this in itself is kind of the hero origin story. We've had the hero origin story for every character in the MCU. Rhea Williams didn't really get one. She was plucked out of MIT, brought to Wakanda so that she could create a suit. But she didn't really get like, you know, in a cave building a suit like Tony Stark got or the super soldier serum like Captain America got.

[00:42:58] But this moment here, that kind of all of those sparking things, all of those coincidental things happening together at the same time leading to this moment at the end when Natalie arrives where she's created an AI, which we'll talk about, I'm sure, in the second episode. That's kind of a new part of her origin story that we're seeing on screen. Exactly. Although I did have a strange note where it says, as Riri works on the Ironheart suit, John works on the hood's body.

[00:43:30] As he's doing the tattoo. As he's tattooing the hat. That's a different type of note. Exactly. It was. Fantastic. I mean the character rather than me. Yes, sure. Speaking of notes, anybody got any other notes about the episode? Anything you want to mention that we haven't talked about from the first episode? I'm assuming you want to call it and we kind of briefly mentioned it, the Dean from Community. Absolutely. It's Jim Rash, as you call out in one of your notes. Mm-hmm. Derek.

[00:43:59] And it's fun. We haven't seen him since Civil War. Yeah. Since kind of he gave Tony Stark and he was, Tony Stark was in MIT and then he did his whole, if anyone wants to remember, it's that piece where he was kind of seeing himself back in the day. Mm-hmm. And it was that kind of thing. Then he basically funded every MIT project. Yeah. With his own money. Exactly. And then that included movies. Yeah.

[00:44:27] And that's the big call out for this character, this MIT liaison. Even though he just happened to be there when Tony Stark was doing the presentation, he feels that this is his life to make sure that everybody lives up to the standards of Tony Stark. When she gets kicked out of school, his line to her is, you have been a horrible steward of Mr. Stark's legacy.

[00:44:49] And there's no one that's been a better representation of Mr. Stark's legacy than somebody that would book the trend, book the rules, and just spend all their time using their knowledge to build great technology. Right? That is what Tony Stark would love to happen if he was to choose somebody, I'd say. Oh, yeah. He's arrogant. She would.

[00:45:08] I would love if we get some form of Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr., popping in to say hello at some point. I haven't gone back to have a look at those chairs announcing all of the actors that are going to be in Doomsday and in all the future movies that were announced a couple of months ago. But I think there's a possibility we could be seeing Dominic Thorne, who plays Riri Williams, meeting up with Robert Downey Jr., who's playing a different character in the future. Yes, that's true. That's true.

[00:45:38] Maybe. One other note from me that I just thought was an interesting touch. We see Riri go past Gary's auto shop. We heard about Gary, her stepfather, and his auto shop has been closed down. We see her going past at night, and there's two lights that are out. The ones on G and A are out. So it's actually spelling out Riri's auto shop. Very good.

[00:46:02] It's a reference that it could be her future workshop when she takes it over from Gary as it's been left. That makes sense. Left gone for a couple of years. There's a mention by her mother that Gary and Natalie died five years ago. So it's been a very long time since the two of them passed. So the implication of that, I'm sure we know we'll play it as the season goes on. I have one final note. Just to mention the use of Sinner Man by Nina Simone at the end of this episode. Great song.

[00:46:32] One of my favorites. At least it was up until I got the Funko Pop video game where there's a level based on the TV show Umbrella Academy, which we covered here in TV podcast industries. The game lasted. The level was about 30 minutes long, and those 30 minutes are just soundtracked to Sinner Man by Nina Simone. Literally that song and that song only over and over again for over 30 minutes.

[00:46:58] I think I was going quite insane by the end of the episode, and I used to love that song. It was my favorite Nina Simone song, but I just wanted to mention that. They did that with every level as well. It was. They had a song that just kept looping. Going over and over. But I suppose for Sinner Man particularly, the song itself does loop, and it's her lyrics that make it interesting. The song itself loops the same three seconds over and over again. It would be like having All My Friends by LCD Sound System looping for 45 minutes instead of the 12 minutes that is looping.

[00:47:28] But anyway, just wanted to mention that. Excellent. Excellent stuff. Any other notes, John? No, none from me. Well, how about you tell us whether you defend Ironheart Season 1, Episode 1, Take Me Home? I do defend this episode. I think it's a really good introduction. I'd give it three and a half hammer times out of five. I just thought it was a really good introduction to the show. Sort of reconnecting in with Riri Williams.

[00:47:55] Loved the introduction of The Hood, aka Parker, and his team, the Masters of Evil. And, yeah, just the whole vibe back in Riri's hometown of Chicago with her mom, her mom's best friend, her sort of best friend's brother that she's probably got a thing for, as it looks like.

[00:48:23] And I just, you know, that vibe was really, really good. And if they pull it off like they did with Luke Cage and Harlem, I think it would be a really great addition to this show. So, yeah, three and a half hammer times out of five. Fantastic. Chris, how about yourself? Do you defend Season 1, Episode 1 of Ironheart? I would. I would. I would be about the same as John.

[00:48:52] I think it's a good introduction, not a great introduction. But it was, I think for me, it was missing one or two kind of like more, more, more. Like I'm dying to know all the details. But I am still, I will take your point that, yes, the Natalie kind of reveal at the end in the last two seconds is enough to kind of drive most people. I just don't think, I think sometimes they didn't explain enough.

[00:49:21] But, yeah, I'm happy to see what continues to go on throughout the season. Fantastic. Derek, what about yourself? Do you defend this episode of Ironheart? Yeah, I definitely defend this. I think it's a bit more somber than I was expecting. But I guess, you know, the character coming out of a very somber movie like Black Panther, Wakanda Forever, where her introduction happened. And then, you know, us hearing everything about her. She can't afford to do anything that she wants to do. She has to move back home to Chicago. So big fish, small pond.

[00:49:50] Her background is that she's lost her best friend and her stepfather five years ago. So all of those things in that first episode do lead to a much more somber story. But also pairing that up with a little bit of a comedy introduction to the character of the Hood and his crew, I thought worked really well. And again, that background of the characters in the city of Chicago. A new city, sweet home Chicago for Marvel. I'm intrigued to see how it all plays out in the show. And I think it's a good setup.

[00:50:19] I think it's a good start. Definitely defend this episode. Great stuff. Excellent stuff. Well, fellow defenders and of course, fellow quizzers. We have the Ironheart MIT student bar pub quiz. Excellent. Yes, let's get some drinks and listen to the first question for our pub quiz. Yes, some drinks and some bar snacks. Maybe a few pork scratchings, scampi fries or bacon fries or a pack of knobby nuts.

[00:50:49] Or maybe more appropriate to this show. So maybe we'll go for Chicago deep dish pizza along with our beers. Corn dog. Yeah, absolutely. Let's do that instead. Cool. John, do you want to give us the first question for this series of Ironheart? Absolutely. What is the name of the Hood's base of operations? Oh, excellent. John, do you want to get that question one more time? I certainly will.

[00:51:16] What is the name of the Hood's base of operations? Fantastic. That's the first question of six questions. We'll ask one per episode. And at the end of the season, email us into feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com with your answers. We will also be putting the questions up on tvpodcastindustries.com. If you miss any of the questions, you can get them up there. But at the end of the season, we will be able to choose a winner of the pub quiz and they will get some Ironheart goodies. Sounds good.

[00:51:44] I almost said for the first and not the last time Ironfist goodies there. I'm not too sure whether any of our listeners want Ironfist goodies, even though we love Ironfist. We still love Ironfist. And Ironheart. And there's rumors that that character is coming back in some way, shape or form in the future. Well, we have confirmation the other show that we're going to be talking about later this year, Eyes of Wakanda, will feature an Ironfist. So we will see an Ironfist in animation form in just a couple of months time.

[00:52:13] Also spaying out of Wakanda Forever from Ryan Coogler. So he gets two shows this year and the biggest movie of the year. That's amazing. There we go. But that's it for our discussion on the first episode. We're recording ahead of time. So we won't have any feedback until you send it in to us for the second and third episodes. Get emails to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com with your thoughts or join us over in the Facebook group for the spoiler posts for each episode of Ironheart. We hope you're enjoying it as we are.

[00:52:40] And we can't wait to get on to episode two, which is called Will the Real Natalie Please Stand Up? Please stand up. Please stand up. All right. Thanks so much for joining us. Talk to you again next time. Bye. Thank you so much, fellow defenders. And of course, until episode two, which is almost immediately. Keep watching. Keep listening. And of course, keep defending. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.