Suddenly this show is on drugs. Probably the creators as well, and increasingly the viewers.
A new drug is hitting the streets of New York courtesy of helpful and lovely pharma girls. Danny convinces one of Rand’s scientists to do a miraculously fast examination of the heroin he received, but Ward doesn’t believe that it’s from the Hand, or that it’s coming into the city through their new pier. Meanwhile, Joy feels bad that the company may be responsible for giving a bunch of kids cancer, but tells the lawyer it isn’t their fault. Danny didn’t get the memo on this and is caught on tape apologizing to a victim’s mother, which apparently counts as taking the blame. That puts Ward and Joy in a tight spot, and Ward bridles under Harold’s order to settle and decides to flip him off both literally and figuratively by having the case go to court.
Danny heads to Colleen to get some backup because he wants to investigate the pier. Again he’s petty and ignores the fact that she’s busy doing her job, this time providing private lessons to Claire Temple, because we had to get her in this series somehow, but despite being kind of upset that he doesn’t seem to care about that, she still keeps giving him dreamy eyes.
Ward then does the most sensible thing anyone in this show has done and quickly develops a serious drug problem due to the stress of having to deal with his father, the company, Danny, and presumably not only watching but living the absurdity of the show. Joy is concerned.
Danny and Colleen sneak out onto the pier to check out the new arriving shipment, and do something that vaguely resembles flirting on the way, despite the fact that they are trying to quietly sneak past armed guards. When they don’t spot any drugs from a distance Danny sneaks onto one of the trucks for a closer look and they close it up and take off. Colleen steals a car to follow and Danny finds a secret apartment in the front half of the truck, with a guy that straight up introduces himself as a chemist to a complete stranger he met ON A TRUCK, and also a body guard that waited for the two to exchange names before even getting off the couch. Fighty fighty, the guard is knocked out, but the chemist is stabbed through the chest and Danny refuses to leave him there despite his protests that he doesn’t want to leave. He then punches the back off of the truck, sees that luckily Colleen is following him so he can at least think he had a plan there, and throws the injured man and himself onto the hood of her stolen vehicle, all without the drivers noticing or wondering what was going on in the back.
Fortunately as of about 10 minutes ago, they know a nurse, so they call Claire over to help with the injured guy who tells them that the Hand has his daughter and are making him make the super awesome synthetic heroine for them. Danny says they will rescue her, and Claire freaks out about the Hand being back. She tells him he shouldn’t go alone, but fails to mention any of the now three other heroes that she knows that would be far more capable at tackling this threat than him, and is simply mollified that her karate instructor will be going along.
To top it all off, Madam Gao interviews the bodyguard that failed to keep the chemist around and says something uncharacteristically stupid (“He punched through solid metal with his bare hands.” “His hands? Are you sure it wasn’t his FIST?” THAT’S WHAT PUNCHING IS GAO.) before doing something uncharacteristically stupid in killing the guy without bothering to even get a description of the guy she suspects is the new Iron Fist. We then get a dramatic reveal as she steps into full lighting for the first time, as if anyone hadn’t recognized the slightly shadowy woman in any of her previous appearances. “Oh, the mysterious shadowy woman that looks and sounds exactly like Madame Gao is actually: Madame Gao!” Super huge reveal, Iron Fist. I don’t know if we can continue to handle this level of suspense and intrigue.