Season Review: Ironheart

Welcome back to the blog readers. As you may or may not know at this point in time, I basically live and breathe Marvel. While recently a lot of the projects that have come out have not matched the level of quality we have gotten in the first three phases of the MCU, I am optimistic that we can get there again with Kevin Feige having his power back. I personally believe that with Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday (both 2026) both filming now, and the second season of Daredevil: Born Again (2025-) and Avengers: Secret Wars (2027) on the horizon, Marvel will reach its highs again. But now we look back to the official end of Phase 5 of the MCU with this series. Would this show be a step back in the right direction and be able to continue the hot streak they are currently on? Let's talk about it, because I have thoughts.

Ironheart was created for television by Chinaka Hodge, based on Marvel Comics. The series saw direction from Sam Bailey and Angela Barnes. The series stars Dominique Thorne, Lyric Ross, Manny Montana, Matthew Elam, Anji White, Jim Rash, Eric André, Cree Summer, Sonia Denis, Shea Couleé, Zoe Terakes, Shakira Barrera, Anthony Ramos, Alden Ehrenreich, Regan Aliyah, Paul Calderón, and Sacha Baron Cohen. In the series, set sometime after the events of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Riri Williams returns home to Chicago after being expelled from MIT and finds herself at the center of a conflict between technology and magic when she joins criminal Parker Robbins' gang.

NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the season.

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Now I do want to talk for a brief moment about the character of Riri Williams as she has appeared in the MCU thus far. Her only previous appearance in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever felt a bit forced and shoehorned in. I never really felt like that character belonged in that film, but this series also felt unnecessary. It was almost like Echo (2024), a series I have not watched yet (although to do my ranking video for the Phase 5 series I have to before December). Was Marvel going to be able to get me to actually like this character and flesh her out enough? I think the show did a good job of making me like the character, but this is definitely not a great show. I think The Acolyte (2024) is worse than this to be honest. Even though I did not like the story that was presented to me this season, I did like the performance of Dominique Thorne and how they ended the series.

I want to start by talking about the aforementioned performance of Thorne. Before Riri Williams, I cannot say I knew who this young lady was. Yes, she was in films like If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), Freaky Tales (2025) and Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) (a film I did see, and liked), but she has not done anything of note to get her to the level of other stars who joined Marvel like Iman Vellani and Florence Pugh. And I thought Thorne was fine in her role in the aforementioned Wakanda Forever, even though she did not really have much to work with. This series, however, actually gives Thorne something to work with and finally gets me to get behind this character. There is emotion that she is able to convey throughout the runtime of this show and I believe she is able to rise to the occasion in every one of those scenes she is involved in. I especially love the scenes in which the character of Riri is still mourning the loss of her best friend and her stepfather, because of the emotional vulnerability Thorne is able to tap into. And that emotion is what drives this character to make every decision she makes in this show, and I love that Chinaka Hodge was able to stay consistent with this aspect of the character. She has good intentions but does not have the moral compass to be able to disassociate right from wrong. And how this show ends was pretty ballsy if I have to speak about it. I will speak further in depth on how the series ends in a bit, but I did want to bring up that I can finally get behind the character.

I want to take some time now to talk about the story of this series because I definitely feel slighted in a way. First off, I did not like the overall pace of the season because it felt slow and poorly paced until they completely ran out of steam and rushed the finale. Each previous episode ran for over 40 minutes but it felt as if they were taking their time and overstuffing the episodes when they really did not to be. The finale being under 40 minutes definitely did not sit right with me. And then, the story involved dragged and really did not go anywhere interesting and exciting. It felt predictable, it felt lazy and it felt like there really was not a whole lot of care that went into this series. Some things were done right, such as the characterization of Riri Williams, but other things like Parker Robbins' transformation from criminal to supernatural criminal to dumber criminal.

But to end this review (because there really is not much more to say about this series without me being redundant), I want to talk about the ending of the show for a minute. I think ever since WandaVision (2021), us Marvel fans have been speculating over the existence and appearance of the character Mephisto, who is Marvel's incarnation of the Devil. That speculation was renewed with last year's Agatha All Along (2024), in which he was mentioned. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect our first Mephisto appearance would be in a show about Ironheart, but here we are. I also love how Sacha Baron Cohen played this character because he seems like someone who could be trusted but obviously cannot be. We find out it was indeed him who gave Parker his cloak, and the decision to have Riri make a deal with the devil to bring Natalie back was ballsy as hell. Based on this, I absolutely want to see how this decision plays out, and more of Sacha Baron Cohen as Mephisto.

In conclusion, Ironheart wastes a very solid performance from Dominique Thorne on a story that is shotty at best but ends on a very high note. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.