Decider.com
http://decider.com/2017/01/23/netfli...fleetwood-mac/
Netflix’s ‘The Defenders’ Won’t Work Together – But They’ll Sleep Together
By Brett White @brettwhite
Superheroes team up now. That’s what they do. We no longer live in a world where superheroes are either a solo act or a member of an ensemble; much like in the comics, members of the super-set pull double duty. The majority of the Avengers have their solo projects, and the same goes for the Justice League. Soon this will be true for another super group when Netflix‘s four headlining Marvel heroes (Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist) come together to form Marvel’s Defenders.
But the Defenders have something different going on, something that sets them apart from their big screen counterparts. To put it quasi-delicately, they’re all boning. Seriously. The Defenders are the Fleetwood Mac of superhero teams
The classic lineup of Fleetwood Mac, a classic rock band known for singing moody songs about witches and chains, consisted of Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood. When they came together in the mid-’70s, Nicks and Buckingham were in a long-term relationship and the McVies were married. After the release of the “Fleetwood Mac” album, though, everything went to hell. Christine cheated on John with the band’s lighting director, Fleetwood’s wife cheated on him with another ex-Mac guitarist, and Buckingham and Nicks separated. While recording their 1977 album Rumours, everyone in Fleetwood Mac divorced everyone — and then Mick Fleetwood started hooking up with Stevie Nicks! The band released Rumours and stayed together, because you don’t break up when you release an album that turns you into stone-cold millionaires (Rumours is the eighth best-selling album of all time). They followed it up with 1979’s Tusk and didn’t slow down until the late ’80s. After all the heartbreak and drama, the classic quintet got back together in 1997 and is still together today.
Marvel’s Defenders stars Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Luke Cage (Mike Colter), and Iron Fist (Finn Jones). In supporting roles, the series also features Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), Misty Knight (Simone Missick), Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), and Elektra (Elodie Yung). Starting with the core quartet, things get complicated. Jessica and Luke got busy on her series. Luke hooked up with Misty Knight and got all romantic with Claire Temple in his series. Claire Temple previously slept with Daredevil, and Daredevil has also slept with Elektra and dated Karen Page (who also kinda dated Daredevil’s sidekick Foggy Nelson, who is also in Defenders played by Elden Henson). Things get even more complicated when you factor in that in the comics, Iron Fist and Misty Knight have had an off-and-on thing for decades. So to sum things up, Luke Cage is on a superhero team with his ex (Jessica Jones), his current girlfriend’s ex (Daredevil), and a guy (Iron Fist) that may soon hook up with a girl he briefly had a thing for.
See? Netflix’s Defenders are the Fleetwood Mac of superhero teams — and that’s perfect. From the get-go, Marvel’s Netflix shows have presented audiences with messier, rawer heroes — ones that beat themselves up (Daredevil), wrestle with past traumas (Jones), ignore their responsibilities (Cage) and, well, whatever self-destructive habits Iron Fist will have. And all of them (well, we’re presuming with Iron Fist) have sexual lives, just like other real, messy humans.
By comparison, the big screen Avengers are more like the Traveling Wilburys; they’re a super group made up of big name individuals, but none of them are getting busy with each other (although there has to be some George Harrison/Tom Petty slash out there somewhere). Okay, Black Widow and Hulk had a bit of a thing in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” but they just lock lips once. Otherwise, Hawkeye’s married and has kids; Thor and Captain America have kissy moments with Jane Foster and Peggy Carter, but nothing more; and Tony Stark’s a ladies man, but he’s committed to Pepper Potts for the better part of a decade. While the Avengers are dressed to the nines and partying in Stark’s swanky tower, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are shacked up in a dark bedroom causing light property damage.
This one mature-rated difference could be key to predicting how the four Defenders will work together when they team up later this year. We already know Daredevil, Jones, and Cage aren’t team players; Jones particularly doesn’t play well with others, and you just know she’s going to give Daredevil’s unwavering morality a middle finger. But sleeping with someone, or even having an extreme crush on someone, ignites messy, totally irrational feelings. What happens when those feelings/gasoline are tossed onto a personality clash/garbage fire? Think about it: can you imagine being tasked to save the world with some combination of your ex, your current partner’s ex, and your ex’s current partner — or all of the above? This is uncharted territory for superhero team-ups, and “Defenders” is poised to go where the “Avengers” films can’t (unless they want to test their PG-13 rating with steamy material).
If Fleetwood Mac’s members could power through recording sessions where they had to sing their ex’s songs about their breakup, then the Defenders can get through whatever Sigourney Weaver’s mystery villain has in store for them. After all, Fleetwood Mac’s sexual drama resulted in a masterpiece called “Rumours.” We can only hope Marvel’s The Defenders gives us the same amount of moody atmosphere, building tension and frenetic energy as “The Chain.”