We open in a dark field of snow slowly burying the Rand’s crashed plane, which segues into a creepy condescending shrink smiling down at Danny, telling him he’s in a psychiatric hospital. As it turns out he’s NOT a shrink but another patient, who tells Danny to kill himself, then tries to choke Danny before guards comes and stop him. They give Danny pills and he passes out again.
Back at the Rand building, Joy feels like shit for drugging Danny at Ward’s urging, as Ward gaslights her into accepting she did the right thing for “their” company. Danny wakes up again, this time to an actual doctor who says he’s on a 72 hour psych eval and it’s here or jail. Danny can’t focus his chi because of the drugs and has to play along. He recounts what happened after the crash to the doctor. He describes being hurt and cold and looking for his parents. He found the pilots and his dad, all dead, but not his motherwho he lies and says he doesn’t know what happened to her right after remembering watching her get sucked out of the plane. He describes the monks who found him. The doctor, who is equally as condescending and produces a fake passport in the name of John Anderson or Toronto that Ward has obviously provided him. LOTS of gaslighting from that prick in this so far.
The martial arts instructor is walking through Chinatown with one of her training swords, and keeps feeling as if she’s being followed. She’s right of course, as two men suddenly jump her. She kicks their asses, and it turns out to be a rather unconvential training exercise, as her “attackers” are actually some of her students. She berates them for failing the exercize and storms off.
Back at the psych hospital the fake doctor talks to Danny again, apologizing for the earlier strangling. He gives him a tour of the ward and the rundown of how things work there. Danny thinks he’ll be out in 72 hours but Strangly Guysays EVERYONE here was a 72 hour hold until the shrinks came up with various excuse diagnoses to keep them here. Another patient takes a swing at Danny and it’s Danny who gets jumped by the orderlies and forcefed meds. And I’m having massive flashbacks to Whitby. Strangly Guy gets Danny access to a phone and he calls the Martial Arts instructor, Colleen for help. Once again she brushes him off.
Ward visits his “dead” dad, who had cameras put in the psych ward. Harold is intrigued by the story Danny told the shrink and wants Ward to hold off on doing anything further about Danny. He also wants him to go pay Colleen a visit, knowing that Danny phoned her.
Danny is meditating but the drugs keep derailing his peaceful eagle thoughts into plane crash flashbacks. The shrink continues to be a condescending prick, and Danny admits to the passport but says he bought it in Morocco to get into the states. The shrink leaves. Meanwhile Ward shows up at Colleen’s class as her students are leaving. He asks her about any contact she may have had with Danny. Ward grills her and tries to intimidate her into signing papers that say Danny threatened her. She declines. He offers her basically a bribe to fix and keep her dojo open if she’ll sign the papers to use against Danny. She is reluctant, but seems to be considering the idea.
Condescending Shrink shows Danny a tv commercial from 15 years ago showing the Rand family and tries a standard gaslighting trick to get Danny to accept his “delusion”, but is annoyed when Danny recalls the day they filmed it. Danny refuses to accept the gaslighting and the orderlies drug him again. Harold is annoyed that the shrink is trying to “cure” Danny instead of getting useful info from him. He has a conversation with his assistant Kyle about never being sorry and basically confirms he’s a asshole of the highest caliber.
Joy is at the office when the shrink calls her to ask about Danny’s story, and is purturbed when Joy confirms his story. And orderly dopes Danny up, who is once again restrained. Harold is hiding in the shadows and tries to fuck with Danny’s head. Harold takes advantage of Danny being drugged to ask him about the monks and the Order of the Crane Mother. Danny says he’s a warrior, in a long line of Immortal Iron Fists, and sworn enemy of the Hand. Harold tells him to go back to sleep. Back at his penthouse he tells Kyle to find everything he can on the Iron Fist. He is visibly freaked out when he finds a handprint on the OUTSIDE of his penthouse window and the message “Where did you go?” written above it.
Joy is at the office and her receptionist and she are talking about the possibility Danny might really be Danny. She gives her receptionist a package to send off. Colleen is at her dojo meditating when Ward shows up again in full snakeoil mode. He offers her a kinda paltry $50k to sign the statement. She remains skeptical. Meanwhile Danny again tries to meditate through the drug haze and again gets derailed by flashbacks of the plane crash. As he sits on his bed in frustration, an orderly delivers Joy’s package, which appears to just be a box of M&M’s. Colleen comes to visit Danny and he tells her about them doping him up to “keep him safe”. She wants to know why Ward is so hell bent on her signing the statement. He tells her because he’s Danny Rand. She wants to understand what’s going on. she doesn’t want to be involved, but agrees to deliver something to Joy. Joy lets her in, and gives her the package. She empties the package of M&M’s, and without explaining why, begins to cry and says Danny really is Danny.
Ward comes in and Joy explains how she knows it’s Danny; he kept all the brown M&M’s. Ward insists it proves nothing and bullies her into sticking to the existing plan to keep Danny in the psych ward. Meanwhile Danny’s shrink asks him about Danny’s past and believes him. He wants to know where he’s been and it’s going well until Danny talks about Kun Lun and other dimensions and suddenly the shrink is again convinced that while he IS Danny Rand, he’s also traumatized and confused and still dangerous.He thinks Danny made up the monestory and the monks to protect himself from the trauma. And like Strangly Guy predicted, 72 hours has become indefinite. He can’t prove his power as long as he’s on the drugs, and the shrink won’t take him off the drugs. Harold is watching the video feed and continues to be intrigued by the mystery and scared of the message on his window.
Ward is giving a staff meeting when Harold calls, (the call display lists him as Frank N. Stein), and he tells Ward he’s convinced Danny is Danny and needs to be dealt with. Ward assumes he means kill him, but Harold wants him protected because he could be useful against the Hand. He orders Ward to get Danny out of the psych ward and taken somewhere safe with armed guards. And orderly comes and puts Danny in a straight jacket, then leads him to a padded room where two masked men with sticks beat him senseless. Ward apparently wants to defy harold and sends men to kill him instead, but hearing that is enough for Danny to will through the drugs and Iron Fist his way out of the hospital. Harold watches on the video feeds almost in awe.After pummelling his would be killers and punching a gaping hole to the outside, Danny runs off into the night. End of episode.
See you soon for Episode 3!
