Ironheart Episodic Coverage: “Karma’s a Glitch”

“Karma’s a Glitch” Might Be The Second-Best Part

“Karma’s a Glitch” has the pacing and progression of a movie, and I loved that about it. The series has been building up for so long that just having a bunch of classic superhero moments chained together was deeply satisfying.

Like, yes, the series does have to break a few of its own rules—or at least implied rules—to make some of the beginning battle scenes work, and I’ll nitpick that, but it’s not on the same level as the knife thing back in “We in Danger, Girl.” Riri being able to solo fight off two fighters whose whole thing is taking down rooms full of guards is deeply unrealistic, no matter how effectively Riri was able to find impromptu weapons. And they had at least one gun that they didn’t use for some reason until the plot needed it.

But the other three battles in “Karmas a Glitch”—which all come right after another—all feel like actually possible outcomes. I didn’t realize how much I liked seeing someone whose main fighting style is just tossing different types of bombs, but it’s a perfect scenario for Riri to have to think on her feet and solve problems rapidly. It could’ve easily gone on for a lot longer and still have been fun.

And though it’s a lot shorter—and sort of silly with how long she outruns that truck—the whole car flip scene was a ton of fun. The CGI looked great this time. It was a nice, tense moment stacked on other tense moments.

And similarly, Stane’s new lightning powers have some interesting interplay with Riri’s suit. He seems able to shut down her systems with only a few hits. I imagine in the final episode she’ll have a countermove to that, but Stane’s also got super strength and speed, so it can still be a good battle.

And then, after all of that, “Karma’s a Glitch” continues to have a bunch of good scenes. Slower scenes, but that’s a fine cool off after a solid chunk of action. I absolutely love the mom’s reaction. Her actress (Anji White) is honestly amazing and should’ve been given more scenes. The quick flip from anger to concern the second she understood more of the situation is just good character work and has been pretty much present the whole series between the two of them.

Now, I won’t break down the rest of “Karma’s a Glitch” moment-by-moment—that would take too long—but I also love how, after this point, it starts effectively building to the finale. If you’ve ever seen the big “rally the team” moment in any adventure fiction, it’s going for that to a tee. Montages and everything.

We get the romance to a place where it can happen. We handle the subplots about characters being upset. Every secret gets an answer, including what all of the heists were for. Even The Hood gets a truly sympathetic backstory that felt like a gut punch. I do wonder if the show could’ve maybe paced all this out a little better—instead of making people wait for it. But even if I wasn’t watching to review, it would’ve pulled me in enough to want to know. So, I can’t really blame them for an effective tactic.

All Ironheart needs to do now is give a satisfactory answer to that cliffhanger twist at the end of “Karma’s a Glitch” without it being too sappy, and have an ending episode with good, dense pacing. That’s all it needs.

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