After Danny spent time following Madame Gao in episode seven, he decides to follow her to China after realizing she left town in “The Blessing of Many Fortunes.” Not content to sit on the sidelines and wait, Colleen and Claire are all in when it comes to helping the “Iron Fist.” The duo decide to tag along: Colleen because she’s got the skills to help Danny, and Claire because, well, because she’s Claire and can’t resist helping out heroes in need.
Warning: This Easter egg list does contain spoilers for the Marvel Cinematic Universe if you aren’t yet caught up, including “Iron Fist.”
Claire gets mail from an inmate
“The Blessing of Many Fractures” leads off with Claire reading a letter sent to her from an inmate in her apartment, and it’s one she even takes with her on the plane. It looks like she and Luke Cage are still in contact. She does tell Danny later in the episode that she doesn’t have a boyfriend, but that’s easily just her making an attempt to protect her private life.
The text of the letter that the audience can see reads:
“... use those shoes to walk straight to you.
What else have you been up to? How’s the martial arts training going. You really want to spar with me? You’ve seen what I can do, right? I throw a few at you, but it wouldn’t be a fair fight. You could knock me out with just a smile. A kiss? I’m dead.
Some wisdom from prison...?”
Claire indirectly mentions Matt Murdock
Claire, ever since the first season of “Daredevil,” is big on reminding people that she knows a lawyer without actually naming him or calling him for help in a jam. Here, she reminds us constantly that she knows a guy who fought The Hand. Claire even watched him fight ninjas in the hospital in “Daredevil” season two and lent him some assistance, so, as she points out to Danny, she does have more experience with the secret society of assassins than he does.
Why she doesn’t just let Matt know that The Hand are back in action in a big way is anyone’s guess. All it would take is a phone call to let the audience know that she attempted to contact him, even if he never makes an appearance.
Joy’s private investigator
Joy makes the remark that the private investigator she hired was “worth every penny… when she was sober.” Maybe it’s a small world after all and Joy hired the hard-drinking Jessica Jones to dig a little dirt on the board members at Rand. It’s a little funny that Joy seems to have met the detective, yet Madame Gao still doesn’t mention her when commenting on super powered people.
Zhou Cheng
While he declares himself as a protector of The Hand in much the same way the Iron Fist protects K'un-Lun, in the comics, he’s a little different.
In the comics, he’s possessed by a mythical beast that attempts to make sure no Iron Fist survives beyond their 33rd birthday. Of course, he doesn’t kill all of the Iron Fists or the comics would be about him instead of the title character.
One interesting bit at the inclusion of this character is that Iron Fist takes him on in the comics following a plot by Hydra to infiltrate K'un-Lun. The Hand has never really been all that interested in K'un-Lun since they operate in different mystical areas of the comics. It appears that with the Netflix series using The Hand as a villain across multiple shows, they might just be standing in for Hydra. In fact, one Easter egg that didn’t get a mention in “Immortal Emerges From Cave” is the fact that the building where Danny fights Bride of Nine Spider and the Dog Brothers is labeled with the business name “Wai-Go,” the same one that operated as a front for Hydra when they tried to infiltrate K’un-Lun.
That company was run by Mr. Xao, which doesn’t sound far off from Gao, now does it?
Up next
Now that Claire, Colleen, and Danny have their hands on Madame Gao, they have to figure out just what to do with her. Danny wants information in “The Mistress of All Agonies,” but he might just get more than he bargained for as Gao reveals some backstory and Colleen ends up in danger.