Ron Does Stuff

Full disclosure, I haven’t read even one issue of the Ironheart comic book. BUT, I did like RiRi when she was introduced in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. I was looking forward to this show so let’s see if I’m going to like it!

The show stars with Riri and a character named Natalie talking about what they want to be when they grow up. And then we get to what I assume is the present day, where Riri is still doing other people’s work, like she did in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. And it comes to bite her in the ass, because she gets expelled for it.

She’s headed to Chicago, which I assume where this group of criminals is casing a home. A group of criminals that include Shea Coulee!

Riri arrives in Chicago at the right time, because the criminal gang needs a new member of the team to do all the tech/engineering stuff. Having just been expelled from MIT and with nothing to fund the work she’s…uh…working on, I’m guessing she’s going to be joining them soon enough.

That guess on my part is immediately reinforced by Riri hearing her mom talk about her to her friends, and not entirely in a positive light. She escapes that sticky situation thanks to her friend Xavier, who takes her out for a walk and who she confides to that all people are interested in are her iron suits, which is why she intends to make the best one ever.

We also find out that Xavier is Natalie’s brother and that something happened to her and Riri’s stepfather and that it could be the reason why Riri is “acting out”, as her mother’s friends put it. Is what happened to Natalie and Riri’s stepfather going to be a season-long thing? It might be, because in the next scene, the recruiter of the criminal gang is tempting her to check out his team.

Riri does check the team out, but what she gets is a practical job interview, where she has to disarm a device inside an elevator or die trying. She doesn’t disarm the device, but she does get out of the elevator in record time, which impresses The Hood — the subtitles told me — and while she initially rejects his offer, a fat stack of money changes her mind.

She works on the suit that the gang needs at her home, and we also find out a little about what happened to Riri’s stepdad and Natalie — it looks like Riri witnessed them get caught in the crossfire of a drive-by. It’s one of the things she’s thinking of while she’s making the AI for her new suit, which results in the AI taking on the form of Natalie.

Gotta admit…this isn’t grabbing me just yet. I know it’s more than 40 minutes long but it felt shorter, and the characters don’t feel well-made? It all feels like this was just the first draft and needed some more development. But maybe it’ll get better in the next episode!