WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Marvel's The Defenders, available now on Netflix.


It's perhaps inevitable that the fourth episode of Marvel's The Defenders should draw comparisons to the post-credits scene of 2012's The Avengers, as in each the heroes gather in a New York City restaurant following a hard-fought battle. However, the similarities end there, and not only because the two would-be teams opt for different cuisines: While the Avengers' meal, shot after the film's world premiere, is a lighthearted callback to Tony Stark's shawarma joke, The Defenders' color-soaked restaurant scenes are integral to the Netflix miniseries.

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The first two episodes are slow-moving, following the central characters -- Matt Murdock, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Danny Rand -- and their antagonists on their separate paths, all of which lead back to Hell's Kitchen and the offices of Midland Circle Financial. To help the viewers follow those different threads, The Defenders assigns each of its key players a color, established in the opening credits: Matt is red, a nod to both his Daredevil costume and his struggle with violence; Jessica shifts from the purple that dominated the first season of her own series, and her struggle against Kilgrave, to blue; Luke is yellow, an allusion to his classic Power Man costume; and Danny is green, a reference to Iron Fist's traditional threads, which have yet to make an appearance.

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Those colors are repeated throughout the episodes, drawing an association with each of the central characters. The sewers of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where Danny and Colleen Wing chase down a lead in the show's opening moments, are bathed in green phosphorescence. The corridors of Seagate Prison, where Luke has been incarcerated the past few months, are yellow with the glowing hum of fluorescent bulbs; once free, he dons a yellow T-shirt. Jessica is enveloped by the blue haze of the morning that dawns after a long night of drinking. Matt is virtually surrounded by red, whether it's the neon of Josie's bar, the curtain of the confessional or the light that invades his apartment from the street below. That technique carries over to each hero's supporting cast, with Trish Walker dressed in blue when she meets Jessica on the street, Karen Page and Foggy Nelson clad in matching gray and red as they wait in the police precinct, and Misty Knight and Luke stroll through a Harlem seemingly dipped in amber.

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Those hues are used to signify transitions, too, as the world of one hero collides with that of another. It's perhaps most pronounced when Matt Murdock, given some of Foggy Nelson's spillover cases from Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz, shows up at the police station to represent Jessica Jones, and keep whatever trouble she's attracted away from the firm's door. The interrogation room is flooded with blue, the same color as Jessica's checkered shirt, but the door through which Matt enters is a bright red. The motif is repeated later, as Jessica trails Matt down an alley, where he passes through blue jeans hanging on a laundry line, signifying his departure from one world -- Jessica's world -- into his own. There, punctuated by flashes of red, on discarded panels and on window panes, he's on his turf, where he swiftly stows away his cane and effortlessly scales a wall, bounding onto a rooftop.

RELATED: The Defenders Ending, Explained

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Alexandra's World is A Little More Black & White

By contrast, Sigourney Weaver's Alexandra, leader of the Hand, commands a realm of white, black and gray, of shimmering fabrics and minimalist, even sterile, spaces. That follows through in the design of the offices of Midland Circle, the public front for her organization's criminal activities, whose alabaster corridors and boardroom provide the backdrop for the initial gathering of the would-be Defenders, and for the first signature hallway fight.

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When the four heroes enter the den of the beast, so to speak, each brought to the gleaming tower by a different path, their associated colors all but drain away. Determined to confront the Hand using the power and privilege of Rand Enterprises, Danny charges into the Midland Circle offices wearing a suit that falls somewhere between olive and gray and complements Alexandra's own outfit. Jessica, who earlier sported a blue checkered shirt, shows only black beneath her trademark leather jacket. Matt stows away his red-lens glasses, and transforms Jessica's gray scarf into a makeshift mask. And Luke's yellow shirt and jacket lining are all but swallowed up by his dark zip-up hoodie.

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Following a wall-destroying, glass-shattering brawl with the Hand's soldiers and the resurrected Elektra, the heroes flee Midland Circle, and arrive, well after dark, at Royal Dragon Chinese Restaurant, whose name evokes Shou-Lao the Undying, the mystical creature lurking beneath the city of K'un-Lun. It's there the heroes' associated colors come roaring back, first in the buzzing neon sign, and then bathed in the hues of its dining room. Vibrant yellows, greens, reds and blues wash over the new setting, providing personalized backdrops for each of the foursome. With some words in Mandarin, and a promise by Danny to pay six months' rent and order four of everything on the menu, the restaurant is swiftly transformed into a temporary refuge from the Hand. Or, as Matt's mentor Stick later observes, "one shitty excuse for a hideout."

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The Avengers Ate Shawarma; The defenders Dine on Pork Dumplings

It's no a hideout, though, and not merely because it takes Alexandra little time to discover. It's neutral territory, the Defenders' own version of the Midland Circle boardroom, only saturated with color and filled with the enticing smell of pork dumplings. It's where four disparate heroes arrive at the terms of their ... temporary partnership. (Whatever you do, don't call them a team. "Don't say that word," Luke admonishes Danny. "I'm not looking for Super Friends.")

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While the action of the first three episodes boomerangs around New York City, from Hell's Kitchen to Harlem to Central Park, drawing in everyone from Colleen Wing and Misty Knight to Foggy Nelson and Trish Walker, Episode 4 becomes virtually a stage play, set in the dining room of Royal Dragon. Oh, sure, it cuts away briefly, to follow Jessica and to check in on Alexandra and Elektra, but it could just as easily work as a bottle episode. The key players sit around a table laden with food, where Danny recharges his chi (and stuffs his face) as he and his newfound friends struggle to find common ground. Jessica walks out, only to return in the nick of time, and Stick, Alexandra and Elektra each make a dramatic entrance, but for much of the 44 minutes, the Chinese restaurant is the center of the Defenders universe.

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It's where Scott Glenn's Stick makes impressively short work of an overwhelming amount of exposition -- he lays out an updated history of the Hand, introduces its five leaders, and reveals the fate, and true purpose, of the Chaste -- while doling out no-nonsense advice to the four heroes. It's also where Alexandra, coolly appearing from nowhere, makes her intentions clear: She wants -- needs -- the Iron Fist.

RELATED: Midland Circle's Massive Mystery, Explained

Again, color association comes into play. Dressed in her previous scene in silver silk crêpe, Alexandra changes into gray-green, similar to what's worn by Danny Rand. When the camera, and the characters, turn to her, she's sitting beneath a yellow light, and in front of a green wall with yellow trim; they're unmistakably Iron Fist's palette. It's fitting, as the leader of the Hand demonstrates little interest in Matt Murdock, Luke Cage or even Stick, who earlier severed his own hand to escape her. They're potential thorns in her side, no doubt, but her interest lies in the immortal weapon. Alexandra clarifies that, in their previous encounter, she wasn't attempting to kill Danny. "Oh, them, maybe," she says casually. "Not you. My organization has always had a great deal of respect for the protector of K'un-Lun."

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Marvel's The Defenders

Her white shirt glowing yellow with the light, Alexandra is the whisperer in Danny's ear, the proverbial devil on his shoulder, assuring him, "Oh, darling, there are always alternatives. That's what makes life interesting." She makes her pitch to the Iron Fist, guiding him beneath a green light, where she delivers not-so-veiled threats to Danny, his new allies and to New York City. "Think about how many lives you can save if you just come with me." She briefly, literally, has Danny in her grip, only for the spell to be broken, first by a threat from Stick -- "You walk with her, and I'll take you out myself" -- and then by a reassuring nod from Luke. It's perhaps in that moment, in that restaurant, the Defenders are formed, and cemented shortly thereafter by the fortuitous, if calamitous, return of Jessica Jones.

It's a team forged of necessity, and fueled by pot stickers and lo mein. It's an uneasy alliance that requires the four heroes to overcome, or at least set aside, their own issues -- mistrust of others, shared histories, disbelief in stories of immortality and mystical dragons -- to confront a threat to themselves, to the people they care about and the city they call home. Four threads (red, blue, yellow and green) are woven together in a brightly colored, and (alas now) partly demolished, Chinese restaurant to form the last, best hope for New York. And to kick some serious ass.


Available now on Netflix, The Defenders stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones, Mike Colter as Luke Cage, Finn Jones as Danny Rand, Elodie Yung as Elektra Natchios, Sigourney Weaver as Alexandra, Eka Darville as Malcolm Ducasse, Simone Missick as Misty Knight, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Carrie-Anne Moss as Jeri Hogarth, Scott Glenn as Stick, Rachael Taylor as Trish Walker, Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple and Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing.