With one of our team lost in another realm, John and Derek return to discuss Ironheart Episode 4 "Bad Magic" in our spoiler-filled podcast. We may have gushed a little too much about the MCU arrival of one of our favourite Marvel witches but we make no apologies.

Directed by Angela Barnes

Written by Amir Sulaiman

Episode Synopsis:

Knowing that Parker Robbins, aka The Hood is on her trail, Riri analyzes the piece of The Hood’s cloak she recovered, which she discovers is an ancient energy source that Parker draws upon.

Meanwhile Eziekiel Stane (aka Joe McGillacuddy) has been arrested for the crew's heist after being implicated by the biomesh left behind by Riri, and he is very resentful towards her when she visits him in detention.

With things stacking up Ronnie, Riri’s mum, gets increasingly worried about her daughter and wants to help, bringing her to her friend Madeline Stanton, a former Kamar-Taj trainee, and her daughter Zelma.

The Stantons help examine the fragment of the hood and detect that it is from a dark dimension that is likely influencing Robbins, before abruptly ushering Riri and Ronnie out of the shop. Ronnie shares her frustrations about her daughter never opening up to her, but Riri leaves in her iron suit after pushing back against her mother’s assertion.

Frustrated in her lack of findings with the cloak fragment, Riri meets up with Xavier, who tries to support her but is later horrified by N.A.T.A.L.I.E. emulating his late sister's image. N.A.T.A.L.I.E. leaves when Riri contemplates Xavier's demand to delete it.

Elsewhere, The Hood breaks Eziekiel out of jail to recruit him as Riri's replacement, and Slug assists his efforts to implant bionic enhancements in his body, while secretly giving Parker access and control over the bionic enhancements.

With everything now in place, Parker sends the crew on an extra mission this time to kill Riri, telling them she killed Cousin John.

Ironheart Episode 4 Cast

• Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams / Ironheart
• Anthony Ramos as Parker Robbins / The Hood
• Lyric Ross as Natalie Washington / N.A.T.A.L.I.E.
• Matthew Elam as Xavier Washington
• Anji White as Ronnie Williams
• Shea Colee as Slug
• Sonia Denis as Clown
• Alden Ehrenreich as Ezekiel Stane

During each podcast we'll ask a question about each episode in our Ironheart MIT Student Bar Quiz. You can send in your answers each week to feedback@tvpodcastindustries.com At the end of the six episode series the fellow Defenders with the most correct answers will be in with the chance of getting their hands on some Ironheart goodies. All questions will be updated on: https://www.tvpodcastindustries.com

Thank you so much for listening to our Ironheart Podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast through our website TV Podcast Industries.

If you would like to send any of your thoughts in please send the m to feedback@tvpodcastindustries.com join us on facebook at Facebook.com/groups/tvpodcastindustries or you can now record your thoughts for the podcast directly from our website tvpodcastindustries.com by clicking the “Send Voicemail” button.

We'll be back this weekend with our podcast on Ironheart Episode 5 "Karma's a Glitch". We hope you'll join us.

Keep watching, Keep Listing and Keep Defending

John, Chris and Derek

Defenders on TV Podcast Industries

Date recorded: 02/07/2025

Date published: 03/07/2025

All images and audio clips are copyright of Marvel and Disney Plus and are used for the purposes of review no infringement is intended. The intro and outro music for our show is the song “tech” written by “Voide” courtesy of Free Music Archive and used under the creative commons 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/