With only six episodes in its first season and a robust release schedule planned, Ironheart is already halfway to the finish line. Its three-episode premiere brings the series — and its leading lady, Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) — through a physical and emotional ringer. In just under three hours, the tech wiz who reverse-engineered Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit and got into MIT at age 15 was unceremoniously expelled, forced to return to her home in the South Side of Chicago, and swiftly recruited into a dangerous league of criminals led by the Hood (Anthony Ramos).
We’re a long way from the Ironheart of the comics, who mostly stayed on the straight and narrow and rubbed shoulders exclusively with fellow heroes. Ironheart is taking more than a few liberties with her origin story in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe — but by the end of Episode 3, the “why” behind all these changes is becoming clearer. Inverse sat down with the cast and crew of Ironheart to break down that gut-twisting ending, Riri’s emotional break, and what’s in store for the hero next.
Warning! Spoilers for Ironheart Episode 3 ahead.
Ironheart Episode 3’s Ending, Explained
Ironheart’s third episode finds tensions between Riri and John (Manny Montana), the Hood’s top lieutenant, reaching a fever pitch. Riri is closer than ever to unlocking the mystery behind Parker’s powers, and she plans to use the crew’s latest heist to snatch a bit of his cloak for research. Parker’s next target is Hunter Mason, the CEO of the agricultural tech company Heirlum. He’s been using bleeding-edge technology to create a bespoke harvest using antique seeds, but his efforts have been driving Chicago’s local farmers out of business.
To stop him, the team has to break into Mason’s offshore greenhouses, which will go into lockdown at even the slightest whiff of metal. That forces Riri to go without her suit. After borrowing some bio-skin mesh from her new pal Zeke Stane (Alden Ehrenreich) — son of Iron Man villain Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) — Riri infiltrates Mason’s lab while he’s distracted by Parker. While she does eventually succeed in grabbing a sample of Parker’s hood, the greenhouse sensors detect her laser cutter and lock the facility down.
Parker’s team nearly suffocates on the fumes being pumped through the lab, and Riri herself nearly gets caught by John. She’s saved by her suit, piloted by N.A.T.A.L.I.E. (Lyric Ross), the AI companion modeled after her late best friend, but John is left behind. Not only does this devastate Parker; it’s also a rude awakening for Riri, who finally buckles under the pressure of her “heroic” pursuits.
Breaking Riri down
By the end of Episode 3, Riri is pretty much at rock bottom. Sure, she’s gotten everything she wanted with her suit, but every other part of her life is falling apart at the seams. Parker learns that Riri had something to do with John’s demise. Zeke, meanwhile, is about to take the fall for the crew’s heist at Heirlum, as Riri left his skin mesh behind in her scuffle with John. The walls are closing in, and it’s clear Riri’s iron armor won’t get her out of this mess.
“It just felt so real that you can get caught up — and not just caught up, but you can drown in this search for power, drown in this search for your ambition being validated,” director Samantha Bailey tells Inverse.
Per Bailey, it was important to showrunner Chinaka Hodge that Riri comes to a crossroads at the show’s halfway point. “Chinaka really [made] sure that we were on this emotional journey that would end both on a low in terms of what happened, but also key up the next half of the series,” Bailey continues. Across Ironheart’s first three episodes, we get to know Riri, “the people she comes from,” and “the ambition” that drives her.
“It was so important to me to have more of those moments of breath between characters, so we understood what we lost by the end of Episode 3,” Bailey continues. We see the culmination of that when Riri fully breaks down, with only N.A.T.A.L.I.E. — the “person” she’s pushed away at every turn — on hand to comfort her.
“There’s a lot of examples of sisterhood throughout this entire first season that I think [are] very much needed,” adds Lyric Ross. “A lot of people like to talk about independence and how important it is... but at the same time, you need that strength from different resources.”
It’s this lesson that Riri has to learn in the episodes that follow. “You can’t do everything alone, and I think that’s one of the things that Riri struggles with,” Ross says. “There’s that fear of losing it again, so she felt like she had to go through some of those things on her own — but [with] this action of love that is being given to her, she no longer has to feel like she’s the only one who can lift herself up.”
As Ironheart pitches into its next trio of episodes, Riri will be forced to rely on more than her genius intellect, more than her iron suit. Where that emotional journey will bring her is anyone’s guess, but the series has successfully broken its heroine down to her foundations — now it’s time to see what she’s truly made of.
