Editor’s note: The below recap contains spoilers for Ironheart Episodes 4-6.
I can’t believe we’re already here one week later, but welcome to the back half of Ironheart. While we knew magic played a role in the story from the beginning, with Parker Robbins’ (Anthony Ramos) hood definitely not being of this world, science and magic combine in the last three episodes, setting Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) on an interesting path, one I hope will come with a second season, or maybe a movie, because her story is still only getting started. If you’re here, you probably already know what happens in these last three episodes, but you know I don’t like giving the twists away up top, and I can’t talk around it anymore, so let’s dive in!
We Learn More About The Hood’s Past in ‘Ironheart’ Episode 4
The episode begins with a flashback of Parker and John (Manny Montana) on one of their early jobs together, with John assuring Parker that the jobs they do are nothing personal against the people and are just about the score. Whatever moral line you need to draw, I guess. The job goes badly as Parker finds the safe they’re looking for, but is caught by the mansion’s security guard. John arrives in time to stop the guard, but the two of them need to split up to evade capture.
In the present day, the crew — Clown (Sonia Denis), Ros (Shakira Barrera), Jeri (Zoe Terakes) and Slug (Shae Couleé), and Riri — have gathered with Parker at the headquarters to mourn John. While the rest of them share memories, Parker keeps his eyes on Riri, suspicious thanks to that vision the hood gave him last week. He sends the rest of them back to work, telling Riri he’s got plans for her. She senses the menace in that tone and leaves, needing to find a way to fight back now more than ever. She heads home, where she updates Natalie (Lyric Ross) on her findings on the sliver of fabric from Parker’s hood: as far as she can tell, it’s like a heat engine, in that it powers its host, in this case Parker. The only problem is, she can’t tell where the energy originates, and it has to come from somewhere.
The piece of Parker’s hood disappears long enough for Riri to worry about her mother, Ronnie’s (Anji White) safety, as she assumes it means Parker has arrived at her house, but the fabric reappears as quickly as it vanished. Natalie tells Riri to direct her focus towards understanding the hood, rather than spiraling over killing John in self-defense, as it’s not helpful, and suggests she call Shuri (Letitia Wright) for help. Riri scoffs at the idea, walking Natalie through what that hypothetical conversation would look like, and concludes that Shuri would just hang up on her. I understand this is coming from a place of anxiety and not wanting to ask for more help than necessary. I also understand that they have to address this because it’s that MCU problem of “why don’t you call in your friends from the movie with a bigger budget than your TV show has,” and needing to plausibly explain why not, but I also can’t believe that Shuri would hear that Riri was in any kind of danger and not at least ask a Dora Milaje or two to go check up on her. Not to mention, Shuri has a ton of very recent experience with devastating losses and grief management in the face of tremendous responsibility. I’m sure she could share a pointer or two.
Instead, Riri heads out to go talk to Ezekiel (Alden Ehrenreich), since he’s not answering his phone, and finds his house cordoned off by police tape. She asks his neighbor what’s going on, and she explains that the police came and arrested him earlier that day, adding that they all know his real name, Ezekiel Stane, now. Riri checks the news and realizes that the biomesh skin she left behind is what led the police right to Ezekiel’s house and got him charged with a whole host of things, including domestic terrorism. Parker’s crew sees the news report as well, and even though they have no idea how his tech could have ended up at the scene, they’re relieved that the police won’t be looking at them now. Clown can’t let go of how strange this all is, though, with John dead and someone else conveniently framed for their work, and Parker acting stranger than he should, even if he’s grieving. Strange is the right word, given that he’s just spent the last 12 minutes submerged in a tub of ice, so it looks like Riri was right about the hood having an effect on his body.
Riri heads to the prison to speak with Ezekiel, but he’s got nothing to say to her, given that she didn’t stick to the one thing he asked of her, which was to not get him implicated by borrowing his tech. Next, she returns to Parker’s headquarters, where Clown lets slip that Parker is looking into bringing in another tech specialist. Except when Clown assumes it’s going to be a second person to help Riri out, Riri sees it for what it is: her replacement. And like John said, they don’t do loose ends. Parker calls her into his office, playing it cool but also letting her know that he knows she went to Ezekiel for help, and confirming they’re going to bring in another tech specialist, before sending Riri home.
Riri Learns Where Parker’s Hood Is From in ‘Ironheart’ Episode 4
Back at home, Riri gives her mom a watch-like wristband and asks her to wear it at all times, even when sleeping, then tells Natalie that she’s going out to see Xavier (Matthew Elam) to give him the same wristband. The two share a really sweet moment, with Xavier assuring Riri she doesn’t need to be a “good” person, because she is so much more than that. Riri goes back home to the revelation that the only person shipping Xavier and Riri harder than me is Natalie, which must be a holdover from when she was alive, since she hasn’t seen the two of them together since coming back as an AI. Riri tries to get some sleep — in her suit of all things — but is woken up by her mother screaming.
The watch she gave her, it turns out, is designed to protect the wearer from gunshots. The only problem is, it’s so sensitive, it picked up the gunshots on TV as being real ones, trapping Ronnie inside a protective bubble. Enough is enough. Ronnie sits her daughter down and demands to know what’s going on with her, and more importantly, how she can help. She offers to do some kind of cleansing, and Riri latches on to the idea of her mother’s brand of magic at once. Ronnie takes her to see Madeline (Cree Summer) at her shop, where she sells both sweets and crystals with the help of her daughter Zelma (Regan Aliyah). Zelma doesn’t believe that they’re just there for crystals, noticing that Riri’s got something in her pocket, and uses a transportation spell to move them to a parallel plane to examine it.
Zelma and Madeline examine the fragment and conclude it was created in another dimension and is very old. As they examine it, Zelma reveals that Madeline trained in Kamar-Taj for a while before leaving to raise her, and that growing up in Chicago instead has forced her to hone her own kind of magic — which she uses to reveal that the hood is from a dark dimension, and is probably influencing Parker. Madeline stops Zelma from revealing more than that and ushers Ronnie and Riri out of their shop. Outside, the two of them have it out, with Ronnie frustrated that her daughter doesn’t trust her enough to tell her when she’s in trouble, especially since Riri used to have no trouble going to Gary (LaRoyce Hawkins). Riri pushes back, saying Ronnie only wants to deal with things her way, then summons the suit and leaves.
Ezekiel gets a visit in prison from Parker, who wants to recruit him to work with the crew. Ezekiel is upset that he can’t go back to his old life, but the way Parker sees it, it’s a chance for a fresh start as Zeke Stane — so I guess I should start calling him Zeke now? — and gives him until that night to respond. He must somehow answer in the affirmative, or else Parker just wanted to give him the option, because that night, the crew shuts down the prison and unlocks Zeke’s door to let him out.
Meanwhile, Riri heads to Zeke’s bunker to have somewhere quiet to work on a way to destroy the hood. No matter what she tries, though, nothing even makes a dent. Hitting dead end after dead end, Riri takes the suit out for a flight, but has Natalie pull over as she begins to have a panic attack. Natalie lets her out in a junkyard, then flies off to get some help. She heads to Xavier’s place and wordlessly ushers him into the suit, bringing him to the yard. Once they establish that Riri is OK, Natalie projects herself to finally meet Xavier, but he is horrified to see what Riri has done with his sister’s image. To him, this isn’t honoring her, it’s pretending like she’s still alive. He tells her to delete Natalie, and Riri hesitates just long enough that Natalie gets offended and leaves with the suit.
Back at Parker’s headquarters, Zeke gets right into the swing of things, with all the tech the crew brought over for him, and Slug helps him get hooked up to a machine to introduce bionic enhancements to his body. But where Zeke’s code would allow him to remain the administrator of his own body, Slug overrides it to give Parker control instead, without Zeke knowing. As for Parker, he sends the rest of the crew out after Riri, telling them she’s the one who killed John and he wants her head.
On that ominous note, we head right into the next episode, which opens with AI Natalie watching old videos of Riri and Real Natalie until Slug shows up and grabs her, throwing her in a truck. Meanwhile, Riri finds her way out of the junkyard and into a White Castle, where she meets up with Zelma to talk more about what she discovered while examining the cloak. Zelma is 50% sure that the person behind the hood is Dormammu — and you thought Kamer-Taj was the only Doctor Strange reference we were getting — who may want to use the hood to come to Earth. She points out the similarities in symptoms between Parker and Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), but even in that case, Riri doesn’t see any motivation in any of it. Parker isn’t a powerful wizard, like Kaecilius was, but Zelma points out that Dormammu probably doesn’t care, as Parker’s ambition makes him easy to manipulate.
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Ezekiel Stane Spares Riri’s Life in ‘Ironheart’ Episode 5
Ros and Jeri show up to kill Riri, and she sends Zelma away before fighting them off long enough to drop the protective watch that Xavier returned to her at their feet. She asks them to kill her quickly, with a gun, so that the sound triggers the watch’s protective field, trapping them inside. Perhaps assuming that the two of them wouldn’t be able to handle it alone, Clown arrives next to finish the job. Riri rigs some kitchen tools to fight Clown off too, but not before planting a seed of doubt as to the close nature of the team, telling Clown that Parker had Stu (Eric André) killed when he no longer suited their needs. Slug pulls up on Riri in the truck, just as Natalie manages to bust out with the suit and scoop Riri up.
With the danger gone, Riri and Natalie have it out, with Natalie saying she’s offended that Riri would consider deleting her. She turns herself off, meaning when Riri takes flight in her suit and something strikes it, Natalie doesn’t answer. Riri lands to find one member of Parker’s crew she couldn’t have possibly accounted for: Zeke, now with majorly enhanced bionic abilities. He has a little too much fun zapping Riri with the electricity he can now summon from his fingers — is it Zeke Stane or Zeke Palpatine? — which also drains power from the suit. He tears pieces off the suit and is about to kill Riri, but his better side prevails, and he drops her, warning her to leave the city before Parker finds out she’s still alive. And it looks like he might find out sooner rather than later, as Clown comes to just in time to see Riri running away, without her suit.
Riri heads home and, at long last, asks her mom for some help. She catches her up on everything that’s been going on, and says they need to leave the city. Ronnie tells her she can’t keep running when things get difficult, and that her focus on the suit is what keeps making things difficult for her. She asks Riri why she built it in the first place, and doesn’t buy the same reason Riri gives everyone else — because she could — prompting Riri to give the real reason: because she wanted to do something to help after losing Gary and Natalie. She wanted to create something that could have intervened the night they were killed, or at the very least gotten help faster, since the paramedics arrived too late. Ronnie tells her that making them all safe is not Riri’s responsibility alone, and says that this time she will help her fight back. So will Natalie, who is apparently no longer mad at Riri.
Riri, Ronnie, and Natalie head to Gary’s garage, which Ronnie proposes as a place for Riri to work on a solution to her Parker problem. The garage still holds a lot of trauma for Riri, who resists staying until Ronnie shows her an old wrench, embossed with the words “property of Ironhead.” When Riri plays dumb about what the words mean, Natalie projects a memory for her, one of Riri as a child, dancing with Gary in the garage when he insists she needs a break from working so hard, until she topples over and bangs her head, leading to the Ironhead nickname. Kudos to Alyse Elna Lewis, who plays a young Riri and does an excellent job of matching Dominique Thorne’s specific energy. The memory is enough to prompt Riri to apologize to Natalie for calling her a “problem” earlier, and to admit that Ronnie was right, and she needs to stay and fight. The problem? She has nothing to build a new suit with. The solution? The old car Riri and Gary were working on, which Ronnie bought back when she heard Riri was coming home.
The crew returns to Parker’s headquarters, with Zeke presenting Parker with Riri’s helmet as evidence of her death. He avoids sharing the details of how he supposedly killed Riri, which casts doubt on the story. Initially, it seems like Clown is going to give the truth away, but she only shares parts of it, how Riri took the rest of them out, and how Zeke tore off pieces of her armor before killing her. The seeds of doubt Riri planted have obviously taken root in Clown’s mind. Having her confirmation is enough for Parker to believe the story, and he walks Zeke out, offering him a spot on the crew as thanks. Zeke turns him down, but Parker says Riri did the same thing before ultimately coming back, and remains certain Zeke will do the same. As soon as they leave, Clown asks Slug to hack into an autopsy report for her, wanting to investigate further. When they do get the report, Clown accuses Parker of killing Stu, since the autopsy report lists that he died of an overdose, even though he didn’t do drugs. The voices in the hood turn Parker against the crew, and he fires them all for turning against him, but giving into that anger has a price, and the black veins that cover his arms and back start to creep up on his face, too.
Riri Builds a New Suit in ‘Ironheart’ Episode 5
The next day, Landon (Harper Anthony) turns up at the garage where Riri, Natalie, and Ronnie are working, looking for his wagon and offering to help. But the kind of help any of them can offer isn’t what Riri needs, as she tells them that whatever she’s adding to the suit to fight off Parker and his hood is draining the battery on the suit. She realizes that she needs to fight magic with magic. They bring in Zelma, who suggests borrowing power from Dormammu to power the suit. Riri is reluctant to take that option, since it would tether her to the Dark Dimension like it did Parker, but the group is interrupted by Xavier, who arrives to help, having found the note Riri left for him in the box of the headphones she got him after her first payday with the crew. The note might have predated their fight, but whatever it was, it was enough to remind him why they’re friends to begin with. He admits he still finds the idea of AI Natalie unsettling, but accepts that she’s important to Riri. With the team assembled, they get to work on Riri’s suit, repurposing parts of the old car and going to the junkyard for anything else they’re missing. Even Zelma is helping, working on spells to harness the magic needed to power the suit.
Zeke returns to his old neighborhood to pick up some of his stuff and has yet another confrontation with his unpleasant neighbor Heather (Tanya Christiansen). It’s only when she calls him an insult to his father’s legacy that he turns on her and tries to zap her prized flowerbeds, but finds his bionics aren’t working like they were before. And wouldn’t you know it, Parker chooses this exact moment to pull up and explain that he’s the one in control of Zeke’s enhancements. To prove his point, he orders Zeke into the car, and Zeke has no choice but to comply. Together, the two drive to a gated mansion — the same one he and John tried to rob all those years ago when things went wrong — and break in through the gate. Zeke fights off the security guards, apologizing profusely as he does, while Parker lets himself into the house. There, he bumps into his father, Arthur (Paul Calderón), and gives him the same spiel he gave the other billionaire CEOs. This time, though, the conversation seems more personal. Parker tells Arthur that he’s got a controlling interest in all the companies in his portfolio — the other companies they targeted no longer seem so random — and tells him he wants him to sign over his company, ArtWorks, as well as the mansion.
Arthur refuses, of course, and then Parker gets to the heart of the issue. It’s not about the money; it’s about understanding why his father would throw him out when he was only 12 years old. Arthur tells his son he was a liability, but by the sounds of things, all he was was a grieving child whose mother had died, and whose father couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to him unless he was in trouble. Yet another person in this show with so much grief and nowhere to put it. But Arthur bluntly tells Parker that he didn’t want him, so he cut his losses, and it wasn’t anything personal. I feel like when rich people don’t want their kids around, they just send them to Swiss boarding schools or something, so this feels especially cold. But with a gun to his head, Arthur signs the papers, and Parker tells him to get out of the city and not breathe a word to the police, at the cost of his own life. Parker’s threats and use of his powers come at a cost, as more veins creep up his face.
Back at the garage, Riri’s suit is finally ready, looking sleeker than the original model. So far, it looks like things are working, so Zelma steps in to add the magic component, but not before reminding Riri that magic comes at a cost, and something will be lost in the process. Riri tells her to go ahead, and steps into the circle Zelma’s drawn on the floor. Things start off fine, even as the power infuses the suit in a way Riri can feel, but the more the magic takes, the more Natalie starts to fade. Zelma tries to undo things while Riri tries to tether Natalie to something other than the suit, but they’re not able to undo what they’ve done, and Natalie disappears. She doesn’t just disappear from sight; the AI disappears from Riri’s systems entirely.
Parker Meets a Hooded Stranger in the ‘Ironheart’ Finale
With everything up in the air, we head into the final episode of the season — and please, please, please, do not let this be the final episode of the series — with Parker flashing back once again to that first attempted heist of his father’s house with John. Only this time, we follow him after the two split up, as he flees through a tunnel in a nearby park. He’s not alone there, as he’s greeted by a stranger (Sacha Baron Cohen) wearing the hood that will eventually be Parker’s, whom I’ll just be calling the Hooded Man for now. He conjures a door in the wall, one leading to the pizzeria Parker now uses as his headquarters, and ushers him inside. Far from the rundown place it is now, the pizzeria is fully operational, and the two of them sit down for a meal.
The Hooded Man immediately proposes that the two of them work together, promising that he can help Parker achieve the greatness he craves, saying he’s not fulfilling his potential, and Parker has no idea what to make of any of this — at least, not until the Hooded Man silences everyone in the whole restaurant. He asks Parker what he wants most, and Parker tries to say that he wants power and respect, but when it comes down to it, he just wants to be stupidly rich like his father. The Hooded Man says he won’t give Parker everything he wants, but he will make sure that Parker can do it for himself. When Parker asks what the Hooded Man is getting out of it, he just says it’s something Parker won’t miss, and I understand not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, but also not doing that exact thing is how the city of Troy fell, so maybe Parker needs to ask one or two more questions. He doesn’t, though, and just accepts the Hooded Man’s offer. And that is how Parker became The Hood, and the Hooded Man is revealed to be… well, we’ll get there.
In the present day, Parker is living like the king he wanted to be, having taken over his father’s mansion and business. Of course, he has no friends or family to share it with, save a very reluctant Zeke, who is still unwillingly being kept nearby. He asks Zeke again whether he killed Riri, and I guess his control over the bionics only applies to physical commands and not mental ones, as he doesn’t compel Zeke to tell him the truth. One thing Parker’s control can do, however, is having Zeke prevent anyone from harming him, Zeke himself included, which he learns the hard way when he tries to stab Parker with a fork. Unable to cause physical harm, Zeke resorts to verbal jabs, telling Parker he doesn’t belong where he is, which Parker takes as some kind of literal challenge, and the two return to the pizzeria together. He might play it cool, but it’s clear he’s very bothered by no longer having the crew around. Victory isn’t so sweet when you have no one to celebrate with.
Someone else decidedly not celebrating is Riri, who is at the garage expending every effort to recreate the Natalie AI. Despite replicating the process, the brain scan won’t take, and she’s unable to regenerate her friend. She decides that they can and will revisit the question of finding Natalie once she gets Parker’s hood from him, and she takes out the new, magically-enhanced suit, against the advice of Zelma, Ronnie, and Xavier.
Back at Parker’s headquarters, he heads into the Hood vault and calls up the Hooded Man, who finally appears to him. Parker is dissatisfied with the terms of their agreement, saying that the Hooded Man is holding out on him, while also taking his payment in the form of the scars left on Parker’s body, but in fairness, he was only promised the tools to get everything he wanted. There was no level of success guaranteed, so technically, they both held up their ends of the deal. Parker’s problem now is that, having gotten everything he wanted, everything feels empty. The Hooded Man suggests instead that he turn his attention and gifts to someone more appreciative. Someone like…
Riri, who arrives at the pizzeria, is met downstairs by Zeke, where she automatically detects the voice command override that allows Parker to take control of him. Before she can deal with that, though, as well as the fallout of her and Zeke’s friendship, she asks him to move so she can speak to Parker, and the two of them fight, since he can’t let Parker see her. Riri tells Zeke that because Parker is controlling him, if she strikes him somewhere without bionics, his body will go into crisis mode, allowing her to override Parker’s control. Fortunately, he’s willing to let her try, but unfortunately, the only place she can think of to hit him hard enough is the crotch. The plan works, but it does put him to sleep temporarily so he can hard reset. She leaves him behind, with him telling her that they aren’t done. Do you see why I need a Season 2?
Finally, Riri makes it upstairs to confront Parker and tells him she needs his hood. He accuses her of wanting his power, but she tells him it’s not worth what it would cost her. He disappears, just as she engages the magic built into the suit, which prompts him to rematerialize, but only for a moment before they start fighting in earnest. By this point, Parker is too far gone, the hood turning him into a literal monster. Riri engages the suit’s emergency protocol — read: makes it blow up — which leaves her defenseless, and staring down the barrel of Parker’s guns. Or at least, it appears that that’s what happens. The explosion and Riri’s subsequent suitlessness were all a hologram generated by the suit, and she uses Parker’s confusion to rip the hood off of him.
Mephisto Finally Joins the MCU For Real This Time in the ‘Ironheart’ Finale
Without the hood, however, Parker is a wreck, telling Riri he’s in pain, but she just leaves him to wallow in it. This is something I assume will also come back in a potential Season 2, but the biggest case this episode makes for continuing the series comes next, when Riri takes the elevator down and walks out to find the Hooded Man seated at his usual table, where he invites her to join him. He disengages her from the suit and takes it away, forcing her to sit and hear what he has to say. Riri quickly pieces together that this is the man who gave Parker the hood, but can’t figure out what he wants from her. He says he’s been watching her and is fascinated by how determined she is, even in the face of bad luck and a world that doesn’t notice her and her talents. He suggests they work together to build something iconic, citing her own words back to her.
With that sales pitch over, Riri calls the Hooded Man “Dormammu,” and from the moment he started laughing, I knew exactly where this was going. Yes, this character was rumored to appear in the series, but I also tend not to trust the rumors I see, lest I be disappointed they don’t come to pass, or else just disappointed ahead of time. But I’ve danced around it long enough, so the Hooded Man finally introduces himself, saying his name is Mephisto. Yes, Mephisto. Riri asks if that’s supposed to mean something to her, and I might just be too online and have borne witness to too much discourse, but right now I can honestly say that I wish I were also able to hear the name and have it mean nothing to me.
Mephisto then asks what he can do for her, and Riri’s thoughts are filled with nothing but Natalie — mostly AI Natalie, as this is her most recent loss, but the point remains: she misses her best friend. Mephisto reads her thoughts and says he can give her what she’s looking for, and gives her the same condition he gave Parker — that it’s nothing she would miss. Whether she asks more questions than Parker did is unknown, but Mephisto tells Riri that the pain of loss never goes away, and that he can fix the pain she’s feeling, and she agrees, on the condition that he doesn’t go for anyone else she loves. We jump ahead to the garage, with Riri up to her eyeballs in work, Natalie reappears, wearing the same outfit she was on the night she was killed, only she looks very confused to be there, and looks around for Gary. She also doesn’t respond to Riri’s requests to run diagnostics, and that’s when it becomes clear this isn’t AI Natalie. This is the real Natalie, somehow back from the dead. Riri hugs her best friend, and as she does, the first inky black vein sprouts on her arm.
I think my biggest frustration in having Mephisto be the big bad in this series is that this has such massive implications for the MCU as a whole. That’s not inherently a bad thing, except that I worry it’s going to draw focus away from Riri and the story being told with that character. Will we get to continue the story of this teenage genius, steward of Tony Stark’s legacy, who helped save Wakanda from a race of underwater people? Or is she going to become lost in the sauce of what it means to have Mephisto running around now, with her plot, and her pain, and her loss, and even her joys now secondary to the implications this has on the larger story?
This is why I want to see a Season 2 of this show and why I hope Marvel keeps Mephisto confined to this series — at least for now. I really enjoyed The Marvels for what it was, and I especially loved getting more time with Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) but I would be lying if I said the movie delivered the same level of fun and specific character work Ms. Marvel did. Ironheart was a good series. What it did well, it did very well. I would like to see more of this story, with this kind of care continued, before Riri Williams is absorbed into the larger world of characteristic lip service that comes with the MCU ensemble pieces. And if not, maybe she can come back for Black Panther 3 and finally give Shuri that long-overdue phone call. I bet she won’t put up with Mephisto for a minute.
Ironheart
The best parts of Ironheart come back into play even as they get lost in the back half of the season.
- Release Date
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June 24, 2025
- Network
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Disney+
- Showrunner
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Chinaka Hodge
- Directors
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Angela Barnes, Sam Bailey
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Dominique Thorne
Riri Williams / Ironheart
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Lyric Ross
Natalie Washington
- Riri facing down Parker with the help of her family and her community is what I wanted from this show.
- I love the blend of science and magic, and the overall notion that fighting for your home and your loved ones is every bit as heroic as saving the world.
- Bringing in Mephisto at the 11th hour feels like a great way to derail any conversation about the rest of the season.