In Ironheart episode 3’s ending, Riri Williams suffers another panic attack, because circumstances had made her do something that she never would have done even in her wildest dreams. Riri had killed a man. [Spoiler Alert] During the Hunter Mason mission, Parker Robbins’ cousin, John, figured out what Riri was up to. He caught her red-handed with a piece of his cousin’s magical cloak. Riri knew that these shady cousins were hiding something, and she wanted to get to the bottom of the truth by analyzing the Parker, aka the Hood’s, cloak and finding out more about his powers, but before she could do so, John tried to silence her, just like how the brothers killed Rampage (probably) to silence the loose ends. So Riri fought back against John in the shut-down greenhouse chamber quickly filling up with carbon dioxide. As both started to suffocate, Natalie, the AI created from Riri’s own memories, arrived to help her and saved her life, while Riri herself made a conscious decision to leave John behind and let him suffocate to death, as she didn’t want her secret to come out. Riri knew that if Parker found out about her little stunt, he would literally kill her, just like Rampage. So, to save her own life, she had to make a difficult decision, and this particular action is going to weigh really heavily on her in the next episodes. With that said, allow me to speculate about everything we can expect from Ironheart episode 4. Also, I haven’t read the comics, meaning my theories are strictly based on the show, but I would love to hear your views and theories in the comments, so feel free to drop by.
The Hood Knows
The ending sequence of Ironheart episode 3 suggested that Parker had been hearing voices in his head, which seemed like the same entity, alien, or devil, who gave him the magical cloak and had been taking over his body. Well, Satan or the devil himself makes bargains , right? So I guess Parker made a pact with an evil entity to fulfill all his wishes, for a price. And it’s not just the magical cloak; this evil entity has also been telling him things. In episode 3’s ending, the whispering voices showed Parker the “giant robot” that killed John and how it happened. The closing shot implied that maybe Parker now knows that it was Riri who left his brother in the greenhouse to die, and in the next episodes, he’s going to seek revenge for his cousin’s death. This means Riri left John behind for no apparent reason. It was a bad decision, right? She could have saved the lad’s life, and he might have let things go and kept her secret.
Riri Left Ezekiel’s Tech Behind
Parker’s original plan was to threaten Hunter Mason, the CEO of Heirlum Bio Technologies, and force him into signing some contract papers, which would have made Parker an anonymous co-owner of his company. Well, a similar stunt to the one he pulled off with TNNL’s CEO, Sheila Zarate. However, Hunter refused to bend his knee to the crook, and therefore Parker killed him in cold blood, which is obviously going to start a full-fledged homicide investigation with Ezekiel Stane’s bio-mesh and John’s corpse at the center of the crime scene. During the scuffle with John, Riri had accidentally dropped her mini-laser gun, which she had brought to cut up Parker’s cloak with. In episode 3, Ezekiel had told Riri that all his black market tech could easily be traced to him, bringing him the attention he had been trying to avoid because his father, Obadiah Stane, was a supervillain who had tried to kill Tony Stark in the past. He didn’t want his father’s criminal past to overshadow his own life, which was why he cautioned Riri multiple times not to get herself involved in any criminal activity, but it seems like Riri just brought the cops right to Ezekiel’s doors, and the freak of a guy that he is, he might end up blaming Riri for ruining his life. Also, I am not sure of this one. If Marvel is doing some DNA analysis thing with its investigators, then that mini-laser gun likely had Riri’s DNA on it, and to add a cherry on top, the cops had already contacted Riri for the investigation into Rampage’s murder, which means she’s already on their radar. Well, no surprise why she got that severe panic attack in the end.
Riri’s Internal Conflict
Throughout the first three episodes of Ironheart, Riri’s friends and well-wishers, most particularly Natalie and Xavier, had been telling her not to go down the wrong path to arrange money for her suit, but in her childish pursuits, she’d ignored their advice and ended up joining a criminal gang of “Robin Hood” gangsters who steal from the tech-rich. Well, a crime is a crime, which makes Riri a criminal, no matter the reasons she is committing those crimes for. And this realization, especially now that she blames herself for John’s death, is going to take a heavy toll on her conscience, forcing her to do the right thing going forward. Well, the lesson she’s going to learn in the end will likely be, Tony Stark built his suit out of scraps, so why can’t she? She already made an AI using brain scanning technology, right? She didn’t need millions of dollars for that. So when there’s a will, there’s a way. Riri doesn’t need to do what Tony Stark did in his time. She’s smart to understand that she doesn’t need to walk down someone else’s path to succeed. Instead, she has the passion to carve her own way and set an example for millions of kids like her.
