Daredevil, the Marvel-Netflix series that follows the story of Matthew Murdock, a lawyer by day and a vigilante by night, released to critical acclaim from both critics and viewers last year due to it dark and gritty story, despite existing within the same fictional universe as the Avengers. Earlier this year on March 18th, 2016, both companies teamed up once again to drop the second season of the hit show. If you’re like me and loved the first season of Daredevil, you probably shared the same giddy feeling I felt right before binge-watching the entire 13-episode season in one day.
As a lawyer who was blinded as a child due to an accident involving chemicals (as if we haven’t heard that one before), Matt developed heightened senses that allow him to “feel” the world around him through what is essentially sonar techniques, an attribute that allows him to carry out his task as a vigilante at night. While my comic book nerd bias is clearly strong here, I’ll address both its strong and weak points with regards to storytelling, plot points, character development, and so forth. I’ll divide everything into two sections: non-spoiler review and spoiler in-depth discussion/speculation for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and upcoming Marvel-Netflix shows. Let’s get into it, shall we?
Non-Spoiler Review
Picking up a few months after Daredevil season 1, we learn that the events that took place during season 1 leading up to the fall of Wilson Fisk a.k.a. The Kingpin (though he hasn’t been referred to as such yet), has resulted in a power vacuum which the gangs in Hell’s Kitchen are now attempting to claim. In what I consider to be one of the best opening scenes, we learn of the unknown threat to these gangs, one that relies on violent and deadly techniques. If you’ve seen the trailers and/or are a fan of comic book lore, you’ll instantly recognize this as the work of Frank Castle a.k.a. The Punisher. We also learn that Matt still hasn’t given up the mantle of Daredevil and Foggy still voices his concern over Matt’s safety, something that has been touched upon since season 1. Karen Page comes back again as a major supporting character for season 2 and essentially serves as an angel on Matt’s shoulders while also growing into her own character, independant from both Foggy and Matt. All the while this is taking place, an evil in the form of a secret ninja cult, known as The Hand, begins to plot their Hell’s Kitchen takeover. To make matters more complicated for Matt, his (stunningly beautiful yet deadly) ex-girlfriend Elektra comes back into his life, and essentially serves as this devil on his other shoulder. Daredevil, Elektra, the Punisher, and ninjas… If this doesn’t get you excited enough to binge-watch Daredevil season 2 right now…
Throughout the season, there’s a predominant struggle between Matt and, well, Matt. As the season progresses, it becomes more apparent that Matt’s “true” identity, as he perceives it to be, is as Daredevil. His struggle with maintaining a balance between his life as Daredevil fighting off a looming threat to Hell’s Kitchen, and his life a lawyer, becomes severely unbalanced, more so by choice than anything else. Foggy, already knowing Matt’s secret identity, continues to voice his concern over not only Matt’s safety, but also their friendship and law firm, of which eventually lead to his character development into his own independent person and eventually surpasses Matt as a lawyer in the courtroom. Karen throughout the season sees her own development as she shows off her talent for digging around for news stories much like a journalist, as Ben Urich was in season 1 (R.I.P.), with hints to her dark past sometimes showing up, but only briefly.
As mentioned above, this season sees the introduction of Frank Castle to Hell’s Kitchen and is, in my opinion, the best part of this entire season. Not only to we get to see a faithful representation of Frank Castle on screen as portrayed by Jon Bernthal, we get a glimpse into his past and the reason he’s become the way he is. As the audience, we sometimes sympathize with a guy who blows people’s brains out for fun. Part of Frank Castle’s arc involves his court hearing, one that shows Foggy holding his own while Matt remains, for the most part, bluntly put, completely fucking shit up. Trust me, as you watch this season, you’re left to wonder if Matt has become disconnected from reality as his friends often do. Back to Frank Castle, I think the best part of his character arc is the fact that this is Frank Castle before he becomes The Punisher that we all know and love, bringing him down to a more personal and kind of relatable level.
New to this season is Elektra, Matt’s ex-girlfriend who also happens to be a slightly sociopathic murderer… So kind of like my ex-girlfriend too. Elektra’s character arc begins with her reintroduction to Matt’s life as she tries to uncover some information regarding Roxxon corporation, a corporation that has been name dropped in several Marvel properties already. As things get more dangerous, Stick himself makes an appearance and brings warnings of The Hand, a mysterious ninja cult hellbent on… well, it’s never really elaborated on, but they’re evil ninjas so whatever it is has to be something huge. I guess my only complaint about this specific arc is how ambiguous it’s left for the audience with regards to certain objectives, such the Black Sky, mainly due to the fact that unless you’ve read the comics, you’re going to be left wondering, “black sky? I swear it’s blue?”
All in all, I absolutely loved this season, though there were some moments in which the different arcs were happening simultaneously but didn’t flow together as well as they should have. The fight sequences were god-level and the ideological conflicts present throughout the entire season are great to add more depth and complexity to the overall story. The characters were great, the cast performed excellently. Daredevil’s costume is greatly improved upon, and done so as a plot point believe it or not, and even has Daredevil receiving his trademark billy club. Elektra on the other hand is given a different costume than that of her comic book counterpart, but her original costume is visually referenced at the end of the season. Frank Castle’s Punisher costume doesn’t appear until the end, when Frank Castle finally finds closure and begins to prepare his next steps. For the most part, the pacing was perfect as all the characters got enough screen time to both develop and shine on their own.
Rating: FUCK YES/10
Spoiler Review/Speculation
Okay, can we please talk about that stairwell fight scene? Daredevil straight up took out an entire gang with a gun taped to one hand and while holding a chain. That, put together with the eery, red lighting and Daredevil breaking all the light bulbs in order to keep everyone else in the dark, made for possibly the best fight sequence of the season. I was so giddy when that scene happened… in fact, I’m still giddy as I write this right now.
As mentioned above, the fight sequences are god-level, and there’s even one where Daredevil begins to lose his abilities to “sense” everything and everyone around him, while also being unable to detect their heartbeats, thus resulting in him having to listen in on their breaths. Another example being when Frank Castle is in the prison as he goes against an entire cell block of prisoners, killing them all brutally, and then going after Wilson Fisk (yes, he makes an appearance!) who actually lets him leave the prison in order to have him kill anyone who could potentially serve as a threat for when he leaves prison. This whole scene, aside from being completely badass, shows us how manipulative Wilson Fisk is. From entering prison and being clowned on by everyone there, he eventually climbs up the power ladder using minimal effort (albeit a lot of money) until he runs the prison as he once ran Hell’s Kitchen, something Matt Murdock proves by instigating Wilson Fisk to act violently against Matt only to be met with a lack of action by the guards watching over them.
But man oh man, Frank Castle is an absolute beast this season. Starting out with a revenge-fueled quest to seek vengeance on those who were responsible for the death of his family which led to his torture scene (which if you’re really sensitive about these things, close your eyes because Frank having his foot drilled is no joke) to then being put on trial to him finally receiving closure by killing the man responsible for his family’s death in the simplest manner possible (of which I personally thought was a nice touch), Frank Castle’s story arc is incredibly well-done. There’s a scene in the end after he kills the Blacksmith in which he stumbles upon a secret armoury in which his trigger finger started twitching, and I swear I nearly spilled my hot tea out of sheer fanboying. Can you tell that I enjoyed Frank Castle’s arc? I don’t think so to be honest.
The beauty of this show lies in the smaller details that often goes unnoticed or overlooked, such as Claire’s vague references to the events of Jessica Jones, as well as showing us what characters from the previous season are up to, and even dropping incredibly small hints as to what they might eventually get involved in, but we’ll get to that later.
You really can’t have a show without having any love interests for the protagonist, can you? Of course not, which is why Marvel and Netflix came correct with Matt beginning a romance with Karen, only for Elektra to show at the end of that same episode, which inevitably sets the stage for complications, because you can’t have a show without drama, duh. Now that we’re on the topic, am I the only one who wants Matt and Karen to continue with their relationship like in the comics rather than with Elektra? I mean, I get that everyone agrees that Elektra is the only woman who Matt feels like he can be himself with (and also because Elodie Yung is absolutely gorgeous with the greatest accent ever), Elektra was always meant to be the cause of Daredevil’s inner moral dilemma due to their opposing ideologies that often tempt Matt to lose all connections with his life as Matt Murdock, while Karen served as Matt’s bridge to the real world and was actually Matt’s longest running love interest. I feel like people’s issue with Karen is because of the positions she gets written into; she’s either yearning over Matt, complaining about Foggy and Matt always fighting, or constantly setting out on her own little adventures that she usually backs out of due to her insecurities only to get pep talked back into finishing it.
The last fight sequence. Daredevil and Elektra against several ninjas. If you suspend enough belief, then it becomes slightly more believable, but who cares, it was so awesome. As some were already speculating, Elektra dies during the fight in the same manner that she dies in the comics, but not by the same person. Nobu, back from the dead (though it’s mentioned that The Hand has mastered immortality, it’s not expanded upon so Nobu being alive after burning to death last season is not explained), is the one who stabs Elektra and as she lay dying, she confesses her love for Matt as she takes her last breath. Shortly after, Daredevil goes after Nobu and guess who shows up on the rooftop across from where the battle is taking place? That’s right, Frank Castle in his Punisher costume shows up and starts dropping bodies. It was a great sequence, I just wish the Punisher had more screentime there.
The season then ends with Matt revealing to Karen his Daredevil identity. Something I was genuinely surprised Karen hadn’t figured out on her own as I was expecting her to. I mean, this whole season, Karen was being set up to become a journalist and carry the torch that Ben Urich had left behind, so her figuring out Matt’s Daredevil identity wouldn’t have been such a stretch, would it?
My rating still remains the same: FUCK YES/10.
***
So what do I expect for the future of Daredevil?
In the near future with Civil War coming up, while I don’t necessarily expect the characters from Daredevil to show up, it would be cool if one of the arguments for superhero registration was something along the lines of “some asshole in Hell’s Kitchen has started to kill off all the gangs because there is no control regarding vigilantes operating in this country.” Even if that doesn’t happen, I still expect some dialogue that references either Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and/or Luke Cage as “a couple of assholes that operate without regulation in New York.”
Beyond this, I don’t expect a Daredevil season 3 until after The Defenders mini-series. With season 3, I expect a storyline that is based on Frank Miller’s story, Born Again, in which Kingpin figures out Daredevil’s identity and makes his life a living hell. This is hinted at in the prison scene where Wilson Fisk asks for a file on Matt Murdock, presumably to investigate him further. I would love to see that happen on the show, as well as learn a bit more about Karen’s dark past, which I doubt they’ll go the comic book route (which involved pornography and drugs if you were curious).
For the Defenders mini-series, I expect Elektra to come back from the dead and take on her role as the Black Sky as part of The Hand, an event which will definitely call for the teaming up of all the previously introduced characters, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and soon Iron Fist. Speaking of Jessica Jones, I expect to see Foggy in the second season of the show, as this season resulted in Foggy begging hired by Hogarth’s firm, the same firm that is currently dealing with the case of Jessica Jones from her actions taken in the first season.
Can you tell that I’m fangirling right now? I am totally fangirling right now. This is especially odd because I am a 20 year old male, but still, you get the point. I also just watched Batman v. Superman and my review for it should be up in the next few days (I know I’m late to the whole reviewing party because everyone does theirs in the first two days, but whatever).
I know I don’t have a decent comment section yet, and even if I did I doubt that any of you would use it, but regardless, what did y’all think? My friends are “too cool” to discuss “nerdy” things like comic book movies SMFH. But you guys accept me for who I am, right?
Right?
’till next time, y’all.
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