Daredevil (2015)

• Title: Daredevil – Bang
• wiki: link

Netflix really, really wants to do a Batman show. Seriously, for a Marvel show the Second Season premiere has one hell of a boner for DC Comics given the number of shots of the Man Without Fear draped in shadow (even pulling criminals into dark alleys). It can’t even help itself with an obvious ape Tim Burton’s pan to a Dark Knight on the rooftop looking over the city. Season Two opens with not much having changed in Hell’s Kitchen. Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) is still patrolling the streets. Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) still hates keeping his partner’s secret. The law practice is still struggling to get by. And Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), while crushing over her boss, is still blissfully unaware of how he really spends his free time. Sure, Daredevil took down the Kingpin but their are plenty of criminal organizations looking to fill that vacuum. Of course after the brutal bloodbath that starts the season it sure as hell isn’t going to be the Irish Mob.

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• Title: Daredevil – Nelson v. Murdock
• wiki: link

The temporary split between law partners and best friends begins here as Foggy (Elden Henson) discovers Matt‘s (Charlie Cox) brutalized body along with the number of secrets his friend has been keeping from him for years. Interspersed with flashbacks showing us various stages of the pair’s friendship from their first meeting as college roommates to the discussion of Matt’s Greek girlfriend to going into business together, “Nelson v. Murdock” paints a picture of a strong bond which is immediately shattered because of Matt Murdock’s lies (not just about his work as a vigilante but the larger lie about the true aspects of his blindness). The split is, of course, temporary, but it does allow each character to work towards taking down Fisk separately while eventually providing Matt another confidant he isn’t forced to hide his abilities from any longer.

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• Title: Daredevil – Shadows in the Glass
• wiki: link

For a show that’s shown us only glimpses of the main character’s past I have mixed feelings about devoting nearly an entire episode to examine the past of the Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio). One of the lessons of Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight is that we are given multiple possible origins for the Joker but the truth of his past isn’t important to who the man is today. Wilson Fisk is our bad guy, he’s the head of organized crime in New York with plans of branding himself to the public as a philanthropist. What happened in his past to create the man he is isn’t necessary information for Daredevil (Charlie Cox) to defeat him. Of course the fact the Arrow already did the exact same storyline with Brother Blood (murdered his father as a kid, attempted to take over the city as a shadowy figure, pretending his mother is dead while hiding her away in a private institution) makes the episode feel like slightly under-heated leftovers.

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• Title: Daredevil – Stick
• wiki: link

“Stick” introduces an important character from Matt Murdock‘s (Charlie Cox) past whose introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe raises questions the series either can’t or isn’t willing to answer at this point. Although I’ve enjoyed Daredevil the more I watch the show the less it feels a part of the same universe as the various Marvel films and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. “Stick,” both the character and the episode, is a good example of this as Stick (Scott Glenn) doesn’t fit within the rules the previous Marvel Cinematic films and series have set-up. Stick can’t be a mutant, he obviously isn’t an Inhuman, and unless he’s a product of the Super-Soldier program or a some variation his abilities cannot be accounted for in the shared world that still has yet to introduce mysticism as an aspect of this shared universe.

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