Daredevil Season 2

The first season of Daredevil came out in 2014. While I didn't watch it all the way through right away, when I did watch it I blasted through it and I really enjoyed what I watched. At the time I thought it was the best superhero show on television. Now, since watching that season, I have watched The Flash, Jessica Jones, and a lot of other superhero television shows. Not to necessarily say that those shows are better than the first season of Daredevil, but they are different. Each show is going for something different, even a show set in the same universe like Jessica Jones. And the same goes for Daredevil.

I think this should be an interesting review. I have my thoughts on the second season of Daredevil and I will definitely talk about what I liked and what I didn't like about this season. However, I'm almost equally looking forward to how this show compares with the other stories being told in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as well as comparing it with superhero stories in general.

Daredevil season 2 takes place not that long after the first season. It also takes place not that long after Jessica Jones but that's not as relevant. Matt Murdock (played by Charlie Cox) and Foggy Nelson (played by Elden Hanson) have their law practice in full swing, providing legal services to the down and out and the people that really need it. Matt continues his night time vigilantism as the Devil of Hells Kitchen or now known as Daredevil and Foggy is fully aware of it while his secretary, Karen Page (played by Deborah Ann Wolf) who also happens to be developing feelings for Matt, does not know of his secret night time activities.

The first few episodes, or what could be considered the first act of the season mainly focuses on Daredevil going up against a new vigilante that has come to Hell's Kitchen. This vigilante is a brutal killer by the name of Frank Castle (played by Jon Bernthal) who goes by the pseudonym, The Punisher. Like I said, this is the first act of the season and I thought the first few episodes were really

great. They were streamlined and they were a lot of fun. They created the clear divide between Daredevil and The Punisher and the lengths that the either one is willing or unwilling to go to to bring justice.

The episodes after the capture of the Punisher  are where things get a little slow and a little bit convoluted. While you would think that the trial of Frank Castle would be a really interesting few episodes, these are really the slowest episodes of the season. There is a lot of Jon Bernthal just sitting in restraints with a glazed look on his face while he gets asked questions by the members of Nelson and Murdock. On top of all that, this is where things start to get real complicated really quickly.

This is the introduction of Elektra Natchios (played by Elodie Yung) and the whole story line with her, and the Yakuza, and The Hand, and the reintroduction of Stick from the first season (played by Scott Glenn). And while its an interesting story when everything is said a done, a lot of things got really muddled midway through the season.

And here's the thing. If this season had focused on The Punisher and unraveling the mystery of him and the murder of his family this would have been a really great season. If this season had focused on Elektra and the fight between her and the Hand. This would have been a really great season. But because they tried to fit both into one season, I think they overplayed their hand a bit.

Again, both stories are really interesting and for what they had, I think they did a decent job at portraying both characters. However, its when both stories go in tandem that things get convoluted. The fact of the matter is, there is a lot going on in this season. You have parts where Matt is dealing with Ninjas climbing up the walls of a hospital to find patients connected to The Hand. At the same time he's dealing with The Punisher going on his rampages. And I suppose a part of it makes sense to show that Matt is getting out of his depth and he needs help. This could possibly point towards the forming of The Defenders. However, I think with the balancing act of these two characters, Matt dealing with his relationships, whether its between him and Elektra, him and Karen, him and Foggy, him and Stick, and then you throw Wilson Fisk in the mix just for good measure, I think this season got really convoluted really quickly.

Speaking of Wilson Fisk, holy shit.

I re-watched the first season before watching this season and I just got chills again watching all the episodes where Wilson Fisk (played by Vincent D'onofrio  is the main baddie and the fact of the matter is, the first season worked because it was streamlined on one antagonist. But back on point, Wilson Fisk does return at one point in this season and its not a moment too soon because he's the catalyst that really helps this season pull through the middle act to get to the big finale.

He's got a pretty small role in the grand scheme of things, but the promise of his involvement in future events with Daredevil and probably The Defenders, it just puts him back on top as the best villain in the MCU right now for me. And yes, better than Loki. I'm still not totally sure if he's better than Kilgrave... but maybe that's my bias towards David Tennant.

Another thing worth mentioning about this show is that it really took the action to the next level. While I'm still on the fence on whether or not I like DareDevil or Jessica Jones more, I will say that Daredevil just has better action overall because Jessica Jones is more of a slow burn psychological drama than it is a real superhero show. The anti was already set high with the first season but if there is anything that the second season undoubtedly improved on, its the action.

The bar was set pretty high by season one, but while a lot of people just pointed to one really great action sequence in season one (the hallway tracking fight sequence that looks like it was done in one take and looks amazing) there are a couple of fight scenes in this season that just blew my socks off. I had to take a breather after some of them just because they were so awesome. And I had heard about some of them but I don't think I was truly prepared for them when they finally came.

But I think the one thing that took it to the next level was the graphic levels of Jessica Jones.

While I mentioned that Jessica Jones didn't have the levels of action that Daredevil provided, One thing that it did better than Daredevil season one was giving a gritty, gruesome, clearly R-Rated show. Daredevil season one was definitely a mature R-rated superhero show, but the majority of it was just punching the crap out of people with some gruesome imagery in bits and pieces. Its almost like Daredevil saw Jessica Jones and said, we need to top that, but in our fight scenes. And that makes sense with characters like Elektra and The Punisher joining the fray. Before when it was just Daredevil, he would just beat the crap out of someone. Now you have a lot of characters who have no problem shooting someone in the face or slitting someone's throat. There's a lot more blood, and this season is a lot more gruesome. And its fantastic.

I wanna talk about each of the main characters individually because what Marvel's shows on Netflix have done is they have created really interesting and compelling characters in a 13 episode arch. And while some shows (and even movies) don't put in enough character development across seasons or sequels, Daredevil builds from the previous season.

Matt Murdock - Charlie Cox has created a character that you just like to root for. Its actually kind of a bummer because there were stories a couple months back that Cox's career has kind of suffered because of Daredevil because he's so used to playing a blind man that its bled into his other auditions and roles. You have to give the man credit for really embracing his roles like no other.

Matt Murdock is going through a lot of issues that you've seen before in a superhero show. He's dealing with relationships, he's dealing with some people knowing his secret identity and other people not knowing. He's dealing with balancing his day career with his night time activities. He's dealing with the overwhelming nature of being a masked vigilante and the fact that he can't always save everyone. He's dealing with the fear that if his enemies were to know his identity, they may use it to get to the people he cares about, and if that's the case, should he just cut off all ties. These are all issues that we've seen before in other superhero films and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Its just too simple to say that Daredevil isn't bringing anything new to the table because that's not true. Its doing it in a mature, not CW way, that I don't think we've seen done in a 13 episode arch.

While I'd love to see Daredevil show up in a feature length film in the MCU, I think Netflix is the perfect place for him and I'm looking forward to seeing this character grow even more. Because you see the conflict, you see the struggle this character is going through and its done, really, really well.

One thing I will say about Matt in this season is the fact that because there is so much going on, because there are stories surround the Punisher, surrounding Elektra, there are a couple of arcs and

paths of development for Matt that get a little bit muddled. There's a part near the beginning where Matt is hit in the head with a bullet and his abilities are impaired. Now I thought for a little bit that that was going to be a big part of the season, that Matt's abilities would go in and out causing a liability while he's out fighting crime... but no, it happens once and it doesn't really ever happen again.

Again, I think this all might tie together in later seasons, but overall, I think there was so much going on that some of the development I think they wanted Matt to go through got put off to the wayside. It wasn't as clear cut as it could have been. But for what it was, I thought it was still pretty solid.

Foggy Nelson - Elden Hanson is an actor that I can't really decide if he's a good or bad actor. Re-watching the first season, I realized that a lot of his lines are really delivered awkwardly and while he's supposed to be a quirky character, I'm not wild about exactly how quirky he actually is.

I think the thing that always brings me back is that regardless of Hanson's acting, I really enjoy his story and how his character is written. Foggy is the loyal companion of Matt, but at the same time he has his own aspirations and his own goals. In the first season, he wanted to see Nelson and Murdock succeed and would do anything to make sure that happened. And while he's the dorky sidekick character, both the first and the second season show that he is a very capable lawyer and he doesn't always play second fiddle when it comes to running cases through Nelson and Murdock.

This is even more flushed out in the second season. This season, Foggy is aware Matt is Daredevil and in many ways he helps him do his crime fighting in his own supplemental way. I like this because, again, while its something we've probably seen before in a movie, I don't know if we've really had the 13 episodes to really flush out the fact that Foggy will help out Matt in any way he can, until things go too far. Its interesting having people know Matt's identity and not having him be an Iron Man character where EVERYONE knows that Tony Stark is Iron Man. Its always good drama to have superheroes that keep their identities secret, even to those they care about. But its not as charted territory when these heroes have friends that do know their identity and how that affects their lives. Foggy gives a really good supporting character, regardless of what you think of Hanson's "quirky" acting.

Karen Page - Karen Page is a character that in every other superhero show would be a really boring character. She's a pretty blond white girl who is the secretary for two very competent lawyers, one of them being a masked vigilante. Sure they can make her a love interest, but that's more augmenting onto characters we already thought were cool. At that point she's really just arm candy right?

Well they really try to push those stereotypes out of our heads when it comes to Karen Page in the second season. Karen is not just a secretary at Nelson and Murdock, in many ways, she's part of the legal team. She talks to clients, she does a lot of the leg work.

And yeah they do make her a love interest for Matt in this season, and while in the first episode I saw this and didn't think it was that great of an idea, I actually think they did a decent job with creating a relationship between these two. I still feel like its a little bit artificial and perhaps only happening because of the source material from the comics, but it was a relationship that provided more than just a woman that Daredevil can go home to at the end of the night. Its also a pretty good contrast when compared with the relationship Matt has with Elektra.

But as an individual character, Karen's development is compounded from the experiences she has in the first season, and it makes sense with the things that she experiences in the second. In the first season, she is very much a victim, someone that is affected by the evils and the corruption of Hell's Kitchen. In this season, she's more of a survivor, someone who sees the evil, sees the corruption, and

wants to do something about it. You see her teeter between being an almost lawyer to being an almost journalist and you almost see her fill the shoes of Ben Urich from the first season. And while I'm still bummed that that character wasn't fully utilized in my opinion in this series, I think its good to let someone else shine, especially a character we've already seen grow in the first season, and needs avenues to go down.

The most interesting parts of Karen's story was her connection to Frank Castle. She had a connection to Daredevil and while that connection is still there, she kind of carries on the dilemma you see in the first few episodes on who's methods are better? Daredevil's where he punches the crap out of bad guys but at the end of the day watched the legal system take care of the bad guys, or The Punisher's who takes the bad guys off the streets permanently. The connection between Karen Page and Frank Castle is not a connection I was expecting from this show when I heard that The Punisher was going to be in the season, but I really enjoyed it by the end of the season.

Frank Castle - And speaking of Frank Castle, the Punisher was a fantastic character to add to this universe. I'm not really familiar with the lore of the character. I haven't seen the previous movies that had incarnations of Frank Castle. But what I do know is that I am growing to be more and more of a fan of Jon Bernthal's work, and I want to see more of him.

Bernthal is just good at playing characters that are just good at killing people. I'm not really sure if that's a type cast but what Bernthal does is he portrays these characters in a way that you really do understand where they are coming from. There's a great line where Karen says something to the effect of, I don't agree with your methods whatsoever and I think that you should be in prison for what you've done. But the reality is, what you do works. There's this great conversation that Matt has with Frank Castle on a rooftop all about the differences between Daredevil and The Punisher and Castle lays out the reasons why he thinks he is right and justified to kill the criminals that Daredevil thinks need to be put away instead.

In a year of superheroes fighting over different ideologies and different methodology of crime fighting, the struggle between Daredevil and The Punisher probably goes near the top of well done struggles. And it resolved very much the way it needed to in this case. There's not a huge resolution, nobody is really proven right or wrong despite there being a lot of dramatic tension on both sides, and at the end of day, The Punisher is just going to be doing his thing, Daredevil is going to be doing his thing and maybe their paths will cross again, maybe they won't. It may not be the cleanest resolution, but at least it made a lot more of an impact than both of them having mothers with the same first name.

Like I mentioned, there's a good portion of Frank's story where it gets a little slow and he's just looking blankly into space and asking questions pertaining to his really boring trial. However, when Jon Bernthal is able to go out and do his Jon Bernthalisms and be a badass, The Punisher is a really interesting character.

I really want to see a standalone series and it has been green lit. I have no clue when that is going to air but I'm really looking forward to The Punisher getting his own series to develop an already great character. I think with how much was going on in this series, Frank Castle maybe didn't get the levels of development I think he really needed, but it was a good taste and I'm looking forward to more Punisher in the future.

Elektra - And finally the last character worth talking in depth about is definitely Elektra Natchios. I had never really seen anything with Elodie Yung in it before and if I had I definitely didn't take any notice of her. And what I was worried about is that they just hired a pretty face to play a really interesting character, because that has never happened before...

Oh... right...

But luckily, I was pleasantly surprised with how well they built up this character and created someone who is very much an anti-hero, but still has a very compelling backstory and connection to Matt Murdock.

Elodie Yung is not only incredibly gorgeous, she creates this very black widow-esk character (in the traditional connotation of a black widow, not the Scarlet Johanasson character) where she comes off as a seductive object, but in reality, she is incredibly deadly.

One of the best parts of the show, in my opinion, was the relationship between Matt and Elektra. You get the sense that this is a really toxic relationship and something that Matt should be running far, far away from, but at the same time you see the connection that the two have, especially in the context of the events of season two where Matt wants to cut off all ties to those who aren't connected to his crime fighting, and suddenly this relationship is something you want to see grow, you want to see it blossom.

The one issue I think I had with Elektra was the fact that the last act really throws her story line for a loop and it seems very random the sudden change. It of course is explained by very convenient flashbacks, however, a lot of her story seemed very random and sudden, mainly when they start throwing in connections to Stick and The Hand.

Like The Punisher, Elektra creates an interesting dynamic for an anti-hero character. She is a brutal killer and lots of the things she does is reprehensible, however, you still see the connection to her and Matt. You still see the good in her and you want to see that good come out. Whether it does or not is the drama and the fascinating part of the story. I'm looking forward to where they take Elektra and how she develops in later seasons and in the Netflix TV universe.

The interesting part about this season is that they tried to play it off like The Punisher and Elektra were the two characters that would replace Wilson Fisk, like they were the villains. The fact of the matter is, neither of these characters were the main antagonist of the series. And that might have hurt the season. The fact is, we want to see all three vigilantes fighting together against evil. And while there is an antagonist (or a couple) in this season, none of them are really memorable and are really just place holders until a later time when Wilson Fisk returns... and my god, is he going to return.

And that's a good segway to talking about the greater universe that the Netflix shows are creating. As much as I would love to see Daredevil fighting side by side with Captain America and Thor, The Defenders are more of the B-squad, taking on the street level crime, or the evil that hides in the shadows. Jessica Jones and soon Luke Cage just fight on a different playing field than The Avengers that I don't think it would vibe. I'm okay with the fact that Daredevil will probably never fight the Kree or Thanos because he'd be out of his league. On top of that, I don't think the tones of the movie universe would mesh well with the tone of the movies and I'm okay with keeping them separate.

The only exception I could possibly see is dependent on how they pull off Spider-man: Homecoming. I would love to see Spider-man take on the more street level crime and if that was the case, it would make total sense for him to cross over to fight the criminals Daredevil fights. It would make total sense for Spider-man to take on Wilson Fisk. Now, again, the only thing holding that back would be the tones. I don't know if a John Hughes style Spider-man would really mesh well with the absolute brutality of Wilson Fisk, but still I would be one-hundred percent fine with shifting that to make it work. We shall see.

But back on target, the Netflix shows are creating their own dark, gritty, street level crime fighting universe that isn't dependent on the movies and has their own threats that The Defenders need to face.

The interesting part is, I'm not totally convinced we need a collaboration series.

While Season 2 of Daredevil gave some good insight into what the nature of the threats in The Defenders could be, if they said tomorrow that The Defenders weren't happening, I wouldn't be disappointed. And here's why.

In case you don't know, the Defenders is an upcoming show on Netflix that Marvel is producing that is going to be the street level Avengers. Its going to take the characters from the big shows being put out on Netflix to create another super team. This team, as of now, will consist of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. Daredevil and Jessica Jones have already aired, Luke Cage (played again by Mike Colter) is set to release in September while Iron Fist (starring Finn Jones) is set to be released in February of 2017. The reason I wouldn't be opposed to them keeping them separate is because each show so far has had its own taste and feel to it.

Jessica Jones is very, very different than Daredevil in a variety of ways. It is different in tone, kind of action, in the variety of themes that come out of it, etc. Jessica Jones is so good because it didn't try to

be a female Daredevil. It was so good because it wasn't really a superhero show. It was a suspenseful drama that highlighted a lot of the struggles that women go through in their daily lives with a character or two that just happened to have super human powers. I hope that Luke Cage does the same thing but with people of color. (Even though I wasn't incredibly impressed with Luke Cage as a character in Jessica Jones and I'm not totally sure how he's going to fare with his own standalone show). And Iron Fist... I have no idea where they're going with that. And that's awesome!

I think these shows thrive more if they're not bound to being your classic superhero shows. Daredevil is a good show to carry on that classic superhero feeling and I don't think they need to change that formula for that to continue to be a successful show. But I don't know if I necessarily need to see them change the formula for Jessica Jones to fit the Avengers style cross over they want.

I'm all for crossovers. Right now they're playing the crossovers like a Grand Theft Auto game, where in Jessica Jones, Claire Temple makes really vague references to Daredevil, and in Daredevil Season 2, they make really vague references to Jessica Jones for a kind of wink wink to the audience to give them some kind of reward for sitting through all 39 episodes of all three seasons of these shows. And don't get me wrong, I think it'd be a really cool idea to have Daredevil show up in the second season of Jessica Jones. I'd love to see these two interact.

However, if Daredevil is going to show up in Jessica Jones, it needs to be in a context that is conducive to Jessica Jones, not only there to create a franchise. If they're going to continue the themes of the first Season, Daredevil needs to show up and be conducive to those themes. I would expect the same thing with Jessica Jones showing up in Daredevil, or Luke Cage, or Iron Fist. I just don't want them to sacrifice all the story building and the character development done in both shows, just so they can all come together and fight. That can be done in crossover episodes and maybe, down the road they can do a collaboration series, but it needs to be earned and it needs to make sense.

Luckily, Marvel isn't like DC where they feel like they need to hurry up and create a universe out of scratch. Marvel has the time to mold and shape these characters and create a story that makes a lot of sense for them to come together and form a team. I would just ask, don't force it. If these characters work better alone, let them work better alone.

So overall, the second season of Daredevil was pretty good. I don't think it was as good as the first season or Jessica Jones, but the fact of the matter is, I had fun with this show. There was a lot of good development of characters I really enjoyed and the action was off the wall awesome.

If you're looking for a show on Netflix to binge watch, Season 2 of Daredevil is just another reason to check out this series. Builds on the first season in a great way and while its not quite as good as the first season, its still worth checking out.

So those are my thoughts on Daredevil Season 2. Its been a while since I've been able to write this in depth of a review of a television season. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as your requests for movies and TV shows I should be reviewing in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can also get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. Its not much and I know its not exactly what I want right now, but here is the teaser trailer for The Defenders coming out soon. Enjoy!