Daredevil: Season 2 Review

“One batch, two batch, Penny and Dime…”

(WARNING: There will be Spoilers!)

Last year, Marvel Studios debuted the first of their Netflix-exclusive shows, Daredevil. After the 2003 Daredevil film starring Ben Affleck proved to be highly controversial amongst comic book fans to the point where it became one of the most disliked films of the superhero genre, this new show proved to be yet another big hit for Marvel Studios. One of the main reasons why it became such a hit with comic book fans was due to the show’s more violent and mature nature compared to the generally light-hearted affairs of the MCU films. And while I personally don’t want this to become the norm with the MCU films, or any superhero film that doesn’t need to be rated R for that matter, it is nice that a show like this exists as it helps establish a nice sense of variety amongst the various aspects of Marvel Studios’ expansive franchise, as Netflix does allow Marvel to do things that they normally wouldn’t be able to do on the big-screen. And now, following Marvel’s second successful Netflix show in the form of Jessica Jones’ first season, the ‘Devil of Hell’s Kitchen’ is back for yet another intense season of vigilante action. In Season 2 of Marvel’s Daredevil, Matt Murdock now finds himself crossing paths with a new and much more extreme vigilante compared to himself as well as an old flame, whose arrivals in Hell’s Kitchen once again throw the area in total chaos. All of this forces Matt to have to balance his life as both a blind lawyer by day and the crime-fighter Daredevil by night. So with all of that in mind, how does Daredevil’s sophomore season fare following in the footsteps of its excellent debut season last April? Pretty great, in fact…

   

At the end of Season 1, lawyer Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), AKA Daredevil, successfully defeated Wilson Fisk and kept Fisk’s criminal enterprise from taking over Hell’s Kitchen. As Season 2 begins, Matt continues to operate his firm ‘Nelson and Murdock’ along with his best friend Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and their secretary Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) but the trio soon find themselves struggling when it comes to paying their legal fees. While all of this is going on, a series of mass shootings start occurring involving the various gangs of the neighborhood. As Matt and company soon find out, these shootings are all being orchestrated by one man, Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), AKA ‘The Punisher’, a military veteran who seeks revenge against those responsible for the deaths of his wife and their two kids. Because Castle’s vigilante methods are much more militant compared to Matt’s, the latter finds himself having to combat the former so that innocent people won’t end up getting caught in his crossfire. When the Punisher does end up getting caught by the police and is put on trial, Matt, Foggy, and Karen risk the future of their firm by taking on Castle’s case in order to keep him from receiving the death penalty. At the same time, an old flame of Matt’s, Elektra Natchios (Elodie Yung), comes back into his life seeking his help investigating into the Yakuza and their rise to power. But as Matt begins working with Elektra, it begins to complicate both his personal life and his relationships with both Foggy and Karen.

Right off the bat I must say that one of my favorite aspects of this show has been the main trio of Matt, Karen, and Foggy. As I previously stated in my review of the show’s first season, I really love how this series has particularly fleshed out Karen and Foggy’s roles in the overall plot so that they’re not just the typical ‘damsel in distress’ and ‘best friend comic relief’, respectively. Similar to how she got involved with the overall plot of Season 1, Karen ends up getting caught in the crossfire of the Punisher’s trail of vengeance in Episode 1, ‘Bang’, when the Punisher rampages through a hospital where one of his targets, who Karen is meeting with at that time, is currently stationed. After the Punisher is caught, she begins to investigate further into the incident that resulted in the death of his family and tries to find the humanity in him, which she does genuinely find whenever she talks with him alone as he speaks to her in a manner that is unlike him whenever he talks to someone else. In doing so, she’s pretty much the only person who doesn’t primarily view him as ‘a monster’.  By the end of the season, following the dissolution of ‘Nelson and Murdock’ (more on that in a bit), she takes up a new job at the New York Bulletin, where her friend Ben Urich from Season 1 worked at before his death at the hands of Wilson Fisk, and writes a pretty darn powerful piece about what it truly means to be a hero and how those who live in Hell’s Kitchen are heroes in their own right because of what they’ve been through while living there. There is a bit of a blossoming romance that occurs between her and Matt but that’s never really focused on too much and of course the return of Elektra into Matt’s life makes things pretty difficult between him and Karen as a result. But right at the end of the Season 2 finale, Matt finally reveals to Karen the truth about him being Daredevil, which is most certainly going to change things between them once Season 3 rolls around.

As for Foggy, I have seen a few people (including the UK IGN podcast) who have been rather critical of Foggy due to his generally critical nature towards Matt’s vigilante actions. They believe that he should ‘stop complaining’ and ‘be proud of the fact that he’s friends with Daredevil’. But what they see as ‘complaining’ I see as Foggy trying to look out for his best friend. Consider this… if your friend was a vigilante superhero and just got shot at from point blank range by another vigilante, which is what exactly happens to Matt when he tries to fight the Punisher in Episode 1, how would you respond? Would you A.) be totally fine with it and act like it was nothing or B.) do what Foggy does in the beginning of Episode 2, ‘Dogs to a Gunfight’, and scour numerous rooftops in order to find Matt. Hopefully most of you would go with B. I don’t see Foggy taking issue with Matt’s vigilantism as ‘a bad thing’. Instead I see Foggy’s attitude towards it as him worrying about his best friend and basically trying to keep his humanity in check. In other words, he’s basically one of the few people who is completely unafraid of calling out Matt on his BS and questioning him on why he continues to go out and fight crime at the risk of his own life. Their friendship is also put to their test when they decide to take on Frank Castle’s case and the end result obviously doesn’t turn out in their favor. This results in the dissolution of ‘Nelson and Murdock’ and Foggy, who despite the loss actually managed to impress people with his overall handling of the case, especially in regards to him making the defense’s opening statement which, for the record, was due to Matt not being there on time to do the opening statement himself, landing a new job at Hogarth, Chao and Benowitz AKA the law firm featured in Jessica Jones.

It’s taken nearly three decades and not one but three failed attempts at a film franchise for it to happen but we finally have a great representation of Marvel’s legendary anti-hero, Frank Castle AKA ‘The Punisher’. Jon Bernthal absolutely kills it in the role (pun… intended?). The show does an excellent job in immediately establishing his character and his anti-hero status. While it’s true that a lot of the events of Season 2 come as a result of his actions, he’s not ‘a villain’ like Wilson Fisk was but instead a character who constantly teeters on the line between good and evil. The latter aspect is best exemplified by the overall moral conflict that emerges between him and Daredevil. As Frank observes in Episode 3, ‘New York’s Finest’, despite the fact that both he and Daredevil are vigilantes, he has the guts to ‘go the extra mile’ and permanently take down the criminals of Hell’s Kitchen whereas Daredevil keeps them alive. To him, Daredevil’s ‘a half-measure… a coward’. All of this results in a great debate over how far vigilantes like Daredevil and Punisher should go when it comes to combating criminals and both Bernthal and Cox handle their characters’ contention with each other perfectly. Plus, Bernthal very much looks the part and is intimidating as all hell because of it. He’s so great in the role that Marvel and Netflix are currently working on a Punisher TV series to go along with these Defenders shows and given how great of a role he had this season, it’ll be exciting to see what will happen with that show.

Another Marvel character who finally got a great live-action representation courtesy of this show was Elektra. Elektra previously appeared in the 2003 Daredevil film played by Jennifer Garner and she even got her own spin-off film in 2005. But of course, the Daredevil film attracted a fairly negative reaction from fans and the reception towards Elektra was even harsher. Thankfully that isn’t the case this time around as Elodie Yung is excellent in the role of Matt Murdock’s assassin love interest. Just looking at a pic of Yung in all-red attire from 2013’s G.I. Joe: Retaliation was more than enough proof that she was the perfect choice for the role and that was proven correct once Elektra first appears at the end of Episode 4, ‘Penny and Dime’. This femme fatale is perfectly portrayed by Yung and the relationship between her and Matt is well-handled. They’re shown to clearly care about each other but her assassin training courtesy of Matt’s old trainer Stick (Scott Glenn returns for a few episodes and is just as memorable as he was in Season 1) and her ways of using that training, particularly her overall indifference towards killing, consistently challenges their relationship. However, right before their final battle with the Yakuza, led by Nobu, the group’s leader who seemingly died in Season 1, it seems like their relationship is starting to rekindle when Matt asks Elektra to ‘run away with him’ after all of this is over and she accepts his offer. Unfortunately, Elektra dies protecting Matt from Nobu. However, this may not be the end for Elektra as the season ends with her grave being dug up by the group known as ‘The Hand’ and her body being placed in a machine used to bring people back to life, hence why Nobu returned after his supposed death. It should also be noted that she is revealed to be the ‘destined Hand leader’ known as ‘the Black Sky’ so it’ll be interesting where this show goes with that in future seasons.

Admittedly this season hasn’t been received as well as Season 1 and one of the main reasons why, based on what I’ve seen online and according to the Rotten Tomatoes consensus for this season, is that some feel that the first few episodes of the season lacked a character that left as big of an impact as Wilson Fisk did. And to be perfectly blunt, I don’t really understand that argument because of, well, the frigging Punisher. Sure he may not be a ‘villain’ like Fisk was but the conflict that emerges between him and Daredevil over how they do their vigilante business more than makes up for Fisk’s absence if you ask me. Not only that but the inclusion of Elektra this season starting with Episode 4 and her overall role in the plot also helps keep the season running smoothly and all of this is done without having a major ‘villain’ a la Fisk. But, if you are one of those people who missed Fisk during the first half of this season, don’t worry because Vincent D’Onofrio does return as Fisk in Episodes 8 through 10 and, as you would expect, pretty much any scene involving him are some of the best of the entire season, particularly the scenes between him and Frank in Episode 9 and a very intense meeting between him and Matt, as just himself and not as Daredevil, in Episode 10, ‘The Man in the Box’. Really, what more can be said about D’Onofrio’s fantastic turn as one of the greatest villains in the MCU that hasn’t already been said before?

I will admit that there’s one thing that’s disappointed me so far with Marvel’s Netflix shows and that is the fact that, starting with Season 1 of Jessica Jones, there haven’t been many instances where connections have been made between the shows. Now I’m not saying that these shows need to have the same amount of links to each other as the MCU films do but considering that this will all soon lead to a Defenders series, I’m actually rather surprised that none of the main heroes have crossed over into other shows save for Luke Cage’s supporting role in Jessica Jones prior to the debut of his own show, Luke Cage, which is set to come out this September. Before completing Season 1 of Jessica Jones, I heard a rumor that Daredevil was going to cameo in the season finale and the Netflix description even stated that in that episode, “Jessica and Luke get help from someone else in the neighborhood”. But ultimately that ‘someone’ wasn’t Daredevil but instead Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), who’s basically the MCU Netflix equivalent of Nick Fury because of her appearances in both Daredevil and Jessica Jones as well as a confirmed part in Luke Cage. And what are the connections between these two shows that happen in Season 2 of Daredevil, you ask? Luke Cage is mentioned once, Jessica Jones is mentioned once, and Carrie Anne Moss returns as Jeri Hogarth in the season finale when she meets with Foggy to discuss his new job. That’s it. Again, I’m totally fine with the fact that the Netflix shows aren’t relying too much on linking all of these shows together just yet but at the same time I do feel that they should probably start doing more, maybe even a few crossovers, soon in order for the Defenders series to have a proper set-up.  

In regards to my favorite episode of the season, I think I’m going to have to go with Episode 9, ‘Seven Minutes in Heaven’. This of course was the episode of this season that was the most based around Wilson Fisk. The episode begins by showing Fisk’s first few days in prison before cutting to him meeting with Punisher, continuing on from the finale of the previous episode, and the two making a deal to have the ‘Kingpin’ of the prison, Dutton, killed while also giving Castle the opportunity to find out more about what happened the day his family was murdered. This episode featured quite frankly one of the best, and also the most gruesome, action sequences of the entire series to date in which Castle brutally takes out a whole line of prisoners after he’s ‘left for dead’ by Fisk after he kills Dutton. Runner up picks from this season include Episode 3 for the aforementioned great moral conflict between Daredevil and Punisher as well as the awesome fight sequence in an apartment complex that’s reminiscent of the legendary long-take hallway fight from Season 1 Episode 2, Episode 4 for the Punisher’s great speech at the end of the episode in which he tells Matt about what happened to his family right before he ends up in police custody, which is arguably Bernthal’s best moment in the role, and Episode 10 if solely for the aforementioned scene between Matt and Fisk.

FINAL VERDICT

Season 2 of Daredevil is just as great as Season 1. In fact, I think I have to agree with my friend Matt Goudreau in that this season is arguably even better than the first. True it may not have had a ‘villain’ along the same lines of Wilson Fisk but the introduction of Frank Castle and the moral conflict that emerges between him and Daredevil more than makes up for Fisk’s absence in the first seven episodes before his ‘cameo’ in Episodes 8-10. After numerous failed attempts of doing them justice on the big-screen, this season of Daredevil brought us the best interpretations of the Punisher and Elektra to date, all of which is bolstered by Jon Bernthal and Elodie Yung’s terrific turns in their respective roles. Pair that with all of the things that made this show so great in the first season (the action sequences continue to be some of the best in the entire MCU) and you have yet another excellent season of Marvel Studios’ first Netflix show. Though with that said, can we please stop comparing the Netflix shows with the MCU films? I’ve constantly seen that happen every time a new MCU Netflix season launches and, as you might have guessed, those comparisons are almost always in favor of the Netflix shows. But if you ask me, that’s totally unfair because the MCU films and the MCU Netflix shows are two very different entities. I’ve seen quite a few people say that the MCU films should follow in the footsteps of the Netflix shows in terms of the action and storytelling but I feel that they don’t need to because the Netflix shows should be more than enough to satisfy older comic book fans while still being part of the MCU. Like I said last month when I reviewed Deadpool, not every superhero film/TV show needs to be R-rated just because that’s what fanboys crave more. But at the same time, it’s good that we do have films like Deadpool and shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones so that there’s a good sense of variety amongst all of these superhero films and TV shows.  

Season 2 Rating: 5/5!