Marvel/Netflix Daredevil season 2.

[Christopher]

2x03...

Forgot to add that we got the usual reasoning for why the villain does remove the hero's mask. A weak spot in an otherwise good show.

I dunno. What would Castle have gained by removing his mask? Unless DD was some billionaire playboy under there, Castle probably wouldn't know him from Adam.

Besides, it's not just a mask, it's body armor. It's functional, part of DD's combat gear. Castle may have mocked it as long underwear, but it's a uniform of sorts, and Castle respects a fellow soldier.

Spoiler: Spoiler

That's actually the third Jessica Jones reference I've caught. The first two were Claire refering to helping Luke escape the hospital, and DA Samantha Reyes briefly appeared in JJ S1.13.

Wasn't there a name drop for Blake Tower in something before this, whether JJ or DD season 1? Tower appears here as Reyes's assistant DA. In the comics, Tower has been the New York City DA for ages, so I can guess where his storyline is heading.

One other thing to add. It had odd editing. They'd finish a scene then move to the next and play that out. Then when they go back to the previous scene and pick up where they left off. I don't think I've seen that before. Events usually play out in real time.

I've seen it before, but mainly in novels. Still, it does sometimes happen in movies or TV, but usually with smaller time discrepancies.

I'll echo something Turtletrekker said last month... Jennifer who? You know what I'm talking about. The first few episodes gave us Batman vs Superman and now Wonder Woman shows up. Or rather, Elektra Natchios. The show captured the character in a way that Jennifer Garner never did because she was too much of the girl next door. Now we've got the right look, the right demeanor and the right dose of high powered "billionaire's daughter". And we even got some backstory. It wasn't as substantial as I would have liked but at least we got something yet again that neither of Garner's movies gave us. I'm fascinated by the fact that Elektra eschewed a normal life and devoted herself to martial artistry and otherworldly matters, and I hope that this show captures that. That's probably the one thing that Garner's movie did well.

I'm just surprised by what a total sociopath this Elektra is in the flashbacks.

Spoiler: that mansion scene

The moment Matt mentioned never finding his father's killer, I knew Elektra would hunt him down and offer Matt the chance to kill him, but I thought it would be out of her sense of justice and vengeance as a career ninja. Instead, she just does it for fun, getting off on the thought of watching her boyfriend commit murder.

Is that part of her comics characterization?

Honestly though, I can't see Hell's Kitchen deteriorating to that level and in such a short period of time.

Is it more unrealistic than a bunch of alien monsters invading through a wormhole and getting fought off by a robot-suited bazillionaire, a defrosted WWII hero, a Norse god, an angry green giant, a career assassin, and a guy who shoots arrows?

Anyway, I think season 1 showed that Fisk had deliberately encouraged the region's deterioration into crime and economic collapse so that he could buy it all up, tear it down, and rebuild it as his gentrified dream. So it's worse than it would've been without his intervention.

 

[Zaku]

2x05.

Wow! Those rope knots! That was not the usual sloppy wrapping that you see in the tv shows! Elektra is a bondage enthusiast too ?!?

 

[M.A.C.O.]

I'm just surprised by what a total sociopath this Elektra is in the flashbacks.

Spoiler: that mansion scene

The moment Matt mentioned never finding his father's killer, I knew Elektra would hunt him down and offer Matt the chance to kill him, but I thought it would be out of her sense of justice and vengeance as a career ninja. Instead, she just does it for fun, getting off on the thought of watching her boyfriend commit murder.

Is that part of her comics characterization?

No, it is not. This Elektra is nothing like the comic iteration. The comic Elektra is the daughter of a rich family, who had underworld ties, and became an assassin after her father was murdered. Because of her career path, Elektra and Matt are on opposite sides of the law. Think of Batman and Catwoman's relationship, but substitute grand larceny and theft, for contract killing.

 

[DimesDan]

Upto episode Four, tis rather good still.

 

[Commander Richard]

I dunno. What would Castle have gained by removing his mask? Unless DD was some billionaire playboy under there, Castle probably wouldn't know him from Adam.

But still, he must have been curious. I'm sure anyone would be. Lex did pull off the mask in the link. That seems more natural an instinct. The whole thing here came off like the usual comic book trope where the villain doesn't remove the mask just because...

Is it more unrealistic than a bunch of alien monsters invading through a wormhole and getting fought off by a robot-suited bazillionaire, a defrosted WWII hero, a Norse god, an angry green giant, a career assassin, and a guy who shoots arrows?

I'd say yes. I can't see condos just disappearing in a year or two only to be replaced by older buildings and hole-in-the-wall bars.

 

[kirk55555]

Ok, episode 3 has me confused

Spoiler: Daredevil Season 2 Episode 3

How can the DA get Foggy and Matt disbarred for a police action that the DA lead and Nelson/Murdoch had absolutely no influence or authority over? It makes no sense. I'm 99% sure DA's can't just get lawyers they dislike disbarred for no reason, and I don't see any way this situation can be spun into something to take down N&M.

This actually kind of ruined the episode because it was hard to focus on anything while trying to figure out how this really stupid threat is actually a threat.

Besides that, this is still probably the worst episode of Daredevil (either season) so far. Punisher sucks. He's not just inferior to Thomas Jane's version, he's somehow worse then Warzone's Punisher. Warzone had a Punisher with no character or personality, but that still fits better then the whininess of this one. I thought he was going to have a temper tantrum during his scenes with Daredevil. At this point, only Dolph Lundgren was probably a worse Punisher, but if Daredevil's version starts throwing a tantrum or sobbing, he'll probably sink lower then Lundgren's version, too.

Also, I read that Elektra spoiler from a few posts up, and WTF. When Marvel does Elektra worse then the Elektra movie, its time to be afraid. Daredevil Season 2 is starting to feel like they fired the people behind season 1 and hired the incompotent Jessica Jones people to write a "Daredevil" show.

 

[Xerxes82]

No, it is not. This Elektra is nothing like the comic iteration. The comic Elektra is the daughter of a rich family, who had underworld ties, and became an assassin after her father was murdered. Because of her career path, Elektra and Matt are on opposite sides of the law. Think of Batman and Catwoman's relationship, but substitute grand larceny and theft, for contract killing.

Actually, that's not true. This portrayal is completely consistent with the way Frank Miller, the character's creator, characterized her in The Man WIthout Fear miniseries, where she is suggested to be a violent, manipulative sociopath. Whether that characterization can be made to fit with Miller's earlier work with her, from her original appearances as you've described, is debatable. Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense. International assassin is the kind of employment that takes a certain mindset about both the value of life, and the thrill of the hunt, so to speak. That Elektra eventually moved beyond her youthful exuberance and found a kind of zen in her work is a sign of both her maturation as a person and how thoroughly her job suits her.

 

[tomalak301]

Episode 6 was one of the more boring episodes so far. You had really long and drawn out scenes with Punisher and Karen and I kept thinking get on with it. Also the stuff with Elektra kind of feels tacked on. I think episode 5 and 6 felt like a transition period for the season. Also, while last season felt grand in scope, for some reason this season is feeling a lot smaller. That's not a bad thing, but I'm not sure if this is as good or better than season 1 yet. Hopefully the final 7 episodes pick up the pace some.

 

[kirk55555]

Actually, that's not true. This portrayal is completely consistent with the way Frank Miller, the character's creator, characterized her in The Man WIthout Fear miniseries, where she is suggested to be a violent, manipulative sociopath. Whether that characterization can be made to fit with Miller's earlier work with her, from her original appearances as you've described, is debatable. Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense. International assassin is the kind of employment that takes a certain mindset about both the value of life, and the thrill of the hunt, so to speak. That Elektra eventually moved beyond her youthful exuberance and found a kind of zen in her work is a sign of both her maturation as a person and how thoroughly her job suits her.

Frank Miller is a sexist, racist idiot who couldn't write a well rounded female character if you put a gun to his head (even back when he hadn't completely lost his mind and could turn out decent stuff). His version of Elektra is not the standard the character should be held to, kind of like how no one uses the original gun toting Batman as the standard for the character nowadays, even though its what his creators did at first. Being a creator doesn't mean their interpretation of the character is the best. Rob Liefeld's original story with Deadpool is horrible, and the character is legitimately nothing like the Deadpool that became popular except for the name and costume. So, being the first doesn't make someone the definitive authority on a character.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Actually, that's not true. This portrayal is completely consistent with the way Frank Miller, the character's creator, characterized her in The Man WIthout Fear miniseries, where she is suggested to be a violent, manipulative sociopath. Whether that characterization can be made to fit with Miller's earlier work with her, from her original appearances as you've described, is debatable. Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense. International assassin is the kind of employment that takes a certain mindset about both the value of life, and the thrill of the hunt, so to speak. That Elektra eventually moved beyond her youthful exuberance and found a kind of zen in her work is a sign of both her maturation as a person and how thoroughly her job suits her.

I would call that backtracking. Miller's DD run was from 1979-1983, before he did Batman, and before he did Sin City. You can see that Miller's writing and sensibilities definitely changed between the time he was on DD in the late 70s and his short stints back on the book in 86 (Born Again) and 93 (Man Without Fear).

The difference between show and comic Elektra, is that Elektra didn't try to convert Matt to the dark side/push him to commit homicide. She flirted with danger, but that was because her father was so overprotective and she just connected with Matt the way she never had with anyone else. First love, and all that jazz. Not saying it's bad, or anything. It's just not classic Elektra.

 

[Christopher]

No, it is not. This Elektra is nothing like the comic iteration.

Actually, episode 8 reveals that what we saw in the flashbacks wasn't what it seemed. So we were both wrong regarding what we thought it showed about Elektra.

But still, he must have been curious. I'm sure anyone would be. Lex did pull off the mask in the link. That seems more natural an instinct. The whole thing here came off like the usual comic book trope where the villain doesn't remove the mask just because...

We're talking about the Punisher here. He's not exactly a normal person. He's obsessed with his mission. He probably respects Daredevil's masked persona as part of his mission, and he didn't want to violate that. It's even suggested that he was inspired by Daredevil. Take the mask off and he's not a symbol anymore, he's just some guy.

Honestly, I have to think that in a world where mask-wearing were common, it would be preferable if people didn't pull each other's masks off just because they were curious. I mean, in the real world, polite people wouldn't pull off a Muslim woman's chador out of curiosity about her hair color, or pull open a woman's blouse out of curiosity about her breasts. We respect other people's choice to maintain their privacy about their bodies. The same should go for their faces. Taking a superhero's mask off without their permission should be seen as a violation, something that shouldn't be done without their permission unless there's some compelling legal need. Because part of the social standards we choose to live by is respect for others' privacy.

There was an old storyline in the comics, back in the '70s, when Spider-Man was wanted for A Crime He Didn't Commit and got arrested. The police were going to pull his mask off, and Captain George Stacy forbade them from doing so without a court order, because it would be an invasion of his right to privacy. So this idea has been addressed in Marvel before.

Now, I'm not saying that Frank Castle would necessarily be motivated by those concerns, but I'm uneasy with your generalization that "anyone" would be that cavalier about violating another human being's privacy rights. I really, really hope that's not the case, because I like to think most people are more considerate than that.

I'd say yes. I can't see condos just disappearing in a year or two only to be replaced by older buildings and hole-in-the-wall bars.

Then maybe the MCU's Hell's Kitchen has been evolving differently from ours for longer than that. We're told in episode 8 that

Spoiler: episode 8

the Hand has been infiltrating Hell's Kitchen for years in pursuit of its nebulous goals. Maybe that's why the neighborhood is more crime-ridden and corrupt in the MCU.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

^ Yeah, Stick training Elektra isn't in the comics either. Creative liberties for the show and all that. That makes the changes ok, imo.

 

[mswood]

Boy I really liked this season. great use of the existing backstory of season one and its characters, nice way of tying Electra even tighter to daredevil. And while certain aspects aren't going to be a surprise, I liked the majority of what I saw. a to of returning players in the last half of the season and even more tie ins with Jessica Jones. Nicely giving this portion of New York a very rich level of believability. Of course with the amount of crime and death seemingly in this one area it really isn't believable that other New York heroes would have at least looked into a few things. It makes the big gun characters appear like real dicks.

 

[Christopher]

The courtroom procedure here is terribly unrealistic, committing all the usual sins of TV trials. The case being rushed to trial in a couple of weeks. Attorneys asking witnesses questions they don't know the answers to in advance. Attorneys giving argument during examination. The whole thing is pretty ridiculous.

I mean, why the rush? They could easily have put a time jump of a couple of months into the story, to give Matt a chance to heal from his injuries and to let his relationship with Karen deepen. Have Elektra leave town for her investigation and then pop up again a couple of months later. When the whole season is released on a single day and the seasons are a year apart, there's no sense even trying to approximate real time, so why not let the timeline stretch out? As long as the season as a whole fits within a year, it works fine.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

On episode 3:

Spoiler: The stairway

The stairway fight isn't as impressive as the first-season corridor fight it's trying to emulate. First off, it's just not a novelty anymore, and we kind of expected them to try to top it. But there are a lot more points where it's evident that there's a cut -- sometimes when DD's back fills the shot briefly, but sometimes when there's a quite overt cut that they just hope we'll overlook in the flow of the moment (there were a few of those in Hitchcock's Rope too). And there's a bit too much that's clearly digital trickery, like the chains and that one shot where a guy gets yanked down one level by the chains. So it just generally feels more contrived and less successful. I was more impressed by the continuous take in the hospital scene when Foggy came to look for Claire.

I agree it's not as novel, I disagree it isn't as impressive. Just from a technical standpoint, it's one of the best I've seen. As a viewer, the first season wowed me in a way this won't, but it still looked really good.

Yeah, Hell's Kitchen of today is pretty gentrified. The dirty streets and hard neighborhoods that 80s Daredevil and 80s Teen Titans (Cyborg is also from Hell's Kitchen) took inspiration from are gone. I imagine TPTB are aiming their DD show to be like a quasi-Sin City. Jessica Jones also felt like a crime noir in NYC.

I think the bigger deal will be Greenwich Village. When Doctor Strange started, it was kind of a hipster place that could expect someone like Doctor Strange. Now it's so different that it'll stick out like a sore thumb. I hope they figure out how to make it work.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

No, it is not. This Elektra is nothing like the comic iteration. The comic Elektra is the daughter of a rich family, who had underworld ties, and became an assassin after her father was murdered. Because of her career path, Elektra and Matt are on opposite sides of the law. Think of Batman and Catwoman's relationship, but substitute grand larceny and theft, for contract killing.

It depends on which Elektra we're talking about. The original Frank Miller run? No, it has nothing to do with that. The Elektra from The Man Without Fear, on the other hand, I think it's about the same. She's a fun-loving, reckless, sociopathic character who enjoys doing things like this. I don't think what we saw was all that different from that.

Now this portrayal of Elektra is one reason why TMWOF is not as good in retrospect (it was the first DD story I read), but it's consistent with that.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

The courtroom procedure here is terribly unrealistic, committing all the usual sins of TV trials. The case being rushed to trial in a couple of weeks. Attorneys asking witnesses questions they don't know the answers to in advance. Attorneys giving argument during examination. The whole thing is pretty ridiculous.

I mean, why the rush? They could easily have put a time jump of a couple of months into the story, to give Matt a chance to heal from his injuries and to let his relationship with Karen deepen. Have Elektra leave town for her investigation and then pop up again a couple of months later. When the whole season is released on a single day and the seasons are a year apart, there's no sense even trying to approximate real time, so why not let the timeline stretch out? As long as the season as a whole fits within a year, it works fine.

I'm going to quote from my rant about that. This is for episode six. My hand-waiving for everything is Reyes owning the courts, more or less. I think, narratively speaking, the rush makes more sense despite really making no sense. Anyway, time for a rant:

I hate the trope of the "lazy green Public Defender." There are plenty of lazy lawyers. There are plenty of court-appointed lawyers who do seem to not care. But people who are fresh out of law school and sign up to be Public Defenders are generally true believers. They're the most zealous, dedicated around (I say this because I am one of them). It's perpetuating a negative stereotype that hurts poor people because they end up not trusting their own representation. I get that it makes sense narratively, but it still troubles me. I'm going to try and justify it as Reyes pulling strings to essentially choose her opposing counsel (given the corruption last season with the Kingpin, I can imagine it just doesn't vanish overnight). Plus, isn't it true that there's no "Public Defender" in New York. I thought it was the Legal Aid Society. They should have just said "court-appointed lawyer" (the legal aid society was conflicted out because they represented one of his victims previously). That would have fit well and, as a Public Defender, I have nothing against bashing private court-appointed lawyers

There are technically other legal issues as well. One is the conflict of interest they mentioned in the episode - they represented someone he's alleged to have killed. It's a deceased client, but he can't waive that conflict and it's possible their previous representation hurts their current client's interests. On the other hand, they're right that Reyes can't call them on that. However, there's also a rule against soliciting clients in person. I think it's a dumb rule and it's often violated in exactly these contexts, but it does exist. I did cheer when Matt pointed out the obvious that Reyes was on thin ice ethically too by being there when she can't speak with Frank Castle without his legal representation present.

 

[JD]

I watched episode 2 this morning.
I loved the scene with Foggy, Karen and the DA.
I like the way they set up the Punisher name.
The conversation with the cop was a nice set up for the conflict beteween Daredevil's methods and the Punisher's.
I had completely forgotten about the guy making Matt's Daredevil suits, so I liked the visit him. It was also a nice set up for Daredevil getting a different suit later in the season.
EDIT: I forgot to mention before that I really like that Karen is getting suspicious of Matt, it's nice to see that she's not totally oblivious.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Netflix's season dumps make these threads hard to navigate. I've "only" watched through 2x04 but it's been pretty good so far. Between the fights, the character moments and visuals I have been happy. I find Bernthal compelling and the kiss at the end of four was as sensual as I've seen in a while, that pan of the raindrop was nicely executed. I'm glad I don't have much comic background to second guess the material and distract from what the series is presenting.

 

[Xerxes82]

Having just finished up the last episode, I'm still processing my thoughts on season 2. First impression? I loved it. I think even more so than season 1. The season felt smaller, in plot scope, but much more ambitious in it's themes. There was a lot the show was trying to say, and I feel like it hit some great notes. I'll need more time to work over my thoughts on a lot of that.

But the obvious: Joe Bernthal and Elodie Yung. Great additions to the cast. I've never really had much love for the Punisher, though I have read some great Punisher stories. But Bernthal creates a more rounded, human version of the character at times that really spoke to the trauma he's experienced. It's interesting the way the Punisher/DD dichotomy mirrors the DD/Fisk dichotomy of the first season, while still having something unique to contribute. And Elodie Yung sparkles. I believed the reckless exuberance, the savage violence, and even ultimately the vulnerable core of her Elektra completely. And it certainly doesn't hurt that she's stunning.

All of the returning players continue to excel as well. Some of the interactions and dynamics were utterly mesmerizing. I could heap praise upon praise on much of the cast. The writing sometimes left a little something to be desired, occasionally clunky or on the nose, but the cast sold it really well.

The show isn't perfect, certainly. They amped up the violence quotient, and more than once I felt they would have been more effective if they'd implied rather than shown. But given the subject matter, they obviously disagreed. And I'm not sure how effectively some of the thematic stuff was deployed. But that may just be me. Oh, and my biggest random bitch about the season, not nearly enough Father Lantom.