Same here. Part of the reason I am rushing is because I do want to see the conversations but I'm trying to not be spoiled. I wish there was some simplification to the rule on Netflix shows and you had to use the spoiler codes. Maybe that is something worth discussing with the mods but then I'm worried about the "if you don't want to be spoiled don't visit the thread" argument.
Actually, Stick did train Elektra in the comics (Daredevil 190). She sought out Stick's order, and trained with him, but he eventually told her to leave because of her anger. She was recruited by The Hand soon after.
On episodes 9-10: Spoiler: stuff I could tell right away that Castle wasn't the one shooting up the DA and the coroner and stuff. After all, he's a trained military sniper, so he wouldn't rain down a hail of automatic rifle fire and shoot bystanders like Foggy. It bugged me that Karen didn't point that out to Ellison. When Ellison was dismissing her opinion as sentiment or intuition or whatever, I wanted her to explain that her conclusion was based in the facts, that it was inconsistent for a trained sniper to use this methodology. The most unbelievable, cartoony moment was Daredevil leaping out the window after Claire and catching her. I hate scenes like that, where the hero jumps out the window after the person falls and somehow manages to fall faster than gravity would allow and catches up with them. Sure, if you're skydiving, you can orient yourself vertically to minimize wind resistance and fall faster than someone who's spread-eagled, but in a fall of just a few stories, there wouldn't have been nearly enough time to catch up. Not to mention that DD was sliding down the rope, which should've slowed his fall compared to Claire's.
Spoiler: episode 7 and 8 wow there was a lot of information in this episode. I had to go back and read up on some of the details, like Black Sky and The Hand. I'm still a little iffy on both but it made the Elektra storyline more interesting than it had been. In fact it started to get really good at episode 7 but this episode ran with it. I do wonder if this season is getting bogged down by too much going on. I mean the Punisher storyline has been great but it's felt pushed aside somewhat by the other storyline. I wonder if things could have been given a season each. Also that was a heck of a twist bringing Fisk back. Maybe streamlining the story is what the final episodes of the season will do.
So i binged through it and sacrificed my entire Saturday basically (got almost nothing done i had planned). Very short review.. awesome as fuck. Bernthal is now the very definition of the Punisher onscreen ( with only Ray Stevenson coming close physically to the original comic version). He's the perfect blend of vengeance and personal pain and Bernthal plays him so well. Elektra starts off as very psycho and it doesn't let up much over the season but she's still a very interesting character. I won't talk more openly now for fear of really spoiling some things but the season starts off very good, builds up tremendously in the middle but i'm not so sure about the last few episodes which really return to the comic roots and i don't know if Daredevil is served well with that. It's now past 3am here and i'm off to bed, have to get up around 8.30 (hate good show that do this to me) If i'm not too shot on Sunday i will post a lenghtier review in spoilercode here.
I get really annoyed by superhero costumes -- like this one -- where the cowl is clearly of a piece with the collar when it's on and yet suddenly, magically becomes a totally separate piece when it comes off. There's even a scene in episode 13 where you see Daredevil with his cowl off, with the suit having a low, flat collar, and then in the next shot he stands and his head is suddenly covered by the black fabric hood that goes underneath the rigid cowl. Why not just let that hood be part of the costume, pulled back like a normal hood when he has the mask off? Why fake it with the hood magically disappearing? More spoilery thoughts on the finale: Spoiler: Episode 13 Elektra being killed was telegraphed by their "let's run away together" talk, even without the knowledge of her fate in the comics. And they'd laid the pipe for the Hand's resurrection ability, so it was equally telegraphed that she'd be revived. It felt a bit by the numbers. Also, the Punisher just randomly showing up to help out with a subplot he'd had zero prior connection to was clumsy. I don't understand Castle's house. How has it just been sitting there abandoned for the months or more since the park massacre? And why is it still livable? Why isn't everything covered in dust and cobwebs and dead bugs? Why isn't the place stinking from all the rotted food that would be in the fridge after the power was cut from failure to pay the bills? Also, when Frank broke into his house and sat at his dining room table... where did that current newspaper come from, with the article about his "death"? Did he bring it in with him? All in all, I don't think I liked this season as much as the previous one or Jessica Jones. It had its good moments, and Bernthal and Yung were both excellent additions, but as it went on, it lost track of the interesting early questions being raised about morality and the cost of vigilantism and kind of got lost in its own plot clutter. And once again, it waited until the end of the season to give us things we'd been waiting to see -- the costume in the first season, the famous billy club in the second. It was cool to see the club in action at last. Ditto with the upgraded Elektra costume -- which did a nice job of evoking the lines of the classic costume in a more practical, less sexualized way.
Oh, no, I don't like some things other people like, so obviously I have the worst taste ever. I guess I'll stick with my horrible taste in movies and TV, and remain the only person who likes stuff like Star Trek, star Wars, Firefly, The Flash, Marvel movies and similar things. I know, that list may shock you by how it shows just how bad my taste is, but somehow I'll endure enjoying those obviously well loathed franchises, among many other equally bad ones that I obviously only like because of my bad taste, and no one with good taste ever be caught watching
I've decided that this series is best served watching only at nighttime and I gotta say it's really gorgeous for a small screen series. The detail really pops and brings the big city to life. Some of the fancy places or the Indian restaurant with all the lights are fun to take in. ETA That restaurant is Panna II, lots of pictures on the net, I'd love to go eat some Indian food there, yum.
I just finished the season. I think this is a record for me. Done in two days. It usually takes me three and sometimes four to get through a 13-episode dump. Spoilers ahead... - The season really hit the ground running but after Frank was taken down in episode 4, it felt like a different story tacked on. I'd also say that the last two thirds of the season were slower and the stuff with the Hand was pretty convoluted. I still enjoyed it though. Marvel on Netflix continues to deliver. - The Punisher: A great replacement for Jason Statham's Bullseye. We got a full origin story and I think it worked better as a foil for Daredevil's story than it would have as a series in its own right. I also spent much of the season wondering if he was supposed to be a sympathetic character, or a bad guy we were supposed to hate. I couldn't tell. Then I realized that the viewer is supposed to decide that for themselves. Personally, I think they did a good job of showing us why he does what he does and even gave us a bit of a bonus by delving into a bit of psychology but I won't get behind his philosophy. - Elektra: As a character she was quite the improvement from Garner and I stand behind that but the season didn't totally tell the story I wanted to see. After her fantastic intro, she was pretty much just "there" as a fighter. They didn't develop her as the playgirl turned mystical assassin I was kind of hoping for. I also didn't like that they made her the Golden Child who is a killer by design. - Fisk: Nice to see him again. I don't need to sing D'Onofrio's praises. You all saw it. - I didn't feel that Matt and Elektra had much chemistry but boy did they look great as Elektra and Daredevil when they had that "running away together" chat. - JD, I didn't forget about Melvin. I wondered if we'd see him this season and sure enough, he wasn't left out when he probably could have been. - So, Clancy Brown plays a general (or in this case colonel) in both the Marvel and DC universes. Oh, and I totally knew he was the guy Frank was after. I didn't figure it out, it just hit me like a eureka moment. - I agree with Christopher. I hope that next season, they don't wait until the last episode to put the heroes in costume. And yeah, I liked Elektra's outfit. What little I did see, that is. Didn't get a good look at it. And how much did we see of the Punisher, 2 seconds?
I just finished watching the season. I think I liked it better than season 1. That's saying a lot because I really enjoyed the first season. I thought these versions of Castle & Electra were very well done. Any changes made to the characters for the show didn't bother me much. I still felt like the essence of both characters was there. I thought Bernthal was great in the role & I hope we get to see more of the character somewhere in the future. I almost wish I hadn't seen the picture of Vincent D'Onofrio on the set. It's not that big of a spoiler, but I would have liked to have the scene where he first appeared to be a bit of a surprise. Knowing he was in it had me knowing exactly when he was going to show up. He was, of course, great as always. Nice to see that Fisk finally has his Kingpin title. I wasn't too enthralled with the courtroom scenes. Matt giving closing arguments in place of actually questioning the witness was a bit annoying. It didn't lessen my enjoyment of the season as a whole, but those scenes just didn't work for me. Count me as another person who figured out Clancy Brown's role in the whole affair. I didn't think they would waste him for a minor role like it would have been without that little twist. It was also nice to see both DD & Electra get their trademark weapons. Both nicely woven into the story. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it as I absorb what I watched, but for now I think that's all I have.
Yeah, I see what you mean about TMWOF, in retrospect. I went back and reread the chapters where Elektra appears, and you and Xerxes are right. The Elektra in the show does act like that one, more than her original appearance in the 80s. It's been a good long time since I read TMWOF, but thanks for the correction. I read so much, it's hard to keep it all straight. You know, you're right. I totally forgot about shaved head Elektra and her time training with Stick. It's been a good long while since I read Miller's DD, and I guess I forgot that detail. I think what I meant to say, was that Stick didn't seek out Elektra and train her as a child, the way he did Matt or the way the show depicts. So much material and lore for all these comic book properties, it's hard to keep it all straight. Thanks for the correction, mate.
I just finished Episode 10. I thought Matt was going to team up with the Punisher, but what we got was infinitely better with him as the villain. And tying it all back into Fisk was just some spectacular writing. This season is better than the first, I think. I can't even imagine what they're going to come up with in Season 3. I really can't see them using Bullseye, but maybe an original villain or something borrowed from another comic.
The Kingpin has promised revenge on Murdock, Foggy and Daredevil. I suspect that Kingpin will be out of prison in Season 3, and we'll get an adaptation of "Born Again". Also remember Nuke was introduced in Jessica Jones. Maybe he'll be sporting the face tattoo and internal enhancements for DD season 3. Plus, I don't think we're done with the Hand just yet. Just thinking about what we'll get for season 3 makes me so excited.
One more thing, if we're discussing spoilers in the clear now: Where the hell did that cabin full o' guns come from at the climax of Castle's arc? Did that belong to the Blacksmith? It was very unclear. It was like Castle just unlocked a video-game achievement and magically got a weapons cache as a result. Also, why is it that Matt keeps making an exception to his no-killing rule when fighting Nobu, yet doesn't seem emotionally affected by it? It's not as if he knows Nobu will come back to life. Same here. Sorry? As far as I know, only Colin Farrell has played that character in live action. I'm still unclear on what the Black Sky even is. They didn't explain what's so dangerous about the Black Sky beyond ominous generalizations. Except I'm surprised that the Hand didn't come after Melvin and Betsy when they went after everyone else DD's helped. Do the police not know about DD helping Melvin? I thought we might see a scene where Melvin got to fight them off and basically be the Gladiator. The body armor he showed off under his shirt had a pattern similar to the Gladiator's costume, and we saw him picking up a circular saw blade as a potential weapon. I figured it out because A) he was the only established character left who could be the bad guy; B) he'd been introduced as such a nice guy that it was almost inevitable that there'd be a twist; and C) he was Clancy Freakin' Brown. Really, it was one of several very predictable story beats, along with Elektra's fate. I'm wondering if we might see Elektra and the Punisher in supporting roles in The Defenders when that comes along. Maybe they could be the more deadly B-team operating on the periphery and not entirely with the approval of the core team. Or they might even be in an adversarial role, at least initially.
I'm through episode 5, and have gingerly attempted to skip spoilerly posts to get this far in the thread. I think the Punisher stuff has been done well, they're going to the right place contrasting him with DD. I have no interest in Punisher as a "protagonist" in his own comics, so I didn't come in with much in the way of preconceived notions about how he should be portrayed. Elektra...think I'll give the showmakers some credit and assume that they're deliberately playing her in a way in which you can either find her incredibly sexy or just think that she's really bad news. I'm at a point in my life where I'm seeing the latter, but I get the impression that I'm supposed to be thinking the former, at least for a little while. Honestly, I find the whole "I am bored, rich, sexy, exotic, adventurous, and deadly" schtick to be a little OTT, but we'll see how it plays out. She's especially bad news in the way that she comes back into Matt's life just as things are starting to happen between him and Karen...I can't see that going anywhere good, at least in the short term.
Spoilers for the whole season... Looked that way. He was a military man after all so it's no surprise that he'd also be a gun enthusiast. The real reason that's all there though is to give Frank his arsenal of weapons to launch his career as The Punisher. Contrived but necessary. In that last fight on the rooftop it looked like they were trying to say that sometimes you have to do something you don't want to do for the greater good but I don't think they succeeded. There were reports last year that Jason Statham was in talks to play Bullseye, then negotiations fell through. Then he started badmouthing Marvel characters as being roles that anyone with no skill could play because of all the green screen and CGI and whatnot. Looks like they changed direction and decided to use the Punisher instead. I don't know much about Black Sky other than it's supposed to be some special kid. They left a lot up in the air. I think what we saw was supposed to be set-up for future installments. Maybe the show runners don't even know what Black Sky will be in any great detail. I wonder if they did go after him and he fought them off but it was cut because it didn't flow well. I can see that. They're bigger names than the actual team members we'll be seeing. It was toned down, not because we got to know the character but because it just fizzled out.