Daredevil Season Two First Impressions
It’s Daredevil season two, and nobody’s more excited about it than pretty much everybody on the Internet. Half of the people are trending it on Twitter while the other half are just cooped up trying to watch all thirteen episodes. Either way, it’s the return of one of Marvel’s best projects and likely its best show so far. For now, I’m going to be fair to those who couldn’t carve out thirteen hours of their day and just start out with my first impressions of season two.
This was definitely the best way you could have opened a season of Daredevil, with the guy beating up criminals on the streets of New York. Just in case you couldn’t tell what show you were watching, the last guy he faces kidnaps a girl and holds her in a church. Say what you will about that placement, but this is the only show where that could make sense or even be remotely meaningful. They know what the show’s about by now.
In Matt Murdock-related things, it’s a little hard to tell how far this season takes place regarding the first beyond Fisk is obviously in jail and that it’s apparently record heat in New York. I realize that the time period the show takes place in doesn’t mean anything in the story, but when we are supposed to take both the events of season one and Jessica Jones into account, I think I have the right to ask. Either way, there’s no clear answer.
That being said, there are clear enough references to the Netflix world, or at least the one set forth by season one. Fisk’s absence is a big one. The continued teamwork of Matt, Foggy, and Karen with Karen still not knowing Matt’s secret identity is another. There’s also the return of Sargent Brett Mahoney AKA the only good cop on the force and the only other person besides Rosario Dawson and Stan Lee who has been in both shows, but now I realize I’m pulling straws. Daredevil only really cares about what’s going on in Daredevil for now.
Like I mentioned before, we’re in a Hell’s Kitchen post-Kingpin which still has crime and still uses the Nelson & Murdock firm mostly because they can be paid in fruit. Unfortunately, that can’t last forever, so they go off to help more desperate souls, like the surviving member of Irish Mob massacre (didn’t think I’d type those words for this show). In any case, it’s another excuse for Foggy and Karen to chase legal ends while Matt beats the crap out of crooks. Then there’s the Punisher.
Besides his first technical appearance in his one-army takedown of the Irish mob, the Punisher first appears guns blazing done a hospital aiming to kill last survivor. It’s this entrance that gives new life to the season that’s part of the most violent non-Deadpool Marvel project that made people like Daredevil in the first place. It’s fierce. It’s tough. It would be the Punisher if it had some kind of skull symbol somewhere in the scene, but there’s plenty of time for that.
There’s not that much time for Foggy and Karen in the midst of this season opener. Sure, we have some conflict for Foggy knowing his best friend’s secret and Karen getting right at the center of the worst possible places again, but that’s where they usually are. There’s the additional new flirtation between Matt and Karen which wasn’t unheardof from season one but seems odd here where Matt’s probably one of the least likely MCU characters to have a steady relationship, and this includes Tony Stark. Then again, romance has never been Marvel’s strongest point. This would have been true no matter who Matt would play pool with in the opener.
From the season opener alone, this is definitely the more Marvel of the seasons with Matt having a full-time gig as a lawyer by day, superhero by night situation dealing with another vigilante. This is still the same universe where aliens come out of the sky to attack New York, but the introduction of the Punisher is probably the most comic-book situation this show has been in now. I’m excluding the secret organization that Stick was a part of, but that’s just because I’m hoping we will get a bigger picture with that direction. This is still probably the largest cast of people I’ve seen who are solely from comic books.
There’s still a step before plenty of other plot points are still yet to be introduced like Elektra, or even the re-introduction of Claire Temple, so this opener was probably never going to be the end-all of openers (that’s an oxymoron to me anyway). It’s still a part of a good Marvel series and deserves to be viewed on principle. There’s still no telling what the rest of the season will hold with these other plots involved along with the Punisher, so I’m more than willing to keep going if only for those moments of Daredevil and the Punisher doing what people come to watch them for in the first place. That still makes it one of Marvel’s best.
