SummaryIn New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) fights for justice as a blind lawyer in the daylight and as Daredevil at night.
SummaryIn New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) fights for justice as a blind lawyer in the daylight and as Daredevil at night.
Bernthal and Yung make Castle and Elektra an effective season-long two-pronged assault on Matt Murdock’s heroic identity, which gives Daredevil’s supporting characters a clearer purpose as well.
Daredevil is still strong in its sophomore outing, a muscular and visually mesmerizing series that continues to explore its gritty, intense corner of the MCU even as it tells its own stories and, crucially, builds characters complete and compelling enough to exist both within its boundaries and (if the Man Without Fear, the Punisher, or Elektra end up tapped for Infinity War) without them.
Another amazing season. Jon Bernthal is such a good Punisher that I simply cannot imagine anyone else playing this role. Same thing with Charlie Cox as Daredevil.
Ultimately, Petrie and Ramirez created a season that fully understands Daredevil's strengths and plays to them accordingly. But this second installment is underwritten, and has failed to build on the show's fine first season.
Punisher and Elektra make it hard for Matt and Daredevil to operate and both Bernthal and Yung spend a lot of the first half of the season upstaging Cox, who has to capture a struggle that's internal, while his scene partners are playing things that are very external. And the two new additions are so vivid that there's a challenge to remain wholly invested in plotlines that don't involve them, which is tough for Foggy and, in particular, Karen.... But Daredevil still has its brooding, punchy pieces in place for a promising second season.
Every now and then, there will be a great moment, like the aforementioned Punisher monologue, or Henson's Foggy calming down a violent situation, but on the whole it's too unfocused to entirely work, and has to lean even more than before on the inherent charisma of its actors.
The second season of Daredevil compounds the failures of the first.... The Season 2 introduction of the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), a brutal vigilante inspired by Daredevil, could have had real charge if it didn't just feel like a trailer for Bernthal's own stand-alone series. Eventually, something's going to have to justify Daredevil's tonal excesses. Until then, we're left fumbling in the dark.
The second great work from Marvel. I think that the main anti-hero is a Punisher in this season rather than the Daredevil. But the story line is interesting and impressing.
Starts off very strong but as soon as Episode 5 starts, the season falls apart. The trio doing legal stuff and anything dealing with The Punisher and Wilson Fisk is really good but Matt and Elektra's story which dominates Season 2 is really boring and dumb.
Daredevil himself continues to be fantastic and interesting and there's no more derpy kid flashbacks! Not only that, but the new characters Punisher and Elektra were also pretty great and all the character moments were believable thanks to the fine acting. The action is mostly exciting and there's a fantastic one-take scene at one point just like in the first season.
But what completely kills the whole binge-watch element though is the stupidly uneven pacing. Some episodes feel like complete filler, just unnecessary exposition and some episodes have constant plot movement that moves on too fast. Marvel seriously needs to cut the dumbass 13 episode rule and focus on what matters.
Score of 3 for the 3 good episodes in the season.
Rather than struggle to stay alive, in season 2, Daredevil struggles to keep his social life together, which was strained to begin with, as Electra's presence causes him to flip flop between priorities. The enemy forces he faces are never presented in a way that align with their own narrative. ~Riddled with plot holes, unfinished narratives and forced cameos/MCU references. Clancy Brown was typecast. Electra was miscast.
Aside from the first three episodes, and episode 7, you don't need to watch any of it, as the rest of it is likely to get covered in the 'recap' of season 3. That's sad.