In Season One, wasn’t the Kingpin holding his bird (Betty? Bonnie?) hostage? He could have anxiety or something, and his bird companion helped keep his emotions running smoothly. Though, if that were the case, you’d think someone would have tossed out a throw-away line to that effect. Like Matt saying something like “you’re looking much better now that Betty’s back.” As it was, it did just kind of feel like they decided to take a left turn with the character.
Kilgrave was terrifying, but it wasn’t like he was trying to destroy and/or take over the world or anything. Wilson Fisk is basically trying to become political boss/crime lord of New York City, not open a portal to allow an alien invasion of the entire Earth.
The Hand would probably rise to the level of needing the attention of something like S.H.I.E.L.D. but a.) it’s a secret conspiracy to Take Over the World and b.) S.H.I.E.L.D. has suffered some major setbacks in recent years. Quite possibly the old Nick Fury-era S.H.I.E.L.D. had some files on this sinister mysterious “Hand” thingy, but the old S.H.I.E.L.D. probably had a lot of files. Current S.H.I.E.L.D. have their hands full rebuilding and going after HYDRA, not to mention all the people who took the wrong fish-oil supplements and now have freaky and potentially dangerous powers.
As to the Avengers recruiting Daredevil or any of the other Netflix characters–remember, there are now lots of people out there with various levels of freaky and potentially dangerous powers. Also, from the outside Daredevil may well look more like a Batman-level obsessive vigilante; if you don’t actually know he’s blind (and can hear people’s heartbeats from blocks away and so forth), you may not realize how superpowered he actually is. By the up-to-eleven standards of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, some obsessive vigilante who’s had a lot of martial arts training is a fairly low-level and local threat and/or resource. People with powers of the level of a Matt Murdock or a Luke Cage might have had some files on them back in the old days of S.H.I.E.L.D., but I think with the world situation in the MCU being what it is, they could easily fall through the cracks. And on the flip side of that–the bad guys–a bunch of gangsters and organized crime groups fighting over control of the heroin trade in New York City could plausibly also be seen as the NYPD’s problem, not something for S.H.I.E.L.D. to get involved in, let alone bring in the various extraterrestrials and giant green rage monsters with the essentially godlike powers.
As for Daredevil reaching out to the Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D.–it seems pretty in-character that he wouldn’t want to bring in a bunch of outsiders; he’s very much a local boy. And it’s not like those guys are in the phone book anymore anyway.
But just how are the Avengers contacted? Do police have this ability to call them in if they need the extra help?
I’m pretty sure the Avengers aren’t contacted by relatively smaller groups like the NYPD. There’s no Avengers signal that the cops can use to summon them. The Avengers show up when there’s a crazy, planet-threatening event that is noticeable on its own. Other than that, I think they just pursue their own cases and perform research, and occasionally said cases turn out to be big enough to Assemble, or said research turns out to be an “Assemble” level threat (e.g. Ultron).
Betty’s a bird? I thought it was his wife! :smack:
I thought Season 2 exceeded Season 1 by virtually every measure. The long fight scene in Episode 3 was spectacular – but if I have one complaint it’s that this show is so damned dark (literally, as in poorly lit) it’s sometimes difficult to tell what’s going on. I’d rather see the fighting form in all its glory, as half the fun of this for me is the well-choreographed combat sequences.
Karen Page is my favorite thing. I adore her. She demonstrates courage but not in the gimmicky superhero way, in the everyday brave person way. She is constantly scared shitless but carries on anyhow because the stakes are too high to back down. And I love that about her.
Frank Castle I also absolutely adored. I don’t have much background history on The Punisher or Daredevil of the comics so this is all new stuff to me. The casting here was stellar, and they made him so fully realized and sympathetic (and again, the way they used Karen Page as a sort of window into his world was also really well done.)
I was also delighted to see the return of Fisk, that seemed to come really organically from the storyline and it was nice to see him opposite Frank Castle.
Elektra is a giant ‘‘meh’’ for me, though I thought the storyline got marginally more interesting at the end. The Hand was also kinda ‘‘meh’’ which was a bit disappointing because I know the Hand from Wolverine comics. Also, I really think some of the violence in this show has become quite gratuitous. It’s stlll comic booky violence so I can deal with it, but there were so many cringe-worthy moments where it was clear the only purpose was to make you cringe. And I do think it’s kind of dubious that Matt Murdock does all this moralizing about not killing anyone when the type of fighting he does can so easily lend itself to fatalities, it’s really just sheer movie magic he hasn’t killed anyone by this point.
Despite those nitpicks, though, A+. I thought it was a fantastic followup to Season 1.
I dont know about the Avengers but the Justice League in DC does have a UN liaison.
With the terrible potential for destruction super heroes have their must be some sort of government control just like how police are not always allowed to do high speed chases.
Not sure I’d consider the UN a small group. What I meant is that the police don’t have a means to contact the Avengers like the GPD can with Batman. If there’s a threat large enough to warrant the Avengers, odds are it’s large enough to get their attention on its own.
I’m not positive, but I believe that this leads into the Civil War arc. Everyday people are getting frustrated that the Avengers (and other supers) seem to operate with little to no oversight. Not to mention the massive collateral damage, and the fact that half the time they’re saving the world from a threat they precipitated in some way. The oversight vs. autonomy question is the main driving force behind Civil War. So yeah, it’s coming.
Finished it last night.
I think they might be ending Daredevil and start a Punisher series. Although I think they might stick DD into a movie maybe. They wrapped many issues up although others like Kingpin are still there.
Bumping this post. Anyone have any ideas?
Yeah, that’s not happening.
Just finished the series, and I gotta agree with the widespread consensus—maybe not perfect, but a definite step up from an already pretty fine season 1. There’s some things I felt were left hanging, but which may eventually get resolved—the largest one being the 40-story hole; I hope that’s revisited, otherwise they may have just given the phrase ‘plot hole’ a new definition. Also, count me underwhelmed by ‘black sky’. But maybe the full potential is being unleashed by the giant urn type of thing?
One thing I found hard to buy is that the Hand’s ninjas can somehow ‘camouflage’ themselves from Daredevil’s senses—OK, so they can ‘mask their heartbeat’, whatever that means, but clearly, he doesn’t rely on things actively making sounds to sense them—he could sense that a closed train wagon was completely filled up by not sensing any ‘negative space’, to take just one example. Plus, he also doesn’t keep running into poles, which presumably don’t have any heartbeat either. But this was really the only small issue I had with the use of Daredevil’s powers—when I compare that to, say, the Flash, I feel like I should count my blessings.
Pretty sure when they bounce back to him it’s just because he can tell where they’re going to bounce based on where he aims and hits. Its essentially his super senses helping him figure out the physics of the ricochets.
Otherwise, Wikipedia has a good summary of his clubs/cane from the comics and it appears that the ones in the show are closely based on those. Just look at the second to last paragraph in the “Powers and abilities” section.
That bothered me for a minute, but then I realised that it’s ninja magic and ninjas are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.
Doing so - thanks!
I just finished the second season today. Unstructured notes while I lie in bed with my phone, trying to avoid thinking about the upcoming end of the weekend …
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The way the two major threads fit together felt a little unsatisfying to me. The Punisher takes up almost all the first few episodes only to be relegated to the B plot for the second half of the season. He pops up seemingly randomly to help Matt (as someone else here pointed out, a little too late to be useful), but that’s the extent of the intertwining. At the same time the Hand seemed thoroughly under-motivated – they could have used some more setup early on.
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Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention, but a few elements popped up only to be ignored from what I could tell. Primarily, what was up with the big hole in the ground?
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I get that Matt’s Catholicism is a major part of his character. It nevertheless felt a little clunky (in a show don’t tell sort of way) for some character or another to find some reason to point it out every episode. I get it, he’s Catholic. I didn’t start thinking he became Jewish or southern Baptist or Sikh in the last five minutes.
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I agree that Castle was shown to be startlingly reckless for someone they made pains to paint as unwilling to kill an innocent. The way he shot up the hospital could easily have left multiple bystanders dead, I don’t care how good a shot he is. It’s not like he was a good enough shot to take Grotto out that scene.
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So is Matt okay with killing now? He seemed to grow sort of meh about it as the end approached, even agreeing that the Blacksmith should probably die. That’s quite an about face.
All criticisms aside, I really did enjoy it. Call me shallow but the excellent fight scenes alone would keep me coming back. That may be why I haven’t yet gotten around to finishing Jessica Jones yet… A great show in its own right – maybe even better – but the action doesn’t compare.
Also just finished it today and also feel let down by the reveals.
I’m okay with leaving the hole and farmed organic fluids hanging as it clearly is to continued with the rebirth of dark-Elektra.
But the Blacksmith reveal … way less interesting or clever than I was expecting. And Fisk’s motivation to have Blacksmith taken out? Why? So Madame Goa can consolidate unopposed? Fisk knew to keep competition fighting each other. The Elektra story just does not make much sense … at what point did The Hand know she was The Black Sky? They had plenty of easy chances to get her throughout. And nearly killed her with that funky poison too. If suddenly they realized in the last ep why and how then? And is there more than one Black Sky? Why was Nobu going on about how “It’s begun and cannot be stopped now?” if the point was having Black Sky which they did not yet have? Wasn’t that kid Stick killed last season also Black Sky?
ON the plus side the character development was great! Mostly. It seemed odd to me that the least interesting of all the characters is the series hero.
Finished it this weekend. Overall I liked it. I liked Foggy’s character development. I was glad to see them get past the “will they, won’t they” between Matt and Karen.
The issues I had:
-I’m getting sick of the “magical newspaperman” plot device in these types of shows. Like reporters and editors are the most brilliant and powerful and wise people around. They can walk onto any crime scene and start investigating, reporters are investigative gurus, etc. And what the hell kind of piece was Karen writing at the end? Her voice over as she was writing it was making me cringe it was so cheesy. Is she a true crime novelist or a damn newspaper reporter? And how many careers, that she may or may not being getting paid for, can she fall ass-backwards into?
-When Matt was feeling completely overwhelmed by everything when he was with Claire (not sure what ep or the context), I’m surprised she didn’t say something to the effect of “You know, there’s this guy named Luke you should get in touch with. Or this chick Jessica…they live just around the corner from here…”
-The gore. Oh, the gore. They really didn’t need all the gore. I don’t remember it being this gory last season.
Fisk is still my favorite character in the DD series. When he was getting pummeled by Frank in the prison, he looked a really fat dancing balloon guy with his arms flailing around!
I was actually thinking more along the lines that the villain organizations would be interested in Kilgrave. If I were running Hydra or the Hand or one of the other dozens of evil organizations I would be incredibly interested in controlling someone like that. Finding a way to harness that kind of power would basically be a superweapon. Risky, sure, but hey, that’s just how the game is played. I find it stretches credulity that his antics wouldn’t have attracted more attention from groups that know he could be the real deal.
Fisk, yeah, I don’t really see any reason for the major players to care much about him.
That and Stick’s sudden about face—first going through all the trouble to save her, then sending a killer after her a couple of ep’s later—made me think that this wasn’t the original plan, either being a change in plans, or, what would be worse, the writers not really having a plan but then having to come up with something. Certainly, there wasn’t really anything hinting at Black Sky being Elektra—or even being a human being—pretty much until the episode of the reveal, where she’s addressed as ‘it’ by the black guy in the flashbacks (whom Stick summarily kills, for… reasons, I guess).
In the first season they showed a Black Sky to be a child, who Stick kills. So they established it’s human (as well as that there’s more than one).