Daredevil Season 2
The second Season of Netflix/Marvel’s Daredevil starts with a bang. No time is wasted getting into the action and a true sense of the hero being active in Hell’s Kitchen is apparent. Season two picks up as if the wait the viewer’s experienced didn’t mean The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen was kicking back waiting for the cameras to roll to take action. The tone, themes, mood, and action all feel similar to the first season but taken up to the next level.
Daredevil Chained
In the wake of Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), aka The Kingpin’s, arrest; several gangs are vying for control of organized crime in New York City. Daredevil prowls at night to take down all level of criminal. Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and his partner Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) have a busy law firm but are drowning financially. When a connection is made of three military precise mass shootings of gangs in the city Daredevil starts investigating a newcomer to New York City in Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) aka The Punisher. The plot thickens dramatically when old faces along with new ones darken Daredevil’s door and trample the life he has built as Matt Murdock.
Charlie Cox once again embodies the split personalities he plays on screen. In the costume he is confident and heroic. He makes choices based on doing the right thing and the good Catholic boy in him is his moral compass. Out of the costume he is less sure. His life is more complicated when he can’t punch his problems in the face and this uneasy area makes for some good character growth and an uncertainty of things to come for the man behind the legend.
Foggy Nelson rises above the rank of comic relief and friendly sidekick. Nelson is given some great dialogue and a really meaty storyline that makes him outshine Murdock in a lot of ways. Henson’s performance is outstanding and with the depth he portrays he outshines his co-cast as the best actor of the season. All of the depth and growth doesn’t eliminate who he was set up to be when we were first introduced to the on screen version. He still cracks wise and is almost unfalteringly optimistic, even when it’s forced.
Karen Page who was, and often times is, the damsel in distress doesn’t sit around waiting for Daredevil to bail her out. She is given a very real story of her own and something to do. She is made whole by having needs and desires beyond interacting with someone else. She is her own woman and makes the biggest change through the 13 episode arc.
For the most part, the second season has all the magic and appeal of the first. The trio of Murdock, Nelson, and Page have great chemistry. The friendship feels strong between Murdock and Nelson and the slight nods and acknowledgements between Murdock and Page develop into a strong mutual attraction. The addition of The Punisher is handled well and the character development he receives does the anti-hero a lot of justice. If there is one consistent theme through this entire season it’s that no character exists in black and white. Everyone falls into shades of gray with the exception of Foggy and Karen.
The inclusion of Elektra (Elodie Young), while important to this season’s storyline, starts to feel like too much and the narrative feels heavy at times. Of course in the second season, or sequel, everything must be heightened but the middle of the season itself toes the line of too much going on. Luckily the team of writers, too many to list, keeps everything on the right side of that line. The story backs off, the characters recalibrate, just in time to save the show before it goes from complex to ridiculous.
The return of The Night Nurse, Claire (Rosario Dawson), Stick (Scott Glenn), and Sergeant Mahoney (Royce Johnson), along with a number of other faces that won’t be listed here to avoid spoilers, are not only great for fans but help build the full and complex world that Drew Goddard established in the breakout first season of this fantastic show. The ancillary characters flesh out Marvel’s version of Hell’s Kitchen and the wider world around the core characters to make everything feel complete.
Marvel has a long running history of making characters choose which life they truly lead. This was the most apparent in Sam Raimi’s second Spider-Man movie when Peter Parker wasn’t sure who he was with the mask on or off. Murdock doesn’t have quite as literal a choice to make but his personal journey and ghosts from his past step on a lot of the growth and character development that makes the core characters so engaging. Many episodes end in spectacular fashion for the hero but what’s going on with the man behind the mask leaves an unsettled feeling in the audience’s gut.
While not as powerful or tight as the first season the second season of Marvel’s Daredevil is enjoyable and delivers what fans want to see. The season tells it’s own story without leaning on the events of the first season. Of course those events are prevalent but they are the foundation, not the crutch of this sequel season. The Marvel universe expands with a new hero in The Punisher (spin off pending) and a couple nice tie-ins to other popular Marvel properties reminds viewers that everything is connected.
