Daredevil Season 2

[selenak]

Which I finished marathoning. Unspoilery summation: acting good, new characters impressive, plots headscratchey, show continues to want to have it both ways re: violence and death, it did some of my least favourite tropes only to turn them around by the follow up, and I continue to like but not love parts of it while remaining unfannish about it.



To start with the least favourite tropes: withholding of information between friends for no good reason whatsoever. Matt (and Foggy) could and should have told Karen that Matt is Daredevil after season 1 already. That Matt finally tells her at the end of season 2 barely mollifies me in this regard, though I'm happy he doesn't tell her in a romantic context, but in a deserves-to-know-the-truth one. Nearly as annoying: Matt not telling Foggy Elektra is back in town, that the new client is her, until he absolutely has to. As Foggy wastes no time pointing out.

Another unfavorite: third party character becomes authorial mouthpiece by lecturing one half of pairing why they absolutely need to be with other half and what love is. My previous least favourite example of this trope is when everyone and their ghost tells Cordelia and Angel they're meant for each other in the s3 AtS finale Tomorrow, including Cordelia's mirror. Nothing can top that, including the sudden Carrie/Brody shipping by Brody's wife in Homeland, but, of all the people, Frank "The Punisher" Castle mansplaining that love needs to be painful in order to be real to Karen and telling her to give Matt another chance came close.

HOWEVER: in the later case, this was saved by Karen NOT getting back together with Matt as a consequence (or even trying to - good for her!), and by Matt echoing the phrase (which he couldn't know about) re: his relationship, not with Karen but with Elektra in his conversation with Stick about her in the finale. Matt/Elektra as an illustration of how you know it's truly love by the fact this person gets under your skin and can hurt you more than any other, but it's still worth it because they make you feel alive more than anyone else, totally works for me, not least because the show doesn't try to sell their relationship as anything but gloriously screwed up. Otoh early on I suspected they wanted to sell me on Matt/Karen as healthy love, and between Matt continously lying to Karen and letting her down along with Foggy, and both of them having more and more interesting scenes with other people, I couldn't disagree more. Thankfully, the show then had Karen calling it quits early on and sticking to that while Matt was increasingly busy with Elektra and not interested in restarting dating Karen, either, and I am free to believe it was meant as an illustration of why a relationship doesn't work.

BtW: relationship advice on her love life aside (though now I want the crack fic where Karen gets Frank a secret job at the Daily Bulletin as the new agony aunt, because after all, he needs to finance his vigilante life somehow), I did like Karen's relationship with Frank, which struck me like Mina's and Hyde's in the first two volumes of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. They never lied to each other, which I'm a big fan of.

Foggy had a good season in terms of the lawyering up - the only character who did, since Matt had about two aborted attempts at actually doing something as a lawyer, failed at those and otherwise was mostly in Daredevil mode, whether or not he wore the costume -, being a heroic civilian who saves lives without beating people up, and being a good friend. One thing the finale changed my mind about was the second season doing another estrangement storyline between him and Matt. For most of the season, I thought it was repetitive and only serving to make me infuriated at Matt, but that was because I didn't expect there to be long term consequences; I expected them to reconcile and be back at the firm together for the finale. Instead, there actually were consequences: Matt decided to become a full time vigilante, Foggy decided to work at Jeri Hogarth's (admittedly I woo-hood when seeing Carrie Anne Moss in the finale, which was a great use of inter series continuity) after she made him a great offer, and Karen accepted the reporter job Ben Urich's old boss Ellison offered her. Much as, in the long term, I want the central trio to be friends again, I am completely on board with this because it means the angst wasn't graititious but led to longer developments, character- and profession wise.

Mind you: Karen being hired as a reporter with zilch experience in writing anything, just because she's proven herself as a good researcher, makes about as much sense as... Clark Kent in the Snyder-verse getting hired as a reporter when having only manual labor experiences. (Clark Kent in most other incarnations actually does have writing experience and college education before making it at the Daily Planet.) But I like her rapport with her new boss who takes her far less for granted than her old bosses and actually heads a company that works, so I'm handwaving.

Someone who also quit their old job: Claire Temple, in disgust at the hospital's corruption. Thankfully this didn't happen until late in the season, so she was around a lot before to be her wonderful, practical compassionate, no nonsense self. I strongly suspect her quitting has something to do with the upcoming Luke Cage series and fully expect her to show up there.

Frank Castle and Elektra (after her initial outing where she still maintains her society girl cover) did what Wilson Fisk did in s1, they overshadowed the main character in terms of getting the big emotional beats (other than those Foggy and Karen get). Since an element in Matt's relationship with both of them is the "to kill or not to kill?" question, the show's continued wanting to have their cake and eat it, too in this regard became even more obvious than last season. (Where you had Matt angsting about whether or not to kill someone in all the episodes where he didn't set a man on fire and never mentions that one again; in s2 when Nobu turns out to have been immortal, Matt also puts it passively, i.e. "he burned", not mentioning his own involvement in that.) It also avoids facing the way Matt's violence as Daredevil may not be intentionally lethal but definitely cripples a lot of people if we're taking what he deals out in any way seriously in terms of the human physique. Drawing the line at death but being fine with any degree of broken bones does not give you the moral high ground.

I suppose you could say that Matt's big emotional breakthrough at the end, admitting to himself and Elektra that he needs the vigilante life not for the reason he gave everyone and himself before - "to protect my city" -, but because it makes him feel alive, also retrospectively means we don't have to take his opinion on what is good and what is bad violence as authorial. But still: the series continues to remind me of the Snyder movie version of Watchmen versus Moore's comic book, where Snyder has Laurie and Dan use crippling and lethal violence, making the point of Rorschach having crossed a line they hadn't moot.

Minor points:

- the whole in the ground made me wonder whether scriptwriter Doug Petrie has watched Torchwood: Miracle Day, and given Jane Espenson wrote a few eps there and is an old BTVS colleague of his, I suspect he has.

- Matt's apartment is still ridiculously big; how is he paying for this again? Especially now without a job?

- Wilson Fisk's two episodes, showing him becoming the Kingpin in prison and manipulating events from there, were a great use of continuity

- when you cast Clancy Brown as the seemingly good Colonel, it's sort of spoilery to those of us who have seen Clancy Brown in, um, most of his other roles

- that said, I would rather have had more about how Frank Castle's government-licensed Black Ops days shaped him into a ruthless killer long before his family was killed and less mystic Ninjas

- Elektra's angst about being Prophecy Girl to the bad guys she's fighting against all her life made me think Sydney Bristow would empathize, which in turn reminded me Jennifer Garner played Elektra in a certain movie

- Marci/Foggy OTP!

- seriously, though: Matt lying to Karen and not telling her the truth until the finale made me appreciate all over again how refreshing it felt back in 2008 when Tony Stark said, at the end of his origin movie, no less, "I am Iron Man" in front of the entire world (and that Pepper and Rhodey already knew at that point). I am SO not a fan of secret identities as an angst device in relationships with people you're supposed to be close to and trust.

Comments

[endeni]

/third party character becomes authorial mouthpiece by lecturing one half of pairing why they absolutely need to be with other half and what love is./ - OMG I thought of the same Angel/Cordelia thing. That's such a lazy and infuriating trope!
/I did like Karen's relationship with Frank/ - I liked it too and LOL now I want to read that agony aunt fic!
/Drawing the line at death but being fine with any degree of broken bones does not give you the moral high ground./ - LOL, word.
/I am SO not a fan of secret identities as an angst device in relationships with people you're supposed to be close to and trust./ - I'm so there with you. Everyone knowing except Karen gave me Lydia flashbacks in the first seasons of Teen Wolf. Just don't, OK? You're not protecting anyone, you're just allowing them to go around "blind" (pardon my pun) and be in danger *because* of their ignorance.

[selenak]

The more I think about "Frank Castle, Secret Agony Aunt", the more I like it. Of course he'd have to use an alias, which presumably Karen would choose. What would she pick for his Agony Aunt name?

Just don't, OK? You're not protecting anyone, you're just allowing them to go around "blind" (pardon my pun) and be in danger *because* of their ignorance.

Every superhero should have this tattoed on their forehead. Or something. Laudable examples of superheroes who do tell their friends can sponsor them in "Secretkeepers Anonymous" classes.

[endeni]

Yes, exactly. I mean, a secret identity may be a good idea if you don't want your family to be targeted by supervillains and to avoid public scrutiny but you have to let your family know otherwise it's kind of a moot point. *shakes head*
As for names, LOL, I don't know, but I'm stil laughing so hard at the idea of him answering to something like "Ask Aunty Marjorie".

[wee_warrior]

The show and violence: I think I gave up taking that seriously once Matt threw a fire extinguisher down the staircase, hit a goon in the head, and said goon survived in the second episode. Physics just don't work that way. (They still managed to make Fisk getting violent genuinely frightening and meaningful due to D'Onofrio's acting plus physical size/presence and Fisk's backstory, but mainly it seemed to me that they simply went completely past what "normal" violence even looks like. Maybe that's why Matt seems less brutal to them?)

I'm glad that Punisher and Elektra seem to work out, from watching the trailer I fully expected to hate them. (Doesn't help that Jon Bernthal is one of those actors for me.)

[selenak]

He's really good in the role, though. If I've seen him in anything else before, I can't remember. As for Elektra, Elodie Yun is also very good, and so is the kid they've found to play Elektra in her childhood flashbacks, but bear in mind she's to some degree performing a role in her introduction episode.

[wee_warrior]

I know him from The Walking Dead, where he played one of the early protagonists-turned-antagonist. The show has a very frustrating relationship with traditional masculinity, and his character is basically a deconstruction - which would be great if it stood by itself, but at the same time, the main character is the same trope played straight, so you get the feeling Bernthal's character doesn't fail because of the inherent brokeness of the alpha male ideal, he fails because he simply wasn't "good enough" to fulfill it. He is... not very likable, to put it mildly, especially if you're allergic against machos. But well-acted, too.

[jesuswasbatman]

I know you don't like Garth Ennis (but from what I've read on your journal it's because most of what you've read has been Ennis at his worst).

But Ennis's Punisher stuff has an incredibly cynical but plausible twist where it turns out that Frank literally made a deal with Death-with-a-capital-D to spend his life killing people in a justifiable way, and the price (although he didn't know it at the time) was the death of his family.

[selenak]

re: Garth Ennis, I liked Dangerous Habits from his Hellblazer run, it's just his Nick Fury collection I disliked intensly. Haven't read any of his Punisher stories yet, but that sounds like a twisted and inspired explanation.

...which also reminds me I haven't read any of the comics featuring the Marvelverse version of Death yet, I just know Thanos is in love with her because it was mentioned in a lot of "who is Thanos" explanations after The Avengers hit the cinemas.

[jesuswasbatman]

I don't know if it's the same Death - Ennis's Punisher comics have an ambiguous Vertigo vs. DC style continuity relationship with other Marvel comics.

[monanotlisa]

Great points.

I wish a popular show like Daredevil, with so much money and actor-talent thrown at it, had writers that weren't so blind, pardon the pun, to tired and hateful tropes: A Yellow Peril that manages to be both swarming and faceless? The Hero keeping The Good Girl in the Dark? Trite talks about The Nature Of Love? A just-the-right-level-of-Exotic, Beautiful female Anti-Hero? Our Hero turning into Broody McBroodypants?

I mean, this show manages to kill both its half-Asian anti-hero and its Asian villain (for the second time, in Nobu's case), whereas every single White anti-hero and villain survives -- Frank Castle lives, and so does Wilson Fisk. I guess I better be glad that Mahoney survived. Reyes' death, too, is a trope, but while a Problem it's not quite so deeply woven into the show as the above list.

Like you, though, I loved loved loved Claire, and I know I'm not the only one -- I've gotten some fresh new kudos on my Matt/Claire story on the AO3, and all of her interactions continue to sizzle. I can't wait to see her on Luke Cage, and see Luke, of course. My affection for Karen grew, who really stole the show, especially in her scenes with Frank Castle.

I appreciated the contrast of Matt's choices versus the Punisher's choices -- it's conceptually interesting, even though the show is Matt's show and, as we discussed, not interested in really making a clear and true statement. And the Punisher story I'm just not here for -- put in on the DNW tab of all the brutality, blood, and endless fight scenes. I understand there is true choreography in a fight; that to some viewers it is a dance. But I'm a dancer (or used to be) and I know dance without destruction of health and lives. So what I see here is always tainted for me, especially given the blood-spatter the showrunners add as a finishing touch.

The strongest part, really were the entrances and exits of the rest of the MCU cast -- Jeri Hogarth in particular, and while I can't say I "enjoyed" Wilson Fisk, that was a strong performance by VDO. I don't just mean I liked them as characters; I think they were crucially intertwined with the plot, spinning in and out at just the right moments: setting things in motion in this Universe.

[monanotlisa]

By the way, I loved Élodie Yung's Elektra, and my criticism to her function in the narrative does not extend to her acting, or the general life she breathed into both the role of Elektra and Elektra's interaction with the other characters. They were, always, enjoyable, Matt and Elektra, and while not healthy they were magnetic in a quite literal way: opposites to some degree that attracted one another. While they did skirt the Virgin/Whore dichotomy with Elektra and Karen, they subverted it enough for me to be ultimately okay with the outcome: Elektra did not play up the sexiness after their initial meetups, and Karen demonstrated agency with Matt when she called it quits. Plus, she isn't quite the little innocent that Matt thinks she is (although of course a self-defense killing is a far cry from manslaughter, from murder, and even from beating the living daylights out of someone who supposedly deserves it).

[monanotlisa]

Last comment for tonight, I swear: also rambling about Daredevil Season Two on over yonder at Victoria P.'s, here.

[selenak]

They were, always, enjoyable, Matt and Elektra, and while not healthy they were magnetic in a quite literal way: opposites to some degree that attracted one another.

Absolutely. As opposed to the Karen/Matt relationship where I was never quite sure whether the show writers wanted me to see it as the trainwreck I did (especially when they gave Frank Castle his agony aunt speech), but hope they did given the way it fizzles and ends early in the season, with the Matt/Elektra relationship I felt I was on the same page with the narrative. It wasn't meant to be remotely healthy, but it was meant to be strong and as you say magnetic. The scene which sold me on them being intimate not just in the sexual sense was when they were both nearly nude on the couch, post fight, without either of them making a pass, and yet it felt for more emotional (and frankly, hot) than their college era sex scene had done). And as much as I spent much of the season angry at Matt, his "what if I run with you" speech was one of the most moving love declarations MCU has offered me to date, and Elodie Yun's expression also sold me on Elektra feeling just as strongly. (Without the show pretending it would be good for them if they did this.)

[selenak]

I mean, this show manages to kill both its half-Asian anti-hero and its Asian villain (for the second time, in Nobu's case), whereas every single White anti-hero and villain survives -- Frank Castle lives, and so does Wilson Fisk.

I suppose you could say Madame Gao survives, and so does Stick, which makes for a surviving Asian villain and a surviving Asian antihero/villain (whatever you think he is) each. (I have no idea which ethnicity the actor is, but I always assumed the character is supposed to be Asian.) Not that this takes away from your point. I mean, I haven't read many of the DD comics - mostly crossovers with other comic books -, but I still know the mystic Ninjas are very much a part of it. Which isn't an excuse: the Mandarin was an iconic Iron Man comics villain, and the embodiment of the Yellow Peril trope, and the MCU found a way to do a fantastic subversion/exposure of the trope in Iron Man III. (Trevor the actor was such a great character!) Thus the Ninjas could have been used but in a different way.


I appreciated the contrast of Matt's choices versus the Punisher's choices -- it's conceptually interesting, even though the show is Matt's show and, as we discussed, not interested in really making a clear and true statement.

Or rather they just don't get how Matt's violence comes across. I remember after the first season had aired Steven DeKnight (he of BTVS and ATS origins) mentioned in an interview he was surprised that so many reviews mentioned the violence of the show, but then realised he'd become desensitized to it because of four years of Spartacus. (Which made me laugh, not disdainfully but understandingly, because, well, yes. Spartacus with its lovingly sliced heads is so gory that Daredevil does look restrained - by comparison to it. Not to anything else.) Anyway, to get back to the point, it's not that you can't do a hero versus antihero/villain story where the hero has lines he/she won't cross and that becomes a point of debate between them because they otherwise have similar goals. But then you really have to put some effort into making your hero not cross said lines, instead of claiming he/she doesn't instead of pretending everything not an on screen shot in the head isn't lethal violence, or that torture is okay (which much of Matt's interrogation methods amount to).

Now I'm trying to think of a tv show who tried to this trope and pulled it off successfully. Hm. BTVS tried, but has the problem that it tries to differentiate between humans and demons in terms of where killing is allowed and where it's not, and then the later seasons as well as AtS muddy the waters by presenting demons as far more diverse than the early two seasons BTVS uniformly bad bunch. Both Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes tried, but muddied the waters by letting both Sam and Alex come around to a degree re: roughing up suspects (they drew the line at beating them to death, she says cynically, but not at letting Gene or Ray scaring them with limited force). Hm. Will think on this further.

(BSG didn't do this trope because the heroes - who just like the villains of course kill through all four seasons - did use torture, this was pointed out by the narrative, and in a refreshing turn of events it never worked for them. Notorious examples being Kara and Leoben in s1 - she didn't learn anything true from him, he got into her head instead - and Roslin & Adama using it on Baltar in s3 (again, Roslin didn't get the confession she wanted, which she got a season later in far different circumstances).)