DAREDEVIL SEASON ONE REVIEW

He may be blind, but he can still kick your ass.

Warning: Here Be Spoilers - while not terribly explicit, there are some things in here that will spoil some shit if you haven't seen Season One of Daredevil. So...fair warning.

Daredevil Season Two drops this Friday. So let’s take a look back at the first collaborative effort between Marvel and Netflix, shall we?

Marvel’s first foray into television was rocky to say the least. Agents of SHIELD felt uneven, at best, and it wasn’t until Captain America: The Winter Soldier happened that the handcuffs were taken off and the show finally began to really feel like part of the MCU. Agent Carter did better, mostly because of the great work and charisma of Hayley Atwell. With the series set in the 40's instead of the present day, the show was free to stand on its own, unbeholden the Captain America story that spawned it.

Aliens attacked NY. That's all you need to know.

Daredevil follows that same template of freedom. The events of The Avengers happened, but at no point does it feel like you’re lost because you haven’t seen every movie in the MCU. The scale is smaller, yes, but the stakes are just as high. Daredevil isn't fighting an alien invasion. He's taking on street level thugs and trying to take down a mob boss. But that smaller scale gives Daredevil much greater freedom to explore his world fully. And it does so with great success.

The show is unbelievably watchable right from the jump. Though set in the present day, Daredevil inhabits a Hell’s Kitchen seemingly straight out of 1970’s New York. In real life, it's a high-rent, gentrified neighborhood. But here, it’s a dark, dank, gritty* dangerous place, where no one should walk alone, let alone a blind man.

*I am not using that word to describe in the Frank Miller/Sin City way, I’m saying this neighborhood looks bathed in grime and grit.

Overrun with crime, and damaged by the aftermath of 'The Avengers', a group of crime families

fronted by a mystery kingpin of crime band together to revamp Hell’s Kitchen into a place where they can all make a shit-ton of money. And if they have to kill a few people, sling some junk, and launder some money to do so? Eh, no big. But of course, there’s a thorn in their side: a masked man who keeps beating up thugs and crooks. At first, they don’t care. One man even welcomes this “devil of Hell’s Kitchen”, as he comes to be known. “I’m glad to hear there’s some new blood running around out there. Heroes and their consequences are why we have our current opportunities.”

And of course, in a neighborhood as dangerous and besieged as Hell’s Kitchen is, it takes a smoove operator to deal with this wretched hive of scum and villainy. And sweet Jesus, Daredevil can deal with them. The action in this series is amazing. Whether it’s an insane set piece in a hallway, a brutal beating between a bona fide ninja and our hero, a throw-down between a student and his mentor, or Daredevil and Kingpin going at it for all the marbles, every single hit, punch, kick, knife slash, or car-door-smashing-a-man’s-head-off feels real. And painful. Daredevil’s action scenes have weight to them.

None of which would really matter if the characters themselves don’t have weight. But thankfully, they do. So let’s discuss the acting in this series, because it’s top notch, yo.

"I fell down some stairs." 

I’ll admit, when I first heard Charlie Cox scored the role of Matt Murdock, I was more than slightly disappointed. All I knew him from was as the pretty boy goon of Nucky Thompson in Boardwalk Empire. And now this guy was supposed to play the master martial artist Daredevil?? I. Was. Wrong. Cox absolutely kills it. He is essentially playing three roles – Public Matt, Private Matt, and Daredevil. He plays all three with such confident ease that you can believe he's either a charming, blind lawyer, a morally conflicted man, unsure of the best way to seek our justice, or a gung-ho vigilante, who punches and kicks and leaps so fast, he can seemingly dodge bullets. For most of the season, he wears a black proto-costume (visually, it's straight out of the Frank Miller era). But Matt is such a fully realized character, that by the time he finally puts on the red horned costume in the season finale, it almost feels superfluous.

Foggy pitches woo on Karen, unaware of the OTC

Cox is not the only one bringing his A-game. Elden Henson plays Foggy Nelson with a sort of exuberant façade you can tell is used to cover his wavering faith in humanity. He's the kind of guy you'd probably be friends with. Deborah Ann Woll brings a warmth and tenderness to Karen Page, the long time love of Daredevil's comic life (no, it’s not Elektra). But there are hints at something much, much darker hidden in her past.

Ben Urich enjoys watching surgery. Maybe a little too much.

Rosario Dawson plays Claire Temple, a new incarnation of the Marvel character, Night Nurse. Claire finds Matt near death and patches him up. Then gives him useful advice on how to productively torture a Russian. One of my favorite supporting characters is played by Vondie Curtis-Hall. Playing investigative journalist Ben Urich, Curtis-Hall brings real depth to the role. It's clear Urich's been in the game too long, and even he knows it. Not that his talents have waned, but maybe his stomach has. He carries scars from all his big stories, and knows how bad things can turn out for his sources, constantly warning Karen, Foggy and Matt what might happen if they keep pushing for the story exposing the season's big-bad - Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin.

Vincent D'onofrio - Scary mofo

Vincent D’onofrio absolutely owns every single scene he’s in. He plays Fisk as an incredibly dangerous man, yet at times, he behaves like an overgrown baby. He's prone to temper tantrums and fits of rage. He speaks with a stunted cadence, as if he is choosing each word deliberately, so as to never be misunderstood, or worse, mocked. One episode delves deeply into his childhood in a heartbreaking way, and gives him the most depth we’ve seen an MCU villain get since the Shakespearean drama of Loki. He is introduced so slowly and methodically, that his name isn’t even mentioned for a few episodes. Saying his name is forbidden, and he is only referred to as “my employer” by his assistant and mouthpiece, Wesley.

Fisk is strong and brutal, more than capable of holding his own against Daredevil.** At one point he headbutts a man nearly to death. Another man meets his end in a most gruesome fashion just because he had the gall to interrupt Fisk on a date with his lady friend, Vanessa. Vanessa is played with a wonderful moral ambiguity and steadfast love by Ayelet Zurer. Of course the season ends with Fisk in jail at the hands of Daredevil, but Vanessa is in the wind, and likely looking for some retribution. Zurer definitely has the capability of summoning that whole fury like which hell hath none.

**If you've seen the show already, think about the fact that Daredevil is wearing protective armor in his final fight with Fisk and still only barely wins against a man who has just been in a serious car accident.

"What up, girl?" "Nuthin'. Thinkin' bout murder"

And of course there are the other supporting characters. Toby Leonard Moore is James Wesley, a man made confident by the knowledge of the much larger man behind him. Bob Gunton plays Leland Owlsley, Fisk’s snarky and constantly complaining money man. Scott Glenn brings his craggy face to the game as Stick, Matt’s less than sympathetic mentor who is more than willing to beat up a blind kid. The most mysterious is the heroin distributor, Madame Gao, played by Wai Ching Ho. She may or may not be human, or of Earth, but either way, this little old lady manages to punch Daredevil clean across a room, so she’s definitely more than what she seems.

You know how Netflix has the star rating, and each movie/tv show shows what the audience typically rates it? Daredevil’s five stars are all full up. Red as Communist Russia. And it’s accurate. Daredevil is an amazing show that got a fantastic first season. Visually rich, with top notch acting, great character development, balls to the wall, bone breaking action, and the intrigue of trying to both uncover and then take down a man so powerful that even fists and billy clubs don’t work on him – Daredevil realizes the full potential of a show with the freedom to do whatever it wants because it’s on Netflix.


FINAL SCORE 9.5/10

If you haven’t seen it, watch it, guys, seriously. And if you have, watch it again, because we’re about to get the goddamn PUNISHER! And Elektra! And The Hand! Friday can’t come soon enough for me.

Daredevil season one is currently available to stream on Netflix. Season 2 premieres in its entirety on March 18.

Bernthal > Jane > Lundgren