Warning: There may be a few spoilers here.
The wait is finally over and Daredevil season one is up on Netflix. Many fans breezed through the first season this past weekend. It was hard not to, and we're here to talk about the first half of this first season, all the way up to episode six.
While we did do a review of episode one, which you can check out here, Daredevil is a tough show to review episode-to-episode because this plays out much more like a 13-hour long movie over anything else. There's no "villain of the week" aspects to the show, which a lot of other super-hero television series heavily rely on.
In summation, Daredevil revolves around multiple elements of Hell's Kitchen, with the main focus around Matt Murdock, an emerging vigilante in his section of the city. While he's kicking butt at night, during the day, he has his own law offices with buddy Foggy Nelson and secretary Karen Page, and they're.
On the "bad guy" side of things, Wilson Fi.... (We don't say his name) is one of the folks in charge of the criminal element within Hell's Kitchen. He's part of an organization and people running drugs and rebuilding the city after the battle of New York in the Avengers film. His right-hand man is Wesley who has Nelson and Murdock on retainer as their lawyers. We've now come full-circle.
Six episodes into Daredevil, it's clear Marvel really knows what they're doing with this show for numerous reasons. This fits extremely well into the shared cinematic universe Marvel has spent years creating, but Daredevil stands out as its own, singular piece because tonally, it's completely different from all of Marvel's other films and television shows. Essentially, Daredevil breaks the MCU that we've been seeing for years. The show is dark, gritty, and truly puts off the vibe of what it's like to be a street-level vigilante.
Being Daredevil sucks and that's apparent in the first few episodes. He's beaten down, cut, and has to spent time getting patched up by Claire Temple, and that character is a mixture of her Marvel counterpart and Night Nurse. For every tiny thing Daredevil does for the good of the city, it comes back at him, two-fold and that's the story that's delivered for Claire Temple. She gets caught up in Daredevil's war on crime because she's trying to stitch him up.
The fight scenes are brutal to watch. They will leave you as tired as Murdock after each one. While there are a few moments where it gets extremely gory, like the bowling alley scene or the very end of that same episode, but Daredevil doesn't overdo it on the grittiness or adult-related content. Sure, there's some blood here and there and on occasion, someone has to take a road flare to the stomach to cauterize a wound, but it's those small elements that make this show feel even more real, like this could be happening right now, aside from the super-powers.
We can't talk about how great these scenes are without mentioning the hallway fight in episode two. It's a single shot and spans over the course of the whole fight as Daredevil takes on a few baddies. The cinematography and choreography are top notch here and while a single shot fight scene may seem a bit bland, the action will keep you on the edge of your seat.
While Daredevil is an extremely cool character and beating up bad guys is great, part of the broad appeal of this show is the team dynamic between Murdock, Nelson, and Page. We're seeing these characters come from nothing and try to establish themselves and their new firm. It's completely captivating and surprisingly some of the best parts of this show, especially as we watch a relationship between Nelson and Page start to blossom.
The actor that takes steals the spotlight for the series is actually Vincent D'Onofrio as the Kingpin AKA Wilson Fisk. D'Onofrio's portrayal of the character can easily be described as "vicious man-child." Whether he's slamming a Russian man's head in a car door or taking an art gallery owner out to dinner, D'Onofrio is captivating. It's hard to take your eyes off of him because there's this feeling that at any moment, he could lose it and seeing how we've seen how far he's gone for someone interrupting his dinner, what happens if someone betrays him or doesn't give him the right order at a restaurant?
The first half of the season has Daredevil sporting a black outfit and mask. This is before he became "Daredevil" though, even though he's referred to as "The Devil" by one of the Russian mobsters earlier. The costume really works well and has a cool, casual look to it. This seems like the Avengers have inspired someone else to fight crime, but Matt hasn't had time to really put together a costume yet. I love the mask and the fact it covers up his eyes. It adds a new element of fear to this costume. What kind of crazed man covers his eyes when going into battle?
While Matt does explain his powers to Claire later on, the way the show covers Matt's powers is pretty simple on works extremely well. We get to see Matt focus on sounds and at times, smells. The series shows he has much better hearing than anyone else, numerous times, without flat-out coming out and saying "I got really good hearing!" Later on, we get to see the world through Matt's "eyes." He describes it as "the world is on fire," and that's what it looks like. Again, this is a great exploration of his powers without over-explaining it to the audience, over and over.
On top of the great story, solid acting, and fantastic script, the show looks beautiful. After seeing what Playstation Network's Powers had to offer, which isn't bad, but doesn't have as professional a look as it should, there was a little worry about DD, simply because it is on a subscription, streaming service. How much were they willing to put into the show? Well, DD looks awesome. It doesn't have the same cinematic look as other Marvel films, which is a good thing, but this show does have more of a John Wick look to it, and that's perfect for what Marvel and Netflix are trying to achieve.
So what's not to like about this show? There's actually little to really complain about here. Sure, Charlie Cox's American accent drops on occasion and this is a show you have to watch from episode one to thirteen, without missing anything, which is also something great about the show, but this first half of the season is the best thing we've seen in the way of comic book television.
The first half of this season works as a great complete piece building up to something bigger. The show has a tremendous flow and has mass appeal. More than just comic fans are loving this series and drawn in for the long haul. Everything from the writing to cinematography to the fights scenes are extremely well-crafted in the first half of the season. Again, this is not only a show you need to watch but one that's worth the price of Netflix alone.
Stay tuned for our review of the second half of this run.
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