When Netflix graced us with the first season of Daredevil last year, fans who hated on Ben Affleck for 13 years decided to renew their love for the blind hero once more. We’re creatures of binge watching and Netflix seemingly decided to understand us all and deliver every single tv series including this series’ second season all at one go, thus allowing us to lose track of real time.
Marvel’s Batman lookalike tells the story of one blind lawyer’s ambition to mop the streets of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen at night with sticks, acrobatic skills and a pair of red leotards. The second season picks up right where everything left off, and opens with a blast, literally. As all hell breaks loose, alas, it is revealed that the Punisher is responsible for the outbreak around the Kitchen, and on the other side of the fence, Elektra is in town hunting down a villainous ancient cult.
This season manages to demonstrate how straight its posture is with its ability to act like a solid movie. The stakes are much higher this time around and shotguns itself over 13 hours and episodes, allowing careful development of every character. New York impersonates a living hell for Matt Murdock as he struggles to give equal importance to both his day and night job. In turn, he infects his mind with that classic notion of being a misunderstood hero who needs to walk the walk by himself. This results with relationships crumbling, blood spilling and hearts being broken, and hopefully, we can expect even more sadism and ruin to follow. Thankfully along with all that despair, the storyline shines through and fascinates us by keeping things interesting between characters and how they react with one another.
The friendship between the Nelson and Murdock continues to grow as they share clashing opinions about a whole lot more than Murdock’s night gown antics, which is quite interesting to witness. A love-hate relationship grows between long lost lovers Matt and Elektra as they work together, which brews over time as they share conflicting interests. With his mask on, he manages to build a relationship with his enemies and is even tempted by the devil to go over to the dark side. It’s engrossing to see how he is truly is one bad day away from being the Punisher who puts his finger on everyones throats (Guardians of the Galaxy reference guys, come on). The incredibly well choreographed and intense fight sequences, some of which even found their way to around 5 minutes worth of screen time was what intensified his interactions with Hell’s Kitchen. The show also does fill up a lot of unseen space with bloody, dark and stylish film noir that we all love, which it’s a visual treat for every die hard Daredevil fans to watch and is a different take from Marvel’s happy going formula you see on the big screen.
Speak of the devil, Charlie Cox continues to take control of his hellish playground by being hell himself, which is a captivating take on the beloved character. His acting skills were put to the test as Matt Murdock, which was quite calming and greets it in a charming fashion. He manages to dive all the way, defying the odds by playing devil. With the return of other friendly faces like Elden Henson and Deborah An Woll as Foggy Nelson and Karen Page respectively, his world appears to be more sane during the day. Regrettably, we have seen the Punisher fail to aim perfectly onscreen in the past, but no one hits the target like Jon Bernthal, most of which he does with his lack of perception which is oddly impeccable. His performance as the punishing Frank Castle along with his fearsome voice is more than unforgettable. Elodie Yung’s attractive yet deadly Elektra is quite compelling considering the character is nothing like we’ve seen before. While her performance wavers initially, she pulls through with her fiendish fighting skills. All these actors have managed to fill into in their characters’ boots and have started to resemble their characters in real life as opposed to them resembling their characters onscreen.
Finally it must be said, it can be hard to keep up with his sense of idealism when you have the Punisher and Elektra who are quite contrasting characters who look at things from a different cliff points. In the midst of deciding right from wrong, it’s even more exhausting to keep up with sub plots and connections. Frank Castle receives only a few episodes of villainous screen time and is negated for a while. While this is quite unfortunate, it is done to reveal his true calling in the end. Conveniently, it gives full importance to every other main and side characters, all in equal doses.
Daredevil’s season 2 is just like any other superhero movie sequel, aiming to be bigger, better and more badass than its predecessor. They lay themselves out there with an inferiority complex when compared, and eventually start playing ‘who has the bigger one’ game. While it usually fails with its overzealous approach by adding more villains, protagonists and deeper sub plots, Daredevil’s season sequel pulls through all of that without compromising on much and manages find itself right next to season 2 shows like Arrow and Flash. It takes on what every sequel promises to and even more, delivering a funny and entertaining season, that relies highly on the glazed action sequences and occasional storytelling along with lovable the characters we have all grown up to love thanks to Stan Lee (why doesn’t he make appearances on the small screen). Anyone would be blind to see that this is a show we needed and deserved and doesn’t have a man behind the mask who was clearly meant to be blind but only as a bat.
Catch Daredevil Season 2 on Netflix. With one last time overusing the word ‘hell’ as a pun, you’re going to have one HELL of a time catching it!
