By Cameron Kerkau, Staff Reporter.
“Daredevil,” from series creator Drew Goddard and showrunner Steven S. DeKnight, premiered on Netflix last year to raving fans and critics alike. With a mixture of superb characterization and crime drama, “Daredevil” presents a new standard for superhero screenwriting. The second season launched on Netflix on March 18, and it definitely lives up to the first season.
Season one writers Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez replace DeKnight as the showrunner for season two, though the change is seamless enough not to be noticed. Charlie Cox, Elden Henson and Deborah Ann Hall return as Matt Murdock A.K.A. Daredevil, Foggy Nelson and Karen Page respectively. If you’ve seen the first season, then you already know that these actors own each of their characters.
In this season, we see Matt Murdock with a more aggressive temperament. He’s done apologizing for his double life as a lawyer and a vigilante, and his friendships suffer for it. As he spends more time in his mask, Foggy is forced to pick up much of the slack left at their firm. This gives Elden Henson the chance to steal a number of scenes portraying Foggy as a skilled and assertive lawyer. Deborah Ann Hall’s Karen Page is also given room to grow in her journey following the footsteps of her mentor Ben Urich.
Elodie Yung joins the cast this season as Elektra Natchios, a character that’s much more complex than her comic book counterpart. Instead of being around simply to develop Matt Murdock’s character, as she has in the past, she has her own motivations and dramatic questions. She has her own character arc throughout the season that at points drives the plot.
Also new this season is Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, A.K.A. the Punisher. Bernthal gives what is easily the best performance in the show thus far. The Punisher is a relatively simple character in most of his iterations, especially on film. However, Bernthal portrays him with a level of emotion and instability that forces the audience to sympathize with his pain. This is especially important when dealing with a character that spends the better part of his screen time slaughtering criminals.
Utilizing impressive performances, Daredevil’s interactions with the Punisher exemplify exactly how, and why, two comic book characters should be written together. It’s not just about two guys in costumes hitting each other, it’s about battling ideologies. Of course, the scenes in which they go toe to toe are exciting, but we really get to see what makes these two characters so great together when they get into screaming matches about each other’s methodologies on rooftops. Daredevil sticks by his code against killing, but he can’t argue with the Punisher’s effectiveness. This forms the base of one of Daredevil’s biggest moral dilemmas. This drama is enfeebled, however, in fight scenes where Daredevil tosses his enemies over railings or off rooftops, I suppose because he assumes they can survive that.
Daredevil’s season one set high expectations for fight choreography in moments such as the “hallway fight scene,” where a continuous tracking shot followed Daredevil as he brawled with a gang of kidnappers in an apartment building. Season two might never top this particular scene, but it comes close on more than one occasion. That scene involves Daredevil descending a stairwell as he’s rushed by a biker gang. This season also has more to play with in this respect when the Punisher and Elektra lead the action. Their fight scenes are much more violent than Daredevil’s as Elektra slices her foes with precision, and the Punisher beats his to a bloody death with blunt objects and shivs.
The plot of season two, though perhaps not as well constructed as season one, offers a degree of mystery and intrigue which wasn’t present in the past. The threads of plot will pull you into binge watching, as each seems to be leading toward a larger conspiratorial conclusion that you’ll be dying to discover. Unfortunately, it doesn’t all lead to the same place, and in the end it feels somewhat unsatisfyingly scattered.
Though the overall plot may have an issue or two, season two of “Daredevil” still manages to live up to season one. It builds on each of the shows existing characters while making room for new ones to occasionally steal the show, all while delivering many satisfying action sequences and character oriented drama.
