Review - Daredevil (2015-2018)

         Hey guys, Chuck here. Back at a time when Marvel Television and Marvel Studios were two relatively separate entities adapting Marvel Comics characters to the screen, Marvel Television cut a deal with Netflix to adapt a number of Marvel Comics characters into live-action streaming shows. Those characters were as follows: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, all of whom would eventually team up as a team known as the Defenders. 

       Of course, the first of the Marvel/Netflix streaming shows would be Daredevil, which would run for three seasons between 2015 and 2018. Developed by Drew Goddard, with showrunners including the likes of Steven S. DeKnight, Doug Petrie, Marco Ramirez, and Erik Olsen, Daredevil would star the likes of Charlie Cox, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Rosario Dawson, Toby Leonard Moore, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Ayelet Zurer, Jon Bernthal, Elodie Yung, Wilson Bethel, and Vincent D'Onofrio. 

       Daredevil centers on Matt Murdock, a lawyer who was born and raised in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City, and as a child lost his sight when, after saving an older gentleman from an oncoming vehicle, a truck carrying toxic chemicals would crash and the chemicals would get splashed in Matt's eyes. However, while losing his sight, Matt's other senses, particularly his sense of hearing and touch, sharpened to superhuman perfection. Matt's father, boxer "Battlin' Jack" Murdock, did his best for his son, and ended up losing his life when he went back on his agreement to throw a fight against another boxer named Carl "Crusher" Creel (who Marvel fans will know as the Absorbing Man". 

        At an orphanage, Matt gets some training in defensive combat from a blind warrior named Stick, who we later learn is a member of a secret society known as The Chaste. We'll get back to that later, though. Anyway, Matt grows up and manages to graduate with a law degree alongside his roommate Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, and the two wind up in the legal profession. Initially starting with an internship at a law firm called Landman & Zack, the two eventually leave after Matt becomes withdrawn from Landman & Zack's practices. So, Foggy and Matt open their own law firm of Nelson & Murdock, where they aim to help those the major law firms won't help, all while Matt goes out at night fighting thugs and criminals in the streets of Hell's Kitchen, wearing an all-black outfit and a black mask. 

        The first major client for Nelson & Murdock is a woman, Karen Page, who is accused of murdering a co-worker, Daniel Fisher, after inadvertently uncovering a money laundering scheme happening at the company she works for, Union Allied. After getting her released from jail, and saving her from a professional hitman, Matt works with Karen to release the information on Union Allied to the press, and a man named James Wesley takes steps to cover up what he can. And since she needs a new job, Karen begins working for Nelson & Murdock as their new secretary. 

       Meanwhile, we also see a gathering of crime leaders who have taken over Hell's Kitchen in the wake of "The Incident" (an obvious nod to the Chitauri invasion in The Avengers), and we see that they include brothers Anatoly and Vladimir of the Russian mob, a Japanese man named Nobu of a secret clan of Ninja assassins called The Hand, a Chinese woman named Madam Gao, who runs a massive drug trade, and an accountant named Leland Owlsley. And, they all work with Wesley, as well as Wesley's employer Wilson Fisk. Fisk, initially, seeks to avoid the public eye, but he  gradually does begin to become a public figure, and it's thanks to a romance he begins with an art curator named Vanessa Mariana. 

      So, Matt has to save Hell's Kitchen from multiple fronts, both as part of Nelson & Murdock, but also as what the media are calling both "The Man in the Mask" and "The Devil of Hell's Kitchen." Luckily, he finds help on both fronts, from both Foggy and Karen at Nelson & Murdock, and also from two other individuals: news reporter Ben Urich, and a nurse named Claire Temple. Also, Stick makes his return to Hell's Kitchen, as he needs Matt's help with taking out a target, an individual referred to as Black Sky. 

      Now, one of the things that this series was praised for was the performances by its lead cast. Charlie Cox, in particular, got a ton of praise for his performance as Matt Murdock, and it's definitely deserved. Charlie absolutely nails this role, and I am glad that Marvel Studios has kept him around for the mainline MCU. Both Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson as Karen and Foggy were also thoroughly fantastic, and the two of them really give the characters more depth than what we got from the 2003 Daredevil movie. And, lastly, there's Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk. Talk about a perfect match between character and actor, Vincent absolutely nails the role of Fisk. 

       After an encounter with both Fisk and Nobu, Matt realizes that he needs a bit more protection, and he meets with Melvin Potter, a simple man who makes protective suits for Fisk, and Matt asks for something special. Meanwhile, Leland and Gao have conspired against Fisk to get rid of Vanessa, as she's becoming too much of a distraction from the plan. Fisk, in revenge, kills Leland. Luckily, Vanessa did survive the near-fatal poisoning she suffered because of Gao and Leland. And, after both he and Wesley learn that Karen and Urich visited Fisk's mother, Fisk kills Urich, and Wesley goes after Karen, only for her to kill him. 

       Meanwhile, a police detective named Hoffman, who Leland was holding, is rescued by Matt, who has him confess to Sgt. Brett Mahoney, another police officer who has been of informational assistance to Foggy and Matt. With Hoffman's confession, several police, members of the press, and politicians in Fisk's back pocket are arrested, and eventually Fisk is arrested as well. Fisk is set free, however, but has one last confrontation. You see, Matt collected the new suit from Potter, and it's the signature red suit with the horned mask. And, it's in this costume that Matt and Fisk have a final showdown, only for Fisk to be recaptured by Mahoney. Foggy, Matt, and Karen celebrate their victory, and officially reopen Nelson & Murdock, while Matt protects the streets at night as Daredevil, ending Season One. 

      Season Two sees three major crime gangs under attack by a new player, or possibly group of players. One of those targeted, a.man known as Grotto, turns to Nelson & Murdock for help, the trio of Matt, Foggy, and Karen find themselves in something deeper than what they've dealt with before. Now while two of the gangs being targeted, the Kitchen Irish and a biker gang called the Dogs of Hell, believe it's a faction targeting them with military precision, two members of the cartel say it's only one man. A lone gunman with military tactical training. 

      The gunman it turns out is Frank Castle, a former U.S. Marine who served in Afghanistan and Iraq,.and is now waging a one-man war against the Irish, the cartel, and the Dogs of Hell. While Matt, as Daredevil, does his best to keep Frank from killing anyone else, Karen and Foggy do some digging and learn that the Irish, the cartel, and the Dogs of Hell were all involved in an incident that took the lives of Frank's wife and children. Frank is eventually subdued and taken to the hospital, albeit in police custody, and the press refers to his as The Punisher. 

         Matt and Karen, after walking back to his apartment in the rain, share a tender kiss and agree to go out the next night. But, a new complication has arrived in the form of an ex-girlfriend of Matt's: Elektra Natchios. As for why Elektra is in town? Well, she's following something big, that somehow involves Roxxon Corporation, the Yakuza, and one of the locations Wilson Fisk had acquired during the first season: Midland Circle. And, as she can't deal with Roxxon and the Yakuza alone, Elektra needs Matt's help. Only, it turns out to not really be the Yakuza, but an ancient clan of assassins known as The Hand. Meanwhile, Karen manages to convince Frank to get legal representation from Nelson & Murdock as opposed to the public defender. 

         So, obviously, this season sees Matt split between two ongoing fronts: dealing with the Hand and their plans for Midland Circle, and working with Foggy and Karen on a trial that puts the reputation of Nelson & Murdock on the line: The People v. Frank Castle. But, while Matt's work with Elektra in dealing with The Hand, which also involves Stick and his faction, The Chaste, the Frank Castle trial goes south pretty quickly. Unfortunately, Elektra threatens a medical examiner who has previously doctored the autopsy reports of Frank's wife and children, them a young man in the gallery has an emotional outburst towards Frank when the trial starts going towards his favor, and then when Frank is on the stand, everything falls apart. Frank is sent to prison, and Nelson & Murdock is no more. 

        So, we get a flashback to what happened to Fisk upon his arrival in prison, and we see him building up his protection in prison, using his attorney on the outside to help, and even meets with Frank upon his arrival, setting him on the path of the man who has some knowledge of what happened to Frank's family: Dutton. Meanwhile, Karen teams up with Mitchell Ellison, Urich's former boss and editor-in-chief of the New York Bulletin, to further uncover the truth about what happened that day, as a mysteriously vanished John Doe could be the key in unraveling what really happened to Frank's family. According to the now dismissed medical examiner, the John Doe was an undercover police officer, and according to Dutton, what happened that day was more than just a drug deal gone wrong - it was a police sting, with the intention being to draw out an even bigger drug dealer: the Blacksmith. And, with Dutton now out of the way, Fisk becomes the new Kingpin, and arranged for Frank to be set free from the prison. D.A. Reyes warns Matt, Foggy, and Karen of this, and reveals the true nature of what happened the day Frank's family died: the sting to catch the Blacksmith was set up, Reyes made a call to not clear civilians out of the park to avoid suspicion among the three gangs, and things went south when the Blacksmith didn't show and shooting began. Reyes confirms that she'd been trying to cover up her mistakes, and ends up dead as a result. 

       Matt, meanwhile, continues to unravel the operations of The Hand, and discovers that Nobu is still alive, and what he and The Hand are planning: it turns out that Elektra is the Hand's secret weapon known as the Black Sky, and they were using children as human incubators for a mix of chemicals, and the children were drained of blood to put the chemicals together in an ancient device tied to the Black Sky. At the same time, Frank is in search of the one known as the Blacksmith, and is shocked to learn that his former commanding officer, Ray Schoonover, and ultimately kills him. 

        So, with a final showdown between Matt, Elektra, Stick, and the Hand on the horizon, the action ramps up in the Season Two finale. A bunch of hostages, including Karen, are taken by The Hand, and they are luckily rescued by Matt and Elektra. The duo fights off several members of The Hand, including Nobu, on a rooftop, and Elektra sacrifices herself to slow down the plans of The Hand. Frank takes a sniping position on another rooftop and provides cover fire for Matt, and remarks to himself "See ya around, Red," and Matt defeats Nobu, and is left to mourn the death of Elektra. Stick, meanwhile, catches an escaped Nobu and kills him for good. Some time passes, and Matt is living his own life, Frank goes in search of a new path, Foggy takes up a position at a larger law firm run by Jeri Hogarth (a character introduced in the show Jessica Jones), Karen takes up work as a reporter for the Bulletin, and she meets Matt one night, where he reveals to her that he's Daredevil. 

      Season Two of Daredevil was pretty epic, albeit a bit less focused than Season One. I think that trying to split the storyline between a story centering on The Punisher and a storyline centered on Elektra and her conflict with The Hand was a bit much, and either one could have been fairly entertaining as the focus of the season. However, both Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle and Elodie Yung as Elektra were excellent, and I especially prefer this version of Elektra to Jennifer Garner. But, like I said, I think that they should have either focused on one arc, or finished out the arc involving The Punisher before starting the one focused on Elektra and The Hand. 

       I do need to mention that Season Three of Daredevil will only make sense after watching the entirety of The Defenders. So, keep that in mind, as there will be a few references to the events of The Defenders in this season of Daredevil. 

       So, Season Three sees Matt, who was presumed dead after the events of The Defenders, slowly recovering from his injuries in the last battle beneath Midland Circle under the eye of both Father Lantom and Sister Maggie, who just so happens to be Matt's mother. Meanwhile, Karen has been covering the bills for Matt's apartment in the hope that he's still out there and will come back. 

      All the while, Wilson Fisk is working with the FBI to see Vanessa brought back safely, as the feds want to charge her as an accessory to Fisk's crimes. Yikes. Anyway, not only does Fisk secure Vanessa's safe return, but also his own release thanks to an FBI agent named Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter, who is gifted with deadly accurate shooting skills. In other words, Agent Poindexter is the show's adaptation of iconic Daredevil antagonist Bullseye. Anyway, Agent Poindexter is able to save Fisk from attacks by Albanians, who go after the convoy moving Fisk from the prison to a penthouse that the FBI uses as a safehouse. 

        Poindexter also masquerades around as Daredevil, which turns the media against Daredevil, and prompts Matt to bring down the imposter Daredevil. Also, Fisk is targeting the likes of Foggy and Karen, but luckily they have help from another FBI agent named Nadeem, who Matt reveals his identity as Daredevil to. Unfortunately, Vanessa and Fisk, who get married in this season, send Poindexter after Nadeem and Nadeem is killed. Poindexter also goes after the couple, as does Matt, and Poindexter ends up paralyzed by Fisk. Matt thoroughly beats Fisk, but is unable to kill him. Fisk agrees to return to prison and leave Karen and Foggy alone, in exchange for Matt not revealing Vanessa's involvement in Nadeem's death. A funeral is held for Father Lantom, who was killed by Poindexter, and Matt suggests that he, Foggy, and Karen open a new law firm together as a trio, with Karen working as a private detective in the new firm. Poindexter, meanwhile, gets experimental surgery to fix his spine. 

       Overall, the Daredevil series was, for its time, one of the best streaming series Netflix had to offer. Phenomenal performances, gritty cinematography, and extremely tight action and fight scenes combined to bring to life one of Marvel's most iconic mainstays. I absolutely loved this series, and I am glad that Marvel Studios is continuing the story with the brand new series Daredevil: Born Again on Disney+, which is where all three seasons of Daredevil are currently available. Definitely check it out, it's absolutely fantastic. 

       Alright guys, this is Chuck signing off, and I'll see you guys in the next review.