Daredevil Season 2
Which I finished marathoning. Unspoilery summation: acting good, new characters impressive, plots headscratchey, show continues to want to have it both ways re: violence and death, it did some of my least favourite tropes only to turn them around by the follow up, and I continue to like but not love parts of it while remaining unfannish about it.
To start with the least favourite tropes: withholding of information between friends for no good reason whatsoever. Matt (and Foggy) could and should have told Karen that Matt is Daredevil after season 1 already. That Matt finally tells her at the end of season 2 barely mollifies me in this regard, though I'm happy he doesn't tell her in a romantic context, but in a deserves-to-know-the-truth one. Nearly as annoying: Matt not telling Foggy Elektra is back in town, that the new client is her, until he absolutely has to. As Foggy wastes no time pointing out.
Another unfavorite: third party character becomes authorial mouthpiece by lecturing one half of pairing why they absolutely need to be with other half and what love is. My previous least favourite example of this trope is when everyone and their ghost tells Cordelia and Angel they're meant for each other in the s3 AtS finale Tomorrow, including Cordelia's mirror. Nothing can top that, including the sudden Carrie/Brody shipping by Brody's wife in Homeland, but, of all the people, Frank "The Punisher" Castle mansplaining that love needs to be painful in order to be real to Karen and telling her to give Matt another chance came close.
HOWEVER: in the later case, this was saved by Karen NOT getting back together with Matt as a consequence (or even trying to - good for her!), and by Matt echoing the phrase (which he couldn't know about) re: his relationship, not with Karen but with Elektra in his conversation with Stick about her in the finale. Matt/Elektra as an illustration of how you know it's truly love by the fact this person gets under your skin and can hurt you more than any other, but it's still worth it because they make you feel alive more than anyone else, totally works for me, not least because the show doesn't try to sell their relationship as anything but gloriously screwed up. Otoh early on I suspected they wanted to sell me on Matt/Karen as healthy love, and between Matt continously lying to Karen and letting her down along with Foggy, and both of them having more and more interesting scenes with other people, I couldn't disagree more. Thankfully, the show then had Karen calling it quits early on and sticking to that while Matt was increasingly busy with Elektra and not interested in restarting dating Karen, either, and I am free to believe it was meant as an illustration of why a relationship doesn't work.
BtW: relationship advice on her love life aside (though now I want the crack fic where Karen gets Frank a secret job at the Daily Bulletin as the new agony aunt, because after all, he needs to finance his vigilante life somehow), I did like Karen's relationship with Frank, which struck me like Mina's and Hyde's in the first two volumes of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. They never lied to each other, which I'm a big fan of.
Foggy had a good season in terms of the lawyering up - the only character who did, since Matt had about two aborted attempts at actually doing something as a lawyer, failed at those and otherwise was mostly in Daredevil mode, whether or not he wore the costume -, being a heroic civilian who saves lives without beating people up, and being a good friend. One thing the finale changed my mind about was the second season doing another estrangement storyline between him and Matt. For most of the season, I thought it was repetitive and only serving to make me infuriated at Matt, but that was because I didn't expect there to be long term consequences; I expected them to reconcile and be back at the firm together for the finale. Instead, there actually were consequences: Matt decided to become a full time vigilante, Foggy decided to work at Jeri Hogarth's (admittedly I woo-hood when seeing Carrie Anne Moss in the finale, which was a great use of inter series continuity) after she made him a great offer, and Karen accepted the reporter job Ben Urich's old boss Ellison offered her. Much as, in the long term, I want the central trio to be friends again, I am completely on board with this because it means the angst wasn't graititious but led to longer developments, character- and profession wise.
Mind you: Karen being hired as a reporter with zilch experience in writing anything, just because she's proven herself as a good researcher, makes about as much sense as... Clark Kent in the Snyder-verse getting hired as a reporter when having only manual labor experiences. (Clark Kent in most other incarnations actually does have writing experience and college education before making it at the Daily Planet.) But I like her rapport with her new boss who takes her far less for granted than her old bosses and actually heads a company that works, so I'm handwaving.
Someone who also quit their old job: Claire Temple, in disgust at the hospital's corruption. Thankfully this didn't happen until late in the season, so she was around a lot before to be her wonderful, practical compassionate, no nonsense self. I strongly suspect her quitting has something to do with the upcoming Luke Cage series and fully expect her to show up there.
Frank Castle and Elektra (after her initial outing where she still maintains her society girl cover) did what Wilson Fisk did in s1, they overshadowed the main character in terms of getting the big emotional beats (other than those Foggy and Karen get). Since an element in Matt's relationship with both of them is the "to kill or not to kill?" question, the show's continued wanting to have their cake and eat it, too in this regard became even more obvious than last season. (Where you had Matt angsting about whether or not to kill someone in all the episodes where he didn't set a man on fire and never mentions that one again; in s2 when Nobu turns out to have been immortal, Matt also puts it passively, i.e. "he burned", not mentioning his own involvement in that.) It also avoids facing the way Matt's violence as Daredevil may not be intentionally lethal but definitely cripples a lot of people if we're taking what he deals out in any way seriously in terms of the human physique. Drawing the line at death but being fine with any degree of broken bones does not give you the moral high ground.
I suppose you could say that Matt's big emotional breakthrough at the end, admitting to himself and Elektra that he needs the vigilante life not for the reason he gave everyone and himself before - "to protect my city" -, but because it makes him feel alive, also retrospectively means we don't have to take his opinion on what is good and what is bad violence as authorial. But still: the series continues to remind me of the Snyder movie version of Watchmen versus Moore's comic book, where Snyder has Laurie and Dan use crippling and lethal violence, making the point of Rorschach having crossed a line they hadn't moot.
Minor points:
- the whole in the ground made me wonder whether scriptwriter Doug Petrie has watched Torchwood: Miracle Day, and given Jane Espenson wrote a few eps there and is an old BTVS colleague of his, I suspect he has.
- Matt's apartment is still ridiculously big; how is he paying for this again? Especially now without a job?
- Wilson Fisk's two episodes, showing him becoming the Kingpin in prison and manipulating events from there, were a great use of continuity
- when you cast Clancy Brown as the seemingly good Colonel, it's sort of spoilery to those of us who have seen Clancy Brown in, um, most of his other roles
- that said, I would rather have had more about how Frank Castle's government-licensed Black Ops days shaped him into a ruthless killer long before his family was killed and less mystic Ninjas
- Elektra's angst about being Prophecy Girl to the bad guys she's fighting against all her life made me think Sydney Bristow would empathize, which in turn reminded me Jennifer Garner played Elektra in a certain movie
- Marci/Foggy OTP!
- seriously, though: Matt lying to Karen and not telling her the truth until the finale made me appreciate all over again how refreshing it felt back in 2008 when Tony Stark said, at the end of his origin movie, no less, "I am Iron Man" in front of the entire world (and that Pepper and Rhodey already knew at that point). I am SO not a fan of secret identities as an angst device in relationships with people you're supposed to be close to and trust.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1156952.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
To start with the least favourite tropes: withholding of information between friends for no good reason whatsoever. Matt (and Foggy) could and should have told Karen that Matt is Daredevil after season 1 already. That Matt finally tells her at the end of season 2 barely mollifies me in this regard, though I'm happy he doesn't tell her in a romantic context, but in a deserves-to-know-the-truth one. Nearly as annoying: Matt not telling Foggy Elektra is back in town, that the new client is her, until he absolutely has to. As Foggy wastes no time pointing out.
Another unfavorite: third party character becomes authorial mouthpiece by lecturing one half of pairing why they absolutely need to be with other half and what love is. My previous least favourite example of this trope is when everyone and their ghost tells Cordelia and Angel they're meant for each other in the s3 AtS finale Tomorrow, including Cordelia's mirror. Nothing can top that, including the sudden Carrie/Brody shipping by Brody's wife in Homeland, but, of all the people, Frank "The Punisher" Castle mansplaining that love needs to be painful in order to be real to Karen and telling her to give Matt another chance came close.
HOWEVER: in the later case, this was saved by Karen NOT getting back together with Matt as a consequence (or even trying to - good for her!), and by Matt echoing the phrase (which he couldn't know about) re: his relationship, not with Karen but with Elektra in his conversation with Stick about her in the finale. Matt/Elektra as an illustration of how you know it's truly love by the fact this person gets under your skin and can hurt you more than any other, but it's still worth it because they make you feel alive more than anyone else, totally works for me, not least because the show doesn't try to sell their relationship as anything but gloriously screwed up. Otoh early on I suspected they wanted to sell me on Matt/Karen as healthy love, and between Matt continously lying to Karen and letting her down along with Foggy, and both of them having more and more interesting scenes with other people, I couldn't disagree more. Thankfully, the show then had Karen calling it quits early on and sticking to that while Matt was increasingly busy with Elektra and not interested in restarting dating Karen, either, and I am free to believe it was meant as an illustration of why a relationship doesn't work.
BtW: relationship advice on her love life aside (though now I want the crack fic where Karen gets Frank a secret job at the Daily Bulletin as the new agony aunt, because after all, he needs to finance his vigilante life somehow), I did like Karen's relationship with Frank, which struck me like Mina's and Hyde's in the first two volumes of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. They never lied to each other, which I'm a big fan of.
Foggy had a good season in terms of the lawyering up - the only character who did, since Matt had about two aborted attempts at actually doing something as a lawyer, failed at those and otherwise was mostly in Daredevil mode, whether or not he wore the costume -, being a heroic civilian who saves lives without beating people up, and being a good friend. One thing the finale changed my mind about was the second season doing another estrangement storyline between him and Matt. For most of the season, I thought it was repetitive and only serving to make me infuriated at Matt, but that was because I didn't expect there to be long term consequences; I expected them to reconcile and be back at the firm together for the finale. Instead, there actually were consequences: Matt decided to become a full time vigilante, Foggy decided to work at Jeri Hogarth's (admittedly I woo-hood when seeing Carrie Anne Moss in the finale, which was a great use of inter series continuity) after she made him a great offer, and Karen accepted the reporter job Ben Urich's old boss Ellison offered her. Much as, in the long term, I want the central trio to be friends again, I am completely on board with this because it means the angst wasn't graititious but led to longer developments, character- and profession wise.
Mind you: Karen being hired as a reporter with zilch experience in writing anything, just because she's proven herself as a good researcher, makes about as much sense as... Clark Kent in the Snyder-verse getting hired as a reporter when having only manual labor experiences. (Clark Kent in most other incarnations actually does have writing experience and college education before making it at the Daily Planet.) But I like her rapport with her new boss who takes her far less for granted than her old bosses and actually heads a company that works, so I'm handwaving.
Someone who also quit their old job: Claire Temple, in disgust at the hospital's corruption. Thankfully this didn't happen until late in the season, so she was around a lot before to be her wonderful, practical compassionate, no nonsense self. I strongly suspect her quitting has something to do with the upcoming Luke Cage series and fully expect her to show up there.
Frank Castle and Elektra (after her initial outing where she still maintains her society girl cover) did what Wilson Fisk did in s1, they overshadowed the main character in terms of getting the big emotional beats (other than those Foggy and Karen get). Since an element in Matt's relationship with both of them is the "to kill or not to kill?" question, the show's continued wanting to have their cake and eat it, too in this regard became even more obvious than last season. (Where you had Matt angsting about whether or not to kill someone in all the episodes where he didn't set a man on fire and never mentions that one again; in s2 when Nobu turns out to have been immortal, Matt also puts it passively, i.e. "he burned", not mentioning his own involvement in that.) It also avoids facing the way Matt's violence as Daredevil may not be intentionally lethal but definitely cripples a lot of people if we're taking what he deals out in any way seriously in terms of the human physique. Drawing the line at death but being fine with any degree of broken bones does not give you the moral high ground.
I suppose you could say that Matt's big emotional breakthrough at the end, admitting to himself and Elektra that he needs the vigilante life not for the reason he gave everyone and himself before - "to protect my city" -, but because it makes him feel alive, also retrospectively means we don't have to take his opinion on what is good and what is bad violence as authorial. But still: the series continues to remind me of the Snyder movie version of Watchmen versus Moore's comic book, where Snyder has Laurie and Dan use crippling and lethal violence, making the point of Rorschach having crossed a line they hadn't moot.
Minor points:
- the whole in the ground made me wonder whether scriptwriter Doug Petrie has watched Torchwood: Miracle Day, and given Jane Espenson wrote a few eps there and is an old BTVS colleague of his, I suspect he has.
- Matt's apartment is still ridiculously big; how is he paying for this again? Especially now without a job?
- Wilson Fisk's two episodes, showing him becoming the Kingpin in prison and manipulating events from there, were a great use of continuity
- when you cast Clancy Brown as the seemingly good Colonel, it's sort of spoilery to those of us who have seen Clancy Brown in, um, most of his other roles
- that said, I would rather have had more about how Frank Castle's government-licensed Black Ops days shaped him into a ruthless killer long before his family was killed and less mystic Ninjas
- Elektra's angst about being Prophecy Girl to the bad guys she's fighting against all her life made me think Sydney Bristow would empathize, which in turn reminded me Jennifer Garner played Elektra in a certain movie
- Marci/Foggy OTP!
- seriously, though: Matt lying to Karen and not telling her the truth until the finale made me appreciate all over again how refreshing it felt back in 2008 when Tony Stark said, at the end of his origin movie, no less, "I am Iron Man" in front of the entire world (and that Pepper and Rhodey already knew at that point). I am SO not a fan of secret identities as an angst device in relationships with people you're supposed to be close to and trust.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1156952.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.