[TV] Marvel's Daredevil on Netflix

a young Karl Crusher Kreel who later becomes the Absorbing Man

research Ben was doing with him as the king card

First off it was 1000% better than the Ben Affleck movie. The fight scenes were well done, great cast, the characters were generally well developed and I cared about who they were. Nice foreshadowing with the Japanese and the Triad to likely tie in elements to the Iron Fist show when it airs.

Nitpicks: I wasn't 100% satisfied with the writing for Fisk and the Vanessa relationship felt a bit forced. The dynamic of being so powerful and careful that he controlled the entire town and yet constantly being questioned by his partners and being so emotionally rash seemed kind of conflicting. I know they tried to paint his behavior as this was caused by Vanessa, but it felt a bit off. Also would have been nice to give some background on how he went from poor boy who killed his dad to one of the richest and most powerful guys in the city. That and making him fall in season 1. No doubt he will be back at some point or in some form but I didn't expect him to be arrested in season 1. I was also a bit surprised that Ben died being one of the staple reporters for Marvel comics.

The way I see it is that it was also an origin story for how he became the Kingpin we all know him as, and to cement him as Daredevil's arch-nemesis.
Like he was this romantic/kid who dreamed of a better partnership than that of his parents and the guy who wanted to improve the city he grew up in.
Meeting Vanessa, split him up in those two as Kingpin's partners mentioned.
By the end, he kinda got to have it all until Hoffman spilled the beans and he lost everything, and so he stops caring and becomes a 3rd person so to speak.
However, Daredevil shows up and I think he sort of becomes the embodiment of the things Fisk lost/were taken away from him. So to some extent I think while Daredevil's doing his thing in the city, it will be like having someone rub the total sum of Fisk's misery in his face.
I do find it interesting how Fisk looked at the prison wall as opposed to the paintings though,

I do see your point though. It would've been interesting to see Fisk escape after all that effort by Nelson & Murdock. I probably would've been clamoring for more.

I liked the introduction of Stick and build up there. Loved when Matt came face to face with Fisk in the art gallery. Loved the ninja fight vs Nobu in episode 9. Was pretty surprised when Fisk showed up right after Murdock barely survived and then gets discovered by Foggy. I like that Karen flirts some with Foggy, but they didn't go for the stereotypical love triangle. Karen has her own agenda and drive. Karen shooting Wesley was pretty surprising too, and not getting scooped up or even discovered, nor sharing what she did with anyone. Foggy does a great job in the series as a side kick with charisma and humor and likeable enough that even when he is anti-Daredevil, you can empathize with his side. Lots of Marvel universe tie ins in the show. From Karl Crusher Creel, the absorbing man, fighting Matt's dad, to the "Greek girl" Matt dated in college (Electra), to Roxxon Oil, Van Lundt Real estate. Father Lantom is a reoccurring priest in the Marvel universe, working with Cloak and Dagger among others. When the show mentions Kingpin taking over Rigoletto's books, they are giving a nod to the comic origins. Don Rigoletto was a mob boss who first hired Fisk as his bodyguard and enforcer, before Fisk took his life – and his criminal empire along with it. Leland Owlsley is the villain the Owl in the comics. We shall see if he really died from that fall. The markings on the heroine is the symbol on the chest of Iron Fist villain Steel Serpent. St Agnes orphanage is the same one that Skye from Agents of SHIELD was at.

A cameo on the wall for Stan Lee





The only other nitpick that comes to mind is the finale and Fisk allowing himself to be arrested and then arranging the gunning down of his escort into custody with a plan to drive to the helicopter to be flown out. Why allow yourself to be arrested in the first place if you have men on the inside? Maybe he didn't have time to plan his escape before they arrived, but if so then how did he have time to plan the break out and get his men on the inside? Did he whisper to Vanessa to plan that escape? Seems like something that would take a lot more planning than a 5 second whisper would allow for. Why not have the helicopter come to him? It's based on a comic book so none of those nitpicks ruined it for me, but it did stretch the lines of logic in a show that generally approached things in a fairly logical fashion.

I suspect that Madame Gao and Stick will make a reappearance in Iron Fist. Loved the red costume. Overall the season was great and I'm looking forward to more.

Just before police arrest him he says plans have been made to his girl. She didn't plan anything, she was just told to wait by the helicopter. He didn't want the helicopter to come to him because he would risk her and he didn't want that. He would rather go to jail. As he said, it is just an inconvenience.

I'm just saying, if he had time to plan an elaborate and dangerous escape that required men on the inside escorting him, it seems like he could have just avoided getting taken into custody in the first place. It's a nitpick, but it took me out of the story some.

Since we cannot know the extent of his contacts inside the police and feds and others what happened is just as likely as what you wanted. Maybe he had no contacts inside FBI task force that was on his case but he had amongst some of the special troops. And we only saw one that was on the inside, the guys in black I think were some mercenaries

I got the impression that the people who took him were FBI and he didn't have an "inside" man. The whole plan may have been cooked up very quickly. Though that is generally not how law works, but whatever its TV.

My main issue with the last episode is unnecessary flipping by DareDevil. Its one of my pet peeves, so I understand if people don't mind it. Also standing really weird in super hero suits. Just stand like a normal person, it works for Batman. But its the first time we see the suit, so I let it pass because the fight was good.

Would have liked to see the suit used earlier in the episode however. Like when he rescues the dirty cop.

He defintely had at least one inside guy, the guard who shot the other FBI agent inside the van and uncuffed Fisk. I only watched it once, so I wasn't 100% clear where the other swat team dressed guys came from.

Don't like the real costume too much, better than not having an iconic suit I guess

Wesley, he was so awesome.

You mean Wesley? Or did i miss a major character in the show :D

Am I the only one who disliked the suit? I thought he looked way better with his black mask, but that just may be because there were so many badass fight scenes with him wearing it. The acting felt kind of off when he was in red though. A thought did occur to me that I prefer the black mask over his red suit because it reminds me of Illidan.

Of course you prefer black when you spend 12.5 hours watching him wear that and then suddenly for 10 minutes wearing a red suit. Next season you will get used to it.

kinda bummed about Ben Urich though

I just couldn't buy Fisk's character. Don't get me wrong, Vincent D'Onofrio kills the role, acting is perfect there. But, we get the impression that he's this ruthless, cold, calculating dude, but the only exposure we have to him in the show is when he starts with Vanessa. And after that point, he's an emotional manchild. "You interrupted my date, I'm going to kill you!" "You talked to my mommy, I'm going to kill you!" "My girlfriend is in the hospital, I'm going to ignore everyone and everything!" "My friend is dead, I'm going to kill everyone!"

It's not bad, per se, but I have trouble believing this is the guy who managed to take control of an entire city and ran an extensive criminal organization when he can't handle a single dinner date going poorly. I kept expecting Wesley or Owlsley to reveal themselves as the true brains behind the operation, because every time I saw Fisk, I didn't see someone who was capable of it.

takes that dude's head off

The one thing I disliked about the story is that, in my opinion, Wesley's death was extremely silly. I was genuinely shocked when she fired the gun and it was actually loaded. That is honestly such a gross oversight and major mistake to make. Doesn't feel like something Wesley would do, so it felt very odd to me.

Wesley was planning to kill her, so that is why it was loaded. Also he underestimated her due to his own lack of experience in doing these kind of things directly. He is a glorified secretary for Fisk, not a hardcore criminal

Something I think i might have missed while watching, she asked "you think i've never fired a gun before?," then shot pretty calmly and accurately, and even wiped prints off. I assumed it was just bravado, but then very shortly after they had a scene where she was with urich, and they kept mentioning something in her past that he found "almost immediately" which altered his perspective on her or something.

Does she have some shady past which we don't really know about yet, or am i just misremembering/misinterpreting?

There are constant hints about her shady past during the enitre season.

I thought that was one of the better moments. No stereotypical Daredevil has to save her scenario. No Karin stealing the gun and then foolishly losing control of it some how. Westley was careless and he died. Considering that's something she didn't share with anyone else despite the fact that she was kidnapped and completely in her rights to do what she did, and the fact that there were no repercussions so far, means it no doubt will be a story line that continues next season.

Like many of you, I don't really have any deal-breaking complaints, but a few things in the show kinda felt rushed or just left to one side in ways that I don't really respond to well. Some people don't mind things such as the mysterious guy Stick talked to, but for me, it almost feels like it was just shoved in there and left. It's obviously going to come back later, but now I know how those who didn't know Thanos felt. Another one was Gao saying she's from really far away. A subtle hint that I'm sure is great for those in the know, but for the rest of us, is just kind of left hanging without any real intrigue. A third is Black Sky. That kid was a black sky. It happened, it was completely forgotten.

Other things, the fact that Claire is barely around after a certain point was weird to me. They just got the chemistry really going and then she doesn't show up for a while. That seemed to happen with a lot of characters I liked a lot, they felt underused in many ways. This sort of removed some of the depth for me. Instead of a big complex web of characters, it was really just a few. Then other things got cleared up really quickly. The Russians, Japanese and the Heroin ring all just dissolve almost immediately when the time comes.

I wasn't a huge fan of the random language usage in the middle few eps either. Having Karen speaking all that Spanish from "high school" and then the scenes in Mandarin were just kind of awkward for me, especially after we knew Gao spoke English. From an acting perspective, it's better to have everything in English for the audience and the actors. Also having Fisk know Mandarin and Japanese without any real explanation, I would like to know more about him in that sense.

Finally in the niggles front, I still don't really know what Fisk's goal/endgame/plan even really was. Russians were distributing the Chinese Heroin and the Japanese had something with houses. Like I don't know what his business was or what his goals were. When he came out in public he was just called a philanthropist. I mean really, I don't know what Fisk was gaining from working with those people and what he was working towards. Was he just planning to "take over" Hell's Kitchen in a generic way or what? What was he doing?

if he was having constipation al the time

(all i know that vanessa is a sick woman)

dealt with leland in the finale