Daredevil, Season 1
I knew that The Defenders, another TV show based on an old comic, was coming to television. While I do have a Netflix account, I can't say that I've watched a lot on it, but something made me want to check it out. As soon as I saw the promo material, I noticed that it was a collection of all the other Netflix comic book shows. I asked someone who had binged-watched the series if I needed to watch all the other shows first. He told me, "No, but you'd probably enjoy them." He does know me.
Daredevil is my first Netflix series., not just the first of these. My background with Daredevil: I know of his origin and I may have read a few comics years and years ago. I wasn't a regular reader of the magazine, but probably read a few here and there. I knew him from "Team-Up" comics and things like "What If ...?". Likewise, I knew Kingpin more from Spider-Man comics, back when Marvel comics shared some of its villains around, and I remember Daredevil appearing in a Spider-Man comic to tell him, "Keep away from Kingpin. He's mine."
Whether or not this had something to do with the writers shifting to different comics or if they just wanted to address why Spider-Man operates in New York City and avoids Kingpin, I have no idea. None of this has anything to do with the series. Just my background, along with seeing Daredevil on a TV-movie of the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno "Incredible Hulk" series.
You don't need to have any background to enjoy this show. (It may help.) You don't even have to know about the events of the first The Avengers movie. (Again, it helps.) The MCU is referenced early on to let you know that it's set in that universe, but it's made clear that these guys are operating under the radar, and that folks like Iron Man have bigger fish to fry. (When someone is beaten, their boss explains, "If they had an iron suit or a magic hammer, I could understand.")
The show revolves around lawyer, Matt Murdock, who opens a new law firm in Hell's Kitchen with his longtime friend, "Foggy" Nelson. They even manage to have a couple of cases during the course of the series. That is, until they have to deal with the main villain of the season. The Big Bad, as it were.
Matt is blind and has been since an accident when he was a boy. However, the chemicals that blinded him heightened his other senses. He walks with a cane for show, but he can navigate though radar, similar to a bat. He can feel the vibrations in the air if you are coming toward him. He can hear heartbeats and tell if you're lying. It's more than I ever remembered, but nothing that can't be extrapolated by increasing it all to eleven. That said, he isn't super-strong; he isn't bulletproof; and he does get hurt. He may heal quicker than others but he gets hurt a lot more than others, and more often at that.
Matt patrols Hell's Kitchen by night, dressed all in black with a cap pulled down to his nose, covering the top of his face. He doesn't need his eyes to see. You'll only see the familiar red suit in the opening credits for a while, which actually parallels the comics. The red suit came later. Another thing you'll have to wait for is the name of the series being actually mentioned. He's that nut in the black suit and "the Devil of Hell's Kitchen" for most of the series. Trying to keep it realistic, I guess, as with the injuries.
Likewise, Kingpin isn't called that, but it is alluded to with a particular deck of cards that are outlining a story. What was impressive about Wilson Fisk was that he wasn't already established as "the Kingpin of Crime", instead being a part of an organized group, and that he showed some of his own insecurities, instead of commanding his minions to just take care of everything.
One thing I did like about the series was that it kept moving toward the end. That may sound funny, but I prefer "short season" shows to be more episodic in matter but possibly having a unifying theme. Shows that have a single story line spread out over 10 or more episodes generally have problems getting from point A to point B, usually leaving five or more episodes with depressing episodes where it was "so close" but he got away. That doesn't happen here. The show moves toward its conclusion, with side trips into the past to provide some needed background.
Another problem I have with short series shows is high bodies counts: a character's story is told, so they are killed to move them out of the way. I'm not a fan of that particular type of storytelling if there isn't a reason. Not everyone dies, but a lot do. It gets worse toward the end, but in context with the story, so it's not so bad.
Charlie Cox does a great job as Murdock and his costumed alter ego, and Vincent D'Onofrio handles Fisk in a way that makes him human as well as ruthless. And I enjoyed the performance of Bob Gunton as financier, Leland Owlsey, who delivered such a laid-back performance that it was a couple of episodes before I realized, "Hey! That's the guy from Shawshank Redemption! (C'mon, that was over 20 years ago. Shoot me.) Also, Rosario Dawson shines as Claire, a nurse who fishes Murdock out of a dumpster in an early episode, and then becomes a target for the Russian mob. Claire makes a clean break from Murdock and the Daredevil crew, but working in the local hospital, it's likely that she'll turn up again. (One could hope!)
Finally, I'm happy that it had a conclusion. It didn't end with a crazy cliffhanger, other than there's more work to do. I appreciate that.
I only watched one season, and then moved on to the next Defender, Jessica Jones.
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