Ron Does Stuff

Not gonna lie you guys, it’s been a long time since I watched the Netflix Daredevil. Long enough that I had to literally torrent the first season because Netflix wasn’t available here at the time. I barely remember anything from it anymore and I haven’t watched Echo, which I believe has Fisk in it? I haven’t watched Hawkeye either so I dunno if I’m going to be able to follow this show. But I’ll try my best!

I don’t know the technical term for it, but this new show definitely opens very differently from the very first episode of the Netflix show. The color? color grading? is different and it feels different but alike, if that makes sense? At least from what I remember and like I said, it’s been years!

This first episode also leans very heavily on “change”, with many members of the justice system — from lawyers to policemen — leaving or retiring from public service, with one police officer citing vigilantes like Daredevil and White Tiger as the cause and “the future”, a blunt enough metaphor for even idiots like me to get that this show is going to be change for Daredevil.

And it does feel like a change! I like how they’re visualizing Matt’s enhanced hearing in the show. It feels much more comic book-y than I remember from the Netflix version of the show and yet not cartoon-y, if that makes sense. They’ve still managed to make it fit with the whole visual language of the show.

Foggy’s client Benny feels like he’s in danger in Foggy’s apartment and if we’re not being mislead by the show, he definitely is because Bullseye is in the building, introduced not just via the glove with the bullseye marks on them but with that great shot of him impaling a fly with a paperclip.

BUT IT MIGHT BE SOMEBODY ELSE ENTIRELY BECAUSE FOGGY GETS SHOT RIGHT IN FRONT OF JOSIE’S? BUT NO IT IS BULLSEYE IT’S JUST THAT HE’S ATTACKING RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN AND NOT IN A TRAP.

Got to say, that Josie’s fight isn’t that impressive to me at the moment. It feels and looks fake? Especially since I’ve been watching Study Group and I like what they did with what I assume is a much smaller budget than a Disney production. It gets a little better when they get to a hallway, which I guess has to be done with any Daredevil production now.

AND THEN FOGGY DIES. AND THEN MATT PUSHES BULLSEYE OFF A BUILDING. JESUS CHRIST. THEY’RE CERTAINLY NOT DISNEY-FYING THIS THING.

It’s not clear whether Bullseye escapes or not but what is clear that he survived that fall from I think a four-story building? Which I think I am okay with because Bullseye is an iconic Daredevil villain and it feels like wasted potential to just end him like that.

We then jump to a year later with the show clearly telegraphing that Matt and Fisk are negatives of each other as they have similar and dissimilar morning routines. Is there going to be an uneasy alliance happening this season? Or maybe not because Vanessa is running the criminal underground of New York City and I feel like in some alternate timeline she and O-Ren Ishii would be friends.

But it looks like changes have to be made as Fisk has amassed the right amount of signatures for a run for mayor, so he can’t be associated with anything illegal. Vanessa assures him that while he was gone, the business has been made bulletproof.

DID SOMEBODY SAY BULLETPROOF.

Stream it on Spotify too!

Matt’s life, however, isn’t going as well. Nelson, Murdock, and Page is no more and now he has to go to make an impact statement at Bullseye’s trial. Bullseye is sentence to 11 consecutive life sentences and we also learn that Karen has moved to San Francisco and the friendship with Matt is shaky, at best. The death of Foggy really destroyed whatever relationship they had and now they’re not even talking to each other and Matt doesn’t even want to put on the Daredevil suit on anymore. He’s no longer him, he says, and I don’t know why Karen is disappointed about it but maybe this is something from Season 3 that I’m not remembering. Matt’s bad day is further compounded by Fisk announcing that he’s running for mayor.

A candidacy that is maybe taking its cues from the Trump candidacy, with a young character extolling Fisk’s social media popularity and how his unconventional campaign is the way to go and not the usual one preferred by his older political consultant. Just like Captain America: Brave New World, this seems to have been made with the expectation that Kamala was going to be president, or at least that the United States wouldn’t get another Trump presidency.

Matt is set up by his new partner with a therapist who I am guessing is going to be the new love interest in the show since Karen is now out of the picture. I’m not quite sure if they have chemistry but I do like that they address the gentrification that’s happened to Hell’s Kitchen and Queens because that something that people pointed out so often during the show’s Netflix run that even I from across the world became aware of it.

While he tries to act all nonchalant about it, Matt is truly worried about Fisk’s run for mayor and he eventually gives in and meets up with him. Not as Daredevil, but simply as citizen Matt and we get the coffee shop scene that was teased earlier this year, I think? And it’s the strongest scene in the episode for me, with Charlie Cox and Vincent D’ Onofrio just sparring verbally.

Fisk wins the election and Vincent D’ Onofrio really just has this character down to a T because that unsettling smile after delivering his winning speech on television? That was great.