Generally speaking I’m a fan of the superhero genre. I’m old enough to remember sitting enthralled at green body-painted Lou Ferrigno growling as the Hulk. I can remember Super Friends, Adam West and Burt Ward (aka, Batman and Robin), and the original Spiderman (Spiderman, friendly neighborhood, Spiderman) cartoon.
I was never a huge fan of Daredevil in the comics. My money was on Hulk, Fantastic Four and a couple of others. When Netflix released Daredevil last year I gave it a try and was mostly pleased.
Season 2? Not a fan, even though I wanted to be.
Here’s why:
There is only so much suspended disbelief I can take. I’m game to go into the director’s universe and enjoy myself. When watching The Avengers I couldn’t care less whether Hulk can actually generate enough energy to accomplish his feats, or why Bruce Banner’s pants always fit after a Hulk-break. I don’t care if Captain America’s shield is a vibranium steel alloy or made from recycled Pepsi cans. I don’t expect scientific accuracy.
Daredevil, however, is a different kind of superhero. He’s blind with super attuned senses, and acquired athletic and martial arts prowess learned from a crusty old “get off my lawn type” named Stick who’s also blind with super attuned senses and martial arts prowess.
Unfortunately, Daredevil doesn’t die from injuries that would put the Hulk in a coma. In this season Elektra doesn’t die with sliced open with a poisoned katana blade, because Stick cures her with a witch’s brew of Jack Daniel’s and baking soda just as the toxin is set to enter her brain. The semi-hero of this season, the Punisher, had he been an actual person would have been taken into custody by the Pentagon and cloned into an indestructible army. He survives the most gruesome and graphic beat-downs, gunshot, blows to the head, chest, abdomen, back.
This would all be well and good if this were the Avengers. You can’t kill those guys; some of them aren’t even from this world. But Daredevil is set in normal, everyday life. (Excepting possibly that it’s dark in New York 20 hours a day.) He’s a LAWYER for crying out loud, an indestructible, sight-impaired Perry Mason.
The physically strongest guy in the series is uber-criminal-overlord-crime-syndicate-boss and art collector, Wilson Fisk. Played by “Law and Order” vet Vincent D’Onofrio, his every line comes across like Fisk about to regurgitate a 5-pound chicken carcass. In a conference room setting, Fisk surprises Matt Murdock (the lawyer side of Daredevil) and smashes his head into a table. Daredevil aside, even Murdock doesn’t go unconscious. He does wobble out of the room under his own power.
The series isn’t geographically realistic. Hell’s Kitchen is a 538-acre residential area in New York City. It goes by two other names, one of which is Clinton, probably because of the non-encrypted email servers in the basements. There’s a giant hole that either Bane or that monster from Super-8 should inhabit.
The amount of carnage in Daredevil this season makes Scarface look like Breakin’ 2, Electric Bugaboo. There are shootouts in the park, sniper assaults, cafe massacres, multiple emergency room visits, and at least one car crash. All of this in a place less than 1-square mile in size.
Where’s the national guard? The state police? Where’s Lenny? The police force of Hell’s Kitchen seems to be made up of one detective and some street cops. There seem to be as many officers guarding the Punisher in the courtroom as are guarding Hell’s Kitchen on the streets.
But it’s fiction, you say? Of course. But there are enough gangs and criminal elements in Daredevil Season 2 to be fighting over control of the eastern seaboard, not a few apartments near Central Park.
Daredevil’s face is a hard as carbon alloy. I surely must have missed the story arc in which Matt Murdock’s entire skull was replaced with that stuff in Wolverine’s claws. Daredevil gets hit in the mouth and nose with enough force to remove George Washington from Mount Rushmore. Not just once, but over and over and over. The Punisher has his turn. Elektra has her turn. An entire motorcycle gang has their turn. Ninjas (yes, ninjas) have their turn.
Think about this: Daredevil gets shot in his superhero helmet from point blank range and it knocks him out for a while. He gets hit in the face enough to have a CTE diagnoses by episode 6 and rarely if ever has a facial bruise. No missing teeth. Hockey players should have it so easy.
Too much blood. Not in the storyline. I’m okay with blood in the storyline if it services the narrative well.
I’m talking about the people have too much blood. These people have gallons of blood. Like kegs of blood finely aged in oak barrels. Have these special effects people no idea of human physiology?
It isn’t merely that people bleed a lot. People spill blood onto the floor with huge splashes like Granny pouring clabbered buttermilk into the sink.
The human body isn’t a 55-gallon drum of plasma.
Talk, fight, talk, fight, talk, fight. Daredevil Season 2 has two basic plot devices: fights (approximately 280 of them), and extended whining talking sessions. And the dialogue isn’t good; it is not memorable. It feels like the same basic conversation over, and over, and over.
And the fight scenes. Good grief. On sequence lasted so long Thor would have needed an oxygen tent to finish.
They lost the plot. Or rather, plots.
Just what is the plot? There are between 3 and 5 warring gangs, an eternal gang (like in Batman Begins), ninjas (like in Batman Begins), an American sniper (Castle), an office girl who likes Murdock or Foggy or Castle or the hospital orderly.
Or is it Stick and Elektra? Or Stick and the Blacksmith? Or Hoss Cartwright and the blacksmith? Or Punisher and his memories? Or Wilson Fisk and his rage issues? Or someone else who’ll be introduced in the last 15 minutes of episode 13?
As a friend of mine noted they never return to that giant cavern in the floor of Hell’s Kitchen.
I’m still a fan of the superhero genre. Daredevil 2 just is not a good addition to it.
Thanks for reading. Help keep Kingdom in the Midst going strong. Join others who’ve given $2, 5 or 10. Use the PayPal button in the right sidebar. No PayPal account necessary.
