Daredevil

Details

Written by KTP

Daredevil:  A blind lawyer meets women by getting his ass kicked fighting crime.

The race for superhero TV is on and it is a ratings war for viewership. As an audience, we are fucking losing. Constantine, Agent Carter, and Gotham have been missing the mark or not even firing in the right direction to begin with. Seriously, the only reason you put up with Agents of SHIELD is for maybe that tiny reference to the Marvel Universe that you lap up like it's spilled cocaine on the couch. Both DC and Marvel have been playing their hand at world-building in the TV market and have been tragically failing. Now Daredevil has come along as an exclusive on Netflix with a hero that isn't exactly the first choice you would consider to be a favorite in the Marvel world. He's a blind lawyer that fights crime and was among the first tragic comic movie letdowns starring Ben Affleck and an asshole with a bullseye on his forehead. How does the new series steer away from that trainwreck of a movie? The answer is the same way Dredd did it. Violence, grit, good characters, and a story that you can give a shit about.

This blind guy on the left got through law school and kicks the shit outta bad guys in his spare time while you were smoking weed at community college. Way to apply yourself asshole.

The story is told in chunks with brief flashbacks instead of committing an entire episode to a fucking origin story. Thank you for that. Matt Murdock was blinded as a kid in a traffic accident where toxic goop got into his eyes. Through physical conditioning and sticking with schooling, he becomes Daredevil, a blind lawyer that turns into a punching bag fighting crime as a masked vigilante. His partner in his sadly small firm is bumbling friend Foggy Nelson where they only take cases of innocent people and make no money at all. Matt finally starts to unravel the connections between the organized crime in the city leading to a Wilson Fisk; the crazy fat guy from Full Metal Jacket plays a ruthless sad fat guy running the show. Matt can't get the shit kicked out of him without a supporting cast so the series is rounded out with their newly acquired secretary Karen Page who is not the smacked out whore in the comics. We also have the super hot nurse Claire played by Rosario Dawson who keeps patching Matt up when he continuosly falls down stairs. Ben Urlich who, in an amazing move by the writers, managed to be a character instead of just another dickhead to move the plot along. There's also an old man named Stick who beats the shit out of Matt when he's a kid to prepare him for when he gets the shit kicked out of him as an adult. He's an asshole and hilarious at it.

I would let Rosario Dawson put stitches in me any day of the week.

Lets get the bad outta the way. I can't fucking stand how Matt's character looks at people with out the glasses or the mask. His eyes focus on a character and detracts from the “I'm a blind dude but can punch the shit outta you by the smell of your cologne.” angle. I don't know if it's the shots by the director or Charlie Cox can't pretend he's a blind superhero. Fix that shit. Other than that small gripe, the show is pretty fucking good. You can tell that they are going for a much darker and realistic portrayal of Daredevil rather than Ben Affleck sleeping in a fucking water tomb and Jon Favreau fumbling around like he's still on the set of Swingers. Daredevil gets bloody really quick and takes a fuck-ton of punches. You can see the influences from Old Boy (the Korean original) where Matt fucks up all those people in the hallway in one long shot in the second episode. Casting is well done all around with special mentions to Stick, Ben Urich, and Wilson Fisk. Seriously. Thanks for making Fisk interesting instead of just another money grubbing asshole that loves supercrime.

"Ok, you punch me a couple of times and then I punch you. Yes that is an erection, an erection of justice!"

Daredevil feels somewhere in between the Marvel Knights and Max comic versions of New York. The fight scenes are surprisingly brutal and compounded by Matt's tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds. This means he gets the shit kicked out of him…a lot. Just picture a shitty Batman with no gadgets, having a brown belt in taekwondo, and kind of a masochist. That's the charm of Daredevil, though. Punch him, blow him up, shoot him, stab him, it won't matter. He won't quit. What we are left with is a beaten pulp of a man trying to do the right thing in a violent crime ridden world. In the flood of superhero television (Gotham, Agents of Shield, the Flash), Daredevil stands a bloody mess over them.