I stayed all night to watch all 13 hours of Daredevil Season 2 just to tell you about whether it’s good or not! (just like I did last time)
This isn’t just any review, it’s a MULTI REVIEW! Depending on how much you want to know, you can choose from:
- An Emoji Review
- A One Sentence Review
- A Short Review, and a
- Full Review
Including a star rating at the end, and everything is 100% spoiler free!
Let’s kick off with what Daredevil Season 2 is about.
Synopsis / Trailer
Just when Matt thinks he is bringing order back to the city, new forces are rising in Hell’s Kitchen. Now the Man Without Fear must take on a new adversary in Frank Castle and face an old flame – Elektra Natchios.
Bigger problems emerge when Frank Castle, a man looking for vengeance, is reborn as The Punisher, a man who takes justice into his own hands in Matt’s neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Matt must balance his duty to his community as a lawyer and his dangerous life as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, facing a life-altering choice that forces him to truly understand what it means to be a hero.
Emoji Review
😈👍💥🔫💀👍💏👎💃🇬🇷😍👍
One Sentence Review
Daredevil was fun to watch, slow in some parts but otherwise good and there’s lots of action!
Short Review
I expected something more. I wanted this season to take it to the next level. In some ways it did improve, but mostly we got more of the same.
Daredevil Season One in itself is a standout masterpiece from everything Marvel has ever done before, celebrated for being unique and setting a very grounded, yet dark and raw tone for this section of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Some parts of Season Two I absolutely loved, but I feel as though some of the story was strung out (an issue I also had with Jessica Jones): mostly the Punisher’s story.
Full Review
Overall, I liked it. It’s good. Not really great, but good. It felt very similar to the last season and perhaps that’s the problem with the second season. It can be hard to repeat success by bottling up that magical essence, selling it and still keeping it great.
But after we were treated to something fresh and original like Marvel’s Daredevil Season One, and then again with Marvel’s Jessica Jones, I thought the demand for a second season of Daredevil would really move the needle and deliver something with a bigger punch.
I appreciate the tried and tested theory and to go with what works, but I think the first season set the bar pretty high and so our expectations were much higher this time.
I enjoyed the grit and the mystery of season one which felt organic, but season two tried to force that a lot, and so everything became a lot more obvious, more expected and lost that opportunity for discovery.
There are also issues with pace. It’s a little slow in the beginning but it ramps up toward the end.
Great action scenes and some very cool ninja mythology. I think there was a lot of “fluff” that could’ve been done away with, like Karen poking her nose into things, just to keep everything moving along faster and keep that intensity building because the finale (which is fantastic) deserved that climax.
The Punisher and Elektra stories were great, but I don’t think they should have been squeezed into one season only because there is so much material to play with. They could have explored just their stories for a whole other two seasons. Trying to blend these two characters into Season 2 felt messy to the overall storyline.
It was fun and I’ll watch it again, perhaps then I’ll appreciate it more deeply.
All I’m saying is that it could’ve been better but maybe we’re asking for too much?
Character Reviews
Daredevil
Matt Murdock is very much engrossed as Daredevil this season, having fully embraced his role as the protector of Hell’s Kitchen. It’s made him a little more arrogant because his work has put a lot of people behind bars and he’s done well to clean up the streets. He thinks his way as Daredevil is the only solution in the approach to crime should the law fail. But of course, things get complicated when the Punisher shows up to offer his more permanent solution. We see some really cool stuff happen with Daredevil (how rad is his new suit?!) and he also gets a very cool new toy.
The Punisher
Let me just make this clear that Jon Bernthal plays an excellent Frank Castle / Punisher, he got really deep into the psychology of the character and that showed in his performance. Wow. His story is also highly emotional and he is the epitome of a layered character.
I really enjoyed seeing Frank Castle be a bad ass and bear witness this tragic, hurt person that just wants to hurt the world back. But I think he overstayed his welcome in some parts.
The moral argument between Daredevil and Punisher as to who is the more “righteous” vigilante gets tiresome as it’s revisited over and over through episodes. The Punisher says to Daredevil “you’re one bad day away from being me” and he’s right, which is why Matt’s friends like Foggy will be pivotal to who Daredevil becomes.
Foggy
FOGGY! I love Foggy and he just brings so much charisma to this show. Foggy Nelson is the heart of this series and Elden Henson plays him so well. Foggy has come a long way from being the ambitious, money grabbing lawyer we saw him as in the first episode of Daredevil Season One. At the end of the day, he cares about being on the right side of the law and seeing innocent people get the justice they deserve. I think Foggy represents much of what ties Matt to his own humanity and that without Foggy he would be lost.
Karen
Oh, Karen. Karen, Karen, Karen.
I’m struggling to like Karen. I don’t really know what she brings to Daredevil’s group of super friends other than being a liability and getting herself into situations when she’s the damsel: “Oop, there’s Karen – snooping into peoples’ business again and getting caught” like some self-entitled truth seeker or a half-baked Lois Lane. She’s a smart woman and I think she’s capable of smarter decisions, so when I go and see her do something dumb it’s a let down, that’s my biggest gripe about her.
We saw Karen and Matt become closer and I’ll be honest, I found the sexual tension between the two of them to be dull and cringe-worthy.
It was like watching two horny teenagers staring at each other and the air between them is thick with hormones. Ugh. I wanted to peel my eyes. I think we were spoiled by how Marvel’s Jessica Jones showed us the complexities of adult relationships and did that well without being shy about it (hello, anal sex). I could hear my ‘inner Jessica’ saying “Just bone and get it over with, already”.
Elektra
All I can say is thank the Daredevil for Elektra!
Elodie Yung’s Elektra is a breath of fresh air. She brings high energy to her scenes which are just contagious with charm. I’ll be honest, as a big fan of the character I was ready to be hurt because this version of Elektra would be different from the one I know (we Elektra fans stand in solace as we have been burned before).
It turns out that Elodie Yung’s Elektra is different and I don’t mind one bit! They did well to adapt her from the comic books, including changing her origin story (a surprise in later episodes which will blow you away). This version of Elektra is a beginning of the world’s deadliest assassin for hire we all know and love.
During the entire season it’s as though she’s dancing on the edge of a cliff and you can see her about to fall, all the while her former lover Matt Murdock is holding her hand and he can either save her and pull her away from the cliff’s edge or fall with her. Other than being a kick ass ninja, she’s entirely seductive, manipulative and bad for your health. But there are glimpses of goodness in her and I think we will really see her go from strength to strength in later seasons.
Cameos
There are some very cool cameos made in Season 2. Some from Daredevil Season One and some from … another series. But I know you will love them all, especially the cameo from another series and I’ll say what they do is JUST. LIKE. THEM.
Overall Rating:
Like I said, I don’t think Season Two really moved the needle to be more superior than Season One, so it felt very much the same. So I’m going to rate it the same as I did for Season One, which is …
