I fell in love with Daredevil as a young boy when Frank Miller, pre Dark Knight, took over the comic. It wasn't just the sexiness of a blind superhero (what?). Miller's run in the early 80s brought us famous characters like Bullseye and Elektra and Stick and a dangerous physical immediacy that other comics just didn't have. Naturally the Frank Miller run, plot-wise, was what the execrable 2003 movie tried to cover, jamming it all together with spectacularly disastrous and silly results. Marvel's first foray into Netflix territory gets so much right in its first few episodes that people need no longer fear The Man Without Fear but embrace him. Instead we need only fear, together whilst binge-watching, that Daredevil won't be able to keep this quality up for for its whole first season.
Herewith thoughts on the first two episodes...
1.1 "In the Ring"
Drew Goddard's series (he's billed as creator and writer) based on the Stan Lee and Bill Everett character who was first introduced in Marvel Comics in 1964, is confident and smart enough to ditch the origin story as kickoff. We're only there a moment for a super compressed flashback to the accident which blinded our hero. (It's smart to speed through this because it's silly. If all "hazardous chemical spills" and (gamma or other) radiation poisoning or what not gave people superpowers in real life everyone would be dousing themselves with the stuff!). The first episode isn't slow exactly but it is not unlike a law procedural. What sets the fanboy heart at ease is how skillful the mood and how sure the characterizations. This is the Matt & Foggy the fans love and this is their fictional Hell's Kitchen neighborhood from the comics (albeit with its own new origin story given "the incident" aka that final alien battle from The Avengers). The joy of the first episode isn't in what happens (it's all setup really) but in how easily it inhabits its dark, shadowy and violent world without getting caught up in self-importance or being bereft of humor, the usual pitfalls of the solemn superhero subgenre.
Synopsis: Nelson & Murdoch open their new law firm and hire their first client as secretary to pay off her defense after she's been framed for murder (and... well, it's all very complicated but vague and bodies pile up to explain it away as the chief badguy (unseen) realizes he lost this first battle. There are several minor badguys, all in collusion on real estate schemes in a neighborhood being rebuilt but it's hard to tell them apart yet.
Major Characters Introduced: Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), best friends and law partners, Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) their secretary, and a bunch of bad guys, they still feel undifferentiated at this point.
Crimes:
Lying to Matt Murdoch (Don't do that Karen, HE KNOWS), Generally Shady Corporate Shenanigans, Murder, Attempted Murder, Framing an Innocent, Human Trafficking, Kidnapping, Illegal Gun Possession, Drug Dealing, Inappropriate Confessionals in Church (this one's on Murdock). In short: lots of crime!
Body Count: 3
Foxiest Moment:
Daredevil, the Man Without Fear. Or Body Fat.
Best Cameo: Deborah Ann Woll side boob.
Episode MVP:
Production Designer Lorin Weeks and Cinematographer Matthew J Lloyd for embracing the gothic Catholicism and the tricky balance of so dark you can't see anything and pops of saturated color.
Best Moment:
Matt in the confessional talking about his father in the boxing ring "he let the devil out," Charlie Cox's dark eyes only catching the light from his tears.
Best Action Moment: This is difficult to describe but there's a superbly charged moment when Murdock in mask opens Karen's door, and after a beat of recognition that they're about to throwdown without holding back, Daredevil charges. He lets the devil out.
Best Shot:
And this Daredevil horizontal with face on the ground will be a recurring visual motif. He sure can take a beating!
Potention Trouble Spot for Series: Love of bad guys commiting crime montages and excessive flashbacks to Matt's father.
Grade: B but all the makings of future "A"s are there - first episodes always have to toss a lot of balls in the air
1.2 "Cut Man"
Our hero, badly beaten on the search for a kidnapped boy, lies bleeding to death in a dumpster in the opening scene. That's one way to jump right in to the story! He's stitched up by a kindly nurse. She's the first person to see the masked vigilante with his mask off. She's smart enough to realize he's blind, too, and since they spend nearly the whole episode together she realizes he has other gifts (super smell, super hearing, the ability to know things he shouldn't know... like if someone's lying or unsconcious versus dead). After torturing a fake evil cop, with this nurse's help no less (wth) he's off to rescue that little boy.
Characters Introduced: Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) a streetwise neighborhood nurse
Foxiest Moment: Claire's no nonsense observations and annoyance with "Mike's" refusal to give her any answers. All while he's lying their helpless, like a bird with a broken wing. Why are smart world-weary women and wounded heroic men both so sexy? Wait. Don't psycho-analyze me. I retract the question.
Crimes: Impersonating a Police Officer, Torture (this one's on Daredevil), Disturbing the Peace.
Body Count: 1 (but it's "Battling Jack Murdock" in flashback). *sniffle*
Best Cameo: Daredevil's costume. Well, not really but we do spend time with young Matt focusing on his father's red robe and there are dialogue hints as well. Earlier in the episode he confesses to Claire that his black outfit is a "work in progress" and talks about his dad's red hiding the blood.
Episode MVP: Charlie Cox, who is allowed more shadings in this episode as he tries to navigate an unexpected but hugely loaded situation with a stranger (that'd be Claire). Better yet, and people don't talk about this much with actors, but he's entirely believable in his physicality whether its acting broken ribs, the terrifying inability to breathe, steeling himself to take a punch, or struggling to keep his balance when his head is surely spinning and he's STILL fighting men off.
Best Moment:
The B-Plot. Foggy and Karen get wasted drunk together, the events of episode 1 still weighing on them. They end the night banging on Matt's apartment door (not realizing he's fighting for his life blocks away) spouting nonsense about fish markets and magic eels and waking a very grouchy old lady. A great bit of levity peppered throughout an otherwise violent, even scary episode.
Best Shot:
Best Action Moment: Given the relative minimalism of this episode's plot and time frame, it's a brilliant move to stage the entire climax in one continuous complicated shot (or faked but it feels the same!) and this thing goes on for five and a half minutes, no joke. We start following the criminals as they wander in and out of rooms in a creepy building where they're holding a young boy hostage behind the door, dead center of this shot. Before Murdock even arrives, we understand how many men he'll have to fight and how many rooms they'll come pouring out of. Birdman is our most contemporary reference to this kind of thing as the camera darts around the actors and reverses direction and what not but the content is more influenced by Oldboy's famous hammer sequence. It's beautifully choreographed by which I mean awkwardly performed. Rare is the action scene that feels this exhausting for everyone involved. With the final punch Daredevil not only knocks the villain out but he falls on his own ass (and slightly out of frame but for his flailing legs). It's funny and also weirdly moving.
This guy is human. And therefore quite a hero. The final beat of the scene is Murdock barely able to stand but empathetic and conscious enough to lift his mask to not scare the little boy which he'll then carry out of the building, awkwardly stepping over thugs along the way.
Runner Up: That moment where Claire watches in astonishment as a blind guy drops a fire extinguisher on the fake cop several floors away in the stairwell, is pretty choice, too.
Grade: B+/A- (but that last five minutes is 100% "A")
Should we post on the remainder of the season? Your comments will tell the story if y'all are binge-watching and therefore it'd be worth it. If you are watching, please keep the discussion to these two episodes.