Daredevil Season 2 (Episodes 1-3)
Monday, March 21, 2016 at 10:10PM Matt Murdock can't wait to hit the streets and rooftops each night as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. And I can't wait to finish my "Best Shot" entry super early for once. For this week's assignment (anyone can play along!) you can pick any one episode or multiple episodes of Daredevil Season 2 and choose a Best Shot. You have just under 24 hours left to pick one and post it since the Best Shot Roundup goes up tomorrow night at about 10 PM EST.
I'll get to my three choices, one per episode, after the jump. But damn it's good to have Charlie Cox's naked torso Daredevil back on Netflix
If you'll recall, last season on Daredevil, Wilson Fisk "The Kingpin" was jailed and the Yakuza and the Russians were also driven out of town or defeated. But in that vaccuum of criminal power you can bet that more baddies have emerged.
And now my picks for Best Shot from the first three episodes.
Best Shot: "Bang"
2.1 There's a new vigilante in town, The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) who is hellbent on killing every member of three rival power players in organized crime: an Irish mob, a biker gang called the Dogs of Hell, and a drug Cartel. Daredevil sees The Punisher's handiwork up close in a disturbing scene in which he walks through a butcher shop. The scene is already creepy (hanging meat always will be) but Daredevil's super senses make out another scent than beef. The shot, already dark and sickly, is extra unnerving because we actual see the morbid reveal before Daredevil. It's a rare case of pitting our senses against Daredevil's and leaving us on top. Frankly the show could use more of this because otherwise Daredevil feels more super than human, especially now that he's got that suit protecting him from all the flesh wounds he got last season. As a result of that costume, the show now feels considerably less dangerous (to its detriment).
Best Shot: "Dogs to a Gunfight"
2.2 Another shot chosen for how unnerving it is. In the second episode Matt is recovering from his first fight with The Punisher. A gunshot to his head cracked his mask and nearly killed him. While this shot might feel pedestrian at face value, we're continually reminded in this Best Shot series, that film is a collaborative art. Editing and production design and acting and costumes and such all work together to provoke us toward certain feelings and relationships with story and characters. In this particular moment the editing and sound work are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. But the composition and lighting are also smart. Matt suddenly loses his hearing and he's terrified. The cuts speed up in a disorienting way, and the sound entirely drops out. He screams but we hear nothing. We realize with horror why this is even worse for our hero: now he's actually blind in the traditional sense because sound is how he "sees". [Please to note: the series does not really get into the nature of his powers but the comic books have long approached his ability as sonic related, like a bats sonic radar. So he's constantly aware of the spaces between objects and the density of objects and movement around him and that's how he's so miraculously good at fighting without traditional eyesight]
Matt's gorgeous apartment is a great call from the production design team because it's flexible in terms of mood and color given the big windows. It's spacious enough for beautiful images and even fight scenes but still believably New York centric (just a one bedroom). Here the lighting and costuming suggest comfort and warmth which makes for moody friction with how claustrophic the shot composition is -- he's trapped and terrified.
Best Shot: "New York's Finest"
2.3 This is the final shot from the third episode. Murdock, Nelson and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) have been trying to piece together the mystery of Frank Castle (aka The Punisher) and here we see Karen holding an X-ray of the man's head as the camera slow zooms in until the title cards begin. It's a great use of light to literally and figuratively illuminate the subject; who is the Punisher, why does he do what he does, and what is going on inside his head?
We could ask the same of Daredevil and any masked vigilante as the show well knows.
Reader Comments (7)
That top picture is distracting...and possibly my new screen saver.
Agreed on the second shot. Wouldn't be as moody if it was another typical Daredevil "bathed in yellow or green" shot. Seriously, one thought that ran through my mind was "Simpsons?"
Just started the show last week to prepare for this series. Only got through episode 1, so will have to wait to read the rest of your choices. Below is my pick: http://www.awardsmadness.com/?p=2643
Stop distracting me with the first picture. I'm at work. Gosh! Lol
Love your choice for episode 2 and your reasoning. By the way, here's my entry: http://magnificaobsessao.blogspot.pt/2016/03/daredevil-hit-me-with-your-best-shot.html
There's a detailed explanation of Daredevil's powers in S1 E5. As good as we'll ever get, I suspect.
That great shot with the x-ray is probably meant to be reminiscent of the Punisher's comic book costume.
New York in this series is such a completely fictional place, and often amusingly so. It seems to me like someone heard there was a "meat-packing district" and imagined, y'know, that meat was packed there. Thus the hanging meat scene. There hasn't been meat-packing in the meat-acking district since about the 1980s.
Deborah Lipp: The idea behind a lot of the otherwise anachronistic elements in this show is that The Battle of New York lowered costs enough that various industries decided it was suddenly financially worth it to do a lot of things that hadn't been done in New York for a long time, including, based on that scene, a lot of meat-packing.
deborah & volvagia -- when i was a kid reading daredevil comics (which were set in hell's kitchen) i thought it must have been the seediest most criminal place in the world. but neighborhoods in NYC can change a lot in just a decade (and i guess daredevil comics began in the 60s or 70s or something before the cleanup of nyc... anyway it sure is a different place in the 2010s... super expensive and not known for crime.
magnificent - cant wait to read yours though i'm finishing watching another episode before i do right now :)