Daredevil Season 2 Review

I have to start finishing these reviews before the release of The Defenders on Netflix in August, and this one has been a long time coming.

Picking up shortly after the events of Daredevil Season 1, Season 2 breaks the narrative mold slightly by adopting the style of telling one story in the first half of the season, and concluding with another story for the last half of the season. The former is the conflict of Daredevil versus the Punisher, with the character conflict for our titular hero revolving around the question of if what Daredevil is doing is good enough, or too much. The second half constitutes Matt Murdock once again getting involved with an old flame named Elektra, and once again returning to a darker, more notorious life that he had left behind. The dichotomy of seasonal storytelling is certainly interesting, and it makes sense from the perspective of mirroring the inner conflict of Daredevil, but one can’t help but feel slightly disjointed or slighted. The story of the Punisher against the Daredevil is just so compelling, to have it end in an instance and swapped for something that is ultimately not as compelling is a bummer.

In terms of acting, we get some great performances, the standout of the season being Jon Bernthal as Punisher. I’ve always liked how the man can go to the dark places in order to pull out the dark character, but his take on Frank Castle brings it to another level. Determined, demented, and incredibly smart, this is by far the best iteration of the Punisher character. Charlie Cox is reliable as Matt Murdock, but I’ve always had an issue with the way he broods. The character himself broods, but Cox is clearly not a naturally broody type. When he’s a confident lawyer, it’s great to see, but if he’s trying to put on a growling voice, it’s immediately weaker. Elodie Yung as Elektra is certainly striking, and she’s got more charisma than her male counterpart, but her storyline feels so much weaker in a season dominated by the Punisher’s debut. Deborah Ann Wool and Elden Henson return as Matt’s good friends, and while I’ve never really felt the Karen character did much, Henson’s Foggy Nelson is engaging, realistic, and witty. He’s a great piece of this Daredevil puzzle.

One of my complaints in these lower-budget superhero TV shows is that despite their limitations, some of them fail to get creative. That is not the case with Daredevil. The lighting of the show is a character in it of itself, and it helps a lower-budget set look beautiful. Not that I’m expecting the extravagant sets of Thor or Guardians of the Galaxy in this series: this is Hell’s Kitchen, the slums of New York City, of course it’s supposed to look cheap and minimalistic. That being said, having some artistic lighting vision hide that reminder for me helps me enjoy it. The fighting is also just as good in this series, complete with more gun action as well. The action, fighting, and gunfire is high-octane and so tense it’s as if you’re in the middle of it all.

Daredevil Season 2 is a great further step for Daredevil, delving further into the character and mind of the superhero, but it gets slightly hampered by a weaker end-of-the-season conflict. With how the season ended up, I’m not sure that I could have seen the Punisher going all the way through, so Elektra provides a nice distraction. But she was nowhere near as compelling. Despite this, I’m no less excited for Daredevil Season 3.

Rating: 8.5/10