The long-awaited second season of Marvel’s “Daredevil” premiered Friday, with 13 all-new episodes packed full of action, drama and blood. The show tells the story of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), a lawyer by day and a vigilante by night. Most of the time, he has a pretty boring job at the law company with his friends Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), but after work he fights to keep the streets of his neighborhood safe from criminals, drugs and all sorts of other bad things.
Last season’s finale showed Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) being sent to prison and it only made sense for a new, more awful person to take his place. That would be the easy way out, but this show never does things the easy way.
This season opens on Murdock aka Daredevil catching some robbers and saving a girl in a church. This is done possibly to re-establish his goodness so the audience is certain of at least one thing before being plunged into the moral dilemmas and ethical questions that seem to be the theme of this season.
What defines good or evil? Could a person doing the wrong thing for the right reason still be considered good? These are some of the questions viewers have to deal with from the first episode, when a new character is introduced.
Frank Castle aka the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) shows up and starts killing people like there’s no tomorrow. Since killing people is generally a bad thing to do, it seems like the Punisher is the new villain.
Or is he?
As with almost every character in these situations, the Punisher’s got a long and tragic backstory and he’s seeking revenge. Even the most heartless of people will probably cry when they hear Castle talk about his family. The people he’s killing aren’t innocent bystanders; they’re criminals. Basically, he does the same thing as Daredevil, except with more violence and less survivors. This leads viewers to question the ethics and limits of the idea of vigilante justice.
The two are so similar, but one is seen as good and the other as evil. Murdock struggles with the same dilemma also. There’s an intense rooftop scene where he has to rethink his perspective on life and death.
In addition to these questions, there’s also a lot of fighting. In fact, there’s an excessive amount. The fighting is important to the story and the characters, but after a while, it gets boring. At one point, Daredevil does at least six jump flips.
But wait, there’s more: If action, fighting and blood weren’t enough for you, wait until you hear about the romantic part of the show. A new potential love interest is added this season. Elektra (Elodie Yung) is Murdock’s ex-girlfriend from college and she’s back and ready to fight everyone.
The whole show looks great. It’s dark, but that’s probably because most of the action happens at night. There are some unique shots that use color and lighting to set the mood of the scenes.
Old characters are back and new characters are emerging. Everyone is fighting everyone else and it all leads up to a giant fight at the end (of course).
In between all of that, there’s plenty of drama at the law offices of Nelson and Murdock. If you like action, fight scenes or lawyers, Marvel’s “Daredevil,” season two, is a must-watch. Just make sure to watch season one first.
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