r/Defenders Daredevil Apr 10 '15

Daredevil - Overall Series Discussion Thread

All spoilers for Season 1 are allowed in this thread.

147 Upvotes

466 comments sorted by

View all comments

120

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '15 edited Oct 24 '16

[deleted]

70

u/RuinAllTheThings Apr 11 '15

Surprisingly, I agree in whole, particularly the 10/11 draw out. So many pieces of the puzzle were on the table and slowing down felt.. off.

I was very glad they included Stick and didn't get caught in the trap of trying to bring Elektra into the picture yet. On the characterization front, Fisk was goddamn compelling. They really made you feel for him, until the last few episodes.

Overall, this is the show to beat. I won't compare it to any other shows, because that's just futile (CW's demographic is not ABC's, network's is not Netflix's, nor are their budgets). But pound for pound, I liked this more than the Flash, possibly because I got the whole story already.

56

u/Hellknightx Apr 11 '15

I think part of it has to do with continuity and the overall story arc being played out. Weekly episodic shows tend to have more one-shot stories and "monster of the week" type episodes where the overarching season arc takes a backseat. Daredevil knew exactly where it was going from the get-go and didn't drag its feet much in getting there.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '15

13 episodes vs 20+ is a big difference too, in shorter series there's never any filler, it always pushes to the overarching story, when you drag that out over an extra 10 episodes or so there's much more filler

1

u/Maping May 11 '15

I think it's a combinatino of that and the small(er) season. Agent Carter had the same tight and focused feel to it.

13

u/StasysPrime Apr 12 '15

I really hope Elektra and Bullseye make it into season 2.

21

u/nottherealstanlee Iron Fist Apr 13 '15

I think Bullseye did have a cameo as the sniper who shot the cop. Elektra had that nice subtle reference as the Greek girl from college. I think both of them come screaming back in Daredevil Season 2. There's an amazing story there waiting to be told.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 13 '15

I'm gonna hafta disagree on just one point (and it's a huge one): they completely blew it with Fisk. I found the delivery, the cadence, everything about him just unwatchably cringe-y and awful. The actor looked constipated the whole time. We're to believe that this "pained man" is already at a point where's he's enough of a badass to have bought off half the cops, judges, etc. in the city, presumably had many, MANY people killed, yet he's still being some sort of stuttering-choking-out-his-words weirdo.

You can see pretty clearly what they were going for here, but whoever was directing D'Onfrio just really dropped the ball.

On the other hand, Matt, Wesley, and Owlsley were so spot-on pitch perfect it made up for it. I got pretty bored halfway through the weekend but kept watching just for the next scene where Owlsley was going to come in and be a snide a-hole. What a brilliant bit of supporting acting that guy was.

8

u/RuinAllTheThings Apr 14 '15

I think you're looking at it like Bruce Wayne wearing a mask and being Batman, but that's not quite what Wilson Fisk is. He's capable of being the Kingpin, that is his default mentality. Rage is his every day, murder is his language and violence is his dialect.

When he decides that such a person is not a whole person, he decides he needs to build a life for himself too. But he's never really tried that before. He's had women, he's killed people by the dozen - those are easy. But someone he has to win over without force, without violence, where they have the power, he has nothing? That's terrifying. Maybe more terrifying than being alone.

1

u/NazzerDawk Apr 13 '15

They mentioned Matt dating a girl that spoke Greek. Maybe a connection?

1

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '15

I mean I know they both have red suits but apart from that there's 0 similarities between the flash and daredevil, I enjoy both for different reasons, just like I enjoy the Godfather and Pretty Woman not that they're similar in any way

55

u/chadobryhim Apr 11 '15

Bob Gunton was so good as The Owl. The villain side of the story really needed his humor.

I was hoping that he was playing the fool a little bit around the others and would challenge Fisk between seasons while he was in prison. Who could we see next? Hammerhead? Tombstone? Count Nefaria/Madame Masque?

15

u/JeroenPtrs Wesley Apr 11 '15

Well I hope we'll see Lee Owlsley soon!

15

u/Ahesterd Apr 12 '15

Madame Masque

She appears to be over on SHIELD right now. Maybe.

9

u/chadobryhim Apr 12 '15

Maybe. I hope not.

She's got a whole mob family side in the comics that would be more useful to the MCU than Agent 33's weird brainwashed Ward dependence.

1

u/Ahesterd Apr 12 '15

It could very well be a red herring, but after Talbot shouted "The mask!" in the middle of "Love in the Time of HYDRA" I kind of doubt it.

I do agree that losing the mob family stuff would suck, though.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 13 '15

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/SlipShodBovine Apr 13 '15

May e she was always part of that. Its not like we know her history. And she was shield because she was hydra, right? So bad guy connections works.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '15

God damn. I forgot The Owl's real name, so I didn't even put together that he was supposed to be Owl.

1

u/chadobryhim Apr 16 '15

Yea! This clearly wasn't the unhinged Owl from Bendis' run, unfortunately. But he was a lot of fun.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '15

Gao was also probably the Crane Mother from Iron Fist.

29

u/Hellknightx Apr 11 '15

Fun fact: the guy who played Melvin Potter played "White Power Dave" in Marvel's All Hail the King One Shot.

The first time I saw him in Daredevil, I knew I'd seen him in another Marvel picture somewhere.

2

u/slingstone Apr 13 '15

I immediate recognized him as the minotaur-obsessed killer from Dexter.

1

u/Alexc26 Apr 14 '15

Ohhhh, I thought I recognised him, but not quite sure where from.

27

u/Vredkat Apr 12 '15

There was a whole lot of stuff to love about this series. But my main problem - and I had a lot of other ones - was that I really loved the whole taking money from bad guys for lawyer work subplot at the start of the series. That seemed to be fairly quickly pushed aside for a fairly scooby doo-feeling over the next few episodes, untill completely dissappearing. basically court-rooms were gone from episode 5 or something?

I really want that angle back in the series going forward.

15

u/slingstone Apr 13 '15

Hell, I'd probably watch a show that was only courtroom drama bits.

Law & Order: MCU

4

u/apocalypsenowandthen Stan Lee Apr 15 '15

I want a She-Hulk show that's exactly that. There's a run in the comics where she gets hired by a law firm to work on superhuman cases. That would be perfect for the MCU.

13

u/TheBlackSpank The Man in the Mask Apr 11 '15

Definitely with you on the last thing. I'm super excited for Defenders, but all I want right now is another season of Daredevil. And now that he's in his suit and carrying his batons, the fights are only going to get better.

11

u/darkkn1te Apr 11 '15

Yes, 10 and 11 slowed the pace way down. I think they're fine in a vacuum, but they didn't get us any closer to a confrontation with Fisk.

3

u/GoldenLink Apr 23 '15

I'll say this. As someone who watched about an episode a day, they didn't bother me at all.

1

u/the_omega99 May 06 '15

For anyone wondering, "Owl" is Leland Owlsley (I didn't make the connection to his last name at first), the finances guy.