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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
Marvel entered a whole
new world on Friday with the release of Daredevil season 1 on Netflix,
and I can’t be happier with the show so far—at least once I managed to get
Netflix figured out on my PS3! The
grittiness of the show is absolutely palpable; it is obvious from the start
that Daredevil is tonally different from everything else Marvel has
produced thus far. The human aspect of
Matt Murdock—and all of the characters, really—is abundantly clear in every
aspect of the show.
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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
The first episode
begins with Jack Murdock running over to find Matt lying in the street moaning,
with a couple of cars and a truck around looking like they’ve all been in an
accident. When Jack is trying to find an
explanation, an old man calls out that Matt had pushed him out of the way and
saved his life. Sadly, Matt got some
chemicals in his eyes which took away his eyesight. I thought that this was an awesome way for
them to show us how Matt became blind.
They essentially took the origin story from the comic book and spread it
out to show it to us in pieces throughout the series. The visual representation of his eyes going
blurry and then spots appearing before everything goes black was very cool,
also. As a matter of fact, so far I have
been very impressed with their visual representation of his blindness and his
enhanced hearing and other senses.
The scene immediately
cuts to Matt in the confessional at the local Catholic parish. However, he does not give a “confession” in
the traditional sense; instead he spends the whole time talking about his dad,
“Battlin’ Jack Murdock” and his ability to take a punch. Jack was “always on his feet when he lost”
because he just wasn’t a quitter. Matt
reminisces that every so often it was as though his dad would just “snap” and
get a terrifying look in his eyes. At
that point his opponent would start trying to retreat, until Jack finally
cornered them and knocked them selfless.
Matt’s grandmother would always tell people to beware of the Murdock
boys because “They got the devil in them,” and when Jack was in the ring he
would “Let the devil out.” At this point
the priest finally tells Matt that he needs to actually tell him what he is
there to confess. Matt’s response is a
little frightening: “I’m not asking
forgiveness for what I’ve done. I’m
asking forgiveness for what I’m about to do.”
This whole scene gives us an interesting look into Matt’s soul. He is not necessarily a devout
Catholic at the point in his life, but his grandmother’s faith has certainly
influenced him. He feels guilt over what
he must do, but doesn’t see any way around it.
He needs to “let the devil out.”
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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
The next scene shows
Matt “Letting the devil out” against a ring of human traffickers led by Turk
Barrett who are loading terrified women into a shipping container. This scene is just plain fun because it lets
Matt show off just about all of his abilities.
He appears out of nowhere and disappears into thin air. He throws a cattle prod with nearly pinpoint
accuracy. He manages to jump his way
onto a shipping container by jumping from wall to wall. He even somehow manages to dodge
bullets—something which is technically impossible—even for him (especially with
supersonic rounds)—but he makes it look easy.
We also see some of his brutality come out as Matt just starts pounding
on Barrett and won’t let up even after he falls unconscious. I love how this scene makes Matt look like a
genuine superhero—unable to be knocked out of the fight—something that the very
next scene completely contradicts.
The next scene is when
Matt wakes up in bed and moans because he got himself beaten to a pulp the
night before. The exhaustion is obvious;
the cuts and bruises are clear. It is
abundantly clear that Matt Murdock is not a super soldier and does not wear any
form of body armor. However, Matt’s
phone conversation with Foggy is probably the first “fun” or “humorous” scene
in the series (perhaps setting the tone for the rest of the series): Foggy assumes there’s a woman in bed with
Matt and asks how she was last night. He
replies “Violent.” After their
conversation, Foggy goes off to “bribe” a childhood friend who is now a cop and
ask him to send any interesting cases their way. I think it is pretty clear that Foggy (and
his relationship with Matt) is going to be the primary source of comedic
moments in this series. His character
has serious moments as well, but he seems to be involved whenever something
funny happens. Those moments are pretty
crucial to Daredevil; if we didn’t have those occasional funny moments, the
show would be far too brutal and serious.
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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
Matt and Foggy next go
to meet their real estate agent to pick out a location for their law
office. They choose an office in a part
of town that was very heavily damaged in the Chitauri invasion—giving them an
opportunity to discuss the effects of the Chitauri invasion (and The
Avengers) on the residents of Hell’s Kitchen. I didn’t think that the reference was too “on
the nose” for the show; it made sense in the context that they would be talking
about the Chitauri invasion, and that they would be looking into an office like
that because they are so poor. This
conversation also gives us an opportunity to learn more about Matt and
Foggy. Matt only wants to defend those
who are innocent; Foggy prefers for them to take all the clients that can
because they need the money. Interestingly, this plot becomes more of an issue
in a later episode.
The scene cuts to
Karen Page kneeling over a dead man, murder weapon in hand. She begins screaming “I didn’t do it” when
the police break into her apartment.
Matt and Foggy take the case—their first one. Foggy nearly leaves when they find out she
doesn’t have money to pay them, but Matt insists on staying and listening to
her story. While listening to Karen’s
story, we get a glimpse at one of Matt’s more impressive skills: he is a human lie detector. When someone is speaking, Matt can focus on
the person’s heart rate to determine if they’re lying. I like the way they show this on the show: the edges of the screen get blurred, and the
person’s voice gets quieter, replaced by the sound of their heartbeat. The way they are showing Matt’s abilities is
very interesting, and one of the better parts of the show. On TV there’s only so much you can do without
the visual; the focus on the sounds he is hearing is a fun way for them to
emphasize that there is more going on that just what we see.
The next scene appears
unrelated at first, but shows the lead-up to the assassination attempt on Karen
Page in her cell. A man in a suit (later
identified as Wesley, Fisk’s number two) approaches a man eating his lunch (a
police officer) and uses the twin motivators of enormous debts and threats to
his daughter’s life to “encourage” him to kill Karen Page. When he fails to do so, Matt and Foggy
immediately demand that she be released (especially since too much time has
elapsed without her being charged with a crime). As if all the blood weren’t enough of an
indicator, the fact that Karen has ligature marks on her neck for the rest of
the episode makes it pretty obvious that this show is far grittier and more
mature than anything on network TV could be.
They bring her back to
their office to find out why someone would be trying to kill her. This scene helps to clarify the setting for
the series. This is happening over two
years after The Avengers (close to present-day). The company Karen works for, Union Allied
Construction, is one of the big contractors working on rebuilding New York, and
they have been embezzling massive funds from government contracts and other
sources through their company pension fund.
She accidentally opened a file, saw the numbers, and now they’re trying
to kill her (and anyone she tells) to keep that information from getting
out. This sets up the conflict between
Matt and Wilson Fisk (New York’s “Kingpin of Crime”) in the series.
Matt of course invited
her back to his apartment until they could find somewhere safe for her to
live. This gives him an opportunity to
interrogate her further about what had happened and determine that she had
taken a copy of the file and hidden it in her apartment. When she leaves to retrieve the file, she is
attacked by an assassin, from whom Matt saves her. The fight is incredibly brutal (including Matt
falling out the window and landing on the pavement, triggering a flashback to
his childhood and his dad). After the
fight, Matt takes the flash drive and the hitman to a newspaper to run the
story and make everything public.
Because the story went public, Fisk decides not to have Karen
killed—everything she knew is in the newspaper, and they want to keep the body
count down to avoid unwanted attention.
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| Image Courtesy www.comicbook.com |
We also get a chance
to see the group of crime bosses who are working with Fisk meeting in a building
under construction. In this way we learn
some of how the crime bosses are working together to control the city: Madame Gao runs a group of workshops which
package drugs. The Russian brothers
(Anatoly and Vladimir) organize distribution through their taxi company. Their organization is also involved with the
human trafficking operation that Matt disrupted at the beginning of the
episode. Leland Owlsley is the financial
expert. Nobu is their Japanese
contact. I think the amount of time that
this show devotes to the villains is excellent; it lets us really get to know
them and their motivations, actually making them sympathetic. It is interesting that though Fisk has a
definite presence throughout the episode, we only hear his voice in a single
scene while Wesley is in the car, and we never hear his name.
The episode ends with
Matt at the gym where his dad trained, working a punching bag while a montage
of Fisk and Wesley’s cover-up of their involvement with the Union Allied
Construction scandal, along with clips setting up future plots, plays. That whole scene reminded me forcefully of
the scene introducing Captain America in The Avengers. There is a difference: That scene focused on Steve’s recollections
of his wartime service and loss of his past, rather than on key elements of the
plot. Regardless, I think it was intentional
that they placed Matt in a deserted gym steadily working a punching bag during
a montage of clips. That scene was one
of the most subtle allusions to the shared universe that I’ve noticed in a
Marvel offering.
In summary, I
absolutely loves Daredevil episode one.
It sets the stage nicely for the rest of the season, and does a good job
of introducing us to most of the key characters. One of my favorite parts is how well they
handle the slow reveal of Matt’s abilities, as well as their portrayal of his
identity as simultaneously a superhuman and a regular human with all the
frailties of a regular human. It’s
amazing that a man who can dodge bullets is also technically blind and wakes up
feeling all of his injuries in the morning.
I cannot wait to keep watching this show!
So what did you think
of Daredevil episode one? What
was your favorite part? Is this what you
were expecting?
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