Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Daredevil (Season 3)

Daredevil (Charlie Cox) washes out of a storm drain and falls to the ground.  Some time later, a curious taxi driver checks to see if he's dead.  No.  Just able to ask for help, he is transported to the church where he grew up.  Sister Maggie (Joanne Whalley) tends to his wounds.  As he is believed to be dead, Matt decides it is better that way.  He is a danger to his friends.  Meanwhile, Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) has decided to snitch to the FBI.  Agent Ray Nadeem (Jay Ali) is thrilled by the unexpected coup.  In order to protect his source, he argues that Fisk is moved from prison.  Fisk's enemies attempt to assassinate him during the move, killing several FBI agents.  Only thanks to Agent Ben "Dex" Poindexter is the assassination averted.  Dex has an uncanny aim.  That's impressive.  With Fisk out of prison, Daredevil must act but always finds that he is several steps behind Kingpin.  Fisk seems to predict his every move before he makes it.  Eventually, he must ask his former partner Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and reporter Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) for help.

The return of Kingpin and the introduction of Bullseye are the high points of this season.  Kingpin is the mastermind of most of the events, having planned well in advance to have leverage against virtually anyone who could stand against him.  With each person manipulated, he gains power and resources to turn more and more to his service.

Daredevil feels sorry for himself in the vast majority of the episodes.  His arguments with Sister Maggie were an endless stream of clichés.  The Man without Fear shouldn't be this boring. Then he spends several episodes arguing for the benefits of just murdering Kingpin.  But he sabotages himself in that.  Worse still, he is constantly beaten to a pulp.  How is he still walking?  Maybe he should get back in his armored suit if he's going to be fighting this much.  Sigh.  Let's get back to Kingpin.

Then there was Karen.  Ugh.  Karen is always on the brink of an emotional breakdown and her backstory to explain it is told.  It turns out that Karen spent a lot of time high on drugs or drunk when she lived in Vermont.  She dated a drug dealer and even dealt drugs for him.  Her relationship with her father was horrendous and she spent most of their shared scenes telling him that he would fall apart if she left for college.  So she stayed and killed her younger brother while driving drunk.  Wow.  Now I like Karen even less.

On the other hand, Foggy comes off quite well.  As annoying as he was in season 2, here he is the good natured paragon of law.  Like Daredevil, he thinks something must be done about Kingpin but wants it to be done in court.  Despite setbacks, he never lost faith in the system.  A constant contrast with mopey Matt, Foggy is well-adjusted and mentally sound.  It was always nice to see what Foggy was doing after the drudgery of watching Daredevil's moodiness or Karen's emotional wreckage.

The finale ends with a tease about the return of Bullseye.  Sadly, the series has been cancelled.  Disney, owner of Marvel, has its own streaming service and opted not to run content on their competitor, Netflix.

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