The Great Daredevil Season 2 Binge Is Here, and I’m Reviewing Every Episode. Head Here to Keep Up.
Which One Is “Kinbaku”?: 10 years ago, Matt had a fling with a girl named Elektra, and now she’s back, right on the eve of his first date with Karen. A superhero’s love life is never easy. Meanwhile, Karen gets her serious Ben Ulrich on, and finds more evidence suggesting D.A. Reyes is just no good and never will be. More specifically, Reyes is using the big Punisher bust to build her profile for a potential mayoral campaign. Eat your heart our, Oliver Queen!
1. I Don’t Love Elodie Young’s Elektra Yet
The new Daredevil and Elektra definitely won’t fight-flirt on a literal children’s playground. Instead, they fight-flirt in Matt’s dad’s old boxing ring. Then they make sweet, sweet love. More on that in a second.
Of Elodie Young’s Elektra, EW said: “Elektra’s a genre cliché—the exotic kick-ass—but Yung has such fun with the role and generates enough chemistry with Cox to win you over.” The problem for me at the moment is all I can see is the cliche. Lines like, “This is who you are, Matthew. Don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s anything else” aren’t helping. I’m waiting for Matt to blurt out “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in” to express his frustration with Elektra manipulating him into action at a time when he’s attempting to leave Daredevil behind.
There is a hint of something more interesting to Elektra in the devastated look on her face when Matt stops short of killing his father’s murderer. Matt and Elektra physically consummated their relationship, but she was still ultimately rejected by him when he couldn’t quite meet her same level of crazy. All of her talk of rich parents, stolen cars, boredom with the mere hints of a suburban life are window dressing. The person underneath all of that isn’t quite here yet.
2. About That Love Scene…
Jessica Jones’ sex scenes were straight out of a pulp novel. Daredevil’s first big sex scene is straight out of an artistic indie movie utilizing slow motion and random close-ups of stray body parts and enraptured facial expressions. Presumably, they wanted to emphasize the sensual experience considering Matt’s heightened hearing. They used a similar close-up/slow-mo combination when Matt traced a drop of rain down Karen’s arm prior to kissing her an episode ago. However, the Matt/Elektra sex scene felt like the show itself was uncertain if it’s a PG-13 or R.
3. Karen Page, Intrepid Reporter
Somewhere Ben Ulrcih would be proud. However, Daredevil has a tendency to spin Karen off into her own show in which she acts as an independent investigative reporter, following leads which ultimately bear considerable fruit. However, her snooping is discouraged by Foggy and Matt for multiple episodes as they continually lie to her to keep her safe. That is apparently the period we’ve entered into with Karen’s season 2 investigation of the Punisher’s background and the shady doings of D.A. “One Note” Reyes (I say “one note” as a put down of the character’s performance and writing).
The difference is Karen’s hunch about Reyes and the Punisher is providing the season with its best forward moment. Otherwise, it’s been a lot of familiar comic book material providing our hero with repeated checks on his rigid moral code, first from an objectionable copycat vigilante and now from an exotic temptress claiming to know him better than anyone.
4. The obvious Jessica Jones easter egg
Remember back when Daredevil started and the only other heroes we ever heard referenced were from The Avengers? They’ve come a long way since then.
5. Roxxon Might Sound Awfully Familiar
Roxxon is more or less the Marvel stand-in for “evil, multi-national corporation,” like their LexCorp or Wolfram & Hart (for those Angel fans). Now it exists in the Daredevil universe as a corporation Elektra targets for fun.
On to the next episode: “Regrets Only”
