Daredevil Season 2 goes through the motions of setting up a larger mythos, however the 13 episode season leaves much to be desired for viewers/fans of the property.
Daredevil Season 2 begins with the murder of several gangsters in Hell’s Kitchen New York. In the wake of the Kingpin, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onfrio), imprisonment at the hands of Dared
evil/Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson, at the end of Season 1. Season 2 begins with a The Dark Knight esque opening. With he Devil of Hells Kitchen, now roaming the streets, being a beacon of hope for many in a time of corruption and danger, there have been copycats that also want to dish out their own form of justice. The “copycat” that this season pseudo-focus’ on is Frank Castle/The Punisher, played by The Walking Dead alum Jon Bernthal. Unfortunately while The Punisher adds to the show with much grittier and violent fight scenes, he also adds to the confusing myriad of world building in this season.
Season 2 can be thought of in several acts, that are all connected by the fact that Daredevil is in all of them. Frank Castle terrorizes the show for the first few episodes. Then Daredevil’s old love interest comes back to introduce him to a ninja element. Frank Castle returns as a victim of corruption by the D.A. in his criminal trial, after being captured, meanwhile Daredevil is learning about an ancient ninja war his former master stick, started. And then there’s something about Elektra being “The One” for the bad ninja’s, and the war was lost, but then it wasn’t and… It’s a mess.
Too many themes and not enough time is what this season brings for fans of the show. The show works off of the Frank Miller run of Daredevil, which was a bit more realistic, and much more grim, than any other run previous to this. However, Frank Miller worked with Daredevil to expand his mythos in over 100+ comic books. This season is trying to cram in major elements of that into one 13 episode season.
I believe that the problem actually stems from the season being only 13 episodes. While some shows hav
e a habit of spreading little drama over too many episodes, Daredevil tries to cram too much drama into too few episodes. The best example of this is Matt Murdock’s back and forth relationship with Karen Page. Matt had just started dating Karen, in episode 3. By episode 7 they’ve already gone through, girlfriend-boyfriend relationship and lack of communication drama, and are broken up. That’s a 4 episode relationship, which in the show’s own timeline was only a week or 2 in time. That’s hard to swallow that the same adult, logical characters, could spread the entirety of a “will they, won’t they” relationship from the first season in 4 episodes.
Season 2 suffers from a lack of direction with a villain to really keep the show moving. Technically the show’s main villain this season, is Nobu and The Hand ninja’s that Stick spoke of in Season 1. How does Nobu come back? He’s discovered immortality. I won’t take the time to explain why it is that he somehow got immortality, because the reason is extremely loose, magic mumbo-jumbo, and extremely glossed over. Nobu doesn’t have the “weight” that the Kingpin had when it came to being a good counter to Daredevil. Nobu is kinda just, the ninja. Think if Mario defeated Bowser, and then a random Koopa Trooper became the main villain of the next game.
Speaking of characters, this season seems to have a major flaw in all of them. They’re all listening to Matt Murdock. Matt Murdock this season is nothing more than a whiny child. He constantly puts those that he loves in danger, while also trying to push them away, to take them out of the same danger that he put them in in the first place. It’s unbelievable how Matt decides that “The Punisher can be redeemed” and then a few episodes later “The Punisher is dangerous and cannot be redeemed for his actions”. The amount of 180’s this man makes could cause whiplash.
In one terrible instance of this, Matt says to Elektra, “You should leave Stick. You’re redeemable, come
with me and we’ll fight this war my way together.” Elektra then agrees and leaves Stick. Then after a fight with a teenage ninja of The Hand, that leaves Daredevil near death, Elektra goes back to her old way of killing and kills the ninja to protect Daredevil from being attacked in his home if the boy were to escape. Literally next episodes beginning, “You’re too dangerous, and you’re too stuck in your ways. Go away”. WHAT MATT MURDOCK?!
Other characters suffer from overexposure. Karen Page, who had a pretty good arc with Ben Urich in Season 1 is in every episode investigating The Punisher, and his history.
Unfortunately, like the comics, it’s just not that interesting.
After they try to go with a PTSD based origin for the Punisher, along with a bullet wound to legitimize his actions, the origin looses all flavour and becomes bland.
Other characters feel underexposed. Elektra and Stick both have large histories that are introduced in this season. However, the season closes so quickly that those histories are never giving the full attention they deserve. Stick and Elektra have a somewhat Father-daughter esque relationship, but that’s never given the amount of time that it needs to be fleshed out.
So when near the end of the Season, Stick feels he needs to kill Elektra, because she’s a world ending demon, or something like that, there isn’t much punch to it. If we had been hearing about this relationship from the first season and it was resolved in this one, maybe that would have been a better solution. In its current form how
ever, there isn’t enough space for a possibly more expansive origins.
Elektra being “The Black Sky” seems like a c
op-out. It’s an extremely forced solution to a problem Stick mentioned in Season 1. And it actually feels like a retcon. The reason being that there was another Black Sky in Season 1. And Stick killed that one with extreme prejudice. But then that just begins a miasma of more questions than it does answers. “Why are there multiple black skys?” “Why could Elektra get away without being found out as a black sky for most of her life, when they’re such an integral part of the war between The Hand and the Chaste?” “Just how old are Stick and Nobu?”
The Season ends very anti-climatically. It seemed like they were trying to hint at the idea of The Punisher getting his own spin-off series, possibly a one off inside of the T.V. universe, and that there is going to be more to the end of The Hand vs. The Chaste arc, as Elektra, who died in the final battle with Nobu, was exhumed from her grave and placed into a giant coffin. As for Daredevil himself, he reveals his secret identity to Karen Page.
Woooooooooooo?
I’m not sure why Daredevil has the most anticlimactic ending in his own show, but he definitely needed something more than “Well, my law firm is destroyed. My best friend and I are no longer speaking. My ‘love interest’ is dead. Might as well reveal my not-so-secret secret identity to the girl I tried dating earlier this season.”
Despite the characters, the action in the show is still better than some movies and other shows on television. Fight scenes are brutal, with punches and kicks having the right amount of “umph” to make anyone wince once.
Each 
of the established fighting characters has their own style of fighting as well. The Kingpin overpowers his opponents, Daredevil uses his acrobatics, Punisher uses his guns and weaponry and Elektra uses her weapons along with her acrobatics and constant dodging. Because Elektra and the Punisher graphically kill their opponents, there is a lot more blood this season. Some of the kills are just so gruesome, you’re reminded of why this show could only really work on a platform that would allow such gratuitous violence. Does it sometimes go over the top? Yes, however even despite the Tarantino level violence, the show keeps a good level of consistency in its fight scenes.
Daredevil overall is still a good show. Things could have been improved on the topics of themes and motivations, but there were two new showrunners this season. It could be hypothesized that they’re just trying to make their mark on a very good show. Hopefully season 3 will bring a bit more cohesion to the plot, with a better villain, more action with high flying acrobatics, and more character development for our 3 main protagonists.
juhwann 