Daredevil, Season 1, Episode 6: Condemned
Welp, I kind of hoped this episode was better trimmed. As it was, the talking scenes in the first half of the episode took way too much time, in particular the random emergency first-aid scene with Matt and Vladimir which is just filler... but it was all worth it for the confrontation between Daredevil and the Kingpin at the end... how can a conversation between two men with walkie-talkies be so awesome? That scene was perfectly scripted, and Kingpin's plan with framing Daredevil and just outlining how he just has to tell part of the truth and the public will believe him is awesome. Again, add that to 'Kingpin is Malcolm Merlyn done right'. I don't like comparing different shows, but he is! This is a far more effective and believable way to make the hero be absolutely reviled by the public, and that is by having a mysterious sniper (hint hint) shoot a random cop in front of TV and have his own dirty cops execute the poor policeman Daredevil took hostage.
Episode's tense, with the hostage thing being the main clincher as we see how much of a puppetmaster Fisk is and how much respect Daredevil gains from people like Fisk and Vladimir. Vladimir also gives some nice little 'you can't win without killing the head' type of speech. And it's absolutely well-done, especially the little heroic sacrifice Vladimir does at the end. And the speech! From one man who wants to save the city by running around in a mask, to a man who wants to save the city by uniting the gangs and extirpating the rogue elements like the Russian gang. We see various points, illustrated by Vladimir and Fisk himself, just how out of his depth Daredevil is, how Fisk is playing at a scale that matters, and I absolutely love how the show handled Fisk and the dramatic tension when the two of them just speaks.
There's also some subtle maneuvering where Kingpin actually offs the policemen who weren't completely on his pocket. Sullivan, who Daredevil himself detected isn't a dirty cop, gets a knife through his neck courtesy of Kingpin's dirty cops just to pin another murder on Daredevil, and Blake... well, Blake's in Kingpin's pocket, really (wasn't he one of the cops that killed the Russian informant?), but, well, named characters that die build so much drama. Also, Sergei the torturer gets shot dead because fuck Sergei I guess.
The little buildup of Daredevil and Vladimir from hatred enemies to grudging allies is well done -- but I wished the episode doesn't just focus so much on the two trading insults and whatnot. But then again you have to end the episode on the note of Daredevil escaping and Vladimir holding off the corrupt SWAT team, so what can you do. Vladimir has gotten a metric fuckton of characterization this episode, pity he doesn't stay long enough.
Ben Urich's also relatively interesting, and like Daredevil the dude's out of his depth as he tries so hard to find the story and gets blocked by Kingpin's TV reporter army... though it's interesting that neither Fisk nor Wesley think it's feasible to kill Urich simply because of his connections to the newspaper company he works for.
I like how Fisk and Wesley have to think about respecting the other members of their organization (Madame Gao in this case). Too often has the head of an evil organization just treated as a end-all-be-all type of figure, and this fits absolutely well with the whole gang wars theme of Daredevil.
The other characters in the show... Claire has a nice little scene where she is in turmoil with herself whether to help give Daredevil instructions to rescue Vladimir, the man who had her beat up... though other than that she just does her nurse thing and love interest thing and is honestly uninteresting. Foggy and Karen are likewise reduced to screentime-grubbers as a good chunk of their screentime is just commenting on stuff we already know. Nothing overtly harmful, though, since their characters are still relatively decent.
Also, to close it off, apparently Bullseye got a cameo this episode as the faceless sniper who shot that officer Blake dude, because there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it playing card in his rifle bag. As Daredevil's number-two nemesis, well, it's nice that they gave the dude something to do so early on, though it's to my knowledge he's not actually appeared in the show per se, so yeah.
No comments:
Post a Comment