Daredevil, Season 2, Episode 2: Dogs to a Gunfight
We pick up right where we left off, Punisher shooting Daredevil in the head. Daredevil survives, of course, which is a bit stretching it, but that Melvin Potter makes some really good head protection, I guess. We quickly get a far more brutal and extended fight between the two, and more importantly Punisher himself gets a fair amount more screentime. We don't learn about his backstory yet or what turned Frank Castle into Mr. Gorefest, but he clearly isn't interested in hurting non-criminals.
I think my favourite scene in this episode has to be Frank going into that shop with the sleazy dude and just buying everything he needs from guns to hacking devices to paying the shopkeeper to wipe his cameras... before the (weaselly but otherwise nice-guy) shopkeeper starts trying to sell Frank child porn, upon which Frank beats the fucker to death with a baseball bat. We also gets short scenes of Frank apparently adopting the dog left behind by the criminals last episode, which is a short moment that apparently was taken straight out of the comics. Aw, puppy!
One of the biggest weaknesses of fiction is not making your villain interesting enough. It's far too easy to make a villain menacing -- all you have to do is go full on Darth Vader or Sauron. Making them interesting is a whole different beast entirely, though, and it's something that very few superhero TV series got right, but as Kingpin and Kilgrave have attested, Marvel's Netflix series put way more effort into their primary antagonists than they do the supporting cast, which is definitely the right way to go in my books. It humanizes Frank and makes me want to know more about him. I mean, heck, he's the freaking Punisher, but let's pretend I don't know my comic book shit (and honestly I don't, since it's Marvel -- I just know that he's the Punisher) and I'm looking for a reason to give a shit about the Punisher. Softer scenes like showing him interact with the shopkeeper pre-pedophilia-salesman-pitch and caring for the dog are great moments to humanize the Punisher without being overt about it. Show not tell. Scenes like this are what sell a character as a character and not as a plot device.
(You hear that, Zoom? Get your shit together!)
Meanwhile, as the audience sees these surreal moments where the lead villain (anti-hero, whatever) does these... mundane tasks such as adopting a pet and buying groceries (granted, said groceries are used for a street war), our heroes are hard at work trying to decipher what the fuck is going on. Foggy and Karen are quickly embroiled in a pretty awesome little plot by D.A. Reyes, who tricks them and their client Grotto into helping out in a 'sting operation' to find out information about the Punisher... when really Grotto is nothing but a trap to draw out the Punisher. I guess Reyes is going to be a thorn in our heroes' side, but the way that scene was played out was certainly awesome. Reyes apparently had a short cameo in Jessica Jones, but he certainly is a far more important character in this series.
Also, Punisher, by the way, circumvents this trap by duct-taping the half-dead body of this random gangster onto a truck and using it as a battering ram to fuck the police people up.
Matt himself actually doesn't get much to do other than your classic vigilantism and bouncing dialogue off Foggy and Karen. We get some argument between Foggy and Matt, and it's nice to see Foggy worrying about Matt, running through various apartment buildings, and finding him half-dead on that roof and whatnot. Foggy was great fun this episode, by the way! The way he stood up to Reyes to defend Grotto was great, too, giving me far more of a reason to care for Foggy, which was something that I have a bit of a problem with last season. All his dialogue was pretty funny and organic, which was definitely an improvement over the previous season. I thought Matt suddenly developing ear-piercing pain was a bit sudden -- makes sense due to the gunshot, but still sudden narrative-wise, but it gives Daredevil enough of a handicap to make him believably lose the fight against the relatively more inexperienced, if more brutal, Punisher. I hope this doesn't really last that long, though, because having Daredevil keel over from ear pains in ever fight will get old real fast.
Speaking of Foggy (and Karen), I did like how the lawyering stuff has been mostly hoisted over to Foggy for this episode. Last episode all Foggy and Karen did were shuffle papers around, do research and be Matt's less competent sidekick. With Matt pre-occupied with the whole Devil of Hell's Kitchen thing, it's actually quite sensible for Foggy to pick up the slack, and hey, he's a lawyer himself! Why not let him be actually competent?
The episode ends in a similar way to the first, with Punisher getting a one-up over Daredevil, but he apparently wants to have a chat. It's going to be an interesting chat. Reyes and Foggy both bring up themes that Daredevil running around in Hell's Kitchen is inspiring copycats (and apparently Matt put away some actual copycats between the two seasons) and it's certainly a nice little thing that's probably going to add to Matt's pile of things that he feels guilty about.
Overall, another really strong episode. Frank's a great villain and a very interesting character, and from the titles of my reviews it might seem that the show focuses a lot on him... but it really doesn't. Frank gets as much screentime as any main antagonist deserves, but at the core of the show is still Matt, Foggy and Karen, and I like the balance of handling the characters' screentime. Great episode.
No comments:
Post a Comment