Daredevil, Season 2, Episode 3: New York's Finest
Ah, back to Daredevil's second season! I will try to deliver this, as well as other superhero TV shows, semi-regularly, because this is a Netflix show and you're really supposed to binge-watch this, but hey, whatever. It's also like nearly two months old at this point, so I'll try to be more concise so I can cover all the episodes in a less amount of time.
Also I'll probably make it a running gag that the Daredevil review titles will be called 'Frank Does X' or something like that.
Anyway, with that bit of a promise which I can hopefully keep out of the way, let's talk about episode three. And the elephant in the room... the super-awesome one-shot ten-minute-long action scene. Because holy balls, that definitely tops that one hallway fight from season one. That fight was beautifully choreographed, was brutal, and every single fucking moment of it was awesome. The stakes were real, too. Punisher blew up the Dogs of Hell biker gang's bikes to set them up to fight Daredevil, and Matt himself was hurt in a prior fight with Punisher last episode. All the while he's still trying to capture Punisher and at the same time stop the Dogs of Hell from killing the vigilante. There were a couple of moments with the chains or just jumping in that stairwell that was just holy fuck straight-up awesome.
But that's nowhere the strongest moment of the episode. No, because if we rate episodes and movies by action scenes alone, then the likes of Transformers or Age of Ultron would probably be considered masterpieces. But Daredevil's season two isn't afraid of setting up actual philosophical discussions about this whole vigilante thing, about morality, about pragmatism versus naivety... in other words, everything Batman V Superman thinks that it is doing but relatively flunked at. Holy shit, Daredevil and Punisher's conversation at the beginning of the episode really made the episode. Just having these two characters not beat each other up but actually just... talk, trying to understand this other vigilante that operate with different methods. Daredevil thinks that the Punisher's way too dangerous, Punisher thinks Daredevil is a kindred spirit but is too soft... both understanding the other yet disagreeing completely with the other's methods...
Of course, the fact that there is a sadistic choice moment thrown in there helps too. Punisher is adamant that he's only out there to kill the worst of the worst, not believing that the small sliver of redemption is worth risking sending a mass murderer back into the wild... which to some degree everyone who isn't a 7-year-old would agree, but on the other hand, as much as Punisher insists that he's only killing the evil guys and not ever going to hurt civilians, how much do you believe that he can hold up that end of the promise and not accidentally blow or shoot the wrong person in the head? Was the threat to that war veteran real (despite Frank later brushing it off as a way to scare Matt)? Is hunting down criminals and administering justice via bullets worth terrorizing every decent folk that got in their way? Showing Karen escaping from Punisher two episodes ago and the police being totally fucked over by him, even if none of those innocents technically died, is a great way to show what a destructive force of nature that Frank Castle, the Punisher, is.
To this end, the Punisher tries to force Daredevil to come around to his way of thinking, by chaining the Devil of Hell's Kitchen up, taping a gun to one hand. While Punisher himself gets ready to kill Grotto from the past two episodes... who despite what Daredevil tries to do in defending the dude, is revealed to be someone who's killed an innocent random old grandma simply for witnessing him doing gangster stuff. I really love this moment. Too often these kind of shows and stories are just too optimistic, giving our hero a coincidentally squeaky-clean 'villain' who's not at all wrong. Yet he's also not entirely unlikeable since we got to know the dude for the past two episodes as someone you can at least sympathize with. Here Matt is faced with trying to defend a murderer with the flimsy excuse that he can be redeemed (where, really, the only reason he seemed to want to seek redemption at all is because the Punisher's coming for his ass), while the only way he's only able to stop Punisher from killing Grotto was, well, to shoot Punisher before he does the deed. It's a tense moment, it's a great moment, and I'm told it's an adaptation of an iconic moment from the comics as well.
And it's a great debate, too. He killed an innocent woman, and probably would kill several more if he was left alive. He's definitely not just some chump who picks up the mafia's laundry or whatever. But does every murderer deserve a chance at redemption? Or does redemption and mercy only work if it is administered evenly to every criminal out there? Daredevil's arguments of how important saving lives is definitely far more meaningful considering the struggles he went through in Season One on whether he should kill the Kingpin, but there's always that appeal of the simple black-and-white Punisher worldview of cutting the problem at the root. It's a very complex and well-written dilemma, something that Batman V Superman just barely touches on (though the main topic there is how accountable are godlike beings) but didn't really had the chance to explore.
The great scripting is also totally on-point on this scene as well, and I honestly can't really do it justice without quoting it word for word. The scene where Punisher tries to play nice, the moment where that Vietnam War veteran* shows up and Punisher shows to be able to maintain a social front (even if that gun is just right next to the door)... that entire sequence was just as fluid and wondrous as the fight scene that capped the episode.
*Who, I'm told, is a reference to the Punisher's original comic-book backstory as a survivor of the Vietnam War. This incarnation of the Punisher is more up-to-date so his war is the Afghanistan war.
The Frank/Matt scenes really stole the show that I honestly got a bit mad whenever we cut away to the supporting cast. But while a good chunk of Foggy's flustered running around was hilarious I really want to see more Matt and Frank. Foggy does finally get a badass scene of himself, defusing two fighting gangsters in the hospital (in a surprisingly well-done portrayal of an ER room) with lawyer powers. That was a great scene too. I think it's easily the best-written Foggy scene in this entire series. Claire "Night Nurse" makes a return, making a couple of references to her role in Jessica Jones. She's cool. Probably not going to be super relevant, but it's kinda nice to see her again.
Oh, also, Karen is like looking into stuff all Lois Lane like. I honestly don't particularly care about her side of the plot since it feels way too much like a rehash of her stint with Ben Urich from season one, but she does discover that x-ray of Punisher's head with a bullet to the head. Interesting, and a nice homage to the Punisher's skull logo, but nowhere as interesting as Matt and Frank having a talk.
All in all, though, this episode is definitely one of the best Daredevil episodes of the season, if not in the history of superhero TV shows. It's faithful to the comics, it features intelligent discussion, we get absolutely great characterization from the main character and the villain anti-hero, we get a couple of dramatic moments, even the secondary characters get their moments, and to top it off is the insane fight scene. Yeah, it's that good, even if a good chunk of it is just a conversation.
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