TV Shows – Daredevil (Netflix)

I love a good superhero story.  And “good” is a flexible term – I’ve seen quite a few of the entries into the genre, and some of them are much worse than others.  The original run of Spiderman movies did not end well.  Wolverine was at times enjoyable, and painfully stupid.  But the cheesiest of the bunch would be the Daredevil movie from 2003.  I will admit to having seen it in theaters, and being kind of excited about it because it co-starred Jennifer Garner, one of my favorite actresses at the time since she was the lead in Alias.  The best thing about that movie turned out to be the super-emo soundtrack, and that’s all I’ll say about that.

Needless to say, I was wary of a Daredevil reboot when it was announced a few years back, and because of my poor experience with the movie, was hesitant when Netflix put out the entire series last April, ready for people to binge on the story of blind lawyer Matt Murdock, and his transformation into the man without fear – Daredevil.

I shouldn’t have worried, and I really should have gotten around to watching it sooner.  When I bought my new phone at the beginning of December, I was talking with the guys at the store setting it up about shows worth watching, and Daredevil came up.  With the holidays approaching, I knew I would have some extra time, and so planned to spread my viewing over the course of a week or so.

Guys – it’s so good.  I know, I’m not saying anything that hasn’t already been said a few thousand times since last spring, but it was so, so good.  Charlie Cox is eminently charming as Murdock/Daredevil, and everyone else in the cast just feels comfortable and settled in their roles.  I have particular love for secretary Karen, who reminds me a lot of one of my other favorite fictional characters, Robin from the Cormoran Strike mysteries.  Both are/were in unassuming professional positions, but are more capable and curious than given credit for.  I sort of want Karen Page, investigative journalist! or Karen Page, private eye! to be a thing.  Unfortunately for me, Marvel already has a superhero private eye story (Jessica Jones – something I’m in the middle of watching now), but I see big things for Karen.  She’s a smart cookie, and I hope she gets good storylines when season two premieres this March.

If you haven’t watched the show yet, it’s got a great slow-burn storyline that really heats up in the last few episodes.  You can tell that the writers and show-runners are willing to take their time and get the story right because we don’t even SEE our big bad for the season until episode three, and there are perfect emotional crescendos that peak in the last couple episodes.  And things are set up nicely for season two, though I’m hoping that we’ll get to avoid the common comic-book-sequel trope of villain creep – as in you get more and more villains each outing, and they start to get obscure because the villain chosen in earlier iterations was more iconically associated with the hero in question.  Still, based on this season, I have high hopes.  And because I was slow before, I only have to wait a few months.  Muahahaha.

Details: Daredevil, streaming on Netflix.