Netflix Review: Daredevil

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Nicolas Dautremont, Staff Writer

The Netflix original series, Daredevil, introduces us to the marvel city of Hells Kitchen following the blind superhero named Daredevil with the power of enhanced senses and reflexes which he uses to defeat his enemies in hand to hand combat along with metal combat bars. The creator, Drew Goddard, adapted the Marvel comic book creation for a Netflix Television series in hopes to bring the story to life. Matthew Murdock, also known as Daredevil, is the main protagonist faced with the challenge of cleaning the crime filled streets of Hell’s Kitchen.

The first season of Daredevil was released on April 10, 2015 following critical acclaim for the characters performances, action scenes and dark tone which other marvel creations have tended to stay away from. The first season rushes you into the mysterious Catholic Matt Murdock with no prior information about his life except the accident which caused his powers, leaving the audience with the desire for more information on the character. Along with the revelations of his past through flashbacks, current character progression parallels going back and forth between present and past filling in the blanks of the protagonist and still having more to show in the future without favoring past or future leaving for a good balance between the two.

With the progression of characters also comes the intense emotional connection you develop to the secondary characters like his lifelong friends, Foggy Nelson and his newly found friend turned love interest, Karen Page. Thus making for a dynamic  trio where the audience again finds a nice balance between characters, not focusing too much on certain people and then evening out progression with newly introduced characters as to keep pace.

The first season ends with the hero’s moral dilemma over murder being decided when the main antagonist King Pin (Wilson Fisk) is arrested and Daredevil earns his iconic costume and weapons, making the first season his powerful origin story and villain introduction. The second season is his second encounter with the moral dilemma of murder as the new character Punisher is violently introduced through a storm of bullets and blood that leaves our hero shellshocked with the loss of human life and devastation. The audience is again sucked into a conflict between good and evil but this time new and old players are reintroduced, leaving the audience dumbfounded as to where the story will go now. The series introduces the idea of a greater conspiracy, the King Pin re-enters, and then ends with a big cliff-hanger.

Throughout both seasons the quality of story is very well conveyed and consistent with the second season being a little complex and bordering ridiculousness with the introduction of too many antagonists along with side stories. While at sometimes it feels the viewer can’t keep up with everything going on at the same time, the series continually bring the viewer back to ground level attempting to find simple resolutions to many of its problems. While the simple resolutions can become mundane it also leave more room for new branches of the series creating a very dynamic, interesting, mysterious, and all around fun show to watch.