Daredevil Season 2

Blood once again soaks the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, New York as Daredevil returns to our computer screens. Whereas the first season detailed the rise of Matt Murdock to the role of red-horn-wearing superhero, this season focuses more on Matt’s struggles with his new role and with just what it means to be a hero.

While the cast from the previous season all return with performances just as good as last time’s, it’s the new characters who ride roughshod over this season. Jon Bernthal’s Punisher and Élodie Yung’s Elektra threaten to steal the show, and in a few places do just that. The Punisher is such an avatar of on-screen power that the episodes in which he does feature often feel more like Punisher Season 1 than Daredevil 2; a power which I greatly hope he keeps when Punisher Season 1 actually lands later this year.

In contrast to Jon Bernthal’s unhinged fury and despair, Élodie Yung brings a more refined psychopathy to the table, a character with minimal morals and no compunctions about acting for her own goals. While Elektra’s backstory is significantly changed from the comics, going from a woman who finds solace in murder to one cut straight from sociopathic cloth, this by no means detracts from Yung’s fantastic performance. Although she will likely not win over as many fans as the Punisher, hers is still a character done well, a female character who acknowledges her sexuality without being defined entirely by it.

It is these two characters who launch a two-pronged attack on Daredevil’s conscience, on the one hand a man who believes that Matt hasn’t gone far enough, a man whose philosophy on crime-fighting is best summed up in his own words, “You hit them and they get back up, I hit them and they stay down”. On the other hand a woman who represents freedom from the moral code that binds and defines Matt, a temptress in both the mental and sexual way. Despite the not-infrequent, and certainly well done fight scenes, it’s these philosophical battles which makes this season of Daredevil stand out to me. The battle between the lawyer and the vigilante, between restraint and necessity, between the man of God and freedom, those are the fights that make this season so great.

Daredevil Season 2 is available on Netflix