Good review It's really odd when the ninja are not the best fight but I agree that the secret war arc felt weak compared to the rest of the season mostly because of that.
I also think a good point in the no kill rule debate is that it's the Punisher who brings up one murder is crossing the line, it sounds less the hero bringing a slippery slope fallacy and more the anti-hero explaining his choices are as difficult as the hero.
But I personally think the new characters did a good job changing the action. they should have tried copying the corridor fight with Frank when he was killing a bunch of inmates, the fight in Cut Man was more about determination but here it was brutality and even though the slow motions were unnecessary that fight scene is my favorite in this season because of how the pace was different: the strikes are quick, the enemies stay down and viciousness is in a league of it's own.
I was hoping the Punisher would at least dish out some creative kills, but also liked that the tv show explicitly shows a Frank who refuses to do that sort of stuff (\"one shot one kill\"). Perhaps instead they could have had a hallway fight that was also one long shoot out (almost like something out of Hardboiled).
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Season 2: The Seasoning
Daredevil is back for another season. In the great Netflix tradition, I've binge watched my way through the entire damn thing over a couple of sittings. Is it as good as the first? Just read the review, idiot.
The first thing that strikes me about Daredevil is how adeptly they can still make Matthew Murdock come over as a nice guy protagonist, even though he takes an alarming amount of pleasure in punching crowds of people into submission. He has the same peculiar Batman code of conduct, in that murdering is wrong, but battery and torture is fine, however he seems to do a lot better job of justifying it than the Batman movies. The Devil's Christian observations on redemption come across as a lot more earnest, decisive and compelling. Much of the season early on is specifically trying to settle that whole argument about whether its better to just plain kill recidivist super villains. and I appreciated that it leaves it as an open question, rather than trying to force us to accept the moral superiority of Daredevil's (Batman's) way.
In terms of action, I think there is probably too much of the same. It tries to one up the "one shot" corridor scene from the first season, and whilst it was fun, I don't think it had the impact this time around. Truth be told, I started to get more than a little bored of watching Daredevil beat up yet another army of ninjas in a warehouse at night (yes, there are lots of ninjas now. I can't help but be charmed by how cheesy it looks).
As to the new arrivals to the story, I liked both Elektra and the Punisher. They acted as an interesting contrast to one another, with the former being a highbrow, sadistic, killer debutante and the latter being a blue collar, dispassionate, killer veteran. I had hoped they could offer more variety to the combat scenes as well, but unfortunately these two also operate at night, and mostly at a melee range. Meanwhile, the court drama and the supporting characters get a bit more attention this time around, especially as vigilante work ends up taking too much of Matt's time (with serious consequences for everyone at the firm).
Whilst I thought it was good, I think there is a little too much of the same thing. Like Jessica Jones, I felt the show had more episodes to fill than it really needed. I would actually recommend teasing this one out on purpose, restricting yourself to only an episode or two a week, rather than glutting on it and coming to the realisation that each episode looks a bit too much like than next.