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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
You know, Adric, one thing Iron Fist did undeniable better than Daredevil is how it dealt with the hand. They are actually kind of interesting now. Kind of. Just enough that I no longer dread the idea of them being the villain in the Defenders.
I don't care much for Stick either. He had potential in season 1, but in season 2 his "long monologues which explain nothing" are really, really annoying. I don't need someone convincing me that undead are somehow a possibility, it's a freaking comic book show, what I do need is information about how the hand actually works and what its goal is.
edited 6th Apr '17 8:58:06 AM by Swanpride
Stick is overrated. Yeah, he's kinda funny, but as a person he's a scumbag and I hate him.
Also, this episode (still on episode ten) largely doesn't suck. They put the Hand on the backburner and they keep up the Punisher plot, and it's not bad at all. Also, I'm guessing with Fisk's threat towards Matt that season three is gonna be adapting Born Again.
I'll be the judge when I get to Iron Fist but from what I've heard, they sound much better on that series.
edited 6th Apr '17 8:58:26 AM by AdricDePsycho
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?Stick being a raging asshole is exactly what makes him interesting. He's a terrible human being in pretty much all regards, a manipulative and ruthless asshole with little empathy, but it just so happens he's fighting for a righteous cause and his extreme measures are warranted, to an extent.
He's basically the clockwise opposite of Ra's Al Ghul (an affable and courteous man with a sense of honor fighting for a terrible cause with unwarranted extreme measures). He's also different from most "tough but fair" or "wise and enlightened" mentor figures exactly because he's legitimately a dick, not just demanding.
For what it's worth I'm not against the Hand in season 2 of DD. It's very comics-y arc to have him fight a bunch of ninjas with weird apocalyptic plots out of the nowhere after fighting regular mobsters. I do think they could have made the Hand's goals less nebulous and Nobu a more interesting character, those were the main issues.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."I dislike Stick precisely because he's an unempathetic asshole. I got catharsis out of seeing Matt kick the shit out of him.
Anyways, just got done with episode ten, and the Hand have reared their poorly written heads once again and they brainwashed the people whose blood they stole because...reasons? Seriously, their motive makes no sense.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?I mean I enjoy Stick as a character concept not as a person. If I were to judge everyone on the show as a person there'd be surprisingly few people to enjoy other than Matt-Foggy-Karen.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."Eh, I like his exposition. His monologue about the Hand's origin (which implies he's the blind kid) is great. The problem doesn't lie at all with Stick's character. The problem lies with the fact we don't see anyone else of the Chaste.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."I don't blame Stick for being mysterious as much as I do the writers for putting the character in a position where he can't be anything but mysterious. You don't get to spend eight episodes with a ninja clan where we still don't know anything about what they're trying to do. Not on a show that's otherwise as self-contained as Daredevil. If you can't reveal the true nature of the Hand themselves, you've got to give us something else, or someone else. For example, Nobu— give us his backstory. Don't just hint at it, show us, tell us. Hell, storytime with Madame Gao. Do it.
One of the things I like about Stick— the impression I get is that the whole reason he left is so that Matt wouldn't grow up to be a soldier, so that he could just be a kid. But since Matt grew up to be a soldier anyway despite Stick's best intentions, all bets are off. That's an interesting, complicated character. But not if he spends half a season rattling off generic ominous portents about the world's most generic ninjas. I can't help but feel like it would've been more in-character for Stick to just tell everyone exactly what they needed to know about the Hand and nothing more, rather than holding key things back just for the sake of perpetuating the air of mystery surrounding them. That's exactly the kind of thing the stereotypical wise Old Master would do, which is exactly why Stick shouldn't.
See, it's not so much that he failed to make this kid into a soldier, it's that he realized I'm making this kid into a soldier, and he figured the best thing he could do for Matt was to not do that to him. Of course, those lingering abandonment issues didn't help Matt to grow up any more normal, probably making the whole thing a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not that Stick's going to see it that way. He's only going to see that the gesture was pointless sentimentalism on his part, that he wasted a bunch of time, his and Matt's, that could've been spent fighting the war with the Hand.
It's complicated. I like Stick's introductory episode a lot.
edited 6th Apr '17 10:10:15 AM by Unsung
Just got done with episode eleven, gonna maybe take a short break. Nobu still remains flat and probably the worst villain of the Marvel TV division. Out of the eleven episodes I've watched of Season 2, he's only in two of those episodes, and even then he's only in the first one for like five minutes at most and in the second one for like thirty seconds. He was in what, only three episodes in the first season? Nobu just straight up fucking sucks.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?At least he's a cool fighter. The final battle in episode 13 is all sorts of awesome.
I think the Hand plot's biggest flaw is the same flaw Iron Man 2 had; it spent so much time trying to set up future seasons and The Defenders that it didn't focus on itself in the present.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!As someone who doesn't read the comics, the Hand in Daredevil is for me a total failure. I mean, I know what they do...being involved in criminal activities, terrifying crime bosses, having undead fighters, kidnapping children, digging giant holes, smuggling the Black Sky...but I have no idea WHY they do it (what is their ultimate goal?), why the Black Sky is so important and before Iron Fist I had no idea about at least the basic rules. I hate it when I get the impression that a show makes it up as it goes. I mean, they can throw more or less everything into the MCU, but it has to be consistent.
Concerning the characters...honestly, other than Claire, there are exactly two characters which I actually like and enjoy to watch (of the ones which are still alive, that is, the show always kills off the ones I like the most). And those are Foggy and Marcy (I really with that we would get more Marcy!!!). Karen is annoying (and I don't care one bit about her oh so secret past the show keeps hinting at), Matt's brooding makes me want to punch him plus he is not even consistent about his so called morals, Elektra I liked before they connected her to Stick and robbed every bit of agency from her, Stick is a walking exposition which doesn't even have the decency to explain anything of worth....really, when it comes to characters, Daredevil is easily my least favourite show.
And even after another whole season of being villains in Iron Fist, we still don't know what their actual deal is. They've gone too long without an actual payoff, and I'm hoping they pull a Strucker or a Whitehall and that payoff is the starting arc of Defenders, because I'd rather not see another entire season be taken up by this.
I like Karen when she's far from Matt
She's fun hanging out with Foggy. She's interesting when she's researching Punisher. I'm sad about the waste of the character but she handled the Wesley confrontation like a champ
She's none of these things with Matt
Forever liveblogging the Avengers

@Swanpride
Gonna finish Season 2 of Daredevil today, I got sidetracked listening to some music and doing college work.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?