Netflix Daredevil

Fisk's return to power has been more tense than the army of ninjas that invaded New York, or Castle closing in on his targets, or Danny tearing up Hand HQ, or even Jessica hunting Kilgrave. 11 episodes in and I'd say this has been the most nail-bitingly claustrophobic season of any Marvel Netflix series out there.

Also, watching Poindexter's legendary marksmanship is hilarious. Why doesn't this character appear more often?

Edited by Soble on Nov 4th 2018 at 9:49:54 AM

I'm not sure what you mean. Why isn't he in the show more often?

Cause he's a fairly broad but still accurate interpretation of a very popular and prevalent Daredevil comics character.

I meant why isn't he used more in general. I've only seen him in this, the original Daredevil film, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

I just watched him fling pieces of glass, chandeliers, plates, cutlery, and pretty much anything he could get his hands on like bee-bees. I need more of this kind of choreography.

He's still ultimately a human. While he's good at what he does, there are heavy hitters he stands little chance against even with his skills.

I mean, during his time with the Thunderbolts, this is even brought up that he avoids some of the big timers.

...we are talking about Bullseye right?

Bullseye gets a lot of play in the comics. To the point there's even a Lady Bullseye.

It's not like he is passed over when he's already been in one movie and now the TV show and there's tons of villains yet to be adapted in any sort of live action form.

Like Stilt-Man.

And Lady Stilt-Man.

Exactly.

Daredevil even has a straight up Evil Counterpart named Ikari (whose costume is basically the original yellow and red one with Japanese flourishes) that would make for a cool TV villain.

Or Coyote-though he pushes against what the Netflix stuff does.

In the comics, honestly, he was so overexposed during a certain time (Dark Reign, mostly) I was getting sick of him. There is also the problem that Comics Bullseye is an utter monster. He has no real depth or motivation, he just kills because he is a sick, twisted psycho. So I was real glad when Daredevil broke his arms and stabbed him during Shadowland.....but this being comics, off course it didn't stick.

Dex is probably the best and most complex version of Bullseye period.

Edited by Forenperser on Nov 5th 2018 at 9:45:04 PM

I mean, I don't really need Bullseye to be more complex most of the time. Part of his weird charm as a villain is that he's so utterly irredeemable. He revels in his Hate Sink status.

And Bullseye is kind of the Joker to Daredevil's Batman in a way that not even Kingpin is, so it'd be a weird adaptation that introduced him without first having Daredevil. Bullseye's also in this odd position where he's too big a character for a movie to treat as simply the hired help, but he doesn't really have much in the way of ambition or big villainous plans of his own, other than occasionally trying to kill Daredevil and/or his loved ones over an extended period of time.

Edited by Unsung on Nov 5th 2018 at 8:49:07 AM

Yeah and the comics have also already done Bullseye as a not physical threat but orchestrating a large, long campaign against Daredevil.

Bullseye's an archetypical character like many comics villains-killer with a gimmick.

It's just that his gimmick also makes him that much better of a killer.

Yeah, for me the appeal of comics Bullseye is just how much of an actual asshole he is. He's not just a psychotic killer, he's also an actual dick for the fun of it. One of the reasons I somewhat enjoyed Colin Farrell's take on Bullseye in the Ben Afleck movie (mediocre-to-bad writing and cinematography aside) was that it put the assholeishness front and center. That scene he kills an old lady with peanuts because she's bothering him is distilled Bullseye in his purest form.

I did however quite like the show's concept of exploring his central trait in the comics (a profound lack of empathy) in a more deep and humanized fashion to show how a (highly troubled person) becomes Bullseye.

One thing I miss though is how the comics actually developed the Bullseye-DD rivalry. In there the primary thing is that when Bullseye is introduced we see him as the unstoppable assassin who never misses and always gets his job done. His entire existence spins around the fact he can't miss (hence his name). Then he fights Daredevil and keeps missing and failing to kill him, which puts his entire existence in check (as his identity was more or less entirely based on being a man that never misses) and he starts to slowly mentally unravel over the storyarcs as he becomes more obsessed with hitting Daredevil to prove that he can't miss (extending to the whole concept of "if I can't physically hit DD I'm going to emotionally hit him by killing his girlfriends"), because if he can miss then he's not Bullseye, he's just some shitty regular guy like everybody else. His perfect aim was what made him superior to all others, what made him extraordinary. Every time Daredevil sidesteps his perfect aim, it's an existential crisis looming in the horizon for Bullseye and his ego starting to crack. It was a interesting approach to a villain that you don't see too often: a villain whose grudge with the hero stems from an actual prolonged existential crisis.

That's pretty wacky as far as personal animosity is concerned, but I like it. Still like the Bullseye we got here though.

I'm still hoping for him to get a proper costume...so Matt can put it on and we can get a re-enactment of Daredevil #290 from Nocenti's run.

I've had a few chances to check it out: that fight gets nuts let me tell you.

I was kinda hoping he would spraypaint his knockoff Daredevil costume black by the finale. Maybe even paint the iconic bullseye on the forehead.

But that might have been too much like Punisher spraypainting his bulletproof vest in season 2's finale.

This is where that helmet from when the Punisher shot Matt in the forehead would have come in handy. That web of cracks spreading out from dead-centre between the eyes?

The old lady and the M&M is just the perfect Bullseye moment, without saying anything. That movie had problems, but I really did like Colin Farrell's take on Bullseye. Hell, even the toque over the forehead brand.

Edited by Unsung on Nov 6th 2018 at 4:14:20 AM

I always liked that Matt needed to sleep in a sensory deprivation tank.

For some reason, I though it made a lot of sense.

But yeah, Bullseye was great too.

I have fairly sharp senses and as a consequence have trouble sleeping at night thanks to even minor lights, sounds, vibrations, smells/tastes, shifts in barometric pressure, ect.

It's difficult imagine how Matt can ever sleep even a wink with his god-tier senses. I guess Stick taught him how to just... block it all out?

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Nov 5th 2018 at 10:42:36 AM

I was also hoping for his costume to be Bullseye'd but sadly did not happen.

@Unoun: That reminder of the forehead target scar brings me to a great comic moment. The comics ended up borrowing the forehead scar, so Murdock Papers had a pretty awesome scene where DD fought Bullseye and after beating him down he was so thoroughly pissed with how Bullseye keeping fucking with his life that he picks up one of his knives and scars the symbol on Bullseye's forehead, so everyone (and Bullseye himself) will always know Bullseye is a horrid piece of shit (akin to the whole carving a Swastika in a Nazi's forehead thing).

I was kind of hoping the show would carry over that moment since it seems very cinematographic. Here's hoping we'll have it in season 4.

Something like these mockups then?

Bullseye Suit Image 1: https://imgur.com/a/sNyn7D0

Bullseye Suit Image 2: https://imgur.com/a/30xvVtQ

I feel like we should have had more Matt / Karen / Foggy teamup during the season. I feel like if they had teamed up in episode 3 and worked together for ten episodes, then the "Nelson Murdock & Page" napkin scene would feel more earned. It was a bit fast for my taste.

I mean think about it, Matt, Foggy and Karen were almost never in the same room until the last three episodes. Also, for being the main character, Matt didn't have much screentime in season 3. In seasons 1 and 2, he had about 300 minutes of screentime on average. In season 3, he only had about 107 minutes. And Nadeem had about the same amount of screentime. Dex, Fisk, and Karen were not too far behind that at about 96 minutes on average.

I do get the need for the side stories (if the show focuses too much on the main character it gets boring), but I feel like Matt taking a backseat role like this wasn't good for his character. Like, I dunno, I feel there's a lot he could've done with more screentime. Like, give us more scenes with him being a lawyer or more scenes of him having conversations with Karen and/or Foggy. Coming into the season, Matt also had a lot of unresolved baggage concerning things like Elektra and whatnot, and that should've been brought up by Karen and/or Foggy in conversation and whatnot. If we had more teamup work between Matt, Karen and Foggy, then the decision to go back into business as Nelson Murdock & Page at the end of the season would've felt natural.

dI mean, I do realize that in today's culture, we want hyper-realistic villains. We can no longer have characters who are purely evil "just because". It’s why we got Breaking Bad. It's why we have Disney remakes. After the Thor movies and The Avengers' success of Loki and his tragic backstory, the MCU has really doubled down. To the point that it's like they feel that every villain needs a tragic backstory, whether they need it or not. Now, giving a villain a backstory / origin story is not necessarily a bad thing. But in season 3 of Daredevil, not only was our time with the main scooby gang reduced by Dex and by Nadeem, but a lot of it was also eaten up by Fisk. In season 1, that was admittedly fine, because back then, it was just Fisk, and we were still getting to know Matt, getting to know Karen, and getting to know Foggy.

For as well-written as everything was with Dex, I don't like that we spent a little too much time focused on him. I mean, I'd say that as far as a villain's presence in the story, there is a happy middle spot between villains like Dex as depicted here, and by Scar in the original animated version of The Lion King.

This was basically how Kilgrave was handled in Jessica Jones: we don’t meet him for a while, and even once we do, it’s almost always in the context of Jessica. When we got Kilgrave’s tragic backstory, it wasn’t overdone like Dex's backstory in Daredevil season 3. It was just some video footage and explanations for Kilgrave, rather than the lengthy stage play we got for Dex.

Villains should be as complex as the heroes they are fighting against, but in a minimalistic sense, as I'd say that that it's easier to evaluate the villains better that way. In the light of his upbringing, is Kilgrave responsible for the crimes he has committed? Yes. Had he been parented better, could he have become a good person, even a hero like Jessica? Maybe.

Then there's Agent Nadeem. He is a bit more complex. He has a lot of layers. He is a very sympathetic character with a very compelling story that is very much based in real-world issues. And let's face it, I am all for having them giving a main story arc to a POC, especially in Daredevil, a show that is very white male-centric (Karen's the only female amongst the six focus characters of season 3, while Nadeem's the only non-white).^note The non-white series regulars also have a bad habit of being killed off; Ben in season 1, Elektra in season 2, and Nadeem here in season 3 The thing is, though, I get Nadeem not being able to pay his bills, and wanting to get promoted to a better-paying position. And I get him wanting to build a pool for his son, but at the same time, that drags a bit and does get a little more screen time than it should have. Also, as well-written as the Nadeem storyline is on its own, it's also pretty removed from everyone else's plotlines. Sure, he gets scenes with all the other major players, but never for very long. It makes him feel a little out of place, and the show feels a bit character scattered.

Admittedly, Daredevil has had a bit of a problem with being character-scattered. This is the case in season 3. It's less scattered than it was in season 2 and The Defenders^note Once Elektra was introduced, season 2 essentially split into two shows that don't really have much impact on one another: one half being a backdoor pilot for The Punisher featuring Matt's supporting cast (and in which Matt is only minimally involved) and the other half being Daredevil and Elektra vs the Hand which was setting up for The Defenders. The lack of focus in season 2 is pretty clear, at least to me, when looking at the romance arcs concerning Matt: the first part of season 2 is clearly setting up a season-long romance subplot between Matt and Karen. Then after the show diverges, it's like they completely write off the storyline of Matt and Karen's romance in favor of Elektra and Matt, and I don't think the transition is overtly clean, as Karen has next to no screen time with Matt in the backhalf of season 2 because she becomes a supporting cast member for the Punisher's backdoor pilot., but not as tight as season 1.

I do get it that we’ve spent A LOT of time with Matt, and I am not saying we needed more Matt by himself, but I do think that he had a lot of unresolved baggage that needed to be handled during the season, such as Elektra and Stick and whatnot. Hell, I would say that Karen should have been given a little more of an arc this season. They put her in the Bulletin, a position where she should be perfectly positioned to be a Ben Urich for Matt. Yet, she really only gets two to four scenes per episode max during the first six episodes, and we don't really get to see much of Karen investigating things. Like, I'd kill if they gave us more of Karen digging through files, collecting information and writing it down. Like when she figured out that Fisk secretly owned the hotel; it would've been nice to see how exactly she figured that out. Or how did she find that woman who gave her that lead on Red Lion Bank and Felix Manning? While Karen as a character has slowly been growing, I think we needed to see more of her before Matt comes back. At the start of season 3, she has been deserted by both Matt and Foggy. Matt is “dead”, and Foggy has a new life that only sometimes involves Karen. Exploring Karen’s loneliness and her losing herself in her grief, would have been really interesting, but they only really touch that on a surface level (her obsessing over stories related to Midland Circle in episode 2, that bit where she threatens some cat-callers with her gun in episode 4).

Hell, Foggy's whole campaign for District Attorney could've used a little more screentime to be developed as well, especially if more time was alloted to Blake Tower. If Tower got more screentime, it could've made it possible for the show to deepen the political allegory of Fisk taking over the justice system. They could do more to show Tower struggling between getting reelected and doing the “right” thing, even when it's not clear what the "right" thing is. It would have also been cool in terms of Foggy challenging Tower. What if we had more time with Tower to see his side of things? Get some empathy for Tower, and then see Foggy in a different light. They scratch that a bit at the surface level like in the scene at the club in episode 8, but not really much.

Edited by dmcreif on Nov 15th 2018 at 4:01:11 AM

Karen in episode 4: "Well, I am not going to sit here and wait for Matt to come to his senses."

Uh, Karen, wouldn't that actually be the smart thing to do, to wait until Matt comes to his senses before pursuing Fisk? I get that stopping Fisk is important to you, but would it kill you to put your investigation on hold to focus on bringing in Matt, your friend who is clearly in need of help? Helping Matt should be more important than stopping Fisk.

Matt's never going to come to all of his senses anyway.

I for my part crave a good old Disney villain. I don't think that a villain has to be "complex". A villain only has to be threatening and a fitting challenge for the hero.

Started this show at some point. I'm nearing the end of season 1. For the most part it's pretty good. Not really feeling this Kingpin, though. He is a menacing whisperer and to my mind that's just about all he's got going for him compared to erstwhile Kingpins.

Edited by Eagal on Nov 24th 2018 at 6:29:51 AM