Netflix’s “Daredevil”

For those of you who may be living under a rock and haven’t heard: Netflix released the first season of Daredevil (their original take on him) on Friday 4/10. In celebration, I spent the weekend binge watching and finished the first season, all that they’ve released so far, on Sunday evening.

Before I go any further, I want to take a moment to answer the question that is on the minds of everyone who has not started the series yet: Yes, the show is world’s better than the Ben Affleck movie ever hoped to be.

The acting throughout the course of the show was excellent and the characters, good and bad alike, were interesting. The characters were engaging and well rounded. The good guys had character traits that weren’t necessarily “good” and the bad guys had traits that were 100% good. They were all well rounded and very human. It’s been a while since I’ve seen characters from a TV show who were so nicely developed and layered.

To quote Tom Hiddleston: “Every villain is a hero in his own mind,” and that is explored in-depth in this series. The villains were exactly the type of villain that I like to see: motivated and torn. They had motivations that went beyond just causing chaos and destruction. They were relate-able.

Likewise, the heroes struggled with their own devils throughout the course of the season, trying to find the balance between what they believed was right, and the desire for vengeance that I believe anyone would suffer when faced with the immorality that these heroes face. Beyond that, they also knew when enough was enough. I admit that a pet peeve of mine is when the heroes in a show let bad guys go when they KNOW that the guy will come back to destroy them. Daredevil struck a nice balance between finding ways of not stepping over the line into villainy, and not letting someone walk away who when they shouldn’t.

If all of that wasn’t enough, the show incorporated just enough references to other Marvel cinema to develop a feeling of inclusion, while still remaining it’s a show all its own. It had some bad-ass women who stood on their own, had their own thoughts and goals that didn’t revolve around dating or bubble baths, and were just as developed as the men (something that most of Hollywood fails remarkably at, but something that Marvel has excelled with so far). There was an abundance of action, including a few fight scenes that had me cringing in sympathy with our hero.

All in all, I loved the show. I’ll definitely have it in my re-watch list and will be waiting for season two with as much patience as I’m capable.