This is it. It’s all been building to this — every investigative lead, every plotline, every move. Everything culminates in one grand finale.
Sort of. I mean, it IS a finale, and it IS grand. It just doesn’t “culminate” in any sense of the word.
Episode Title: Daredevil (hey, we have a name!)
Original Airdate: 4/10/2015
All the investigative work trying to connect Fisk to something, anything they could use against him? Piffled out. All of it. The lead on his mother, his father’s money owed to a mob boss, his connection to Union Allied, none of it mattered. Ben died, everything is hopeless, we’re back to square one.
Fortunately some random henchman who somehow can pull everything out from under Fisk turns up. Fortunately for Foggy and Murdock. Fortunately for the writers, who ass-pull a resolution to a plot they’d just spent twelve episodes setting up and then completely torpedoing. And that’s VERY disappointing because it means all the filler scenes of daytime investigation and frantic urging to stay the course ended up not actually mattering, not compared to overhearing a cop talking about Hoffman and then jumping him. Once that happens, everything wraps up in a neat little montage.
That’s not much of a capstone considering it had little to no relation to anything. All of Fisk’s Legion of Doom? Dealt with, one by one, either killed or fading away. Even Leland, who had been scheming for multiple episodes, was just tossed down an elevator shaft and that was the end of him.
So what does Daredevil pull out to make this a satisfying end? Well, there’s a prison break and a punch up and that’s it. Series over. It works on a pure action / visceral level, it’s fun to watch, it hits the right beats… but it doesn’t exactly tie everything up with a bow.
I have to say I’m disappointed overall, but it’s a mild disappointment. I know the show can do better than this clunky, long-running series of gambits that don’t pay off. I certainly had FUN watching it, if only because the action was flat-out amazing and the actors did a terrific job. I just wish the writers were up to the same par as everything else.
Next season we’ll no doubt get more ninjas and more Elektra, and that’ll make for a hell of a series of fight scenes. That might be more on speed with the capability of the writing room, which wasn’t up to a criminal investigation story. We’ll see. I can recommend Daredevil in the end, but don’t expect it to rock your world. Just keep you entertained a bit.
Channel: Superhero 