Word came recently that Charlie Cox will be reprising his role as Daredevil from the Netflix series. Now, of course, he'll be on Disney+, hopefully with something approaching the quality of his previous appearances, despite Disney once again cheaping out on the writing staff. Showrunners on the new series will be Matt Corman and Chris Ord, whose previous credits aren't nearly as illustrious as the legendary first season of Daredevil. News of the new series came at around the time I finally finished watching 2017's The Defenders, the big team up event series that followed the first two seasons of Daredevil and the first seasons of Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage. The Defenders had some strong moments but overall it was disappointing.
I also recently finished watching the first seasons of Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Luke Cage was by far the superior of the two. The uneven writing on Iron Fist got a little better near the end with an episode about his sidekick, Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick), coming to the realisation that she's been part of a murderous cult her whole life. There was some actual good stuff about how two good people can be fundamentally opposed, with one of them deeply, tragically mistaken. There were also some surprisingly nice moments with David Wenham's character but mostly the series sinks under the ineptitude of Finn Jones as the title character.
I felt like the creative team was actually making fun of him a little in The Defenders. In a scene where Elektra (Elodie Yung) has him tied up in an underground cave, she asks him if he can read some runes on the cavern wall. He angrily asks, "You brought me here to be your translator?" He sounded so much like Derek Zoolander that I laughed. Events that subsequently unfolded did nothing to dispel the impression that he's a complete doofus.
Mike Colter as Luke Cage didn't give an especially great performance but one that's good enough for a series that turned out to be more about its supporting characters. Of all the MCU movies and series, Luke Cage season one is one of the best I've seen for making the hero feel like part of, and a symbol for, a community. It's not artificially jammed in, Cage has a history with people in Harlem. The owner of a barber shop, a couple guys playing chess there (one of whom is a thug from Daredevil), and assorted other regulars on the street. When Luke meets one character, he might also know her sister or someone else might have a brother who was friends with so and so. It all feels like like a neighbourhood of real people.
And, my goodness, the performances on this show were outstanding, to say the least. Mahershala Ali, Theo Rossi, Erik LaRay Harvey are all phenomenal. Alfre Woodard is creepy as hell especially because of how plausible she makes her psychotic politician character. Rosario Dawson is, of course, great as always as Claire Temple, but the real star of Luke Cage is Simone Missick as Misty Knight. Her performance is creative and intelligent, finding real substance even in relatively cliche crime show moments.
I'd seen the first season of Jessica Jones years ago and I loved it. So I was excited for the team-up promised by The Defenders. I can understand the complications behind such an undertaking, weaving so many characters and storylines together while making them dramatically meaningful to the one going on in The Defenders. Unfortunately, this often resulted in retcons, narrative leaps, and and characters just plain not acting like themselves. The biggest crime of this sort was perpetrated on Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) whom we left in Daredevil season two not knowing Matt Murdock is Daredevil but advocating for the usefulness of vigilantes. In The Defenders, suddenly she's known his identity for some time and is trying to get him to stop being Daredevil, treating it like an addiction, a particularly annoying interpretation usually given to the very annoying character Foggy, Matt's lawyer friend.
Still, the series had its moments. It was cool seeing Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) and Matt Murdock together, especially in a scene where they interview a girl about her missing father. I am hoping I will see Jones in the future. Aside from the already promised Daredevil and Wilson Fisk, my list of the Marvel Netflix characters I'd like to see again most would probably be Misty Knight, Jessica Jones, Karen Page (I do love Deborah Ann Woll), Kilgrave, Diamondback, Claire Temple, and Colleen Wing.
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