Dare to Go Back

I'm two episodes into watching Daredevil again. I have so many other things I want to watch and I have so little time, I feel like I'm cheating, but I've really been in the mood for it.

One very simple thing I noticed about the series, which started in 2015, that's different from to-day's Disney+ shows, is it features stories about the hero trying to help people. Not on the periphery while he's trying to sort out his identity or get emotional validation--it's the point of the story. The first episode is all about Matt and Foggy helping Karen and figuring out one of Fisk's schemes and the second episode is about Matt struggling to stop a human trafficking ring. Sure, there's personal stuff, like flashbacks to Matt's past and we get insight into what motivates him. We have Karen and Foggy going out for drinks and her dealing with the trauma of home invasion. But all this is window dressing or circumstances to explain the difficulties inherent in the central problem--How do we not only help people, but how do we become people who want to help people? How do we mature in that direction, go from being selfish children to adults who look out for other people?

Also, with Karen, we have perspective on how good it can feel to be saved! Which is a central point people make when trying to describe why Superman is great. The superhero isn't always the reader's avatar. Sometimes you're empathising with the victim and you get the opportunity to fantasise about how nice it would be if someone were there looking out for you, someone you could count on. What a difference it makes when the makers of a show actually know what they're doing.

Daredevil is available on Disney+.

Punishment Complete

I watched the last episode of season 2 of The Punisher and, with that, I've now watched every episode of all the Marvel Netflix series. Punisher turned out to be one of the strongest series, though season two was vastly inferior to the first season in terms of writing and budget.

The second to last episode, "Collision Course", which aired on January 18, 2019, was written by Dario Scardapane (who'd written three other episodes). Scardapane was recently announced as the replacement showrunner for the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again after Kevin Feige discovered the episodes that had been shot were too terrible. So people were fired and Scardapane was resurrected from the glory days of Marvel Television and put in a more traditional television role.

So I was watching "Collision Course" with extra scrutiny and I'm happy to say I think it was competently written. There were several episodes in season two that depended on people doing stupid things out of character in order for the plot to move forward but "Collision Course" wasn't one of them. I think it's entirely possible Scardapane will be a good showrunner.

The Punisher did turn out to be good, cathartic fun in between some nice character moments. I'm a little amused by the controversy around the character. I read about how U.S. armed forces and police have adopted the Punisher's skull symbol and the people at Marvel have chosen to be horrified by each and every one of them. Which is their right, even if one U.S. military sniper was honoured with a statue emblazoned with the Punisher symbol on his chest plate.

What has Marvel done in response to the widespread use of their symbol? They changed the Punisher's symbol to one resembling a Japanese Oni in 2022. Of all the empty gestures.

I enjoyed the series that aired on Netflix (and is now on Disney+--how the world has changed). It's fun fantasising about a world where you can take out your grief and rage on purely evil people. But such diversions also remind me that real life isn't like that. If Marvel writers really wanted to teach people a lesson about the Punisher, they should've tried to write more complex stories, stories where the Punisher killed people whose guilt really was more subjective. Maybe they have done that, I haven't read much of the Punisher comics, but the TV series certainly didn't do it.

Considering the upcoming Daredevil show was shaping up to be partly about cops inspired by the Punisher, maybe that was going to be the thing that did it. On the face of it, that sounds the wrong way to go about it. You don't persuade people by making strawman caricatures of them. The Amazon Prime series, The Boys, is based on a parody of The Punisher written by Garth Ennis, a former writer of Punisher comics. I don't know about the comic but, ironically, the Prime series presents an even more morally simplistic, polarised world, though it's far less enjoyable, at least for me. It is popular, though.

Anyway, now that I've seen all the Marvel Netflix shows, I may as well rank them. Instead of whole series, I think I'll go by season. That should make it a little more interesting.

1. Daredevil season one
2. Daredevil season three
3. Jessica Jones season one
4. Daredevil season two
5. Luke Cage season one
6. The Punisher season one
7. Luke Cage season two
8. The Punisher season two
9. Jessica Jones season three
10. Jessica Jones season two
11. The Defenders
12. Iron Fist season two
13. Iron Fist season one

X Sonnet #1786

Resources shrank to silly herbs and spice.
We built a dinner stack of salt and sage.
But peasants hid a sack of tasty rice.
With clouds of gin improvement comes with age.
Another ball is rolling pins through time.
A stolen car contained a cryptic note.
Where pies are baked, the dreams were sweet as rhyme.
Where sugar's sold, it's pastries win the vote.
A real McCoy was trading plums for bones.
Ferocious monsters crowd the logging road.
In darkness, riders cry in metal tones.
Another country caught the hidden code.
Siesta strikes the octopus and shrimp.
We know the inky ghost for print's a simp.

Beset by Devils

Last night's She-Hulk wasn't as good as last week's but it wasn't altogether bad. It made me realise one of the assets of last week's episode is it didn't have that terrible rushed quality that diminishes most of the MCU shows.

I was looking forward to seeing Daredevil again and he kind of feels like the same character. Charlie Cox deserves a lot of credit. Matt Murdoch in court was the first time it felt like I was seeing a real lawyer on the show even if the writing still wasn't up to average television courtroom drama standards. The action scenes were surprisingly good, particularly the fight between Jen and Daredevil.

Supposedly there's a separate action crew at Marvel who comes in and directs the action scenes sometimes for directors who don't have the knack for it and I wondered if that was the case here.

I liked the idea of Jen and Matt flirting but them sleeping together just felt odd. Daredevil's "walk of shame" afterwards seemed out of character, though I understand they're deliberately trying to make him lighter than he was previously on TV. I really don't feel like that's worth doing. That feels like an obvious thing to say at this point as it seems like most people are unhappy with the MCU's decreasing willingness to take itself seriously or maintain a consistent tone.

I liked Jen's super suit. Purple works for her, but that's no surprise. I was thinking burgundy might be a good alternative to distinguish herself from Bruce.

The end of the episode was a nice enough setup for the finale. The "Female Lawyer of the Year" ceremony was extremely cringe, which I think was at least partially intentional but seemed a bit over the top.

She-Hulk is available on Disney+.

Twitter Sonnet #1629

The bargain point was rather dull at last.
In even light the life was drained of spark.
A little death was smaller than the past.
The newer money sucked the license park.
Suspicious eyes could sort the hands about.
The ready rebels crest a dreary hill.
Deceptive eggs were hid to mark the route.
Events coverge to trap a heedless will.
The shirt was weighed against the heavy ice.
An extra word distorts the language base.
The people counted two and named them twice.
And next the written word defined a face.
Humility remained beyond the gate.
Again the woods deliver wooden fate.

A Devil, a Kingpin, and Relentless Fear

I finished watching the third season of Daredevil last night and wow. What an amazing season. The first two seasons were great but the third easily surpasses them. Fewer of the character conflicts and developments feel artificially forced, instead it feels like we have portraits of truly tormented and driven characters intricately blended together.

Matt Murdoch/Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) are the clear leads in this ensemble, though. Matt's struggle with morality is genuinely interesting especially coming amid a rare positive portrayal of the Catholic Church. Wilson Fisk's struggle with his own demons, and the surprising nuance in his relationship with Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer), again shows why he's the best MCU villain so far. You understand him, you even sympathise with him, and he's scary not in spite of these things but partly because of them. You know what he's holding back and you know how his skewed worldview functions. There's always a sense of foreboding about what he's capable of.

And there are amazing new characters--FBI Agent Nadeem (Jay Ali) and Ben Poindexter/Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) bring fantastic dimensions to the story. Bullseye dealing all his life with being a psychopath works really well to make him three dimensional and scary but Nadeem wins the Best New Third Season Character award for me. The way he factors into Fisk's plot, how Fisk had started manipulating him through his sister's medical bills years in advance, helped establish the effective, oppressively paranoid, atmosphere of the season's second half. In fact, it's so good, and Wilson Fisk's genius comes off as so credible, that the season's happy ending doesn't quite feel earned.

My only other complaint about the season is Foggy (Elden Henson) and, to some extent, Karen (Deborah Ann Woll). Deborah Ann Woll is great but Karen is given a backstory in this season that might have been interesting in another series about another character but proves way too much of a detour for a character we've already known for two seasons. Elden Henson, meanwhile, still can't deliver any lines believably, and seems more like he belongs on an old daytime Nickelodeon series. But even he has his moments in this season, especially when his family is drawn into Fisk's machinations.

Now, the action sequences on this show. By God. The fourth episode alone with its more than ten minute shot of solid action was surely a landmark in the history of action in motion pictures. And after that, the fight choreography never lets up. It's breathtaking.

Which is all to say, the upcoming Disney+ Daredevil series has a lot to live up to. I'm hoping for the best.

The Devil Returns

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.

The Moon's Associates

Last night saw the premiere of Moon Knight, the latest MCU series to premiere on Disney+. It's not a bad first episode, not quite as good as Hawkeye or Loki's first episode but a bit better than Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Writing and direction were decent but most of the credit belongs to Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke, both of whom deliver excellent performances, particularly Isaac.

Isaac has already played one major Marvel character, Apocalypse in the Brian Singer-verse X-Men films, another character involved in Egyptian mythology. Isaac does kind of look Egyptian though he's actually an American who was born in Guatemala to a Guatemalan mother and a Cuban father. Moon Knight's principle alter-ego is the Jewish American Marc Spector, though supposedly his religion is never mentioned on the show, something that has led some to speculate that it's been removed. Apparently it's been enough cause for concern that Isaac has publicly addressed it and confirmed that his version of the character is Jewish. Isaac himself is Christian, another twist in the endlessly convoluted current political neuroses about actors having to play characters who represent them ethnically, religiously, and anatomically. It's a particular issue here because the series' primary director, Mohamad Diab, has criticised DC films for their representation of Egyptians.

Marc Spector has dissociative identity disorder and for 95% of the first episode we actually see Isaac playing Steven Grant, an English identity who lives in London and works at a museum gift shop. I wonder if anyone has complained about someone without DID playing something with DID. In any case, Steven is really sweet and charming with Isaac in the role and you feel for the poor guy who constantly finds himself in strange places and situations with no idea how he got there, particularly because he's such a meek and polite fellow.

I'd seen Isaac in movies before The Force Awakens but he never made an impression on me, nor has he been particularly interesting since then. Moon Knight is the first I've seen him capture some of that regular guy charm that was so effective in Force Awakens.

It's interesting seeing Ethan Hawke in a Marvel project after he famously criticised superhero movies a few years ago. Though, to be fair, he only said that Logan was only great for a comic book movie, not on the same metric as great cinema. I wonder if he's seen anything that's changed his mind or maybe all he saw was a dollar sign. In any case, though he hasn't had much screentime yet, I like the nuance he's bringing to the villain role, making the zealous man seem genuinely compassionate.

When Hawke's character, Arthur, tells Steven he has "chaos" in him, it made me wonder if the writers are consciously aiming for an order versus chaos theme, perhaps a counterargument to Jordan Peterson. The fact that the protagonist's superpower is apparently related to his mental illness, it certainly seems like the show could be taking a pro-Foucault stance. Foucault's History of Madness presents the idea of mental illness being a subjective and political construct and Jordan Peterson has routinely pointed to Derrida and Foucault as being responsible for introducing disastrous ideas into popular ideology. Peterson has also talked extensively about how he feels he's been vilified in recent Captain America comics by H.Y.D.R.A.'s reference to "order and chaos" and "rules for life", these things bearing resemblance to titles of Peterson's books. Although I like some of Peterson's lectures on YouTube, I thought he was imagining things with respect to the order and chaos rhetoric since it had also appeared in Winter Soldier, a movie that came out years before Peterson was a prominent figure. But now I'm starting to wonder if it is intentional.

I think there are a lot of potential problems in portraying a mental illness as a superpower but I did enjoy this first episode. Most of it was action and comedy and Diab does a good job with the action sequences. Despite the cgi being oddly mediocre, I did enjoy the car chase in which Steven steals a cupcake truck.

Recently, the old Netflix Marvel series have been put on Disney+ and I've picked up watching Daredevil where I left off years ago. I'd stopped after the first episode of the second season and over the past couple weeks I've finished watching the second season. I also saw the first season of Jessica Jones and the first half of the second season years ago and I'll probably pick that up again too. I haven't seen any of Iron First, Luke Cage, The Defenders, or Punisher. I'd stopped watching the Netflix series because I was getting kind of tired of superheroes at that point and some of the writing was starting to diminish in quality. I loved the first season of Jessica Jones but was finding the second unbearable. Picking up Daredevil again felt like a breath of fresh air, though, and the discussions in the second season about the differences between Daredevil's and the Punisher's brands of vigilantism were genuinely provoking and intelligent in ways the similar discussion in the recent Batman movie wasn't.

People talked a lot more on those old Netflix Marvel shows because there were more episodes per season with smaller effects budgets. This fostered some good old fashioned good writing, it seems. It also led to some drawbacks and finishing the second season of Daredevil this week I was reminded of why I tired of it. I'd gotten sick of the supporting characters constantly complaining to Matt about the fact that he's Daredevil and there are also many really dumb, contrived plot points, like when Karen decides to break up with Matt when she sees an old man in his apartment and an injured woman in his bed. It seems like a situation in which she ought to have at least been willing to hear him offer an explanation. But I do really like Deborah Ann Woll and I'm surprised to see the action sequences on Daredevil hold up against anything in the MCU to-day, including Shang-Chi. So I guess I will keep watching it.

Twitter Sonnet #1567

Guitars appeared to cook potato strings.
Affronts to falcons fell to pinion nubs.
Assorted stripes were bent to feature rings.
Refraction lights the little candle stubs.
Re-opened cases clutter wooden planes.
But time's a heavy bowl for spoons to fill.
Rejecting flakes, your post some milk regains.
Approach the duck; some sugar iced the bill.
Her thoughts were drawn to globes in outer space.
Acceptance shaved the tops of needle trees.
Revolving slow, the world revealed its face.
Bereft of honey, ships return to seas.
Approaching birds are flying fast in shade.
Declining flocks were fiefs too rashly made.