Daredevil Born again is coming out soon, and so obviously, now is when I decided to start watching Daredevil, but okay everybody has to start somewhere.
And I have only one question, why did I not watch this before? Well I know why, because Netflix Marvel was separate and I didn't know it existed until it was too late to get into it without banging your head against a wall and the wall was already banging very hard against my head at that moment.
So why bother?
But now that the never ending conflict between Marvel as a Whole and Kevin Fieg.... I mean marvel Studios is over, And Kevin Fiege heads the whole of Marvel, I can confidently say that Daredevil is now worth watching for me(I'm joking, it was always worth watching.)
But what does this show do? Well for one it has about 39 episodes total making it almost impossible for me to do the episode by episode thing I do for other shows. But we work with what we have.
So what does this first season do?
Yes that, but also, it does something very few shows would dare to do, it shows very little of the actual Daredevil, in fact, the iconic Daredevil costume didn't even show up until the last episode, neither did his iconic weapons, the dual sticks.'
Why this is important is, when we see very little of someone and hear a lot about them in broken bits and pieces and see the after effects of their actions, our minds want to fill in the gaps.
This is a step above show don't tell, it is imply, because nothing can be more effective than making someone picture something in their head because nothing one can show will beat imagination, that is a rule.
A lot of horror movies and shows use this to their advantage greatly, and the Horror thing is very poignant, because just like batman, Daredevil is a horror villain for those who would even consider doing crime.
But in the beginning he is much less than that, he is a single man who is trying his best and failing miserably to stop the wave of crime that is consuming the city, and even worse than that he is very close to becoming the very thing that he is fighting against.
This above is shown very well in the shared want of both Fisk and Matthew to fix Hell's kitchen, in their shared violent nature and in their similar work ethos of working from the shadows, at least initially.
The most important thing about this show is it shows the greys in the absolute and the absolute in the greys.
Is Fisk trying to save the city? Yes!
In the process is he destroying it? Absolutely! Does he believe himself to be the Hero? Yeah.
So doe Daredevil, are either of them necessary? Yes actually.
Kingpin, or Fisk sees crime as an unavoidable part of the city, and hopes to destroy it by using it, Crime can serve the city itself.
Matt Murdock draws the line at this kind of behavior.
Unfortunately they are both Criminals in a way, but the difference is, at least so far Matt's actions have strayed close to hurting people but haven't whereas Kingpin has grown to label the few deaths in his path as "necessary".
Two supposed saviors of this city locked in a battle against each other, one called the Devil and the other hailed a Messiah, it is incredibly poignant then, that the one hailed as Messiah is the one who has so much control and influence in Media and the Police, as well as the criminals of the city.
But like the priest said, few things are so absolute, and while it would be easy for me to say that Daredevil is the Angel and Fisk is the Devil, it is true that Daredevil has worked with some very shady individuals, tortured people, and left them in a coma.
Who knows what he would do were he to have the same power as the Kingpin.
The question remains, is the only difference between the two a matter of circumstance? Or is it something deeper in their Nature?
For the Devil exists and walks among us, and he Walks in all of us.
He can be any adversary as that is what the original word meant, but he is also sometimes as clearly visible as the sun.
And so rises the Symbol that will save Hell's Kitchen, a city so downtrodden that it's savior is it's devil(this sentence is correct in all readings, think about it.
This show has one message, our choices define who we are, whether we are the Devil walking amongst the people, or an Angel saving them, for in a sense they are one and the same, cause they began as one and the same.
The righteous often become the Devil when they let way to sin in pursuit of stopping who they perceive to be the Devil, and when the righteous give way to sin, it is as bad as poisoning the public well, cause the sin spreads far and wide.
So the Righteous must be careful. But the Devil needs to exist, for there is nothing more motivating for someone to go towards the path of Righteousness than the Devil barking at their feet.
And so Matt does what no one has done before, accepts the Devil in him and put him in service of the people, something which Kingpin tried to do, but he tried to control the Devil in others and keep himself clean.
Crime in Service of Good, just two different ways.
So how does one know which side to take?
That's how, at least for now, because it is never that simple.
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