final thoughts on Daredevil s1

[xparrot]

Finished it tonight! Overall, definitely enjoyed it, am wanting more. Jessica Jones is better, but Daredevil maybe hits my fannish buttons harder...?

Enough that I might go looking for fic, though am unsure of whether I'll find anything like what I want...as my favorite things about the show is the trio, but I don't really ship any combination of them - Foggy/Karen is the only ship I can see, and even then, I've decided my favorite pairing for Karen is actually shipping her with Malcolm from JJ - they would be so supportive and adorable and just, awww!

Foggy and Matt, I like their friendship as a friendship, want to see more of it, but also really badly want Matt to actually apologize. Which he didn't have to do because Matt is terrible and Foggy is way too nice and cares about him too much to let him go, but at the end it feels like they've put a band-aid over a wound not yet healed. Though they're both guys and they have one of those guy-friendships that means that talking about things seriously is very difficult and they're both content to leave a lot of stuff unspoken. So Matt telling Karen that it was all his fault almost counts as an apology, and hopefully Karen can convey how broken up he was, but yeah, Foggy deserves better...

(...which comes down to me wanting Bad Things to happen to Foggy in s2 and/or fanfic. I'm so sorry, Foggy. It's all Matt's fault. If he would just tell you what you mean to him...)

(At least they have Karen, who balances them so perfectly - like, Matt falling apart in front of Karen and finally getting that hug he so badly needed, he just couldn't have done that with Foggy, that's not the way their friendship works. But I hope Karen told Foggy all of it and then they can talk about it obliquely in their way later...)

Meanwhile, speaking of talking, Karen needs to find out about Matt! At least there's some balance as right now Karen has secrets from them (on top of what she did to Wesley - !!!!! - there's her past which Ben Ulrich alluded to, and then with Wesley she had that line about not her first time shooting someone, and in her dream of Fisk he was talking about how it gets easier to kill???). I wasn't expecting the reveal to happen this season, no time, plus Matt doesn't actually know how to tell people his secret...so far the only method he's got is dropping three-quarters-dead at their feet. --Which, given his habits, is likely how Karen will find out as well. But I'm hoping it might be more honest than that. Will see next season!

Also am hoping Claire will be back - would like to see her and Foggy talking (am really curious how their first meeting went - I'm glad we didn't see it, that they kept the focus of that ep on Foggy and Matt, but I want to know...)

Plotwise, I did like how the show switched things up - there were a number of predictable elements, but some of them used that very predictability to go unexpected places. Like, Karen getting kidnapped but not damseled. And Wesley being the one fridged instead of Vanessa.

I spent the whole show trying to figure out what the deal was with Fisk, what the story was trying to do with him, but I didn't get it until I read sholio's comment here that the show is also Kingpin's origin story - that Fisk isn't actually a supervillain but is becoming a supervillain, just as Matt is becoming a superhero. Which makes a lot more sense, because otherwise it's a weird story - Fisk is the big bad but he spends pretty much the whole show losing, he's in damage control with a crumbling criminal empire from the first ep. But it's Fisk's crucible as much as Matt's. Which doesn't make him that much more interesting to me, I still found his parts the least compelling in the show; but it's an improvement.

--Also, Sholio, you are totally right on the totally shallow bit, maybe I'll get used to Matt's new costume but I preferred his original look. Not sure about the helmet and the new costume doesn't cling to his torso in quite as appealing a way. (And doesn't look so much like he's cosplaying the Dread Pirate Roberts. I spent the whole show expecting a Princess Bride joke...unless Wesley was it?)

Comments

[joonscribble.livejournal.com]

And the lack of apology, YES argh!!! Matt Murdock, you suck! In a pathetic feel-sorry-for-him way, and it's not amiss for his character, who dutifully goes to confession but obviously prefers to make his penance in blood and stitches...He needs to apologize to Foggy. And also outright answer Foggy's question about whether any of their friendship was real - because the flashbacks made the truth clear but Matt didn't actually say it aloud.

I had a long discussion with a friend who didn't feel it was necessary for Matt to apologize because she largely thought Foggy needed to calm down about things Matt really couldn't own up to at the time it was happening (e.g. the vigilantism + superpowers). But my main argument was that Matt chooses to be a vigilante. It's not like someone is holding something over him and forcing him to do these things. He's doing it. And whether he likes it or not, it has an impact on the people around him. I really take to heart Foggy's point that if someone found out who Matt was it wouldn't place him and Karen in danger either professionally or bodily. I mean, cue the millions of fics where the bad guys kidnap them the second they find out who Daredevil is.

Also, Matt's entire "I walk alone" attitude has got to hurt someone like Foggy who threw in his lot with Matt in leaving the security of a huge law firm and starting a business with him, all in the name of friendship and avocados and what not. I think he's earned a basic "I'm sorry" from Matt even if it's on the level of "I'm sorry you're tied to someone who is off doing activities that could get him killed and/or thrown in prison and/or disbarred and is the Titanic of People."

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

I had a long discussion with a friend who didn't feel it was necessary for Matt to apologize because she largely thought Foggy needed to calm down about things Matt really couldn't own up to at the time it was happening (e.g. the vigilantism + superpowers). But my main argument was that Matt chooses to be a vigilante. It's not like someone is holding something over him and forcing him to do these things.

For me, it's this case that Matt had some decent reasons for not telling Foggy about any of it - but at the same time, not telling him was kind of a dick move for a friend. Not just the vigilante'ing, but also the superpowers - generally I'm in favor of autonomy, someone has a right to share or keep their personal secrets as they choose. But Matt's powers are pretty damn invasive, such that they impact any relationship he has - he always has more information about you than you think he does, more than any normal person would have, and that can make someone feel very used and manipulated even if he's not trying to abuse that insight.

So while I don't think Matt was obliged to tell Foggy any of it, at the same time I don't think Foggy was overreacting (actually Sherlock plays into this, too, his deductive skills give him similar advantages - and a large part of his making healthier relationships with people is learning to set boundaries.) Part of their moving forward should be Matt acknowledging that he has crossed personal lines - if not outright apologizing for being who and what he is (because that's a difficult area, his supersenses aren't a choice) at least making it clear to Foggy that Matt does respect him.

As for the vigilante business - Matt's got a more compelling case than some superheroes, that not telling people his identity is protecting them, as Daredevil is a criminal and anyone he tells becomes an accessory. But then at the very least he should apologize for making Foggy an accessory, however accidentally it happened, because yeah, like you say, being a vigilante is Matt's choice, however compelled he feels (actually, of any superhero stories I can think of, Matt's is played most like he's actually addicted to hero'ing, to the adrenaline and the high of saving people; you feel less like cheering him on and more like he needs an intervention...)

[joonscribble.livejournal.com]

Matt's is played most like he's actually addicted to hero'ing, to the adrenaline and the high of saving people; you feel less like cheering him on and more like he needs an intervention...

I think you've pinpointed why I'm less on board Matt as a single character rather than his character in reference to people like Foggy and Karen. As much as I get his reasoning behind hero-ing, it feels really, really maladaptive. Like, if tomorrow all the people of the world just turned good and no hero-ing was needed, Matt would lose his shit within a month. I liked that Jessica would have absolutely stopped being a hero except the danger levels got too high and she had to do something.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Foggy says it outright and from what we see it seems true, that Matt does the superheroing in part because he wants to hit people, and (un)fortunately for him there are a lot of people in his world who need hitting. While as Jessica doesn't crave violence, and while saving people is something of a coping mechanism for her...she's got reason to need coping mechanisms, and that's one of the healthier of her options.