Last year’s debut of Netflix’s Daredevil deflated me considerably. I thought there were too many pulled punches in terms of choreography, it focused too heavily on the law firm and Daredevil was a dull central character. Between Daredevil and Jessica Jones, I was more pleasantly surprised by the latter but I still think Daredevil possesses a lot of promise for the brooding grittiness that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has shied away from and the DC universe is embracing. For season 2, I decided to give capsule reviews of each of the 13 episodes in increments rather than a broad overview.

Bang

Already Season 2 is really nailing the sooty ambience of Hell’s Kitchen. It still has the Lexi Alexander aesthetic of yellow-and-neon-green lighting but when a broadcaster says there are record high temperatures, you can feel the beads of sweat. The laying-the-pipe origin story is over and now we can watch Daredevil in full breadth. I really liked his sadistic smile after the opening execution in the church. Drew Goddard is no longer the showrunner and this could explain the notable improvements. Foggy and Murdock have a more amiable chemistry than before. Now that Foggy has full knowledge of his alter-ego, it seemed tenable that Foggy would recognize a bleeding gash on Murdock, give his friendly advice on how he shouldn’t circumvent the law and not be completely schmaltzy about it (“You’re an asshole. If I can’t stop you, at least I can help.”).

Lip service is given to how the law firm is nearing insolvency and I prefer the shift to not being a case-of-the-week show anymore. The ripple effect of Wilson Fisk gives rise to the Irish mob again and thankfully, the leader doesn’t speak in a Lucky Charms accent. When he is toasting their reign, an ultraviolent bloodbath ensues with shattered Guinness bottles, critical neck wounds and many bodily perforations. It is a satisfyingly ruthless introduction to The Punisher a.k.a. Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal). He is an ethereal avenging angel who isn’t shown at first which builds into his fearsome reputation. It’s the Jaws principle and it works wonders.

One area I wish was resolved is the coy love triangle between Murdock, Foggy and Karen. It’s just delaying the inevitable chasm. Also, at the writer’s tabula rasa disposal is Murdock’s wider range of abilities such as his superhuman hearing when he narrows in on a detective’s analysis of a murder casualty’s Kevlar vest. Also, he might have heightened senses but he can’t multitask which explains why he misses the one informant’s testimony over the nearby coroner diagnosis. The frozen meatlocker scene shows that Castle is an unrepentant one-man army who is joylessly dismantling his enemies.

Again, his unhurried disarming of a hospital guard to toss his gun into a trash can is bravura example of his machismo. The adrenaline-surging fight on the rooftop between Daredevil and The Punisher beautifully distinguishes their styles: Daredevi moves with feline reflexes and effortless speed while The Punisher is constantly looking for the killshot with his rifle and sidearm. Overall, a gargantuan step up for the series.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Dogs to a Gunfight

“Daredevil does it and the city cheers like we won the World Series.” Daredevil’s rising popularity in the urban areas can cause a new breed of copycats which are called “devil-worshippers”. A sensational expansion on Daredevil’s impact on rampant vigilantism. Murdock’s gradual, temporary desensitization to being deaf is a character highlight and illustrates how detrimental Castle can be. The witness-protection option is more closely affiliated to the main storyline which is why it doesn’t digress too mightily. Unlike Thomas Jane and Ray Stevenson before him, Bernthal isn’t beholden exclusively to the thousand-yard stare and he encapsulates Castle’s peevish, irritable side. Even while negotiating with the pawnbroker, he looks like a lion with a thorn in his paw. It’s always appetizing to watch Daredevil spar with The Punisher so soon after their last confrontation but status reports and panicked faces looking at a monitor from spectators is a bit hackneyed at this point. It was fresh in ‘Aliens’, revamped in ‘Predator 2’, now it’s a cheap cliche.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

New York’s Finest

Is it just me or does the district attorney remind everyone of Vanessa Williams? Finally, the two caped crusaders are in a volatile face-off. Like a yeoman, Bernthal does “what’s required” and his military-grade weaponry is the perfect distillation of Marvel’s antihero- enough firepower to tip the scale of justice. While he is chained up, Charlie Cox’s accent is really incontrovertible. It shouldn’t be redubbed or reshot. Castle’s philosophy is that he is a soldier who doesn’t parade himself as something different for casual comforts. It’s not a moonlighting hobby where he removes the uniform. It’s a shrewd discourse where Punisher pointedly states “we don’t get to pick the things that fix us” and that his personal tragedy could only be becalm by his campaign of terror.

It’s a bit hypocritical that Daredevil says he doesn’t enjoy his bloodthirsty escapades though. I wish Rosario Dawson wasn’t subjugated to the scrappy side character and she was more pivotal than being an emergency room attendant. At a certain point, the ethical disagreements between the two duellists begin to sound like derivative sound bytes (“You hit ’em, they get back up. I hit ’em, they stay down.”). I admire the fiery exchange but they filibuster without exploring new angles and The Punisher should always be monosyllabic. Also, I haven’t seen the self-contradictory Daredevil show much leniency towards his prey except for his non-lethal amnesty towards Fisk. By far the best element is the tour-de-force, long-take fight down the stairwell with Daredevil wielding his chain like Ghost Rider. Tony Jaa would be proud and while it is definitely an art-direction flourish, the flashing red lights spring Dario Argento giallos to the mind.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Penny and Dime

Whenever you want to show the shock value of sacrilegious villains always have them tip over a coffin, it immediately makes them detestable because of their lack of respect for the sanctity of the corporeal body. This is surprisingly sober and somber episode. The speech from the priest that one “sinful life lost” is representative of a “whole world” was quite poignantly delivered. Peter McRobbie is such a potent actor that he can instill Matt with Catholic guilt without it sounding dire or overwrought. I love the fact that Frank is such an unstoppable, undeterred force that anesthetizing needles, bullet wounds and taser guns in unison barely incapacitate him. The crickets in the background and bas-relief urine-color filter add to the seedy flavor of New York after hours. It feels stripped straight from the comics when Daredevil is deflecting fatal tools out of Frank’s hand and he retorts back “altar boy.” This is high praise if you’re looking for a definitive team-up between these two. It’s truly mesmerizing to watch them share a moment in the graveyard where Frank reminisces about his daughter when he returned home from service. Emmy and Golden Globes should consider Bernthal for this elegiac scene alone. It’s rare that an action-oriented show slows down to let us gorge on a fantastic, dialogue-driven, almost mumblecore scene of someone pouring out their heart. Unfortunately, this is the capper to The Punisher’s arc in Season 2.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The end is nigh for Season 2 and with a 90-minute runtime, this is a feature-length wrap-up. Last week, the tragic ending of Paul was appropriately brash, Ray and Ani consummated their erotic yearnings and Vinci police department has been revealed to be a nest of corruption. Conclusively Paul isn’t a phantasm like Ray at the end of Episode 2. We see him enveloped in a body bag and he is now a bygone player. But the truth is he hasn’t left a vestige on the remainder.

Emotionally raw and naked, Ray has become the sounding board for both Paul and Ani who confessed their darkest pasts to him without much foreplay. For someone as unhinged as Ray, he is the de facto priest of the group. The tapestry overlapping of McAdams’ molestation story was gritty and jittery all at once. It was clever symbolism to show them disrobing physically and figuratively and then redressing after they’ve collectively bared their souls.

It was bittersweet to witness Frank coax Jordan (Kelly Reilly) to disband her marital vows and expatriate to a covert locale despite her stubborn obstinance to remain yoked during this maelstrom of peril. Their schematic to rendezvous in two weeks with a rose in his pocket and a white dress is redolent of classic film noir.

Exit strategies abound but Frank, Ray and Ani are lockstep in their quest for vengeance. When Frank says he has “one more play” that the Russian competitors don’t know about, we anticipated a diabolical Rube Goldberg device of comeuppance for them. Unfortunately, Pizzolatto resorts to Frank jaunting around California manors and a cabin lodging with an arsenal by his side and slinging Antisemitic epithets over the phone.

Instead of a low-key switcheroo, Pizzolatto is uncharacteristically slapdash and highly predictable when Ray and Ani investigate a crew member’s house with the conveniently brandished crow’s head costume and incriminating photo development room. The problem is Pizzolatto has squandered most of the season on dead-end backstories and he neglected the overview of the Agatha Christie mystery at the center.

The indentured sex-slave ring and its victims, the railway blueprints and Paul’s closeted behavior; they’ve all evolved in a bubble of ennui. It’s also become a parlor trick of plagiarism. The exchange of a hard drive and diamonds at an airport is blatantly “influenced” by Midnight Run. By the way, why did the airport retrogress into sordid pyrotechnics? The exodus to Mexico is a melodramatic retread of Breaking Bad. Finally, The Long Good Friday is the forefather to Frank’s fall-from-grace plotline.

The audience for Season 1 loved it for its gravitas from McConaughey and Harrelson, its deontological complexity and its chilling creepiness. The virtues have disappeared because Pizzolatto miscalculated the reasons behind the plaudits. Now, instead of a haunting chase into the catacombs, he panders to the audience (those who are left) with a verboten love story, heroic martyrdom, zero ambiguity (the baby coda with Jordan and Ani) and a shoot-em’-up finale.

Perhaps, I’ve been deluding myself this season by playing devil’s advocate and falsely advocating that Pizzolatto wasn’t a one-trick pony. I’m despondent that Season 2 not only wasn’t tantamount to Season 1 but it straggled behind in belabored subplots, pointless grimness and pedestrian direction. Case in point, the Rob Zombie-esque hallucinations of Frank’s slovenly father and his foes in the desert. By the last pat minute, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t just the worst episode but it was incontrovertibly the most dissatisfying.

Rating: 1.75 out of 5 stars

Hitting an unanticipated peak last week, we are now staring down the barrel of the penultimate episode of Season 2. At this point, despite the increase in quality, I doubt I’ll be rewatching this 8-episode arc any time soon. The first half lacked the gravitas and arcane red herrings from Season 1. However, that doesn’t discount the fact that I’m enjoying it more with each layer peeled away.

One thing that is guaranteed is that this season will end with an innumerable body count. With more central centers in the crosshairs and a wider conspiracy, it’s dubious that everyone will escape unscathed. Is it just me or was Rachel McAdams channeling a bit of Clarice Starling in her ramblings about being found “in the woods”?

In keeping with the title, Nic Pizzolatto finally elucidates the audience with gumshoe details about the grants and land parcels by Anthony Chessani. Ray and Ani obviously exhibit sexual tension but Ray is sober enough to dissuade Ani from a frivolous one-night stand during his hallucinogenic-induced haze. It could be infinitesimal but I like Paul unburdening himself to his fiance Emily (Adria Arjona) about how he was “just trying to be a good man”.

By hiding their family members and loved ones in motels and other clandestine locations, the rising action to a blazing showdown between the cops and the city council is inevitable and it ingratiates us with the promise of unbridled warfare. Same goes with the debts on Frank’s clubs and how his assets are about to be seized by force from the Russian mafioso.

I adored Frank’s indignation over the prostitution ring underneath his nose with his explanation that the difference between a pimp and a whore is that “a whore can still have integrity”. If anyone questioned Vaughn’s latent ability as a “heavy”, he was completely omnipotent in the scene where he bludgeons and executes Blake just to coldly scowl at him as he slowly bleeds onto his carpet.

Frank is a murderous gangster but he endears us with his dire-straits circumstances in terms of his equity. Like the IMF, the trio has been disavowed and reduced to switching license plates to avoid detection. It’s transcendent that a ubiquitous character actor like Morse can work wonders on rather meager morsels and his tearful scene in the woods with Ani over her childhood molestation is juicy.

The lingering silence before Ani whispers “you’re not a bad man” to Ray qualifies as elegiac poetry. But Ray can’t forgive himself when he reasserts that he is despite his recent altruism. Pizzolatto’s pessimism runs deep but he has the courage of conviction for the gray areas. Other highlights include Frank looking nirvanic and relieved when he incinerates the Vinci Gardens Casino behind him and Paul’s nail-biting shootout in the tunnel.

On the lam from their departments, Pizzolatto has successfully manipulated me into submission because against-all-odds underdogs are a guilty pleasure of mine. It’s been a sizable adjustment for the audience but Season 2 is hurtling towards a brisk, but enormously enrapturing ending. This brutish wind-up toy is about to uncoil with fireworks.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5