more on Daredevil
15 Jun 2015 22:11![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
domarzione(continued from here)
I loved the physicality of the show -- and not just the fights, which were remarkable for showing the expenditure of energy and what happens after it runs out. Or, rather, not just the physical fights. Life and its cruelties wear people down on this show just as surely as the action. But what I really loved was how some of the relationships played out:
* The most compelling romance in the entire series is the villain's. The coming together of Vanessa and Wilson Fisk is so delicately handled between the two of them, with all of the awkwardness and fear that new relationships hold no matter how old you get. And once they are together, the dynamic between them -- him careful and fearful, her self-assured and unbreakable -- is different than their dynamics with everyone else, which happens in real life, but rarely on the screen where characters get flattened for simplicity. Fisk controls everything and everyone in his world and, in that context, makes plans for Vanessa, telling Wesley that her agreement doesn't matter... But when it comes down to it, Fisk doesn't tell Vanessa to do anything, let alone compel her. He asks and hopes she agrees. Vanessa doesn't compel him, either -- she supports him, she comforts him, but she doesn't control him. They are vastly different people to the rest of the world, but within their relationship, they are equals.
(Vanessa really doesn't have a single choice taken from her over the entire course of the series by anyone and many of her choices are hard ones. She is my favorite female character of the series and, as I said previously, Ayelet Zurer killed it in the role.)
* Matt and Foggy and Matt-and-Foggy and how their relationship is shown, how it is sundered, and how they go about repairing it. Matt and Foggy don't have a bromance; they're not in the flush of anything. They have a profound friendship that they rely on, that they find mutually rewarding, and that they take for granted because it has been there for so long. When it is sundered, it is not because of some new complication or because of a woman -- and the writers could have easily have made the Matt-Karen-Foggy triangle much more problematic than they did -- but instead because of lies that reframe the entirety of their history together. And we get to see their pain, the betrayer and the betrayed both reeling under the force of what has happened and not able to reach out to the one source of comfort they've always been able to rely on because right now that is the source of their pain. Their rupture isn't quickly resolved, instead it radiates out and yet even in the worst of the misery, they don't seek to cause each other more pain. Foggy's treatment of Matt, even when he is feeling most betrayed, is remarkable. He keeps Matt's secret at a cost and he continues to provide DVS commentary for Matt by reflex even after he realizes it's not necessary, which in turn Matt never points out to him. When they come back together, they agree that the status quo ante is not possible and that they must build something new instead. And they go about doing just that, a process made easier by all of the shorthand and familiarity of the old.
* Fisk and Wesley. Wesley was Fisk's major domo, but each of them called the other a friend and it was honestly meant. Wesley took liberties nobody else dared when it came to Fisk, sure of his own standing in Fisk's regard. And Fisk took Wesley's advice from wine selection to personnel management without hesitation, even posthumously. Wesley wasn't threatened by Vanessa and, considering how everyone else in Fisk's world was and how they acted upon that threat, it was a notable exception. Either he didn't think Vanessa would be a problem or he wanted Fisk's happiness above the smooth sailing of the operation and was willing to be the oil on the troubled waters caused by Fisk's churn. The act of a friend.
* Matt and Claire. Claire's arc is quietly remarkable because she does what the love interest of a hero often should do but rarely does do: she removes herself from a situation in which she knows she will only get hurt. Everything to do with Matt appeals to her and, despite her comments, she's really not put off by the danger. She comes through her ordeal like a champion, bloodied but unbowed and suitably pissed off about it. She accepts, with some disgust, that she was willing to go to a dark place for what she hoped would be a good reason. What she is not prepared to accept is that she will only ever be Matt's mistress, that it will always be an unequal relationship, and that her heart won't heal as quickly or as cleanly as her physical wounds when Matt inevitably breaks it. And so she leaves. And Matt lets her go because as much as he wants to be with her, he knows she's right and he doesn't want to hurt her, either.
* Karen and everyone. Because if you take a moment to look at it, Karen Page is the Wilson Fisk of the White Hats. She controls everyone, bending them to her will by less violent methods than Fisk, but not really to any less success. She gets Ben Urich to investigate, prodding him and then providing him and then, when all else fails, dragging him up to see Wilson Fisk's mother herself. She has Matt and Foggy completely bamboozled -- and I mean that in a generally good way. The boys (first Matt, then Matt and Foggy) lie to her about Matt's alter ego, but Karen hides everything from the true provenance of their office equipment to her kidnapping and then her killing of Wesley, telling the boys only what they need to know to do what she wants them to do. And the boys never really pick up on it -- not Foggy, who knows her better, and not Matt, whose gifts tell him more than he shows.
In return, Karen keeps her own secrets. She hides her apparently sordid past, which is her choice and her right and I praise the writers for not dredging it up in detail, at least not yet, so that we can meet and establish a relationship with the Karen Who Is without it being tainted by the Karen Who Was. But the Karen Who Is is really a force to be reckoned with, in no small part because she racks up an impressive body count from the very first episode of the series and while she feels bad about it and it affects her, she's not put off her mission in the slightest.
Things that are not relationships:
* I really, really loved Fisk telling the story of the Good Samaritan and what it stands for. Villains are the heroes of their own stories and there was Fisk re-framing himself in that story so that he is not. So that he is something else.
* I'm not thrilled about the Urichs and their arc. I thought Ben's murder was ultimately unnecessary and he could have emerged quite well as the chronicler of what will become the Defenders, a parallel to his role in the comics. I did not like Mrs. Urich's arc for the same reasons I did not love Peggy's appearance in CA:TWS -- the fragile love interest whose only moments of lucidity are dedicated to propping up her man.
* This isn't New York as it is. This isn't even really New York as it was. And I'm not sure it really felt like any New York, despite it clearly being shot here. The exterior shots were so tight that the city was almost cut out of the picture. I know Hell's Kitchen doesn't look like it needs a protector anymore, but go over to Tenth or Eleventh where it's a little less spiffied up than Eighth or Ninth -- or go up to the Bronx or out to the parts of Brooklyn where the building styles are the same and get a wide view, a shot where you can see New Yorkers and the streets and the breath and life of this city.
* There are so many remarkable women in this series. I haven’t even touched upon Madame Gao or Marci, both of whom show nothing but power and survival instincts.
I loved the physicality of the show -- and not just the fights, which were remarkable for showing the expenditure of energy and what happens after it runs out. Or, rather, not just the physical fights. Life and its cruelties wear people down on this show just as surely as the action. But what I really loved was how some of the relationships played out:
* The most compelling romance in the entire series is the villain's. The coming together of Vanessa and Wilson Fisk is so delicately handled between the two of them, with all of the awkwardness and fear that new relationships hold no matter how old you get. And once they are together, the dynamic between them -- him careful and fearful, her self-assured and unbreakable -- is different than their dynamics with everyone else, which happens in real life, but rarely on the screen where characters get flattened for simplicity. Fisk controls everything and everyone in his world and, in that context, makes plans for Vanessa, telling Wesley that her agreement doesn't matter... But when it comes down to it, Fisk doesn't tell Vanessa to do anything, let alone compel her. He asks and hopes she agrees. Vanessa doesn't compel him, either -- she supports him, she comforts him, but she doesn't control him. They are vastly different people to the rest of the world, but within their relationship, they are equals.
(Vanessa really doesn't have a single choice taken from her over the entire course of the series by anyone and many of her choices are hard ones. She is my favorite female character of the series and, as I said previously, Ayelet Zurer killed it in the role.)
* Matt and Foggy and Matt-and-Foggy and how their relationship is shown, how it is sundered, and how they go about repairing it. Matt and Foggy don't have a bromance; they're not in the flush of anything. They have a profound friendship that they rely on, that they find mutually rewarding, and that they take for granted because it has been there for so long. When it is sundered, it is not because of some new complication or because of a woman -- and the writers could have easily have made the Matt-Karen-Foggy triangle much more problematic than they did -- but instead because of lies that reframe the entirety of their history together. And we get to see their pain, the betrayer and the betrayed both reeling under the force of what has happened and not able to reach out to the one source of comfort they've always been able to rely on because right now that is the source of their pain. Their rupture isn't quickly resolved, instead it radiates out and yet even in the worst of the misery, they don't seek to cause each other more pain. Foggy's treatment of Matt, even when he is feeling most betrayed, is remarkable. He keeps Matt's secret at a cost and he continues to provide DVS commentary for Matt by reflex even after he realizes it's not necessary, which in turn Matt never points out to him. When they come back together, they agree that the status quo ante is not possible and that they must build something new instead. And they go about doing just that, a process made easier by all of the shorthand and familiarity of the old.
* Fisk and Wesley. Wesley was Fisk's major domo, but each of them called the other a friend and it was honestly meant. Wesley took liberties nobody else dared when it came to Fisk, sure of his own standing in Fisk's regard. And Fisk took Wesley's advice from wine selection to personnel management without hesitation, even posthumously. Wesley wasn't threatened by Vanessa and, considering how everyone else in Fisk's world was and how they acted upon that threat, it was a notable exception. Either he didn't think Vanessa would be a problem or he wanted Fisk's happiness above the smooth sailing of the operation and was willing to be the oil on the troubled waters caused by Fisk's churn. The act of a friend.
* Matt and Claire. Claire's arc is quietly remarkable because she does what the love interest of a hero often should do but rarely does do: she removes herself from a situation in which she knows she will only get hurt. Everything to do with Matt appeals to her and, despite her comments, she's really not put off by the danger. She comes through her ordeal like a champion, bloodied but unbowed and suitably pissed off about it. She accepts, with some disgust, that she was willing to go to a dark place for what she hoped would be a good reason. What she is not prepared to accept is that she will only ever be Matt's mistress, that it will always be an unequal relationship, and that her heart won't heal as quickly or as cleanly as her physical wounds when Matt inevitably breaks it. And so she leaves. And Matt lets her go because as much as he wants to be with her, he knows she's right and he doesn't want to hurt her, either.
* Karen and everyone. Because if you take a moment to look at it, Karen Page is the Wilson Fisk of the White Hats. She controls everyone, bending them to her will by less violent methods than Fisk, but not really to any less success. She gets Ben Urich to investigate, prodding him and then providing him and then, when all else fails, dragging him up to see Wilson Fisk's mother herself. She has Matt and Foggy completely bamboozled -- and I mean that in a generally good way. The boys (first Matt, then Matt and Foggy) lie to her about Matt's alter ego, but Karen hides everything from the true provenance of their office equipment to her kidnapping and then her killing of Wesley, telling the boys only what they need to know to do what she wants them to do. And the boys never really pick up on it -- not Foggy, who knows her better, and not Matt, whose gifts tell him more than he shows.
In return, Karen keeps her own secrets. She hides her apparently sordid past, which is her choice and her right and I praise the writers for not dredging it up in detail, at least not yet, so that we can meet and establish a relationship with the Karen Who Is without it being tainted by the Karen Who Was. But the Karen Who Is is really a force to be reckoned with, in no small part because she racks up an impressive body count from the very first episode of the series and while she feels bad about it and it affects her, she's not put off her mission in the slightest.
Things that are not relationships:
* I really, really loved Fisk telling the story of the Good Samaritan and what it stands for. Villains are the heroes of their own stories and there was Fisk re-framing himself in that story so that he is not. So that he is something else.
* I'm not thrilled about the Urichs and their arc. I thought Ben's murder was ultimately unnecessary and he could have emerged quite well as the chronicler of what will become the Defenders, a parallel to his role in the comics. I did not like Mrs. Urich's arc for the same reasons I did not love Peggy's appearance in CA:TWS -- the fragile love interest whose only moments of lucidity are dedicated to propping up her man.
* This isn't New York as it is. This isn't even really New York as it was. And I'm not sure it really felt like any New York, despite it clearly being shot here. The exterior shots were so tight that the city was almost cut out of the picture. I know Hell's Kitchen doesn't look like it needs a protector anymore, but go over to Tenth or Eleventh where it's a little less spiffied up than Eighth or Ninth -- or go up to the Bronx or out to the parts of Brooklyn where the building styles are the same and get a wide view, a shot where you can see New Yorkers and the streets and the breath and life of this city.
* There are so many remarkable women in this series. I haven’t even touched upon Madame Gao or Marci, both of whom show nothing but power and survival instincts.
