Daredevil season 2 – The good the bad and the ugly.

So Daredevil season 2 just dropped and like any Netflix series I watched the entire thing in one single sitting. This is in itself not a good idea as the series weigh in at a decent 13 episodes. But it also tend to make one a tad bit more critical as the series goes on.

Now the story so far goes thusly. (Spoilers… And more spoilers)

Matt Murdoc is a bland lawyer that run a kind of pro-bono practice with his law school buddy Foggy Nelson. Unbeknownst to Foggy Matt has super senses that he gained as a child after being splashed with chemicals… because that is a thing… when he saved an elderly man. Now as an adult he put these special skills to use to meet out vigilante justice on the people who the legal system cannot. During the first season we get to know Matt, Foggy and their first customer turned secretary Karen Page as they protect New York´s Hell´s Kitchen both in court and on the streets. The conflict focuses as the criminal and political power player Wilson Fisk makes his presence known putting him and Matt on a collision course. This whole affair resolves with Matt exposing his second life to Foggy and Fisk ending up behind bars. Setting the stage for season two.

In season two we find Matt and the gang pretty much where we left them last time… Just about a year later. With Matt doing his dance of being a sort of lawyer at day and fearless vigilante at night a new player enters the vigilante scene by turning several gang in the city in to Swiss cheese. And while Foggy and Karen go to war against the district attorney over first a survivor of the gang massacre and then later the Punisher aka Frank Castle as his repeated murders brought him in to conflict with Daredevil. Then the story goes completely off the rail... In short order we find out that Castle was a victim of a failed drug bust that caused his family to be gunned down, the DA office covered it up for political reasons, his former CO being a drug lord and that his entire war was based on a misunderstanding. All in all he had a very bad time. Add to this mess that Matt is cutting out on his duties as lawyer to run around with his ex-girlfriend who just happen to be an assassin as she try to take down a bunch of honest to god ninjas. In the end nothing get resolved and anyone familiar with Electra and her story from the comics should know how that storyline ends.

This season of Daredevil seems rushed, like they had a handful of episodes planned but then had to fill in the rest of the story… Maybe not as they went but it felt rushed. The Frank Castle storyline feels solid and apart from the weird twist on the end was well paced. The Electra story otoh felt slapped on and had some serious pacing issues. Now with that said the overall impression is that Daredevil season 2 still make for some really good TV but that it does not really live up to the previous season or Jessica Jones. We will have to see how the Netflix marvel series holds up as we move forward in to Luke Cage and beyond.

So my final recommendation is to watch it but make sure to spread it out over some time to counteract the dip in the middle of the season. 

They killed it. Hitman chapter 1.

First off… the royal we have given up on regular updates. Too much going on right now with trying to find a new job and some other side projects. Mondays will remain the day for updates. We will keep you updated…. Now on to the topic of the week.

As someone who tend to lean on the side of click bait…. This was perhaps the most click baited title I have done so far.

But I feel it is ok, especially as I more or less predicted doom and gloom for the Hitman series with them going episodic. Seems like I will have to eat crow. The first episode is really solid and a nice nod back to the classic hitman formula of sandbox playground. An open level and you are left to your own devices as to how you like to solve the mission. A fantastic tangle of AI interactions and triggers that if left to their own might seem predictable but once you start poking around your actions causes a ripple effect that in turn change the playing field.

Now this is just the first episode. The one that one can assume have been in development for the longest time but it also set a good bar for the following maps to hit. Should they reach said bar the game will most likely land on many GoTY lists as an example of how to do episodic content the right way outside of a TellTale game. Should they not… At least the starter pack will be worth the 15 bucks it cost and you can keep on replaying that trying to find the most creative ways of breaking the game.

So the game… It is for all intents and purposes a Hitman game, you are bald, people need to be stuffed in to boxes, carrying a gun in the open is bad and so on. New or at least new-ish is the soft version of your super-assassin sense. The game has a mode you can use that track information you see and hear and paint you guideline to follow. This can ofc be turned off if you like to go in old school. This way the game remains open to veterans and newcomers alike.

But that is all there is right now. I will return and make a more in-depth review of the game once all the parts are out and we can see how it meshed together. But for now I can absolutely recommend the starter edition as it stands on its own very well.