Daredevil

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Watching season 3.

Is the character Ray Nedeem with the FBI really that contemptible, like as a character I guess? He constantly gets chewed out by his wife for not being upfront with her. DA Tower pushes for his prosecution despite testimony. I mean all of this involves him coming to grips with his condemning, but was he in much of a position to do otherwise with Fisk's extortion? Without him wising up, the outcome would have turned out a lot worse, and it also seems like his wife was being a bit hard on him considering his circumstance. She doesn't really know about Fisk granted, but comes off at least a little inconsiderate of the gravity of his situation.

[Jonathan101]

Yeah, I was a little put off by how his wife reacted to him a bit.

He's kind of a de-composite character, since the whole things about Fisk secretly messing with his finances and career happened to Matt in the actual comic, but that wouldn't make sense in the set up they had in this season, where Matt is thought dead and has a rather different set of problems on hand.

So that plus diversity is why that character exists- he is well-acted and written, but in the end he's mostly there to move the plot along and is kind of unnecessary in the grand scheme. Plus I found the whole idea of Fisk deciding that his FBI detail will be his bodyguards and controlling them through blackmail and fear kind of stupid on his part, and just another knock against this iteration of the character vs the comics, where he is less complex perhaps but on the flip-side much more competent.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well he is very vital to the plot. So useless just seems like maybe a funny word to use. His circumstance involving Fisk is pretty well written, but his competence comes off as kind of generic. His promotion is just objectified fodder for Fisk's manipulation, and he never shows to be that effective as an agent. Completely contrary to Poindexter whose life is conversely hollow, yet he comes off as the most competent character. I mean they even wrote Nadeem to be bumbling when he's investigating Karen and Foggy. It serves more to Fisk's strength as a character instead of him.

And that's what gets to me about his personal redemption. He owns up to it on several different fronts, but if anything he was just kinda passive and overwhelmed in an understanding way. Seems like a allegory for Job who was brought up in the season.

[Jonathan101]

I said "unnecessary", not "useless".

I don't think he's especially important to the plot to be honest- if he turned the Fisk assignment down, or he was hit by a car crossing the street or whatever, another FBI agent Fisk had dirt on would have been sent instead, and ultimately I think they still would have found a way to bring Fisk down. And he's only important to the story arc of this season, not to the show as a whole, and I do somewhat resent that Fisk ends up going through a fairly similar arc to season 1- starts off acting shy and vulnerable, gradually reveals he's been playing everyone an gets more confident and vicious over time, gets distracted by his love for Vanessa, then ends up in jail...again. Nadeem is just the cog that spins the Fisk wheel.

I guess you are trying to say that he never really needed to be "redeemed" even if the story made it out that way, since he doesn't exactly have any good options in his situation even though everyone guilt trips him...yes, I agree with that. He's just a pretty tragic victim of all of this.

As to his generic competence...well, it's established that he was being denied promotion on purpose to soften him up for Fisk, plus he's going through engineered money problems (though you'd think a Fed would smell a rat about this), so it's understandable that we aren't really seeing him at his best given how much stress he's under. In fact I think it's also mentioned that he's been denied a lot of good assignments that would let him do impressive stuff as well, so his middling competence is also written in.

Comparing him to Dex is a little unfair though, since Dec is exceptional even by FBI standards and cleanly comparable to Daredevil himself.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I said "unnecessary", not "useless".

Oh. apologies really.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Comparing him to Sex is a little unfair though, since Dec is exceptional even by FBI standards and cleanly comparable to Daredevil himself.

I'm not sure if I'm coming off unfair, it's just peculiar as I'm saying. They're like a yin yang to each other, but it seems to come at the expense of Nadeem as far as character arc over the season.

I don't think he's especially important to the plot to be honest- if he turned the Fisk assignment down, or he was hit by a car crossing the street or whatever, another FBI agent Fisk had dirt on would have been sent instead, and ultimately I think they still would have found a way to bring Fisk down. And he's only important to the story arc of this season, not to the show as a whole, and I do somewhat resent that Fisk ends up going through a fairly similar arc to season 1- starts off acting shy and vulnerable, gradually reveals he's been playing everyone an gets more confident and vicious over time, gets distracted by his love for Vanessa, then ends up in jail...again. Nadeem is just the cog that spins the Fisk wheel.

That's what I mean by an objectified character in that it serves Fisk's character stronger than his own. And that's what I was thinking about him being tied to this season alone. If it was Mahoney or something then it would have more weight to it I think.

Hell maybe you could have had all this stuff happen to Tower since he mostly comes across as a deadweight for Foggy to scapegoat.

As to his generic competence...well, it's established that he was being denied promotion on purpose to soften him up for Fisk, plus he's going through engineered money problems (though you'd think a Fed would smell a rat about this), so it's understandable that we aren't really seeing him at his best given how much stress he's under. In fact I think it's also mentioned that he's been denied a lot of good assignments that would let him do impressive stuff as well, so his middling competence is also written in.

And just again, that's what I meant by his circumstance being written well. I totally feel for his premise. And it's serves both Fisk's manipulation AND Nadeem's sensibilities very well. Very well defined initially. Though he finally gets a promotion 'cause it falls in his lap. It's not really because he's ambitious in his methods or anything he just takes the case. I suppose they might have had to do that because it's all part of Fisk's plan. But being a close pal of Dex, they could have spent more time establishing that they were close by like showing them work together or something, like in the flashback episode of Punisher 1 with Russo and Castle.

Also though I liked how Mahoney's distrust for feds is transcribed for his character in Punisher 2. He really doesn't trust Madani in that.

[bronnt]

Bah. I was all set to dive into this discussion, and then quickly realized it had spoilers for episodes I haven't watched yet. I'll have to pin this and come back to it in a couple days, once I finish the season.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Bah. I was all set to dive into this discussion, and then quickly realized it had spoilers for episodes I haven't watched yet. I'll have to pin this and come back to it in a couple days, once I finish the season.

Oh dang, that's not a fun time for anyone.

Anyways you got any thoughts on it as is? I am highly trained in the art of spoiler-free discussion.

[bronnt]

So, okay, I'm only 5 episodes in to season 3 right now. At some point I'll probably binge and get most of the rest out of the way, but there's still some room for initial thoughts.

I think, so far, it's not on par with season 1, just like season 2 wasn't quite there. Though I think it's much more focused than season 2, where the plot seemed meander without having a stream line from start to end with the season.

The guy playing Agent Nadeem, I really like his performance. I'm not intimately familiar with the comics, so I don't know if he's a character from there, but he's giving me a lot to latch onto even though I have no idea where his arc is going.

I like that they're connecting back to some of the stuff in Season 1, and in fact, I think it's good show design that they let that stuff breathe for a couple of years before now they're getting back to it. What I don't like is the heavy focus on Fisk himself, since I hate how villains can sometime continue to live on past their uselessness. Also, the stuff where Matt is hallucinating Fisk talking to him just didn't strike me very well-it's reminiscent of Killgrave talking to Jessica Jones via hallucinations. THAT was done better since it was a villain who had a very personal relationship with her. Fisk and Daredevil actually had very little personal contact, and I feel if Matt should be hallucinating someone berating him about his choices, it should be Stick or Elektra, people who he actually knew and had relationships with. I don't know if that stuff continues on in the season, though, since it seemed to be mostly the third episode.

Episode 4 had that really long one-shot fight scene which is like a staple for this series now. It's less well done than it was in season 1. In season 1, it seemed to have the purpose of grounding things and really bringing you into the environment about how gritty and brutal this is. At this point, doing it is redundant, so instead it looks like showing off, and I'm just sitting there wondering about how much it probably cost since they had multiple scene transitions in the breadth of one single shot. Instead of bringing me into the story, it took me out of it.

Also, as someone not intimately familiar with the comics (a passing familiarity with most marvel properties is all I'll boast), it was just Episode 5 when I finally realized who Agent Poindexter is.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I didn't care for the hallucinations (in either shows). I've seen the season at least several times by now and I can't really pick up on if it's influencing Matt or really showing me anything I don't already know about him at this point. There's plenty of reason to be scared of Fisk's relocation and his manipulation, and I didn't feel this enhanced it really.

You're kind of right about them not really having the most intimate relationship, but based on their several exchanges in the last seasons, it was enough to compile with his manipulative fashion.

What I got from watching this extensive fight scene was really entrenched and gloomy dramatics. He had to dig his way out while drugged and by the time the Armenians are about to get him out I was convinced it was a legit prison riot for the limited production we saw. The wailing sirens in syncopation with the music when he gets outside just seemed like a really freshly serious take for this show.