Some of my fellow NOCs and other contributors have written eloquent season reviews and critiques of Daredevil so I’ll keep this brief. I’m pretty biased with this character and while I tried to restrain some and was somewhat critical, there was a lot of praise throughout my recaps. When something that’s been a part of 2/3 of your life finally is treated correctly, it can be quite the emotional ride. Congrats to Netflix for this, their greatest and most-watched original series. Netflix and Marvel: the new Kingpins. Best superhero show? Yes. Best Marvel property? Yes. Best show, movie, anything a camera has filmed? Shit, probably. Sure. Yes.

What I really want to say is this: five, even two years ago, if anyone was talking about a superhero show for its acting, I laughed and went on the attack. Save it for the Teen Choice Awards. But let’s be real: at this point, if Vincent D’Onofrio doesn’t at least get an Emmy nomination — let alone the win — Hollywood should burn. Oh right, it burns anyway.

The depth, power, and vulnerability he has brought to Wilson Fisk has been a game changer. The traditional “villain” from the comics in many ways overshadowed the hero and even made us question whether he himself was the hero. He deserves to be recognized, and yeah, Steven DeKnight and crew do too. We now have our “before Daredevil, after Daredevil” lens and benchmark.

I can’t wait for the Daredevil universe to cross into the greater MCU. It’s gonna happen, just a question of when. Spidey is back home. We all know The Kingpin regularly goes after the webslinger and who wouldn’t want to see D’Onofrio’s Fisk go after Spidey?! As for Charlie Cox, it may be too late for Civil War, but there was that potential Easter Egg behind him at the station saying “You don’t have to reveal your identity to help solve violent crimes.”

It gets a little weird in the comic due to the Danny Rand-as-Daredevil messiness, but who knows? Scripts can be fluid.

There are some folks out there that even theorize that Fisk’s “Symphony of Destruction,” as I called it, was taken straight from the “Civil War” comic and his subsequent pinning it on the evil masked vigilante is the entire set-up for the Civil War film. A stretch, but it also sounds plausible. I don’t know.

There were rumors of Jason Statham attached to playing Bullseye for season two that broke down and had him throwing some digs Marvel’s way. Okay man, be mad at green screens, but this isn’t The Avengers. At least attack the correct property. Oh, and Marvel: get your hands on Mark Dacascos already. If not for Bullseye, for Iron Fist. Make that shit happen. Interestingly timed, as that bad news began to fade, within days Marvel broke the news of The Walking Dead’s Jon Bernthal joining the cast and coming into Season 2 as The Punisher. The fucking Punisher!

Apparently new showrunner Marco Ramirez (who was a producer in this first season) is even informally calling it “Daredevil vs. The Punisher.” Considering how violent this first season was, with The Punisher involved, they’re going to have to take it to another level. Let that sink in.

This being the Nerds of Color, I do have my concerns. First and foremost: oh where, oh where have our POC gone? Oh where, oh where, could they be? Let’s review. She’ll be back, but for now, Claire is gone. Ben is dead. The Hand loves black magic and resurrection, but for now, Nobu is dead. Gao will be back to likely drive Iron Fist nuts, but again, she’s also long gone. Well, fuck. You weren’t supposed to follow Fisk’s gentrification development plans with casting Netflix!

Related, as I’ve alluded to, one way or another, we’re headed to Japan, or The Hand is coming to Hell’s Kitchen, or maybe both in season two. By the way, a POC actress for Elektra is great. Elodie Yung was marveilleuse in District B13.

They should have already laid some of the groundwork with a flashback or two for Nobu, as I’ve previously mentioned. It makes me nervous on one hand (ha), but at the same time, I’m hopeful. The showrunners should take the opportunity to right the wrongs with the development of the Asian characters and stay away from the stereotypes and give them depth and complexity like everyone else. Even the Russians got theirs. For more Daredevil Season Two plot speculations, check out my comrades over at the MCU Exchange where they break a lot more down and make me smile for days with such ideas taking off in my head.

My final concern is that with Daredevil having been such a revolutionary success and setting the bar in the stratosphere, how do Netflix and Marvel move, not just with the second season, but with the rest of The Defenders? I can hear the sweet voice of the late Freddy Mercury: “Pressure. Pushing down on me, pushing down on you, no man ask for. Under pressure.”

I was so in awe of what I was watching, it took an episode to really start to pay attention. Therefore, as I re-watch, I noticed a few Devil in the Details I missed from episode one, “Into the Ring,” the first time:

• The truck that spills the radioactive crap has a Rand Corp logo. As in, Danny Rand aka Iron Fist.

• I remember as a kid hearing one of the creators of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles say they picked up the turtle’s mutant origin idea from the accident in Daredevil.
• Okay, this one was another Netflix pause action, but one of the barrels of shit has 0464XXXX on it. Or, April 4th, 1964, the very first Daredevil comic. Clever.