Daredevil: Review: Series 1 Episode 2: Cut Man

Matt walks into traps as Foggy and Karen spend a night together…

If these two episodes were all we had of the new Daredevil, I’d have been delighted, but they’re simply whetting the appetite! To an extent, this does feel like the second half of a pilot episode, with some neat circling from the opening scenes of the first episode to the end of the second, with one Murdock kneeling over the supine body of the other. I’m glad that the Battling Jack Murdock backstory has been incorporated into the story this quickly, and that it’s been handled so well.

After the larger scale of the story in the opening episode, this feels much more personal: a lot of the story focuses on the interaction between Charlie Cox’s Matt and Rosario Dawson’s Claire, as she struggles to understand why the masked man who has been found in a dumpster is so keen to return to the fray. It transpires Claire has already heard of Matt’s actions, and there’s often a nice black humour in their conversation. (References to Matt as Mike will bring back memories for some Marvel fans too…)

That’s counterpointed with Foggy and Karen’s bar-hopping, and general avoidance of the central problem Karen is facing – but which to an extent they face. Eldon Henson and Deborah Ann Wolf spark well off each other in these scenes, even if they’re being played mainly for comic relief.

As with the opener, the fighting is far more realistic than we’re used to from Marvel’s TV work to date – the shots of Matt desperately catching a moment or two’s respite from the fray give the scenes an edge that’s lacking elsewhere.

Verdict: Smaller scale but no less effective. 8/10

Paul Simpson