I promised myself I'd try and pace myself with this. Originally, I said I'd only watch one episode a night. The hope being I could space it out until Age of Ultron but the minimum was at least two weeks. At a minimum, I said I'd write a review after each episode. After episode one, that alone might be a stretch. But let's try it (commenting without looking at the thread because it's cutting down on valuable show-watching time). So I'll make a Manhattan and get started. As an aside, a Manhattan is going to be my unofficial drink of Daredevil. For one, it's a whiskey drink and a non-mixer drink, which feels more like a traditional lawyer drink (in reality, lawyers learned to drink in Law School, so they'll drink anything). Second, Manhattan is the home of Daredevil. Third, the touch of rose can mirror his red final costume (hopefully). I took notes because I realize I'm not going to remember everything. The goal is to make those notes into something coherent (I've been writing Daredevil comic reviews and I usually stop to comment as I go, but there's no way this is happening here).
The opening works well. While I probably would have preferred to build up to it a bit (especially echoing MWOF by Matt being made fun of by being called Daredevil prior to that), I think the opening with the "parental trouble instinct" a la Broadchurch in full effect was quite good. Certainly, the vision fading away was quite powerful. I hope they return to that (maybe with Matt in a hospital bed and a nurse visiting him). The confession worked. They had a good compromise of Guardian Devil and the criticism of that. Matt identifies himself as a Catholic, but it's been a long time since he had gone (in fact, his grandmother rather than his father being the true Catholic rings true to my memory being raised Catholic). The segue to his father was wonderful. I figure we'll return to this conversation.
The first fight was awesome. Like holy Jesus it was awesome. I almost stopped watching to just squeel about how great it was. It's clear it's drawn heavily from Man Without Fear (even the parts that were unusually grim for Marvel with human trafficking), but it's simplified and to the point. More importantly, it's a good mix of brutal fighting and acrobatic fighting; combining all styles Daredevil is known for. It has all the tricks, including the billy club throw. Good use of sound, although it's much easier to dodge a gun when he's unnecessarily cocking it every single time. The second fight with the knife did a better job with sound and dodging there.
The characters - I'm loving Foggy. He does a wonderful job of being goofy and likable while still seeming reasonably competent (for being a lawyer for seven hours). Like his conversation with the cop (when you hang up a shingle, you need to work all angles). I'm with Foggy on the innocent/guilty debate, but I'm curious to see how they handle that going forward. I love the Melvin Potter insanity angle in the comics. I hope they explore that, since it's a client who did technically do what he's accused of. Maybe they could have Foggy convince Matt that this counts under his rules. When Foggy says that Matt always finds the beautiful women and it's trouble for him, I wonder if that's an Elektra reference.
I like the take on Karen. It does a good job of drawing them into the mystery and the actress really sells her torment (the ligature marks help too). I will do my usual PSA that you should never sleep with a client, but I'll not dwell on it. The legal aspects (and strategic) aspects are interesting to discuss, but I won't dwell on it right now. Suffice it to say, for a murder case, they were quite lucky. But there were a lot of things not adding up, which helped. I do like that they mentioned Brady material (the duty of prosecutors to disclose information helpful to the defense) without needing to explain it to the audience (since both characters were already familiar with it). It essentially operated as technobabble for lawyers but was more or less accurate.
I think it's obvious Wesley is going to be awesome, just from his first scene. He is a mix of creepy and disciplined. He's just a businessman, but in a brutal business. But he's got a fun sarcastic side. Leeland Owlsley isn't as good, but I love the other side of superheroes he brings up. It appears the Avengers are good for business. Let's see how Daredevil goes. I also loved the Chechnyan kidnap preschool line.
Other stray thoughts:
It's raining a lot. Let's see if that impacts things like in the comics. Loved the knife fight, glad the guy choked by the chain didn't die, I'd like to think the people manufacturing heroin (cocaine?) were hired because they were blind rather than blinded. Finally, when Matt said "it's easy when you're client is innocent": No it isn't. It's really, friggin' hard. It's so stressful (I don't like anyone getting convicted when the case isn't proven, but it's a feeling of sadness rather than anger if an innocent person is found guilty).
Overall, it was great. I can't believe I've spent this long writing, I need to get back to watching.