Writer: Joe
Pokaski and Marco Ramirez
Director: Guy
Ferland
As we advance towards the mid-season point it
is time to take stock, not just for an audience but for the writers, directors,
and actors involved in the show but more importantly;
the characters. Every television show
with aspirations of detailing a season long narrative thread reaches an episode
when exploration recedes in favour of exposition so that gears can be changed,
audiences refreshed and characters enlightened.
24 over its eight days and one
half day (for good behaviour) had some truly remarkable “broom closet” episodes
–or episodes in which the central character was either trapped or limited in
mobility therefore forcing them to further the narrative through means other
than action.
In Guy Ferland (Sons of Anarchy, The Shield,
The Walking Dead and Homeland), Daredevil has a director skilled at delivering the long-haul goal
line passes that allow the show to switch gears, refine direction and do so in
a way that’s entertaining and thrilling.
Similarly Pokaski (Heroes) and
Ramirez’s (Orange is the New Black)
script has a delicate touch that prevents the exposition from becoming
pedestrian. A good pilot is essential to
get show green lit, but a great “broom closet” episode is vital to keep an audience
until the final fade-out and thus guarantee a second season. Condemned
is that “broom closet” episode.

They say the most difficult thing to shoot is
talking heads, primarily because there’s only so many ways you can frame two
guys talking before it stops being interesting.
Ferland’s experience on several long running series gives Daredevil 1.06 the collective skills
gained in creating an almost perfect visual story. As Matt and Vlad find themselves bunkered in
and forced to descend into the depths of the city we’re struck by how
restricted our field of vision is. The
use of heavy-set shadows around the parameter of the mise-en-shot encases the
two (newly aligned) characters within a fading spotlight. The use of handheld camera stitches the
audience into the fabric of the episode in a way that conjures a voyeuristic
claustrophobia from deep within us. This
is real fight or flight stuff, only we’re tethered to these characters. Condemned men in a condemned building, in a
condemned part of town, in an ailing city.
Could the shadows get any thicker?
What works incredibly well in
this scenario is Matt. More
specifically, what we know about Matt.
As our vision narrows inside the shadowy crypt within Hell’s Kitchen,
Matt’s only increases. As our heart rate
increases, his decreases. He gets calmer
in moments of high pressure. He sees clearer
in the stilled darkness and it is these qualities that Vlad sees in him, and
wanting revenge for his brother, shares the information on how to hit Fisk
where it hurts –his money… or more specifically, his money-man.
Bob Gunton (as Leland Owlsley) is perhaps the
finest piece of support casting there’s been on television. He has played a similar kind of character
before, in Shawshank Redemption, but
what you get with Gunton’s portrayal is the representation of everything that
Wilson Fisk is not. A representation of
the New York of old, the New York he’s determined to tear down. There’s an almost gentlemanly way to Leland
and the way he does business which is charming.
That’s not to say he’s not as dangerous as Fisk, he is. He hasn’t survived this long in his line of
work without getting dirt under his fingernails but where Fisk will smash your
head in with a car door; Leland will find other ways to cripple you… largely
financial. He’s the old guard who are
being shepherded from the top table to a fold out by the kitchen and his
contempt for it, and Fisk, and Wesley is beautifully played and underpinned not
just by his dialogue but his pacing. It’s
where in the sentence he takes a breath, how appropriately timed his
interjections are. He’s never surface aggressive
but he’s a spitting cobra in his own way.
What they did with Owlsley is great.
In comic book form The Owl had elements of his
villainy that were interesting, certainly until the arrival of Kingpin and
Bullseye he was the most complete villain Horn Head was pitched against (sorry
Leapfrog) but there were elements to him that were problematic; namely the
theatricality of his appearance. In
pairing him back the show-runners have given the underworld a rich, astute,
string-puller who also serves as an example of how things were. Those ways are gone now, condemned to the
aging and discarded newspapers.
0 comments:
Post a Comment