Do note that this is a full review of Episodes 1-13 of Daredevil’s second season. The following review will not avoid spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the full 13-episode run, do be warned.

As Daredevil ended its second season, I felt conflicted, even moreso than I did after Season 1 of Daredevil or Jessica Jones ended. This isn’t because everything didn’t work, but it’s because the parts that did work, worked really well; but the parts that didn’t work, really dragged the second season down.

The Punisher is obviously going to be a focal point of the second season and thus, this review. I’ll say that for the most part, Frank Castle works. I had some minor issues with the re-telling of his origin story, but it didn’t bother me as much as I expected. The Punisher takes up around 1/3 to ½ of the season in terms of being the primary tale. This worked for me as the audience and the characters became more aware of Frank’s motives and you started to understand him as a character.

However once the story shifts to The Hand and Elektra, the show places Punisher aside, and his story becomes that of an unnecessary subplot. This isn’t to say I didn’t like Punisher’s story, but the show places so much weight on his character in the first bit, only to then do very little with him aside from tie up loose ends that otherwise could’ve been more efficiently handled. With that said, for all my complaints with regards to how the character was handled, they certainly leave him in a good place to return to the MCU in some capacity.

As I mentioned, the show drifts away from the story of The Punisher to return to Stick and his ‘War’ he mentioned during Season 1. If you read my original review you no doubt remember my excitement to see where Stick’s ‘War’ would go in Season 2. While The Punisher’s story was fine, the use of The Hand and the return of Nobu was my favourite part of this season. I thought it was clever to use Elektra as the Macguffin, and it added a fun dynamic to the existing relationship between Matt and Elektra. Which in terms of adapting from the comics, was pretty accurate and I enjoyed the ‘love-hate’ relationship the two have.

It’s odd that after all this time, we still don’t know what ‘Black Sky’ does or overall is aside from it being something The Hand worship. Undoubtedly we’ll see The Hand and Elektra return for The Defenders.

Many of the side characters return this season. Kingpin returns albeit briefly, and while it’s brief, there’s definitely seeds planted for Season 3, I’d imagine. I think that Wilson Fisk will return for Daredevil Season 3 and that it’ll be an adaption of Born Again.

Foggy and Karen return this season, and while Karen is primarily held up with The Punisher; Foggy essentially just whines and complains all season that Matt’s never there. A valid point, but Foggy essentially watches their friendship fall apart then he just shrugs it off as he goes on to a better job. Karen too goes to work for the New York Bulletin. I like what the show’s doing with Karen’s character. She was never the strongest character in the comics, but it’s great to see that they’ve made her essentially the spiritual successor to Ben Urich.

My favourite moment of the series was Daredevil getting his Billy Clubs. Overall a fun scene (in fact I really enjoyed Melvin's role this season).

While I think the show put too much emphasis on keeping Punisher around a bit too long, his inclusion is an exciting one. The action scenes were not only intense but amazing to see unfold. Still, for all the great fight scenes, my problems with these Marvel-Netflix shows is writing; the issues weren’t as prevalent in Daredevil’s first season, but in the second season it seems like the show lost focus and while still a very good show, just was not as fine tuned as I know it can be.

75,000/100,000 Uncle Joey’s