- TV Show
It’s no secret that most superheroes are only as interesting as the foils that the writers place opposite them. Across the two seasons, Daredevil has been at its best when the antagonists are at their best. What is season 1 without Vincent D’Onofrio? Season 2 hit a high point just as Jon Bernthal was given some room to brood as Frank Castle. And now we come to Elektra as played by Elodie Yung. She’s intelligent, dangerous, more than a little psychotic, and brilliant across from Charlie Cox.
One of the biggest disappointments about The Punisher so far was how long it took for the character to catch up with Bernthal’s potential. Daredevil waited until the end of his first arc to give his character any depth beyond I’m like you, but I also kill people. How does that affect Matt? He’s already made up his mind about how he fights crime and has more or less fully matured as a hero. There’s no real philosophical danger there.
Elektra, on the other hand, has a point of entry into Matt’s psyche. She can work secrets out of him that he hasn’t told anyone else (and also convince him into some slow-motion boxing ring sexy time). That edge is enough to slip an emotional sai through the cracks in his armor. The flashback sequence was able to succeed where most fail because of these entanglement. With that kind of look back into a character’s history, it’s difficult to establish a sense of “What’s going to happen?” We know where the character is six months or five years later, so suspense is usually a moot point. On top of being a first-rate twist, Matt’s reunion with Roscoe Sweeney, however, was filled with uncertainty. This is Matt before Daredevil, before guidelines were established. He could have killed Roscoe for all we knew, and Elektra would have been responsible. That is what an interesting and well written supporting character can do.
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But it’s not just her relation to Matt that makes Elektra exciting. A spoiled rich girl who has taken her boredom and ennui to murderous and psychotic ends is such a compelling character in her own right. Granted, I’m one full episode into her presence on the show, but even in that short amount of time, she’s distinguished herself as one of the most electric (sorry) personalities in the Netflix-Marvel universe, basically the opposite of Robyn from Jessica Jones.
The biggest drawback from all of this, however, is that Elektra might belong to a better, tighter show. Obviously, positioning her as a contrast to Karen and the kind of romantic life that Matt may no longer have access to is a purposeful move on the part of the writers, but there’s such a clear stratification between the characters that can thrill us by simply pulling up a mask and — I’ll just say it — Foggy.
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