It really did pretty much everything right. It got the action right. It got the characters right. It got the romance right. It was dramatic and effective in its twists and turns. Where it goes with characters like the Russian are places that feel fresh and alive and not generic television plotting. In fact, it really reminded me of the first season of Breaking Bad. When you get to the second or third episode and it goes into the situation of Crazy-8... it feels surprising and unexpected and dramatically gripping. You're caught off guard because it doesn't go through the expected motions, and there's nothing to do but watch with bated breath and see exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes. That's exactly the same way I felt about this first season of Daredevil. You don't know what's going to happen and you don't know how the characters will react and deal with it. That's a treasure. Even with a character that could've been a cheap caricature like Marci, the show goes and shows that no, it can elevate that past your expectations and refuse to take the easy road. Instead of being a throwaway gag, Marci turns into a real person who has reactions and feelings and something beyond the shallow exterior. It's these little things that add up and really make you appreciate the deft execution of this show.

The producers said they were inspired by the Bourne films, and that's completely evident right from the beginning. The hired assassin that tries to get Karen, as well as the bowling alley hitman, are completely analogous to the various "assets" that go hunting after Bourne. It's okay though, because when you really think about it... was Nuke from Miller's "Born Again" really all that different from the superhuman Bourne "assets?"

With Daredevil, it gave us Marvel's best supervillain in the Kingpin. It probably gave us Marvel's best romantic interest in Karen Page. It's given us the best realization of a Marvel setting. The Hell's Kitchen depicted in this show wholly does justice to the Hell's Kitchen that we've seen from Miller and other acclaimed DD writers. It is the suffocating cesspool of corruption that we read about. It does feel like the Kingpin is a grand puppetmaster pulling on strings, or a big fat spider, sitting at the center of a tremendous web of crime and graft and everything unsavory you can imagine. Gradually through the season, the entire landscape somehow morphs from a brightly lit New York into one long trail of corpses leading up to Wilson Fisk's penthouse. That's the Hell's Kitchen that we know from the comics, the one that Miller so marvelously crafted with his narrative power. Even in great past superhero movies like Nolan's TDK... we're told about the police corruption, but we never really see it. It's not encompassing and enveloping the way it is here. It doesn't wallow in it the way that Daredevil does. Daredevil goes and shows you exactly why you shouldn't utter the Kingpin's name. It shows you why people are afraid, and how far the Kingpin's reach is.

Well, okay... so they didn't get the red Daredevil costume right. They botched that one. But that's pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Marathoning Daredevil over a weekend was truly one of the most enjoyable and impactful entertainment experiences of the last couple years.