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An Ode to Frankenstein (2025)

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : November 12, 2025

God bless the geeks and the freaks.

After all, they are who we have to thank for what I am considering one of the best adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein EVER. Now, I don’t want to Get Out this movie (aka overhype it so much that the very sight of its poster and the very utterance of its name pisses me the fuck off to no end), but I do want to give this movie every flower it deserves on its well-made grave. I know nobody cares, but I just have to take an aside to gush about this film particularly because it was a long time coming and it did not disappoint. Anyone that knows me knows I was heartbroken when initially, Universal approached Guillermo del Toro about directing a new line of monster movies, but the time commitment and the potential lack of creative control meant he turned it down. I am so very glad I live in the timeline where they managed to hand him a Universal movie monster, and not just any single one, but probably the one he understands the most as a lover of monsters. I promise I’ll try to say something worth reading while I try to discuss why I enjoyed the film so much as someone that writes books and movies (Note: I started writing screenplays in 2024; done with one, working on a second, and will begin two or more in 2026, so cross your fingers for me, darlings!)

As such, I will be spoiling the entirety of the novel and the new del Toro adaptation, so if you wanna go in unspoiled, watch it, then pop back in here. Spoiler warning for everything below!

I think what I want to talk about enough to bother you all with a blog post is that I am so delighted to be right that del Toro’s changes to the story all were changes that I not only like, but appreciate. I usually am a bit wary of anytime there are large differences between a book and an adaptation, but del Toro is arguably my favorite director of all-time (no offense, Mr. Nolan, but you lost me so fucking hard with Tenet that it’s crazy) because he understands story and character on such a wonderful level. I know that making movies is a business and so a lot of these decisions are made for money reasons, but my favorite thing about del Toro is that everything he makes has his vision in it. And del Toro’s vision is so clear and so concise because he gives a shit about story and character. I love the simple care he puts into making you follow someone’s journey, no matter how dark or violent or scary, and it ends up weaving in such elements of beauty that I’m always left with a sigh of wistful relief when I see his films, and this one is no different.

To avoid this becoming a twenty page gush-fest, I’ll focus on two areas that I think are why this film is not only important, but why I enjoyed it so much.

First, let’s talk about the changes to the story that I truly think added so much to an already great book.

For anyone that’s been out of a classroom for a long time or isn’t an avid reader, I’m sure you probably either only know some of the basic plot of the novel or you’ve seen the famous Boris Karloff version. What I really love is that del Toro was able to capture, in my opinion, the best of those three worlds.

The Karloff version is the one most people know that introduced the idea of electrical instruments or a combination of chemical and electrical reactions to reanimate the Creature. The monster is also never referred to as Frankenstein in the Karloff version, but the people mistook the movie to mean it was his name, so that also was something del Toro and other adaptations have had to correct over the years. Karloff’s version is also the one with the disabled assistant named Fritz; Fritz was created for the stage play version of the story, and he is not in the novel, and so he’s not in del Toro’s version nor is he actually Igor, who was made popular by one of the sequels to the movie. The Karloff version also had the Creature have little to no speech development and remained basically childlike except in fits of rage or fear, and that is probably the largest departure between the Karloff version and the novel.

The places where all three intersect are interesting. Del Toro has the Creature intelligent and learning, same as the book, but he takes the chemical and electrical aesthetic from the Karloff movies to use for how Victor Frankenstein creates the Creature, which is not specified by method in the novel. I really enjoyed how he found a way to nod to Karloff version that made this story a household name and helped movie monsters leap forward in how they were written and acted.

The first change I want to talk about is the decision to switch Victor’s best friend Henry to his younger brother. This change I truly liked, but I think it was just a bit underdeveloped compared to what else I’d have liked to have seen. It gives us this really nice amount of underlying tension, as you see his brother Henry is very soft spoken and normal, whereas Victor is loud and abrasive. Being alone after the passing of their father made him a very submissive younger brother, but he does more here than I think Henry did in the original 1931 Frankenstein, as his part was also cut for time. Here, Henry is a foil to Victor, showing how enabling someone with self-destructive tendencies almost always leads to you, the enabler, being hurt by that same abuser. There are several points where Henry could have chosen to do something that would hurt Victor’s feelings, but might have spared him tragedy, but he doesn’t intervene. For instance, Victor hides that he’s responsible for Harlander’s death. Henry could have asked more questions or forced Victor to hand the Creature to the authorities for murder and implicate himself, but he didn’t do it. He never involved the authorities since he knew it would take his brother away and he seemed to think he could always mitigate the damage that Victor did, but he was fatally wrong. I really wanted more of this brotherhood, but again, you can’t fit everything into a movie, so it remains a good but underdeveloped piece of the puzzle. I really liked Henry calling Victor a monster before he dies; it is something that’s been missing from many adaptations of the book in my eyes. It speaks volumes that Victor is somehow angry at the Creature when it’s his own actions that result in the deaths of Henry and Elizabeth both, shirking all the blame and all the responsibility. He truly is a monster.

The next change I want to talk about is the decision to have Elizabeth enamored with the Creature rather than in the novel where she is betrothed to Victor. What a choice! What a change! In the novel, Elizabeth never meets the Creature; it only appears on her wedding night to murder her out of revenge for Victor refusing to create him a companion. Not that other stories haven’t done it, but to me, this version might be the strongest part of the film other than the Creature himself. What impresses me the most about the choice to have her enamored with the Creature is it does this neat transition from an almost motherly, protective thing to the Creature growing into his manhood, personality, and maturity, so he becomes a man that could have been good to her in many ways since she was a lost soul. She is immediately taken with him as a woman in a society where for the most part, she will never get what she wants. She was born in a time period where all she can do is live under a man’s boot, and she doesn’t even get to really pick which man and which boot. She sees the Creature’s pain and she calls Victor out on his shit immediately, which is why I loved her the instant I met her breaking him down about the War. Elizabeth is a character that historically has little to no agency; in the Karloff version, the most she summons up is the courage to visit Victor when he’s acting erratic. She never gets to do anything else in the story, though she does survive in the movie where she dies in the novel, but here, Elizabeth actually has agency in a surprising way. Elizabeth’s choice to condemn Victor for mistreating the Creature is the first really excellent change that I love the del Toro and his writers made. It’s such a great conversation to have about what makes love what it is in the first place. She felt a connection with his pure innocence and his pain at being somewhere he never wanted to be against his will. They manage to make it feel so authentic and heartbreaking rather than as weird as I’m sure normal people would consider it, and that’s why I love del Toro. I love his ability to take something weird, scary, and off-putting and recontextualize it into something beautiful. Her decision to jump in front of the Creature (and God bless, she had no idea the damn thing can’t die, poor baby died for nothing) actually hands her back her agency, when normally it would be considered Stuffed into the Fridge. That’s what I found the most surprising—I usually HATE this trope. I hate it when a girl dies just so the man in the story will be sad. Fuck that. Let women have agency apart from the men that love them, and ironically, Elizabeth’s choice to take the bullet for the Creature gave her back her agency in a story where she couldn’t truly act to do what she wanted. There is a chance she could have run away with him, but Victor’s selfish hatred and cowardice took that from her, but she still gets to be herself and die as herself by asking the Creature to take her away with him. Seriously, I mean it. It might be the best thing about the entire adaptation, personally, for me.

The only downside is that I thought this film was building up to have the Creature ask Victor to change Elizabeth into his companion, but they don’t do it. They just let her die and the matter is dropped; in the novel, Victor does make the companion, but destroys it at the last minute out of fear of what the two of them might do to the world. It’s not a soul-crushing thing for me, but it was disappointing as I felt it might give her a little extra agency to come back as the undead, but get to live an eternal life with someone that cares for her deeply. It could be the studio vetoed it, but either way, I would have liked her to become The Bride for a Sequel Hook at the end, personally.

Finally (at least in terms of our discussion of the changes), I really liked del Toro deciding to change the Creature from vengeful to sympathetic and from a mortal man into an immortal one. In the novel, the Creature is sympathetic until it confronts Victor and asks for a companion since Victor rejected him and so did the rest of society. The two of them are locked in a hateful chase and cat and mouse game until the confrontation on the boat where he finally is injured enough that he will die and the Creature confronts him one last time. I knew that del Toro would write our Creature sympathetic and I love everything about how this version of him came to be. It’s such a great change to make him immortal, as he is completely right: some of us are born against our will and we live in constant pain, and death is the only comfort some of us will ever know, and Victor’s blind ambition has stolen that from the Creature. It is amazing to me the Creature came to pity and forgive him, as I know I’d be irreversibly ruined by the thought of never dying. What I love most is that it really does change the message and tone of the novel for me in a good way. The novel is much more pessimistic with the Creature realizing he is no happier having gotten his revenge on Victor and he will commit suicide so he will never harm anyone else. By having the Creature forgive Victor—even though Victor has done NOTHING to earn it—he can find the only peace he will ever have if he truly can’t die. The way Victor patted his head just made me burst into tears the second time I saw it, much like his scene with the old man. Del Toro and Jacob both do so much fucking work that really makes the Creature’s journey land. It’s why you’ll see me refer to the book version and the early part of the script of this movie as “it” and then after the Creature becomes a man with experiences, I refer to the Creature as “him.” He truly moves from an it to a him over the course of the film in a truly wonderful way, and I really hope the superb writing and acting earns them some Oscar nods, even though I know the fucking Academy hates speculative fiction and asking them to nominate Sinners and Frankenstein (you know, two films directed and starring people of color) in the same year over that godawful upcoming Avatar 3 is going to be a fight to the fucking death. But I digress. They add so many dimensions to the Creature in this adaptation and I think it’s going to really be considered one of the best ones in history.

Next, what I really wanted to gush about is the way that the narrative takes Victor to task for his blind ambition and irresponsible denial. Now, I have already heard a bunch of stuffy old dudes on various social media bleating about del Toro “making Victor the villain” and I’m sorry, time to be a dick: you ain’t read the book if you ever thought Victor was NOT the fucking villain.

(Side note: Can we stop that, by the way? Every single time a movie that women identify with personally, especially a romance or gothic horror story, that is universally praised and makes money, a bunch of men come out of the woodworks to complain about the “author’s intent” and complain about superficial aspects or they just plain “can’t explain why they don’t like it but they don’t” and they need everyone to hear them. Please, let’s make this the movie where we stop fucking doing that shit. If women are enjoying something that’s generally agreed is quality work and you hate it, that’s valid and fine, but also, stop fucking raining on women’s parades when the thing they enjoyed that was made specifically for them did not work for you. You’re allowed to dislike it, and you’re allowed to say you disliked it, but if you got on your fucking post just to dislike a thing women identified with, close your laptop or the app and ask yourself why you felt that fucking impulse in the first place. Do it for me. Thanks, chums.)

Victor Frankenstein here is only slightly more villainous than his novel self, if you ask me. The reason why is that of all the people identifying with this version of the Creature, I identify directly with the idea that I hate being alive and I never asked to be alive; it was the will of my parents and…biology…frankly, as I don’t believe for one second God’s sorry ass wanted me here. Therefore, I LOVED this portrayal of Victor as an arrogant, in-denial, irresponsible, selfish coward. Oh, I loved it. I had longed for a less sympathetic version of him that took him to task over playing God. Forget the religious implications; what truly came through for me in this film is his fucking irresponsible nature. How dare a fucking surgeon expect something that was dead to have retained knowledge and understand in a matter of fucking weeks. It takes a human child a year to fucking talk, and yes, that information was already available to him as a doctor and just in general. Victor is utterly horrid the entire time and I am so glad they did not choose to spare him. They make him a detestable sack of shit, to the degree I was glad to see him die. The scene that truly tore it was “make me save you.” I swear to God, it was the instant I wished I could kill Victor myself. Not only did you choose to kill the Creature inhumanely—fire HURTS, and so does smoke inhalation—but he pretends the Creature could ever save itself when he already decided to destroy him. He demands the Creature say another word and the Creature says Elizabeth. Victor then pretends he didn’t hear it and leaves him to burn to death. Like I said, it was the moment I knew I hated him to the depths of my soul. I also know because he’s portrayed by Oscar Isaac, a snack and a half, if I do say so myself, there will be a bunch of girlies that insist he’s innocent and did nothing wrong. Yeah, uh, avoid those girlies. They’re not well women, ~~and they’re probably John Walker apologists too but I digress~~. I know there will be an uprising of people who hate this version of Victor for being a cold, callous fucking coward, and I’m the opposite. I fully commend del Toro for not bending to the urge to make Victor not a dickhead. He’s a dickhead in the book and he’s a dickhead here, and that’s great.

Another smaller, more cosmetic thing I wanted to talk about is I didn’t notice that Mia Goth played Victor’s mother Claire, as she was hidden behind a veil for most of it and her hair was dark (I’m face-blind sometimes, please excuse that) and after it was pointed out to me, I loved that so much of Victor’s obsession is clearly a byproduct of her death. He is angry at life or God that the only thing he ever loved was taken away and he was too young to stop it or do anything about it, so he has to create or else he will admit life took something he’ll never get back and he can’t deal with the idea. Victor is motivated by selfishness alone and it’s why he is so impatient and ugly with the Creature, refusing to give it any basic human decency as he considers it an experiment gone wrong, not a man, and certainly not a person. It’s incredible how far into his denial he flies, and I wish Act One had been a little shorter so that Act Three could have spent the time forcing him to reconcile with the fact that all of this was about his mother and lack of acceptance of death’s cruelty, and that the deaths of Henry and Elizabeth are on him and him alone. I wanted him to struggle and learn, but again, I believe it was cut for time, but I still enjoyed the motif and theme a lot. It was something I hadn’t seen in other interpretations of the story.

Okay, I swear, I’m almost done—the very last thing that I had to give its flowers is the set and costume/makeup. It’s honestly one of the most gorgeous films I’ve ever seen. I haven’t been this wowed since Prey (2022) came out. Del Toro is so great with the use of color and it really shines in the film. The standout for me is Elizabeth’s green, turquoise, and purple bonnet. WOW. It’s just a breathtaking period piece and his entire team deserves an Oscar for how hard they worked. The movie’s aesthetic is so good I was laughing after I finished watching it the first time because I knew there are entire generations of people that will make this film’s aesthetic their entire personality. And who can blame them! If this movie came out when I was in my emo phase, oh, I’d be in Hot Topic in short order buying crap from the merchandising section from this movie.

Alright, I promised, so I’m done gushing now. I hope there are nothing but good things in store for everyone involved in making this movie and I can’t stress enough that I’m not trying to overhype it, but I am genuinely excited it lived up to my expectations. It adds so much to the story and I didn’t feel as if we missed too much of the book’s spirits, but your mileage may vary.

Either way, what I can say is that del Toro loves his geeks and freaks, and I hope he continues making great movies like this one for us to enjoy for years to come. Here’s to you, Frankenstein (2025). Your accomplishments are well-earned.

Love,

Kyo

The Slippery Slope (Part 4)

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : October 23, 2025

Category: Book & Movie Reviews, Inspiration

Tags:allison janney, billions, blog, blog post, fiction, keri russell, kyoko m, netflix, netflix the diplomat, political thriller, rant, rufus sewell, series, the diplomat, the slippery slope, the west wing

Sigh.

We’re back here again, ladies and gents. This is why we can’t have nice things, dammit.

Alright, so, the story with The Diplomat is a funny one for me. I had no intention of ever watching this show until one day in 2023, I was on the phone with my dad and he suggested the show. I asked him why, as I generally don’t go for political dramas or thrillers, but he assured me I’d get it once I watched the pilot. So I tried the pilot. I then gave my father another phone call afterward.

Me: …did you tell me to watch this show because I AM Kate Wyler?

Dad: That is EXACTLY why.

Me: How dare you.

Now then, we’re going to talk about The Diplomat in excruciating detail because I cannot shut up to save my life (“AND YOU KNOW THIS, MANNNNNNNN!”) and so if you’re not caught up through the end of season three of The Diplomat, please bookmark this post and pop back in when you’re up to date. Spoiler Warning: I will be spoiling nearly the entire show to talk about what I felt went horribly wrong in season three.

So the story of me watching The Diplomat is mostly that I found my tribe with Kate Wyler, who before season three was a sleep deprived trainwreck tomboy and that’s still 100% me (even though now I like to wear dresses, funnily enough), so I gobbled up season one in a binge-watch and did the very same for season two, enjoying both seasons immensely. Of the two, I’d lean slightly towards season one, but only for the epic confrontation scene (and yes, I know, if the genders were reversed, it wouldn’t be funny, but as it stands, it’s HILARIOUS and I regret nothing). I truly had fun with the show, so I was very excited about season three once announced. The show itself is not one of the super trending shows, so I actually had to go look up the premiere date for season three myself and then discovered the trailer was online with a mid-October premiere date, so I gave it a watch.

And I immediately got worried.

The trailer was skewed towards the toxic romance between Kate and Hal, hinted at Kate’s relationship with Austin, and then introduced some random dark-haired guy as a potential love interest. It immediately put me on edge as this show’s never used the toxic romance bit to carry it; the romance has always been a catalyst. I quelled my fears and decided to wait in spite of my unease and see where the actual season went, as trailers often are misleading.

The season came out. I was in Atlanta hanging out for Multiverse Con, so I split the eight episodes into three days of viewing after the con when I got back home.

I am very, very worried about this series now.

Let’s get into why.

Alright, recap time: The Diplomat stars Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell as Kate and Hal Wyler, a married couple of diplomats and ambassadors to Britain. Long story short is that their marriage is a sham and only being kept up for appearances as both of them are toxic and argue constantly, then make up constantly over how to handle her job. Kate then finds out the Vice President of the US is going to be replaced and they have been eyeing her for the role. She doesn’t want it, but shenanigans happen and eventually, she realizes there may be some merit in accepting the role and so the show is about them not only keeping Britain from going to war thanks to their irresponsible, childish prime minister Trowbridge, but also her slowly realizing the path to the White House might be right for her after all. The conflict comes from keeping Trowbridge under control and the fact that Hal loves to go behind her back to manipulate things in his favor to give him more power.

In season three, Hal told President Rayburn that the VP Grace Penn was the one who suggested the mistakenly fatal attack on the HMS Courageous. Originally, it was a tactic that should have resulted in no deaths, but errors caused it to kill 41 sailors and sink the ship. The shock of the news plus Rayburn’s age and poor health result in him actually having a heart attack and dying upon being told his own VP was partially responsible for the deaths of 41 British sailors. The country is thrown into crisis mode as they speedily ready Grace Penn to be sworn in as President, and to the Wyler’s shock, she actually chooses Hal to be her VP, not Kate. Hal and Kate have an intense argument, but she tells him to accept the role, and he does, but she is now second lady and the ambassador to Britain, and so the strain of doing both roles then completely deep-sixes their marriage all over again. Kate becomes resentful of Hal leaving her out of conversations she feels she should be involved in; Hal resents Kate for moving on with a new boyfriend even though they are supposed to pretend to be happily married in public. Then, a discovery is made that there is a derelict Russian sub in British waters carrying a very bad nuke called the Poseidon. If they don’t remove it quickly, a bad foreign power will get their hands on it, so everyone has to now convince the very angry Trowbridge to address the nuke sub issue without causing an international incident between the US, the UK, China, and Russia.

On paper, that doesn’t sound like a bad season, right?

Well, here’s where things went wrong for me.

The Kate/Hal ship went from toxic, but compelling to outright abusive and unlikable. I have to admit I’m not surprised this was the first bubble to burst in season three. I’m sad it did, but I’m not surprised. They walked a razor thin line between being toxic but fun, and sadly, the writing has now pushed both Hal and Kate into full on emotionally abusive sociopaths. The reason that the Kate/Hal machine worked in previous seasons is that as angry as they get, they also recognize that they find comfort and solace in each other because they’re both fucked up. Both of them are vicious in their pursuit of protecting their station and protecting the country. The balance struck in the previous seasons showed you all the good and all the bad, meeting in the middle at a dead stop. Neither one of them could get out of their own way to be together in a healthy way, so they just constantly were in a Will They/Won’t They holding pattern, throwing in Austin as Kate contemplated picking a much healthier romance over Hal. Sadly, this season, they lost the thread completely. Hal is a jealous boorish pig who won’t stop sniping at Kate and behaving like an angry teenager whether he’s with her or without her. Before, we knew he got frustrated with her, but now it’s just an entire season of passive aggressive sniping comments and snide remarks. It’s the opposite of what made us all love to hate Hal in the first place. Rufus Sewell was chosen for this role because it perfectly suits his acting ability. He almost always plays a bad guy because he just has a bad guy villain face and voice, but here, Hal is a complicated creature. Hal is extremely smart and extremely creative, but he’s also an egomaniac that wants monuments built in his honor because he just fancies his own intelligence that much. He is effective, but he’s also stubborn and is incapable of holding his tongue in any high stress situation, so he’s also a liability. Before, Hal was a dangerous but necessary aspect of the show. In season three, he’s intensely unlikable for his childish taunts and refusal to cooperate simply because he’s jealous of Kate’s position and Kate’s new boyfriend. Kate, conversely, has similar issues, but this season also ruined her. Before, Kate was a mess, but not a disaster. She’s also stubborn and self-righteous, but for the most part, her heart is always in the right place and she is trying to avert a crisis. In season three, Kate is characterized in a way that I’m not entirely sure was intentional. She is indecisive the entire season through in her personal life, somehow ping-ponging between Hal, Austin, and a third love interest randomly introduced a few episodes into the season who’s just there to scratch her itch. Now, do I know it’s very human, if messy, to sleep with people you work with? Yes. I promise I’m not slut shaming Kate Wyler. What I am saying is she’s written so poorly this season that I feel the urge to slut shame her, and I shouldn’t because slut shaming is wrong. There is no excuse for her behavior, in my opinion, and I only mean from the standpoint of the fact that she KNOWS she is to pretend to be happily married to Hal and arrogantly assuming she can sneak and fuck Callum Ellis the entire time with no one figuring it out is absurd. Hal notices it the very first time he even sees the guy, so why would she assume no one in the entire organization would put two and two together? It’s simply a bad idea to jeopardize her career and Hal’s career for sex. It’s just sex, lady. You’ve had it before. Maybe just suck it up for a while and wait until things cool off, then try to get laid? It just comes across as shallow and stupid of her when it’s so easy for her to get caught and ruin both their careers. It also makes them both look like terrible people abusing each other back and forth all season long with no repercussions other than their own unhappiness. It makes you not want to spend time around these people, and I’ll use an example to help you get why it bugged me so much. Billions is fantastic show my dad also introduced me to, and it’s against my nature to watch that one as well for its subject matter, but it had one key factor that made me not finish the show. Billions is an excellent show. But Billions is a show in which literally every single character is an immoral piece of shit. Are they all well written and interesting? My God, yes! They are FASCINATING people, but every single one of them’s an asshole, so what happened is I simply got tired of spending time with so many shitty but interesting people. I just stopped watching after I realized no one was ever going to be someone I could root for, and that’s okay. It simply wasn’t for me. The difference is that Billions was always about immoral but interesting people; The Diplomat was not. Kate and Hal started this show as likable leads, and season three took that out back and shot it in the head twice. I am sad to say I think The Diplomat moved Kate and Hal into unlikable territory in the same vein as Billions, and I think that decision is a mistake.
The Kate/Callum subplot was terribly underwritten and unnecessary. Kate has more than enough material if the writers room wanted to make the romance the focus, and Callum’s late, under-written inclusion massively hurt this season for me. I actually had a comedy of errors the first time I even saw the guy. I had accidentally walked into another room when the series put up the graphic for the (very stupidly handled) five month time skip. So I watched the next scene utterly confused, rewound, and then realized I’d walked away from the screen when it told us it was five months later and now Kate is banging this chump. Is Callum an annoyance as a character? No. He’s too bland for me to hate him. I simply dislike him because who does a time skip on a romantic fucking relationship and then expects me give a single shit about the new guy nor his relationship to Kate? Why would we care? We don’t know this guy from a hole in the ground and he’s just every charming British bloke. The reason Callum falls so flat is that Austin is a much better choice even though it would land them both in hot water if anyone found them out. Callum comes across as totally unnecessary when Kate’s sexual tension with Austin had been building in a nice and believable way, so throwing another bland dude in the middle and then deep-sixing the relationship abruptly with no explanation and a rushed marriage comes across as terrible writing. There is no reason Kate needs another man in her life. Especially since she confusingly says she wants another chance, then she runs to Hal in the finale and claims she wants to go back to him. But that segways into my next point.
Characters do contradictory things in the narrative in a way that doesn’t feel organic nor intentional. There are two big decisions this season that, to me, make no sense whatsoever: Austin getting married to a girl he met and dated for five months and Kate going back to Hal in the finale. Austin’s entire arc is confusing to me because it feels like the writers cannot decide what his use is in the show after the first season. He seems to be a foil to Hal at first, showing decorum and restraint with Kate and she’s never had that before. At first, I thought they were doing a non-stupid version of what the Twilight series attempted with Jacob and Edward (and yes, I hate myself for even knowing this subplot at all.) In New Moon, Bella claims that the decision wasn’t Jacob vs. Edward; it was who she should be versus who she actually is as a person (which is nothing; Bella is the worst protagonist in book history and I will not ever retract that statement COME AT ME SCRUBLORDS I AM RIPPED) and I thought maybe the show was slowly putting that together for Kate. To me, Austin is who Kate would choose if she was ready to leave behind the toxic patterns she learned with Hal. She would not behave with Austin how she would behave with Hal if they got together, no way, no how. He is a true gentleman and would likely treat her with nothing but the utmost respect. However, that’s not what went on. It looks like Austin unfortunately got used to just interrupt Kate and Hal’s relationship and be a threat without ever being a true threat. Recently, the black fandom’s been calling it the Disposable Black Girlfriend trope, which is where a very nice and interesting black woman is introduced as a love interest to a handsome white male lead, but for almost always shallow or stupid reasons, they break up or never get together at all and he is later put with a canon white woman. It seems even The Diplomat may not have escaped this annoying trope, just gender flipped. I do not understand why they had Kate pursue him in this season when it’s not a viable option for her, and the impulsive makeout they have felt forced. Did I like it? Hell yeah! Get you some, Austin, you’re a cool dude! But it wasn’t right. It felt like it was lip service to just address the romance one last time, then push him off to not be with her because she’s stuck in her toxic ways. I can at least postulate about what went on there, but I cannot at all for Kate running back to Hal and begging him to take her back. I will probably watch this season again with my parents and I still don’t know why the hell Kate said she’d take Hal back; literally, there is a scene earlier in the season where she asks Callum for a second chance. I’m baffled as to why they won’t let Kate outgrown Hal and vice versa, as they both became so abusive this season that I don’t get why they would get back together.
Kate acts out-of-character for much of the season, but specifically how she behaves with Eidra. This part I continue to be vexed and confused by. So part of the involvement of Eidra is that the plan to attack the HMS Courageous (the conception was for a harmless attack, but the attack itself would have fixed something for Britain if carried out correctly and it just went wrong) was suggested by Grace Penn to a woman named Margaret Roylin, the direct mentor to Trowbridge. This meant that they had to secure Roylin as a material witness to the massive international crime, so she’s been in Eidra’s secret CIA safe house. After the early events of the 3rd season, they want to move her to the US so she won’t be murdered by her co-conspirators in Britain and Russian, but unfortunately for them, Roylin commits suicide by taking her sciatica medication’s entire bottle in the safe house. This now means a British political figure died in CIA custody off-the-books, and without informing the British intelligence, so Eidra is now up against being fired and criminal charges since Kate is the one that told her to detain Roylin and they were supposed to transfer her on Trowbridge’s orders. Now, Eidra and Kate have always had a strained relationship because Kate does risky shit and refuses to ever change her mind even when she’s wrong, so this didn’t help that relationship one single bit. What feels wrong about it is Kate is weirdly cheerful even though Eidra is visibly afraid for her freedom and career, and so it comes across as callous. Kate should be doing everything she can to help fix what she broke by telling Eidra to detain Roylin, but she instead makes matters worse by acting indifferent and by messing up several things that would have helped Eidra avoid the hammer coming down on her. Now, in the end, she manages to avoid getting fired or thrown in jail, but it is not much thanks to Kate and it truly gave Kate this unflattering white women indifference to an Asian woman’s plight, especially unflattering because all of this is Kate’s fault. Yes, Eidra could have said no, but under those circumstances, a no was going to be an even bigger problem. I just think the show handled the entire subplot poorly and made Kate look like an ingrate.
The characters make several Captain Obvious idiot decisions that you know won’t produce the results they want, yet they behave as if they had no other choice or that it was a good idea. As a few of the IMDB reviewers have pointed out, the show would bend the rules for things a diplomat and ambassador can do, but season three broke them. There were several moments that I can tell wouldn’t be tolerated by our government nor the British government, but the most egregious moment for me was the Poseidon incident. It makes no sense that Grace, Hal, Kate, and Billie behaved like Trowbridge has been anything except a whiny, immature, sexist bully and a coward. The second he threw Rayburn under the bus and protected himself and Roylin, you knew that any plan with that sub wasn’t going to earn his cooperation. The idea to sink it should have been the first thing out of their stupid mouths instead of sneaking a drone down to take pictures. Trowbridge had already been enraged at Roylin’s suicide and the (fake) news that Rayburn suggested the Courageous attack, so why in the living hell did they all act like he would listen when they told him about Poseidon? Plus, as the reviewers pointed out, I very much don’t think Trowbridge could have acted without Parliament or other procedures, even though I am an American and I don’t know how their system works. All I know is it didn’t sound believable in a show where it mostly tries to sound logical. I also agree with the people that said blaming Rayburn was a scumbag move and it made you dislike Kate, Hal, and everyone that went along with it. I have no love for Rayburn, but I also thought it was a slimy way out for them all. This show has routinely proven that it can write smart characters, yet this season felt like everyone got slapped with a dunce cap and told to be stupider, maybe to appeal to some kind of broader audience? I’m not sure. All I know is that shit with Trowbridge was dumb as hell, yet the series acted as if it was the right choice or the only choice. I also don’t understand why the fuck Hal and Grace would steal Poseidon. There is no benefit at all, unless they got intelligence someone tried to steal it first and they just stopped that theft. There is no reason for them to have stolen it from Trowbridge other than cheap, easy drama next season, so that too is another sign that this series is on the slippery slope.

I truly don’t think this show is at a point where it can’t be saved, but this season struck such a hard blow against it that I’m reeling a bit. It’s just such a vast difference in quality in the writing that I have to wonder if three things happened, and I’ll hopefully find out someday now that the season is out: (1) Netflix told them they got the season four greenlight, but they have to start trending, not just getting great reviews, and so they told them to insert way, way more romance and sex to attract female viewers ala Scandal or a Shonda Rhimes/Ava Duvernay series (2) Netflix told them that they want the show more like Billions, where the cast of characters are terrible, flawed, but interesting people, instead of sticking with the flawed but likable cast we currently have written (3) The show ran out of ideas of what to do next due to the excellent writing for their first two seasons, so they tried focusing on the romance instead of the clever plot and added more sex to try and distract from the fact that they ran out of ideas for season three. Since it’s so early, I’m sure there isn’t much out about the third season’s production, but I will be listening out to hear if one of those three theories is why season three is so damn wonky.

I’m also not alone in my griping for once. I popped open the IMDB page after the season three premiere and several of the user reviews have said the exact same things that I did (albeit it with brevity). What’s scary is how many of the recent reviews not only say that the first two seasons are great and this one sucks, so many of them use the exact phrase “soap opera” that I can tell I’m not the only one that thinks season three is a massive step down and setback from seasons one and two. Truly, if you don’t believe me, go have a look.

I really want this show to get out of its death spiral. I do. I hope that the critical reviews are read and reviewed by the creator and the writing team and they realize this is a simple misstep and they course correct. After all, we just saw the first Castlevania Netflix series do the same (great first two seasons, terrible third season, but much improved fourth season closing it out, though it didn’t do everything we wanted like make TrephaGretacard a canon poly ship, but I digress.) I don’t feel like this season made everyone irredeemable, but if I were the writers, I’d set up the first half of season four to fix everything I just said. Fix Hal and Kate so that they are no longer unlikable sociopaths. Fix Austin so he’s not just being used and discarded to interrupt your main ship. Toss Callum out the window or actually bother to write him into the narrative so he matters and we care about him, whether that’s love or hate. Get everyone’s actions back to being consistent. Stop making lazy decisions for easy manufactured tension. Make sure Kate has an actual arc, not just bouncing around on dicks making really poor decisions (and again, not slut shaming; saying please write the sex and romance parts better).

You can do this, Diplomat. I believe in you. So please believe in me, in your audience, and clean this shit the fuck up next season, or I won’t be back, and I might not be the only one walking out on you.

I guess we’ll see where we go from here. Let’s hope it’s up, not down.

Ode to Mariah Stokes Dillard

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : August 11, 2018

Category: Inspiration

Tags:alfre woodard, character study, female characters, hernan alvarez, luke cage, mariah dillard, mariah stokes, mariah stokes dillard, Marvel, marvel netflix, marvel shows, netflix, shades alvarez, spoiler alert, spoilers, theo rossi, villains

As someone who watches very little television these days for various reasons, it’s always a relief when a show I enjoy makes its return. Personally, I consider Luke Cage second only to Daredevil in the Marvel Netflix show lineup. It’s got vibrant characters, a unique perspective, and some of the best friggin’ music short of a Tarantino movie.

So far, it seems that the second season has had a mixed reception. I understand why. Like last season, Misty made me want to slam her beautiful head into a wall into she got some gorram common sense, and there were just too many moments of characters doing needlessly stupid things. However, one thing I feel that Luke Cage’s 2nd season absolutely nailed was Mariah. I had already passively liked her in the first season where she was a background villain whose actions nudge her into the evil spotlight, so to speak. While I certainly missed Cornell, I feel that Mariah did a far better job as the Arc Villain than Diamondback. Plus, she presented a rather rare role: a black, older woman in a position of power in the middle of a sci-fi/superhero setting. Older black women are often pigeonholed as wise, grandmotherly caretakers in these settings, but Mariah pretty much busted most of the stereotypes related to women before her. She was (mostly) competent, motivated, and surprisingly threatening. Absolutely no one is surprised Alfre Woodard did a phenomenal job—she has long been hailed as one of the best actresses out there, and it was an absolute thrill to see her play a villain. I think in honor of her taking a spot in the pantheon of comic book villains, I should take a moment to explain why I love to hate this bad bitch.

Naturally, spoilers for the first two seasons of Luke Cage.

In the first season, it’s clear that Mariah wants to achieve her goals by any means necessary, but by keeping her hands clean and letting Cornell do the dirty work. Unlike other villains in the same genre, like say freaking Thanos, I actually believe her when she says she wants to help Harlem. Now, granted, I do think her “help” for the community is just her helping herself. Mariah has quite the ego and she loves being seen. She loves being the all-powerful matron, not unlike Mama Mabel Stokes, ironically. Mariah makes it clear that she is high horse enough to side eye Cornell’s methods, but she certainly doesn’t mind profiting off what he does. I especially like that Shades recognizes the slumbering predator in her shortly after he continues observing their interactions. Was it some heavy foreshadowing? Yeah, sure, but it shows off how perceptive Shades happens to be, since almost everyone had been underestimating Mariah right from the get go.

Cornell’s death sequence is honestly pretty incredible. It’s well-shot and most people admit it caught them right off guard. We all pretty much knew Cornell’s hair-trigger temper would likely be the cause of his death, but for it to be delivered by the often overlooked Mariah definitely sealed it as an excellent turn of events. What’s more is Shades’ reaction to Cornell’s death, and how Mariah in spite of her shock is able to function afterward with his guidance. You can practically see the eager glee in Shades when he sees the natural affinity for violence and power after she kills Cornell. He knows she’s something special and if anyone is going to be able to both defeat Luke Cage and get him out from under Diamondback’s control, it’s her. He hitches his wagon to her and they both go on to set themselves atop the hill at Harlem’s Paradise.

I remember watching the final moments of season one of Luke Cage when Mariah stalked on over to Shades and kissed him. I remember my eyebrows going up and saying, “Ohohoho! What’s all this then?” It was an unlikely development that I ended up weirdly interested in. First off, it’s not often an older black woman, especially not in a comic book setting, shows interest in a Hispanic man more than ten years younger than her. Second off, Shades’ reaction to the kiss pretty much solidified that they were going to become my new evil OTP. He was positively giddy that she kissed him. He was shooting heart eyes at her as she walked out and it was bizarrely compelling to me. I remember hoping that this wasn’t just a one-off grateful kiss and that the two of them would become their own version of Bonnie and Clyde.

Lo and behold, season two kicked off with Shades and Mariah in an actively sexual, romantic relationship. Like everyone else, I cringed when that poor, foolish waiter called him her nephew. Yikes. Talk about disproportionate retribution. That being said, Alfre Woodard said in an interview that she was supposed to do something else in the script, but she had the sudden idea to suck Theo Rossi’s thumb and I couldn’t have cackled louder at the end result. It was flawless. The amount of evil sass in that one gesture, and the fact that Alfre is the one who thought it up, and the fact that the showrunners loved it so much they kept it, is just the best. To bring the point home, I think Shades and Mariah’s symbiotic relationship was honestly the strongest, most human aspect of the 2nd season. I know, that’s odd to say, but I mean it. The two of them seem as if on paper they wouldn’t work, and while the relationship did have a ticking time bomb on it, I like that what ends it isn’t one of them killing the other. It’s Mariah’s derailment from a cold, distant matron into the vicious nature of a gangster, one so cold-blooded that it’s arguable if even Cornell would have gone as far as she did against Bushmaster.

Now, I get why other people wouldn’t be on the ship like I am because it is pretty strange, but that’s perhaps why I ended up liking it so damn much. It’s quite rare that older black women are treated as still sexually desirable at sixty, or hell, even as early in life as their forties. I love that Mariah macked on Shades with zero shame, and vice versa. I like even more that she wasn’t doing it to manipulate him into doing what she wanted—she genuinely reciprocated the attraction and seemed to be having a damn good time as his paramour. It’s a beautiful statement not to completely write women off because of their age. Mariah, for the most part, remained classy with how she brought it to Shades, and he was crazy about her up until things fell apart. The two of them weren’t courting just to find a place to stab each other back. They got along. They trusted each other. But once Mariah went into a full tilt ruthless gangster, Shades couldn’t handle that level of cruelty after having to shoot Comanche and almost losing Mariah to Bushmaster on top of that. Their priorities naturally shifted. He realized there was still some shred of a soul left in him, and losing Comanche as well as the remaining heart of Mariah pushed him too far.

A lot of fans are apparently crying OOC for Shades breaking up with Mariah and I disagree. I felt it was the natural progression. Shades did explain what the difference between him killing Candace and Mariah slaughtering Bushmaster’s entire family: that Candace willingly accepting the bribe made her guilty and made her subject to the same rules of all criminals, man and woman alike. She made a conscious decision to accept the bribe and lie on Luke Cage, and to Shades, that meant she was open season. In his opinion, Mariah murdering Bushmaster’s family, and the method in which she did it, was just too inhuman. She saw it as retaliation for what she lost, but hell, Bushmaster (foolishly) gave her a small window of a chance to survive instead of burning alive and spared her daughter. Mariah didn’t hesitate to kill those people, and even though they were by no means completely innocent, it still was an incredibly messed up thing to do. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He’d already put too many shackles on his soul and he couldn’t bear another link, especially not from the woman he loved.

The reason I find Mariah so interesting is her will power. I think that she has strength to just survive the worst sorts of things anyone ever could. Even with her being a selfish, evil gangster, I find myself admiring how she made it as far as she did before the end. What’s more is that she wasn’t implacable or perfect or one dimensional. I consider the scene of her in the wreckage of her brownstone with Shades to be the best acted scene of the entire season, and possibly in the show’s entire run. I really loved how Alfre and Theo played off each other here. I love how their conversation starts out accusatory and then gets heated, and then Shades pulls her out of that downward spiral. It felt natural, effortless, and moving, in a messed up sort of way, mind you. Shades built her up in a moment of weakness and reminded her of who she was so that she could continue on as the badass he knew her to be.

I think what Mariah represents is something I hope that other comic book properties and fiction at large take into consideration. Marvel has recently been tapping into the true power of black women, to my utter delight, and I like that we’re seeing representation in the realm of evil as well as good. Same with Ghost in the recent Ant Man sequel, it’s very satisfying for me as a geeky black girl to see my sisters out there in popular media kicking ass and not just being stereotyped as baby mamas or “exotic” love interests. It’s about damn time, if you ask me. The image that will always stick in my mind for Mariah is Shades holding her face in his hands and emphatically telling her, “You are a queen.” For as short of a reign that she had, I certainly enjoyed the hell out of Mariah’s dark influence over Harlem. She had a sharp tongue and a sense of purpose that I will certainly miss next season.

Here’s to you, evil queen.

Cautionary Tale: Netflix’s Iron Fist

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : March 22, 2017

Category: Book & Movie Reviews

Tags:cautionary tale, danny rand, finn jones, iron fist, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, mcu, netflix, writing advice

Man, it’s rough when an entertainment company you love breaks their winning streak.

Marvel’s been cranking out consistently good material both in the cinematic universe and in the television universe for years now, and I think maybe we all got so used to it that we forgot it’s possible to completely miss the mark. To me, that’s what their latest venture, Iron Fist, is in essence: a swing and a miss.

To be frank, I rage quit the pilot to Iron Fist twice. Keep in mind, I wasn’t one of the naysayers who hated it before it came out and I actually didn’t listen to the early negative reviews because I knew there were people who wanted to hate it right out of the gate and nothing was going to change their minds. I saw the trailer and felt underwhelmed, but with Marvel’s excellent track record, I was willing to give it a try. This is not to say that I haven’t had problems with a few Marvel properties before. For instance, I didn’t finish Jessica Jones—not because it wasn’t good, but rather because I was not the key demographic for that show. Being an urban fantasy author, I have seen the exact same archetype that Jessica Jones is about a million times and so I was already burned out on the “inexplicably attractive but perpetually rude and standoffish private detective with super special powers” trope long before the show came around. Plus, the pacing was too slow and I wasn’t a fan of the gratuitous sex scenes with the far superior character of Luke Cage.

So why did I rage quit Iron Fist?

In order to understand why I’ve included Iron Fist in the cautionary tales catalog on my blog, let’s take a look at just what made me quit watching the pilot twice in the same day. Let’s do a comparison between the first fifteen minutes of Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, and see if you can understand my utter frustration with this new show.

In the first fifteen minutes of Daredevil, here is what is established:

-How Matt Murdock lost his eyesight as a child and gained his powers saving an old man’s life

-Matt’s devout Catholicism and conflicted conscious because of how he misses his father and realizes how much they are alike in having “the devil” in them

-Matt goes down to the docks and stops a bunch a human traffickers from kidnapping innocent women

-Gives us that unforgettable opening sequence of blood over the city

-Introduces the unbelievably perfect Foggy Nelson and what he does for a living with Matt as well as the friend they have on the police force

-Introduces Karen Page and her predicament

-Introduces the dynamic between Karen, Matt, and Foggy

In the first fifteen minutes of Luke Cage, here is what is established:

-That funky, colorful opening sequence

-Introduces Pops and his shop members as well as Luke’s overall cool-as-a-cucumber-but-don’t-push-your-luck-fool attitude

-Introduces a minor character and her son who will impact the plot later on

-Establishes the relationship between Luke and Pops and hints at Luke’s powers

-Hints at Luke’s backstory and shows us his daily struggles to find rent money and his desire to stay under the radar even though he could do more if he wanted to

-Introduces Harlem’s Paradise as well as the first two main villains, Cottonmouth and Mariah

And in the first fifteen minutes of Iron Fist, here is what is established:

-A bland, forgettable afterthought of an opening sequence

-Danny thinks he owns a building

-Danny thinks people he knew over a decade ago still work at his father’s company

-Danny thinks he can talk to the CEO of a company with no appointment and zero proof that he is the founder’s son who was believed to have died in a plane crash a decade ago

-Danny thinks that two people he knew when he was a kid would recognize him as an adult and after he was presumed dead as a child

-Danny presumably has no money and no shoes and just sleeps in the park after meeting a bum who ends up not contributing to the narrative whatsoever

-Danny, still looking homeless, starts speaking Mandarin to the Asian girl hanging up dojo fliers

-Danny breaks into his old house and walks around like it’s not big deal

-Danny’s relationship with Ward is revealed as abusive

Do you see the stark difference between these shows? How is it that Daredevil and Luke Cage can establish that much story in a quarter of the runtime and yet Iron Fist establishes almost nothing in the same amount of time? This is exactly why I couldn’t get through Iron Fist’s pilot in one sitting. First of all, Danny is characterized like an entitled douchebag. We don’t know anything about him other than he’s woefully naïve and just assumes that everything will fall into place for him without concrete evidence towards his claims. We don’t know why he came back to the city or what his mission is, whereas with both of our other examples, we are quickly shown the character’s personalities and what they are working towards. All we know is that Danny thinks he owns the company, but yet we see no skillset that suggests he even could run it when he doesn’t even have the good sense to wear shoes while walking through New York or to find some kind of proof that he is in fact Danny Rand.

I’ve been describing Iron Fist’s script as “something that was written the night before it was due and was never revised.” Now that the whole show is up on Netflix, we’re starting to get stories that fill in why this show is falling flat on its face, such as the fact that Finn Jones, the titular Danny, only trained three weeks before shooting a show about martial arts. That’s unheard of. If you check the backgrounds of most actors who are cast as superheroes, they train for literal months at a time—not only so that they are physically intimidating, but so that the fight choreography is nuanced, believable, and a joy to watch. For example, one of my favorite modern fight scenes is Captain America (Chris Evans) versus Batroc (Georges St. Pierre) because Chris Evans trained for months to be able to do a majority of the shots in that amazing fight scene since he is in fact opposite a real UFC fighter. It is painfully obvious when Danny Rand fights that he isn’t a martial artist, and it would be different if it were like Daredevil when you have the complicated routines performed by an amazing stunt double. I didn’t make it past the pilot, but I’ve heard that Iron Fist’s fight choreography centered around Finn Jones is underwhelming at best, and it’s impossible not to make a comparison to either Daredevil or Luke Cage, which had intense fight scenes that were both unique and engrossing.

Furthermore, even if you forget the sloppy fighting, the dialogue is wooden and poorly done. Dialogue is about moving the plot forward, making complications between characters, or solving a problem, and none of that is included in the pilot episode of Iron Fist. It is so obvious that they are dumping exposition on your head. They don’t even try to hide it. Hell, the two main villains basically have a meeting where absolutely nothing gets done. They just meet to show the audience that they’re evil and in cahootz with each other. They don’t solve the problem at hand; they instead regurgitate rancid dialogue to establish their relationship.

Lastly, it also doesn’t help that Danny comes across as a pretentious college kid who spent one summer abroad and thinks he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Buddhist martial artist. He once again finds the Asian girl and starts condescendingly telling her that she should teach kung fu if she wants more students, mansplains that he’s supposed to “fight the master of the dojo” now that he has entered their city, and asserts that she should just give him a job even though he still looks like a crazy hobo. Understandably, she tells him to get lost, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth that he’s so arrogant. The troublesome part is that arrogance is a normal thing in certain heroes like Tony Stark or Thor, but even in those movies, we are immediately shown that both of them have a heart and are just spoiled rather than truly being douchebags. Danny doesn’t give us a moment of humanity in the pilot. He doesn’t give us a reason to care about him, and at the end of the day, if you don’t do that in the first episode of your show, odds are that you are doomed to fail.

In the end, even though I can’t fully judge the show since I won’t be finishing it, I think this is a product of Marvel rushing to put something out so that they have time to work on the Defenders instead. Danny Rand is an afterthought. This whole show feels like an afterthought. It doesn’t have a flavor. It doesn’t have the careful writing or beautiful cinematography of any of its siblings. If nothing else, then Iron Fist teaches us caution—that even when you’re on a winning streak you can still bomb out if you don’t take your time and tell a story worth telling. Even the mighty Marvel can trip and fall. No one is above that.

Let’s just hope they try harder with the upcoming Defenders show.

Things Daredevil Taught Me About Writing

Posted by :letitia.carelock@gmail.com On : March 22, 2016

Category: Things X Taught Me About Writing

Tags:blog post, claire temple, daredevil, foggy nelson, karen page, Marvel, matt murdock, mcu, netflix, things daredevil taught me about writing, wilson fisk, writing, writing advice

In case you missed it, Netflix’s original series Daredevil is like a second Christmas. You wait all year long for it, anticipating it highly, and staring obsessively at the clock the night before hoping you got everything you wanted. And in many respects, it actually delivers. It’s a smart, biting, gritty, (mostly) realistic show that details a vigilante’s struggle against the criminal element while also examining the inner demons he fights along the way. The first season made a huge splash because none of us expected it to be anywhere near as good as it was because we’ve sadly had to get accustomed to the TV-budget versions of heroes where nearly all of their comic book storylines are adapted and changed. (I’ve come to call it “CW-ing” them.) Because Netflix isn’t bound by ratings or having to stay PG-13, it was allowed to take a LOT of risks and to more directly adapt some of the storylines and character beats from the comics. Let’s take a look at what it has to teach us now that we’ve got two seasons under our belts.

As always, massive spoilers ahead. Don’t read if you’re not updated on both seasons yet.

1. The fastest way to a great story is investing time in your main cast. For me, this is the main reason why I love the Daredevil series. Often with superhero-related stories, the writers feel the need to rush to the action, and so you end up with some gorgeous fight sequences but it doesn’t have an impact on your audience because we’re not invested in the character. For me, this was one of the biggest issues I had with Man of Steel. Sure, I liked Clark alright, but I didn’t really know much about him because the story rushed onward to get to different set pieces and introduce the new cast. With Daredevil, we are shown all sides of Matt Murdock, from the pure and holy to the nitty gritty darkness nestled inside him. We see him struggle from childhood to teenage years to college years to his adulthood with suppressed anger at the injustice he’s had to watch in Hell’s Kitchen. We see that he is without a doubt a good man who wants to save people, but that he is also extremely flawed. Therefore, when his life is in danger, you get those “clutch your arm rest and squirm” moments when you see him getting his ass kicked by the scum of Hell’s Kitchen.

But that’s not all. Not only do we see a full-spread of emotions and intricacies for Matt Murdock, but we’re also treated to fantastic supporting characters like Foggy Nelson, Claire Temple, Ben Yorick, and even the freaking villain himself Wilson Fisk. (I’ve left Karen off for now, but don’t worry, we’ll circle back around to her further down.) I can’t believe how amazing the character development was for the supporting characters in this series. We get to learn so much about them and they are so damned easy to love. My personal favorites are Claire Temple and Foggy Nelson, who are both excellent contrasts to Matt Murdock. Claire is strong, decisive, smart, and compassionate, but still vulnerable. Foggy is hilarious, heart-warmingly kind, razor-sharp, and brave, but often shy and non-confrontational. They do so much to smack some sense into Matt (though it doesn’t exactly stick) and even though he frustrates them to no end, they still care for him either way. In the case of Wilson Fisk, we are shown that he is basically an animal in a human suit, but it comes with a solid reason when his background is revealed. One of the best writing rules is that villains see themselves at the hero of their own story, and this is very much the case for Wilson Fisk. He thinks razing the city to the ground and starting over is the only way to save it, and while he’s definitely a brute, it’s easy to understand why he thinks that way.

As a writer, I can attest to the fact that I very strongly believe that getting your readers invested in the characters as soon as possible is the right way to go. The reason is that it will allow you the time you need to set up a great story once you have your audience’s full attention and trust. We are often more tolerant of a story taking time to develop if we immediately are entertained or grow fond of our protagonists and antagonists right off the bat. You can make me believe the most ridiculous premise imaginable as long as I give a crap about the main leads. That’s the honest to God truth about writing.

2. Realism is a double-edged sword, to be used very carefully. Another reason Daredevil made a huge splash with its first season is that we got some of the most brutal yet realistic fight scenes ever. I mean, take a look at the hallway fight sequence.

God. It’s…breathtaking. This is not to say that movies and television don’t have realistic fights all the time, but according to Word of God, this was done in one freaking shot. One. That is incredible filmmaking. I mean, that’s some Emmy/Oscar worthy stuff right there, and that’s pretty much what cemented this series in the hearts of many fans. We love attention to detail with realism in today’s society.

For example, showing all the modern tech available for the blind was also massively interesting to me, from Matt’s alarm clock and ringtones to how he reads information on the Internet. It’s showing us the work that was put in to having a blind protagonist and not making it seem like he’s handicapped or anything less than a normal person. It’s a rarely seen perspective that is much appreciated. No pun intended.

However, the flip side of that is that the show quickly established that it wants to be realistic, but then we still have gaping logic holes in certain character’s actions on occasion that can REALLY snap you out of the story. In season one, we had the beloved Wesley, Wilson Fisk’s righthand man, kidnapping Karen Page and threatening her to give up her investigation…and then he puts a gun with live rounds right in front of her on a table. So guess what happens. I mean, really? Wesley is a career criminal who acts with total logic and discretion at all times and who has gotten out of many a scrape using his brain and connections and he goes out like a bitch. I hated it. I hated it so much, and it’s definitely a fault in the writing.

My second example comes from our recent season, where Frank Castle, aka the Punisher, escapes from prison and everyone is 100% certain he’s going to come after the District Attorney who put him there to begin with. So what do they do? Leave her alone in her office standing in front of not one but two HUGE windows despite the fact that the Punisher’s M.O. is to use high powered rifles to take out his targets through windows. I’m not kidding. She stands with her back to the biggest window ever for the entirety of her conversation with Nelson and Murdock, not wearing body armor and not even having a policeman in the room to check the perimeter. So guess what happens? For God’s sake, it was so frustrating that I had to turn off the episode and find something else to do while I was calming myself down.

If you have a story and you make it clear that you want to stick to realism, then you have to go all in. You can’t pick and choose when things will be realistic as hell and then completely back out on it in order to move the plot forward. It’s one or the other. It’s the same reason why I find Sharknado so utterly confusing, which I know is a weird comparison. The movie clearly is bad on purpose, and yet you still have these bizarre moments where it tries to operate on logic and physics when it is in fact a movie about flying sharks that somehow don’t suffocate in mid-air and still feel the need to eat people. One of these things is not like the other. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You have to be consistent in your writing, whether you lean towards realism or the fantastic.

3. Beware the Writer’s Pet. If you’re unfamiliar with TV Tropes, you should really get acquainted. It’s a wonderful site that collects well-known tropes in all forms of media and provides examples. It’s not only fun and hilarious, but it’s also a great teaching tool for writers. To that end, let’s discuss one right now with Karen Page.

I tried to give Karen Page a chance in season one. I really did. It was very sympathetic what happened to her with the death of her friend/coworker Daniel, and I like her gung-ho attitude about exposing the truth about the cover up and Fisk’s organization. However, as the season progressed, it became more and more clear that she was getting treatment that the other characters were not. Sometimes writers get this attachment to a character that puts them on a pedestal safe from harm even though every other character gets the shaft, or has to deal with the karma from their actions. Karen Page is definitely an example of a Writer’s Pet, of a character who gets the exception every single time and doesn’t have to work at not getting screwed over by the brutality of life. Karen Page has had it rough, but she constantly lucks out of every situation, much like another blonde from a television show whom I hate to the depths of my soul.

Writer’s Pets help absolutely no one. It is a bad habit. It seriously decreases the ability to like a character who can’t get themselves out of their own mess and who gets Deus Ex Machina’d out of every scrape even though the other protagonists are forced to make their own way. To me, Karen Page is a damsel in distress who is delusional and thinks she’s actually a badass investigator with street smarts. This show has been absolutely ruthless with its characters, often killing off sweet old ladies or showing bad guys attached to meat hooks with their guts spilling out, but sweet widdle Karen Page escapes everything without a damn scrape.

The lesson here is don’t wrap your characters up in bubble wrap and rock them to sleep. Punish them. Make them cry. Make them squirm. Make them suffer. You still have the choice to make it all worthwhile and to give them a happy ending if it fits the story and if they deserve one, but nothing will be gained by placing them on a pedestal because you just happen to like them so much. It’ll come through in your writing very clearly if you’re holding back because you have a favorite. It’s totally fine to have a favorite, but don’t get soft. If you love them, hurt them for the good of their growth and for the good of the story.

4. Take “Woobie” out of your writing repertoire forever. If you know anything about me, you know that I believe in the Jim Butcher school of “torture every character equally and make them earn their keep so your writing will be awesome.” Daredevil as a show does very well with this in both seasons, except for two characters so far. The first we’ve already discussed is Karen Page. The second, as of season two, is Frank Castle, aka The Punisher. It’s time to get on a bit of a soapbox in this particular case.

Woobification is basically when a clearly bad or evil character becomes someone whom the fandom dotes all their affection on and claims that they are the victim here instead of the antagonist. They are in fact wrong, and projecting their feelings onto this character for whatever reason. A good example of this is Grant Ward from the Agents of SHIELD franchise. He is literally a Neo-Nazi murderer who constantly excused his actions because of his abusive past, and he had a large portion of the AoS fandom on his side constantly excusing his behavior and “standing with him” no matter what horrible thing he did, from shooting people through the throat in cold blood to crashing an entire plane full of innocents just to get a ride into restricted areas. Grant Ward is trash, plain and simple. Yet somehow, he has fans.

Likewise, the Punisher has Karen Page. Seriously. We’re talking about a man who hung bad guys up on meat hooks alive and cut them open and let them slowly bleed to death and suffocate as they drowned in their own blood. And yet Karen Page repeatedly claims that, “He’s not a psychotic murderer!” every single time someone said that about him. This is a man who opened fire on her with a shotgun. This is a man who pistol-whipped someone until his face cracked open like an egg in front of her before shooting him in the head. This is a man who slits people’s throats with shivs. But no, he’s not a psychotic murderer even though a professional medical examiner proved that he suffers from a psychosis in which he constantly relives the death of his family, which bends his perception of reality to the point where he thinks he is never wrong and so he doesn’t regret any of the hundreds of lives he’s wiped out. Yeah, his family was brutally murdered and died in his arms. But guess what?

Writers of the world, I beg you to stop writing this damn trope.

Karen Page really does somehow think that Frank Castle isn’t the scum of the earth, and even though we know her Freudian excuse is that she murdered Wesley and she’s trying to excuse her own crime inwardly, there is no reason that they wrote her as a Punisher Stan in season two. Do not write a character as a monster and then spend the rest of your time trying to explain away his monstrosity. If you’re going to redeem him, do it. But don’t constantly browbeat us with flawed reasoning that he wasn’t as bad as we think he is. We’re okay with the grey area. We’re adults. Treat us like thinking adults. Most of us aren’t going to swallow this crap that he’s not such a bad guy or that he’s a good man when he hung people on meat hooks and split them open like pig carcasses and let them die in horrible screaming agony. Stop trying to make Fetch happen. It’s not going to happen.

5. Beware the “He Who Fights Monsters” trope and use it wisely. One thing that Daredevil also does extremely well is exploring guilt and doubt about vigilantism. Matt constantly questions if he’s doing what is needed for the city, or if he’s simple satisfying his own savage nature born out of witnessing his father’s death at the hands of criminals in Hell’s Kitchen. This is great. It’s a fantastic theme of inner conflict for him, and it negatively affects his whole life as a result, forcing him to choose between what he thinks is justice and his own friends.

However, season two might have taken it a bit too far.

Matt basically ends up systematically alienating his closest friends and allies in season two because of his ridiculous belief that he needs to cut all ties in order to keep them safe. He plunges Foggy into the worst case imaginable, namely trying to reduce the sentence of known crazy murderer Frank Castle, and then bails on helping with the case because of his private crusade with old flame Elektra. Then when Foggy confronts him about getting himself killed while recklessly running into things headfirst as Daredevil, Matt severs ties with him and refuses to apologize for who he is to the guy who has covered for his ass a dozen times and only chastises him because he doesn’t want him dead. Then Matt receives some rather wise comfort from our resident goddess Claire Temple and he still doesn’t listen to her, and inadvertently causes her to quit her job after he brings her a group of patients who are followed by ruthless ninjas. All of this is on top of the fact that The Punisher thinks Matt is one bad day away from being him, even though Frank is clearly cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and has barely a spoonful of humanity left.

Matt’s actions don’t feel like he’s trying to protect his friends. It feels like he’s just being a cold-hearted dick to the people who love him, the people who comfort him, the people who try to help him at every turn even when he gets them in trouble. What I don’t like about season two is that Matt can’t see that even if he avoids his friends, that doesn’t mean they just stop caring or worrying over him. It’s much easier to deal with that concern if the object of your concern shows that they acknowledge what you’re going through and still tries to support you somehow. Matt bails on all of them, and I like him less for it even though I get where the show is trying to go.

It is a very fine line to walk with the He Who Fights Monsters trope. I based my second novel around it, in fact, and I’ve had to reap both the benefits and the negatives from that experience. Some readers were extremely frustrated with Jordan, but they understood what she did and supported her anyway. Other readers got too angry and threw in the towel, and that’s fine too. It’s not for everyone. I think Daredevil gambled and lost with this trope. I think Matt tripped and fell into the Unlikable category, and that’s why I caution all writers to examine where you’re going with your character and make sure you don’t push them to the point of not being relatable. This is not to say that I’ll give up on Matt, but his actions made me lose a chunk of respect and affection for him because he was so dickish.

6. Let your characters grow and learn from their mistakes. Matt Murdock might be one of the most stubborn sons of bitches alive. Honestly, from season one and on he really convinces himself that punching the problem in the face is the best way to go. In some respects, yes, it works. All the small time thugs and criminals are apprehended and sent to serve out their sentence. The big wigs are much harder to keep in jail, but eventually, even they get their comeuppance, like with Wilson Fisk.

However, season two falls into the same trap that made me dislike season one somewhat. Matt just keeps doing the exact same thing a hundred times and yet still expects a different result. He runs headfirst into every problem and just assumes he’s tough enough to survive the consequences. One thing that I’ve always liked about Batman, who has a vein of similarities with Daredevil, is that he does understand that there is more to fighting crime than just punching dudes unconscious. He also investigates crimes and foils them before they happen instead of just reacting to everything. He carries gadgets that make life easier. He studied criminology and allegedly every fighting style known to man. He prepared himself as much as possible, and then he went out into the streets of Gotham to help his fellow man. And Matt Murdock, two seasons in, is still just punching dudes.

You have to expand. You have to innovate or at least self-correct with your characters depending on whether you write a stand-alone work or a series. It gets repetitive and frustrating if your hero refuses to see the plain logic in front of him that “this is not working and if I’m going to be an effective [x], I need to change my ways.” It’s natural for our protagonists to fail, and most of the time, it’s necessary for their overall growth. But after they fail, you need to alter them somehow. Show them a new path. Make them realize they screwed up and change their course to a better tomorrow. Otherwise, it can make the reader extremely angry with them and sever the connection you made to begin with. Nobody wants that. We all want to root for someone we care about and relate to, so don’t cut corners by letting them stay static forever.

All that being said, Daredevil is one hell of a show and I am already raring for the next season. Pun fully intended.

Kyo out.

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