Netflix presents an Amazing Second Season of MARVEL's DAREDEVIL!!

Last year Netflix brought us an amazingly good run on the first season of Marvel’s DAREDEVIL. Now, the second season can also be seen on Netflix. The first season concentrated on the rise of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, oddly enough a villain that originated in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man but that has since also diverted to the pages of Daredevil and other superheroes. Although Wilson Fisk does have a cameo this season as a villain in prison, the story now revolves around a new character, Frank Castle, who takes care of criminals in New York in a much more lethal way than DD: he kills them. Castle thinks that DD’s way is inefficient as DD beats them but they then get away, or out of jail and start all over again. Castle therefor feels DD is a coward who uses only half measures in not killing those who need to be killed. Frank Castle is played by Jon Bernthal, who has been seen in The Walking Dead as Shane and as the lead in Frank Darabont’s miniseries MOB CITY. Bernthal gives Frank Castle a Travis Bickle look, which makes this rendition of the Punisher extremely interesting ! (For those of you not familiar with Travis Bickle, please check out Martin Scorsese's legendary film TAXI DRIVER now!!!)

Matt Murdock’s relation with Foggy Nelson and Karen Page is however also sorely tested when he is visited by his former girlfriend Elektra Natchios. Elektra was also trained by Stick and she is now out to destroy The Hand but needs Daredevil’s help to do it. Matt finds out the hard way that all the time he spends as Daredevil is time he can not be useful as Matt Murdock, attorney and this has severe consequences for him. Rosario Dawson again cameo’s as Claire and Vincent d’Onofrio also reappears as Wilson Fisk. Scott Glenn is back again as Stick. Although the reviews of the second season are less impressive than the first, I must admit that this series is extremely compelling!

The acting is also very good here. Jon Bernthal is superb as Frank Castle while Elodie Yung as Elektra clearly shows talent as a woman who causes trouble for Matt. Charlie Cox and his colleagues are excellent in their roles and I look forward to the next season. It is clear in this show that these adventures take place in the same world as that of Jessica Jones and so, it will also be very rewarding to see these two series and the next two, Luke Cage, to follow in October and Iron Fist, to follow hopefully next yearm culminate in The Defenders.

Review: LEONARD, My Fifty Year Friendship With A Remarkable Man, by WILLIAM SHATNER

Slightly more than a year ago, Leonard Nimoy passed away. His legacy as Spock in the original STAR TREK series is by this time undeniably huge. It was also well known that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were good friends. William Shatner played Captain Kirk as a man of action to Nimoy's voice of reason in Mr. Spock. Add to that the humanity and compassion of Dr. McCoy (so wonderfully played by the now often forgotten DeForest Kelley) and the basis was present for a set of adventures that knew no bounds. The Original Star Trek was cutting edge television in its day. If you know William Shatner, you also know that he is a career man, who never ceases to work and do things that will benefit his career. He has had the luxury of the heroic roles ( Captain Kirk, T.J. Hooker) as well as the narrative presenter (Rescue 911) or the spokesperson (his Priceline background) as well as being a writer of many books. Some will think Mr. Shatner is a blowhard ego-maniac (his continuing quarrels with George Takei are well documented and easily found on the internet) but I prefer to think of his more as a career minded bull in a China shop, who has no awareness of what he causes. You see, I don't think of him as someone who would be "evil" or in any way or capacity the bad guy. I think he is just not really very aware of some of the reactions he causes. In the book LEONARD, My Fifty Year Friendship With A Remarkable Man, you will also find this very characteristic back again. It is a very enjoyable book but to people who have read loads of earlier releases not much of it will surprise you. But in effect this is a book about William Shatner and his relationship to Leonard Nimoy. So if you want to read this, be sure to install your Bullshit Filters and get ready to read Shatnerian prose. If you learn how to read between his lines and get to the truth of this book, it is very enjoyable. I do think it is a bit of a shame that Shatner chooses to give it a bit of a dramatic ending with a regret of his towards the deceased Leonard Nimoy, but this kind of misery and regret does sell books. So think of that as nothing more than it is.

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were good friends. Read nothing more into this book than that and you will have a nice few hours with it. Of course, the question will always remain how much of it is actually written by Shatner as he admits to co-writing this volume with David Fisher (it has often been suggested that he also never truly wrote the TEKWAR books or any of his subsequent books, that he provided the outlines and let the damn books be written by his ghost writers) but if that is of any concern to you, well, that is up to you. I just wanted to say, I had a good time with LEONARD, My Fifty Year Friendship With A Remarkable Man.

THE WALKING DEAD : The Coming of NEGAN !!

Jeffrey Dean Morgan made an impressive debut on the finale episode of The Walking Dead. Morgan was only actually in the episode for 10 minutes but in those 10 minutes Morgan made us believe in his character, NEGAN, the new bad guy to make life harder for the group of survivors we have come to care for in all these 6 seasons so far.

Negan’s introduction in the comics also meant the death of GLENN (Steven Yeun) but in the episode the fatal beating given by Negan was shown from a POV shot, meaning we did not get to see who was struck down. So we will have to wait until the premiere of the next season this fall to see which character was killed.

Was it MIchonne, Daryl, Glenn, Rosita, Carl, Maggie, Rick, Aaron, Eugene, Abraham or Sasha? Internet speculation centers on Glenn, Abraham and Eugene but showrunner Scott Gimple says that this very question, painful as it is now not to know, will set up a new storyline which will take our characters in new directions.

"Do I live or do I die ?"

 I would like to remind the fans that everything said on the internet now is speculation. Glenn already survived another close call in the first half of the Sixth Season so one could surmise this would put him in a safety zone but Gimple reminds us that on this show “No one is safe” That also means even Rick (who seemed to be losing it as he acquiesced to get on his knees before the coming of Negan) or Daryl (who was shot in the show leading up to this one) or Maggie (who was sick due to complications with the pregnancy)  could bite the dust. Even Carl, who in the comics seems to get close to Negan in a weird way, could be the one to kick the bucket.





As a writer myself, I did find this episode weak as it only prolonged a situation that needed to set up the confrontation of Negan's introduction. Only the last 10 minutes of the show were really worthwhile and this was mostly due to the efforts of Jeffrey Dean Morgan. However, if I had been in the shoes of NEGAN and I would have seen these guys kill 20 of my men, I would most assuredly KILL THEM ALL !! What is this stupid shit about only killing ONE GUY for them having killed TWENTY ?? Stepping out of my role as Devil's Advocate, this episode does bring an interesting bit of information to bear : our heroes have killed 20 Men of NEGAN's before he did anything to them. In other words, our heroes were the bad guys here. Killing only ONE PERSON is not the way a leader like NEGAN would take his leadership back into his own hands, I would say. But then, who am I?

 I look forward with great interest when THE WALKING DEAD will return, probably in October.