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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 322708" data-attributes="member: 23">Daredevil Penny and Dime / Kinbaku Elektra has arrived on the scene and so far, so good. It’s good to see her and Élodie Yung looks the part. Her accent confused me since it sounded more British than Greek. It seems Élodie is French with Cambodian heritage, so she has that exotic beauty which I associate with the character, and I like that her accent falls down on the European side which is preferable to Jennifer Garner’s all-American thing (not that I disliked Garner’s portrayal. I even like the 2003 Daredevil film more than most, it seems).Naturally, Elektra’s arrival came immediately after Matt and Karen’s first kiss. Karen is irritating me with her coy/coquettish/pushy/mousy dance with Matt as it all seems so disingenuous, but on reflection it’s previously been observed by Foggy that Matt himself can be a bit of a tart who uses his blindness as an asset when it comes to attracting women, so Matt and Karen are certainly a pair well matched in the disingenuous stakes. The interest here comes from trying to work out which one is being the most manipulative in their romantic scenes (and indeed, if either or both is being manipulative at all). This makes their courtship a more down to earth version of the one Matt had with Elektra in the flashbacks from a decade earlier, giving a nice parallel. And it must be said that the staging of their first kiss (Hell's Kitchen sidewalk in heavy rain during an evening lit by the colours of the city) was gorgeously staged. The Punisher storyline is proving a great watch, with his background as a war hero and the execution of his family painting him in shades of grey even as he kills without hesitation. It’s felt rewarding to see Matt, Karen, Foggy and Mitchell Ellison* coming round to realise he’s not the one-dimensional monster he initially appeared. Jon Bernthal continues to give a great performance, including a lengthy discourse with Matt as Frank lay at death’s door after being tortured**. He is a bit of a mumbler and I didn’t pick up all the dialogue (a conversation for <a href="https://tellytalk.net/threads/subtitles-do-you-use-them.11490/" target="_blank">the Subtitles thread</a>, perhaps) but the pain behind his eyes says it all. The Daredevil/Punisher team-up during Matt’s rescue of Frank felt like a seismic shift in their relationship and reinforced The Punisher’s role as an anti-hero rather than one of pure antagonism.* It is nice to see more of Geoffrey Cantor as Ellison and he’s a great character, but watching the scenes between Ellison and Karen at the Bulletin’s “morgue” I couldn’t help missing Ben Urich. It seems the writers are aware of the void his absence leaves in the series and at least Ellison himself spoke fondly of Ben during this very scene. ** The violence in this series continues to feel natural as part of an unfolding story in recent episodes. Had someone described some of these scenes to me ahead of time I may have been less keen to watch (in the way that comments about the torture and violence in 24 have pushed that series further and further down my viewing bucket list), but watching it play out subjectively while invested in the story and having no idea what’s coming next it certainly hasn’t detracted from my enjoyment and has perhaps even made this a more intensely gripping experience. The icepick in the eye moment was rather stomach churning and unnecessary, but perhaps that’s the point.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?