Daredevil: A Cold Day in Hell’s Kitchen

 “What if this isn’t the end? What if this is just the beginning?”

This, in the end, is a fairly predictable finale, but it’s so well-crafted and emotionally resonant that that’s ok. It’s not much of a spoiler, given the forty years since Daredevil #181, that Electra dies, so why not have an emotional Matt pledge to be with her, and go with her anywhere, before their final battle against the odds, just to rub in the fact we all know she’s not going to survive?

It’s an all-out battle with Nobu and the Hand, with much of the supporting cast involved as hostages. Even Frank Castle, while taking a lower profile, gets to play his part at the end… while wearing that proper Punisher skull t-shirt. Daredevil finally gets his billy club, too.

It’s a highly satisfying closer, and that’s not even taking into accountthe cameo appearance of Jeri Hogarth from Jessica Jones- will Foggy take that high flying job? Will he appear in other Netflix Marvel shows before the next season of Daredevil? And we get that dramatic moment, right at the end, where Matt finally reveals to Karen that he’s Daredevil.

I’ll wait for the Netflix shows to transfer to Disney Plus, then I’ll carry on with the first season of Luke Cage…

Jessica Jones: AKA It's Called Whiskey

"Ok. So there's you, me, the big green dude and his crew."

It's an eventful third episode as Jessica and Luke bond over their superpowers, taking the chance to give us a bit of exposition on what they can both exactly do in between extremely frequent bouts of the kind of sex you get between a woman with super strength and an invulnerable man. That bed stood no chance.

Jessica half-tells Luke about Killgrave before mutual lust interrupts. And we get our first "Sweet Christmas!". But the set piece is Trish arranging a phone in from prison with poor Hope, believed by no one, in which the idea is thrown out that Killgrave exists in a hope that other victims come forward. But the whole thing comes to a distinctly menacing end as Killgrave himself Rings in with threats.

Trish, incidentally, is Patsy Walker, not (yet?) Hellcat but with a comic and fans, although it seems Killgrave "always thought her television show was shite". That's quite a revelation. After a significant alteration with a mind controlled cop, though, Jessica manages to trace Killgrave to the luxury apartment where he's staying in the inevitable early confrontation that the rhythms of storytelling require. She looks through a window and sees Killgrave- and that's when we see: it was Jessica who pushed Luke's wife under that bus, killing her, at Killgrave's order. Not wonder she breaks up with him at the end. Awfully, though, he thinks that she just simply can't deal with being with a widower.

Creepier than all that, though, are the many stalkery pics of Jessica, put there for her to find, with "See you later" written on one to make it clear that the whole show was for her benefit. Killgrave has plans for her. This is gripping telly.

Humans: Season 2, Episode 2

"Why do you hurt us?"

Two episodes in, and both the plot and the philosophical subtext become clearer. At one extreme we have Hester, the Malcolm X of the synths, who hates the oppressive humans and has no compunction about killing them. On the other we have Niska, synth, avid reader of philosophy and, as she's determined to be tried as a human would be for the murder she has committed, someone rather likely to have read The Outsider. This series seems to have moved on from literary sci-fi to French existentialism. I like it.

Niska is the most fascinating character- but she has competition. Mattie, for one, manages to work out what Niska has done with her disk, and that synths are slowly becoming sentient; just the odd one for now but... where will it end? Mattie is also quite brazenly restoring the late lamented Odi in plain sight, which shows an admirable amount of brazen cheek. I love her. Then we have the wise gentle Max, and the kind and loving Mia, who suffers heartbreak here from nothing but an act of kindness.And then we see Kate and Pete again, their relationship having grown rather lovely. Meanwhile, over in that country which seems to think that handing loads of power to Donald Trump is a good idea, Athena has decided to go to England and visit our old friend Hobb.

To an extent things are still setting up, and perhaps it's taking more time this series for things to really start to be sublime, but the philosophical heart is already there.

Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)

"Burn the witch."

As per this film's predecessor, I ought to make the point that I know sod all about any of the computer games. Nevertheless, this is even better than Silent Hill, and bloody scary to boot. I understand the critics don't like it, but then they know the game (Silent Hill 3, my wife tells me); I suspect that's why. My wife, incidentally, is playing the game as I type. I've promised to protect her from the monsters.

Yes, there's a plot and yes, it works fine, but this film is all about the scary imagery and set pieces and that's what I plan to focus on. If you haven't seen the film, look away now.

It's a very nightmarish film, hence the narrative style, and so of course we begin with a dream sequence in which Heather (as she's now calling herself), the daughter from the previous film, sees images of Pyramid Head and other delights and is ominously warned to stay away from a certain West Virginia town called Silent Hill.

I like Heather's little speech in class; she moves around, won't be around long, and there's little point in the other students getting to know her. We quickly get a sequence of scary kids, reminding me a little of Village of the Damned. But we soon shift to a dream sequence and, after sequences introducing fellow student Vincent, with whom she muses philosophically on dreams vs. reality, reflecting exactly how the film is narratively structured, and a mysterious detective called Douglas Cartland, who promptly dies. Several delightfully unnerving dream sequences later, the action finally shifts to Silent Hill itself. The direction is already superb.

Having learned the backstory- fire burning underground, religious zealots etc- Heather, alongside Vincent, gains a McGuffin, loses both Vincent and her Dad as hostages, and gets some expository guff about how she's the only good part of Alessa's soul. More interestingly, we get a deeply scary scenes with shop window dummies which I very much hope strongly influences any future appearance of the Autons in Doctor Who. The plastic mannequin spider in the middle of its web is amazing. This is by far the highlight of the film.

Of course, we get scenes of Pyramid Head chopping off prisoners' hands, and we get to see the dilapidated amusement park again as the denouement plays out. The film ends very abruptly, it must be said, and I'm not sure a happy ending could ever have satisfied, but I very much enjoyed this film.