Karen and Foggy are atrocious
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red_skin123 — 9 years ago(September 25, 2016 03:47 PM)
That's not the problem here, I understand Foggy is a foil, I understand he's supposed to be the voice that Murdock is supposed to listen to. He's supposed to help balance out his life as Daredevil as his life as Murdock. He's also supposed to be quick witted and silver tongued, maybe inconfident but still has the capabilities.
All that aside, the actor, is absolutely atrocious, I used to see him in movies as a kid, and I loved him in Idle Hands and Butterfly Effect, but he was just atrocious, he has no chemistry or any believable delivery, he really is one of the weakest members of the cast. When he tries to be the voice of reason and concern, his insincere acting, tone, and choice of delivery always makes him just sound annoyingly whiny, and that's mainly from his less than stellar acting.
And when he tries to be funny or clever, the mixture of hack writing and his hack acting creates this air of a film school dialog exercise and the students are trying to be too clever. For someone so experienced you'd think he has more range than loud, obvious, over-the-top roles that are cartoony or indicative like Butterfly or Idle Hands.
Also I have less problems with Karen Page, she can atleast act but they really have no idea what they're doing with her character. And I didn't mind them showing her taking the flashdrive, showing her questionable nature, and then it leads to her killing Fisk' man, showing she's willing to do horrible things to protect them.
This was interesting, and great, but it was so sporadically written into the series
And it seems she's fine again, no PTSD or anything, just playing Lawyer with Murdock and Foggy -
amodestproposal — 9 years ago(September 27, 2016 12:39 PM)
YepFoggy isn't believable as a friends, a lawyer, a human, or anything he's supposed to be. He turns into a preachy idealist when they feel like they need a speech thrown in and then just complains the rest of the time. He's utterly useless and he's played by a terrible actor who just doesn't sound natural doing ANYTHING. He can't curse, he can't use contractions, he sounds like he memorized every line that morning for a school play. Plus he and Murdock have zero chemistry.
And Karenjesus godshe was a terrible actress on True Blood and in this, she just alternates between shrill panic and laughing and smiling like a moron. And explain this to meshe's a low level assistant at a big construction company or whatever before the show startsthen she's the secretary for the law firm, then by season two she's basically a paralegal who is talking to clients and going to court? Yeah sure.and thenlaw isn't enough for her, so she literally walks into a newspaper office and simply becomes a reporter. Not only that, but she gets a beloved, veteran reporter's office becauseshe got him killed? And I guess she was just harboring writing and investigative skills all this time.
Two horribly drawn character that are way too purposeless and shallow. They could both have been combined into a much better foil for Matt.but Matt is so wholesome, that his true foil is actually Frank Castle. Foggy just represents the majority of society that just want to play by the rules and believe in the system. Which is already represented by Matt's jobif he ever actually did any lawyer-ing.
Frankly, in season 1, Foggy was such a lousy character that I thought he was just there to die by the end of the season. -
dmcreif — 9 years ago(September 27, 2016 01:07 PM)
YepFoggy isn't believable as a friends, a lawyer, a human, or anything he's supposed to be. He turns into a preachy idealist when they feel like they need a speech thrown in and then just complains the rest of the time. He's utterly useless and he's played by a terrible actor who just doesn't sound natural doing ANYTHING. He can't curse, he can't use contractions, he sounds like he memorized every line that morning for a school play. Plus he and Murdock have zero chemistry.
"He can't curse"? He uses the s-word on quite a number of occasions.
Two horribly drawn character that are way too purposeless and shallow. They could both have been combined into a much better foil for Matt.but Matt is so wholesome, that his true foil is actually Frank Castle. Foggy just represents the majority of society that just want to play by the rules and believe in the system. Which is already represented by Matt's jobif he ever actually did any lawyer-ing.
Foggy, in particular, may seem to be a constant complainer and idealist. But here's the thing: he sees Matt as a self-centered jerk that is constantly not only to Foggy and Karen about who he actually is, but to himself as well - about why he fights. Foggy is the voice of the creators, meant to throw cold water on the faces of anyone that might disagree, to remind us (if we're listening) that Matt fights because he's angry and likes fighting. Foggy exists to remind us that Matt uses his "I don't kill anyone" mantra to justify his actions as being for the best - even though what he does is regularly get the crap beaten out of him in vain and that he never actually solves any sort of problems in the long-term. So when the show demonstrates that those choices are either ineffective or have negative consequences on everyone around him, those shades of gray are too either too much for fans to deal with or something they haven't considered, so they lash out at Foggy for being the bearer of that message. (It doesn't help that Eldon Henson is not exactly among the most attractive looking guys out there, and in a visual medium, that doesn't help sell difficult-to-swallow concepts.)
Also, Foggy acts like someone who lives in reality, not a scripted fantasy world. He knows the real-world consequences of Matt's actions: that nearly everything Matt does at night would eventually get him killed. Some crook would shoot Matt in the face, or cut his throat, or douse him in gasoline and then strike a match, or something beyond continuing to attempt to kill him with easily avoidable henchmen punches and kicks and then monologue to him when Matt gets too tired/bloody to move. The fact that Matt is lucky enough that his opponents continue to engage him in his martial arts theatrics probably strikes Foggy as something approaching divine intervention, assuming that he ever considered crooks would be that stupid in the first place. In the real world, at some point Matt's luck would run out, and Matt would get killed or seriously injured, leaving Foggy with the entire practice to run by himself. Aside from the personal tragedy of losing his best friend, that's not a great deal for Foggy, because we are all regularly told that Matt is integral to the success of the firm. And what if it was the NYPD arresting Matt? Then Matt gets disbarred and possibly thrown in prison, and Foggy probably right along with him as an accessory for failing to inform the police about Matt's activities. But again, that's not something that many fans want to consider, so they treat him as the selfish one, instead of Matt.
Is Foggy jealous? Yes. Is he whiny? Sure, he can be sometimes. But he sees Matt's vigilantism as something akin to a drug addiction - a suicidal death wish that Foggy simply has no interest in enabling. All he wants is his friend - not necessarily the normal Matt, but the Matt that isn't going out every night looking to fight an endless war that's going to get him killed. Fans get annoyed because Foggy's wrong; we all know deep down that there's no way that the writers are going to kill off the titular character, and that affects how we view his actions as we watch from a distance. But Foggy doesn't know what we know, and his character is therefore actually written really well, because in the real world death is an actual possibility. If you were going out every night to do vigilante stuff in New York City, running outside the law, always getting beaten up and hurt (after having lied to them about who you are for the past ten years), then your TRUE friends would tell you that you were a lunatic. Foggy is a true friend.
And Karenjesus godshe was a terrible actress on True Blood and in this, she just alternates between shrill panic and laughing and smiling like a moron. And explain this to meshe's a low level assistant at a big construction company or whatever before the show startsthen she's the secretary for the law firm, then by season two she's basically a paralegal who is talking to clients and going to c -
amodestproposal — 9 years ago(September 29, 2016 12:33 PM)
I didn't say he doesn't curse, I said he can't curse. Every time he says beep it comes out like he's saying it for the first time, like everything else he says.
And oh godyes I know how Foggy sees Matt. We all know how he sees him, because he delivers a speech about it every episode.
The whole, "Foggy sees Matt one way, and everyone else, including the audience, sees the truth" is good for a few episodes, but the dance is very, very old. Foggy should have either got on board with his vigilante mission or completely gone against it. Having him in limbo constantly complaining about Matt being Daredevil gets really tedious and it forces the character to surrender any moral high ground. -
dmcreif — 9 years ago(September 29, 2016 03:25 PM)
The whole, "Foggy sees Matt one way, and everyone else, including the audience, sees the truth" is good for a few episodes, but the dance is very, very old. Foggy should have either got on board with his vigilante mission or completely gone against it. Having him in limbo constantly complaining about Matt being Daredevil gets really tedious and it forces the character to surrender any moral high ground.
Well, Foggy doesn't see Matt's actions as particularly noble, especially when you consider that his actions are shutting out and negatively affecting the two people closest to him. Perhaps calling him an "egoist" and "self-centered jerk" would be pushing it, but Matt's actions are primarily self-serving and not altruistic in nature; how could they not be, when they're hurting the two people he's closest to?
Plus, Foggy has to hate that he's now in on the lie. He can't tell Karen, which drives a wedge between them because it affects their personal and professional lives. So every time Matt puts on that Daredevil costume, he jeopardizes not only his own well-being, but Foggy's career and his only two friendships.
And Foggy has no control over that.
That's the big thing here - Matt's bringing this giant elephant into Foggy's life, risking everything that he's worked for for so long, and Foggy can't do anything about it without ending his friendship and business partnership with Matt. And by the end of season 2, Matt is starting to realize that, and is torn apart because he knows that his actions are having that effect but feels that his work is too important to give up.
I should also point out that Matt is just as interesting a character. I do think he's doing the best he thinks he's capable of doing. One of his struggles, which I'm sure anyone can relate to, is that he's unwilling or unable to see things from the perspective of his friends, because he's so intent on doing what he feels he needs to do. This leaves Foggy unable to see the good in Matt's actions because he can't see everything that Matt's doing; all of Matt's actions as Daredevil exist in the abstract for Foggy, as stories and images that play on the evening news. He doesn't see what Matt does in the same way the audience does, and because Matt doesn't tell him about everything, Foggy has to actually trust in the word of a best friend that he has recently learned has been lying to him for nearly all of the time they've known each other. Would you trust him? I wouldn't.
So I probably should state that Matt's not selfish, but Foggy sees it that way, and the writers have worked really hard to build that conflict in there so that the audience see it, too. Foggy has no connection to anything in the other half of Matt's life. Foggy doesn't see Matt out there getting beaten up and chasing down Kitchen Irish, the Hand, or Dogs of Hell bikers. To him, Matt is simply going out and fighting bad guys, which is exactly what the NYPD is supposed to be doing. For Foggy to trust Matt, Matt has to trust Foggy with the truth, which he clearly doesn't. And so Foggy reacts in a very human, very understandable way. It's hard for many fans to understand this, in part because they are analyzing Foggy's behavior from the perspective of someone who is far more aware of Matt's actions and much more predisposed to sympathetic to Matt's cause than Foggy would have any right to be at that point.
So yeah, Foggy comes off as a little whiny, a little preachy, and not as funny as he thinks he is, but that's his character. And ALL of Foggy's complaints about Matt, from HIS perspective, are dead-on right, because Matt is lying to his friends, Matt is risking his life, and Matt is putting Foggy's career and personal life in jeopardy to play the role he is. -
BladePuppet — 9 years ago(November 17, 2016 02:22 PM)
I completely agree. It's mostly the actors' faults. Deborah Anne Wohl is a little better, but like you said, when combined with the writing of her character, her acting is terrible.
I tried watching the show with my wife, who loves watching Agents Of SHIELD and Jessica Jones with me, but she couldn't stay interested. I noticed her attention was stretched the most thin during scenes centered around Karen and Foggy. Agents Of SHIELD has much lower production quality than the Netflix shows, but it has some phenomenal acting and great chemistry between certain actors/characters. It's too bad about the actors in Daredevil, because there's a lot of potential in the relationship between Matt and Foggy.
"When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -
Ithilfaen — 9 years ago(December 02, 2016 12:00 AM)
This hatred of those who criticize the main protagonist is common on all TV shows.
As is the hatred of boring cardboard cutouts "characters" who are just there for the masses to find someone they can "relate to"
For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco -
hyphens11 — 9 years ago(September 25, 2016 03:40 AM)
Lol @ Foggy as 'plucky comic relief'. I think that's what he's meant to be, but he falls so far short. I don't know whether that's the actor or the writing, but he's a sidekick with a personality flatter than Matt's.