Karen and Foggy are atrocious
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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.