Draft:Into the Ring

"Into the Ring" is the first episode of the first season of the streaming television series Daredevil, based on the character with the same name. It was released on April 10, 2015, on Netflix.

The story follows amateur lawyers Matt Murdock and Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, who try to help young woman Karen Page with the murder of her co-worker Daniel Fisher which was blamed on her, meanwhile, a group of Mafia hitmen try to assassinate Page so Murdock has to rescue her from them and end the case.

Plot
A truck crash causes the acid the truck was carrying is spill on the road, blinding a young Matt Murdock. Matt's father Jack arrives at the scene and informs his son that everything's gonna be fine, however Matt yells that he now can't see and is permanently blind for the rest of his life.

A now adult Matt gives a confession to his priest Father Paul Lantom about his father's career as a boxer and some of his childhood, telling the priest that now he is going to get the "devil off his shoulders" and "do what needs to be done". A group of hitmen lead by Turk Barrett, throw some kidnapped women into a cargo, however, the gangsters are beaten up by a masked vigilante and the women rescued by him.

Next morning, Murdock wakes up and has a phone call with his friend and business partner Franklin "Foggy" Nelson that he is late for work, after hanging the phone up, Nelson talks to and bribes his frenemy, Police Officer Brett Mahoney, about getting him and Murdock new cases to do. Murdock and Nelson are then given a look at their new office whilst bantering about what their jobs as lawyers are. Meanwhile, a young woman named Karen Page is arrested by the police who found her at the apartment of her now deceased co-worker Daniel Fisher after she allegedly murdered him over there. Murdock and Nelson take the case and at the police station, talk to Page about the murder where she says that she and Fisher were working for a company named Union Allied Construction and that one day, she had a few drinks with Fisher at the bar and next morning, found herself in his apartment, with Fisher lying dead and she holding the knife that killed him.

At a park meanwhile, James Wesley, a mob enforcer, threatens Clyde Farnum about his debt to Wesley's boss and that if he doesn't give him the debt or call a hit, then Wesley's boss will have Farnum's daughter Tracy killed. At her prison cell that night, Page is almost assassinated by her prison guard, revealed to be Farnum. Murdock and Nelson talk about the incident to detectives Christian Blake and Carl Hoffman who tell the two to stay out of it otherwise they will beat them out of it, with the two lawyers suspicious of the detectives' involvement. To help Page, Murdock and Nelson take her to their office where they question her about her job and the company as a whole, Page tells them that she was a secretary at Union Allied Construction, she found out that her company was involved in corrupt activities including money embezzlement and that she might've been drugged by Fisher or someone else the day she drank at the bar with him, and that someone is going after her to kill her for uncovering the private activities, after hearing the news, Murdock takes Karen to sleep at his apartment for the night.

At the top of a Union Allied construction site, Leland Owlsley, a right-hand man for Wesley's boss talks about the cargo incident last night with Russian hitmen Vladimir and Anatoly Ranskahov, Chinese gangster Madame Gao, Japanese yakuza gangster Nobu Yoshioka and Wesley himself who tells the two Russians to get out of the case whilst him, Owlsley and their boss will handle it. At Murdock's apartment meanwhile, Page is attacked by Wesley's henchman Rance who fights Murdock wearing his mask and costume, ending with Murdock beating up Rance to near death as Karen watches and getting a flashback to his childhood when he talked to his dad who was injured after a boxing match.

The next morning, Page thanks Murdock and Nelson for helping her. Meanwhile, Wesley hears from his employer about Rance's defeat and decides to help him get a file on Murdock and Nelson. At night, whilst Murdock is practicing boxing at a closed boxing club, Farnum is found dead in his home and Rance is found hanged in a prison cell, meanwhile, Madame Gao is at her drug warehouse whilst Nobu is looking at plans for an area given to him, at the same time at a different location, Barrett, listening to Wesley's orders, informs the Ranskahovs of their next job, we then see the two Russians beat up a man and kidnap his son by putting him in the back of a van and then driving off with him, presumably to lure "the man in black" (Murdock in his costume) towards a trap. We end the episode finally by a shot of Murdock at the rooftop of a building, looking down at the streets for his next move as a heroic vigilante.

Development
In October 2013, Marvel Comics and Disney announced that Marvel Television and ABC Studios would bring a live-action series centered around Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage and a mini-series based on The Defenders to Netflix. It was announced that it would lead to a series. Drew Goddard was hired as an executive producer and showrunner for Daredevil, but in May 2014, Goddard left the show to focus on directing a feature film based on Sony Pictures Entertainment's Marvel film The Sinister Six. It was announced that he had resigned as a runner. He was replaced by Stephen S. DeKnight. Goddard who wrote the first two episodes, remained on the show as a consultant and executive producer however. It was also revealed that the series' name would be Marvel's Daredevil. The crew for the episodes moving forward are DeKnight, Goddard, Jeph Loeb, Jim Cholly, Dan Buckley, Joe Quesada, Stan Lee, Alan Fine, Cindy Holland and Chris Hennigman. Ally Goss and Peter Friedlander also serve as executive producers. "Into the Ring" was directed by Phil Abraham. The season is inspired by the 1993 comic book miniseries Daredevil: The Man Without Fear by John Romita Jr and Frank Miller, while it is not fully inspired by it, it still incorporates elements of the comic into the narrative.

Casting
Charlie Cox was cast as Matt Murdock in May 2014 alongside Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk. Other members such as Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Toby Leonard Moore, Bob Gunton, Vondie Curtis Hall, Ayelet Zurer and Rosario Dawson later joined the cast. In July 2014, it was reported that Peter Shinkoda would appear regularly in the season, playing Hashiro, in March 2015, it was revealed that the character was actually Nobu Yoshioka. It was also revealed that actors Wai Ching Ho, Rob Morgan and Nikolai Nikolaeff would portray the characters Madame Gao, Turk Barrett and Vladimir Ranskahov. Additionally, it was also revealed that Jeffrey Cantor, Judith Delgado, Darryl Edwards, Royce Johnson, Adrian Lennox, Peter McRobbie, Amy Rutberg, Chris Tardio, Tom Walker and Susan Varon where added to the cast list.

Filming
In February 2014, Marvel announced that Daredevil would be filmed in New York City. In April 2014, Quesada, reiterated this, stating that in addition to sound stage work, the show would be filmed in classic Hell's Kitchen-like locations in Brooklyn and Long Island City. Loeb said that filming for Daredevil would begin in July 2014, and DeKnight confirmed that filming began that same month. The series was filmed on a budget of $56 million under the working title "Bluff". Filming finished on December 21, 2014.

Critical response
IGN reviewer Matt Fowler gave a positive review for the episode, saying "A cool, solid start for Marvel's Daredevil - Netflix's super-gritty, broken bones take on the famed Hell's Kitchen hero. A series that feels appropriately different from the rest of the MCU, in the same way that Daredevil comics feel different than, say, Avengers comics. A gloomier, more intense tone focused on sin and salvation. Poverty, crime, drugs, and the very human evil that plagues common, downtrodden citizens. This is a world connected to the MCU, but in such a way that it also remains somewhat closed off and separate."

Entertainment Weekly reviewer Kevin P. Sullivan also gave a positive response, saying that: "Netflix's Daredevil is Marvel's first step toward bringing the Avengers model to serialized television, and in its first hour, the series suggests that replicating the Cinematic Universe's success is most certainly possible on TV and that if everything goes according to plan, the big picture might be something even more rewarding."

Sam Thielman of The Guardian wrote that, "Netflix's new zillion-dollar series has a terrific cast, a great line in New York noir and expert fight sequences – as if Scorsese had made The Avengers". He further went on to commend the episode by saying, "If you wish that either Martin Scorsese had directed The Avengers or that The Wire was a little sillier, Marvel and Netflix have good news in the form of Daredevil".

Oliver Sava of The A.V. Club wrote a positive response in his review, saying that, "With Daredevil, the Marvel Cinematic Universe takes its first steps into the world of street-level superheroics with a gritty action drama that offers a more grounded perspective on this fantastic world, exploring how the actions of people with extraordinary power have consequences that negatively impact the lives of normal civilians. It's a side of the MCU we haven't seen yet, and the show's creative team uses this opportunity to deliver a product that is unlike anything Marvel Studios has attempted in the past."

"Into the Ring" has a positive feedback on Rotten Tomatoes as well, with no score but 1 positive review.