It’s a Giant-Sized edition of The Hodgepodge Podcast! In this episode, Doug and Dirty A welcome back author Matt King to the podcast to discuss the micro-budget indie Avengers: Age of Ultron. But the Marvel goodness doesn’t stop there as the guys FINALLY get to go in-depth on Netflix’s new Daredevil show. Add to that, a discussion of the newly released Star Wars: The Force Awakens details revealed by Vanity Fair. It’s a monster episode! Take a listen!
The Hodgepodge Podcast 
Nice work as always, gentlemen. Perhaps my two favorite parts were “Game of Thrones Hawkeye” and Doug’s quote:
“…Magneto was not their father. F— YOU, MARVEL!”
(Made me laugh perhaps due to the small rage-burst that occurred there…)
As far as Avengers:AoU is concerned, I agree with you guys about the lack of villain development and screen time. Spader was great in the small amount of content that he was given. I also agree that the Vision/Mjolnir moment was a beautifully handled device that allowed Whedon to omit another scene or montage where Vision had to prove himself to the team. It was a perfect blend of early set up to later payoff.
Daredevil was good and occasionally great. LOVED the early episodes, but I agree that it ran out of steam by episode 9 or 10. I think that the final two episodes felt really rushed, too, and I’m not a fan of the contrivance often used in scripts that rely upon the “We have a million places we could look, but ohwaitaminute, here it is!” moment; the final episode showcases this when Karen Page finds some obscure transaction in a log that somehow ties everything to Fisk. I also didn’t think that they developed Vanessa enough to make her final choices make sense – I would have liked to see why she was able to reconcile a life with Fisk after the failed poisoning.
Like you guys, I think the fight choreography was terrific, and it reminded me of a better version of some of the stuff we see on CW’s Arrow. Given this, the final fight with Kingpin was a bit of a let down; there was a detectable difference between this fight of two actors vs. the fights involving stunt-men earlier in the season.
Cox was a pleasant surprise – I didn’t really see the fit from a casting choice when they made the announcement, but he proved to be excellent as both Matt Murdock AND Daredevil. I agree that the costume helmet needs a LOT of work; I think we’ve seen that MCU is finally getting Captain America’s helmet correct and I’m hopeful that Season 2 will do a better job of helping him look better in costume.
Overall, great podcast – you guys are always fun to listen to!
As always, thanks for listening, Jim!