EFAP #328 - A Complete Breakdown of Daredevil: Born Again - Episodes 1,2 and 3

Be the first stream where I have fiber as well. Oh, exciting. Oh good, that keeps you—keeps your, you know, your inets clean. Helps you to, you know, helps the microbiome, makes the digestion cleaner. It's true. Everything should go through smoothly, through the internet tubes. It's like in a Bob Ross video, that you've got happy little fellas that are like, "Yeah," and then that go that way, exactly. And it's not, you know, help him, help him do his, his, his little internet show. Important for us all to uh, provide fiber to our internet pipes. Got to get it in there, because if those pipes get clogged up with all that internet, then it's just going to be slow, and no one likes that. Exactly. It's when it gets clogged, when it's just like, it gets stuck, and then the little fellas are like, "All right, get the construction workers," and they come in wearing a hard hat. It's like, "All right, let's get the work go, go, go. You got to be safe. Get that data out of that pipe. Yeah, get it moving." Got some gamers here down the street. We got it. It becomes like super clogged, and they have to get the mayor involved. And the awkward thing is that the data that happened to be clogged this time was porn, so everyone's like, "H, can we just get it—can we get it moving? Jesus. Every—that's another porn clog again. God damn it. Going to be a disaster for PR. Ah, that's a lot of porn. They ain't going to give us fiber ever again. The weird [ __ ]."

So here we are. Hello. Here we are. How you doing there, chat? Going to talk about some, some Daredevil: Born Again today, but I suppose uh, CU, this just—there's really no, no preamble to the Preamble, so may as well get on with the Preamble I suppose, which in this case I'm just going to—more of a postamble now. Right upon meeting these fine gentlemen, each uh, fringy specifically, I found pretty quickly was pretty big fan of a character called Daredevil. Now, of course, uh, I had familiarity with the 2003 film. That's where I got all of my Daredevil information, because I don't read. I don't know how yet. I'm still figuring that out. Rags has giving me lessons with the Google Fiber. Yeah, I think fiber is going to fix that actually. Um, you know, and then plays him in some video games, and then the, the TV show came out and I uh, I gave that a little checker-roon, one through, and then, you know, we—the reason I'm doing this sort of fast is that I'm trying to say that uh, I, I, I had a chat with Frey back in the day about him, and I realized, "Oh man, he's relatively passionate about this, this embarrassing blind man who dresses in red pajamas." I guess he could, you know, have that passion. I'll stick to cool heroes like Calendar Man. No wait, he's not a hero, he's a villain. Damn it. Calendar Man is a villain. Condiment King. Oh [ __ ], he's not a villain either. Um, no, he is a villain. You said he's not a villain. He is. Oh, is he? How could he be? He does condiments. Everyone loves those. Wait, so heroes just have like burgers and everything? Does he drown people in condiments? I, I don't know about that, but I know that he gets up to no good with, with them, man. Can you imagine if you just had like an Olympic-sized swimming pool, pool full of mustard, and then you just left it? You came back a week later. What would it be like? Oh my goodness. Also, if you tossed into the center of it, that would be pretty, like—like if it was really deep. I wonder how difficult it is to get out. It would taste—well, it would be just horrible as an experience, obviously. Yeah, you'd probably just right down and it's too dense or whatever. I think so. Yeah, man. Condiment King's [ __ ]ed up for all this speculation. No wonder he has to be stopped by—is it the Flash's enemy? Is that right? Or is he a Batman enemy? I can't remember. No, didn't he kill Flash's mom or whatever that backstory was? What? Flash's mom was killed by the Condiment King? I think that's how it worked. Was it? That sucks, man. Mustard pool. What? After her drown? Oh man, the Ketchup Commandos have to go and stop him. That's one of them tough ones of being like, "Man, that's really sad, but also so funny." Like the—no, can—or—well, clean up the table. In any case, with this on the way, it made the most sense, I believe, for Fringy to take the helm, and thus the, also the, the format in which you want to guide us through this wonderful Adventure. 'Cause if anyone knows from any other the shows that I've been a part of—big fan of this Born Again thing. Oh boy, yes sir. That's great. That's great. That is great. Being a new—a fan of a new thing. But uh, yes. Yeah, man. Perhaps uh, who knows where we'll go exactly first, but I hand it to you, Mr.—do whatever you want.

Well, I think I'd like to begin a coverage of Daredevil: Born Again, the Marvel Studios television series on Disney Plus, with an excerpt from—well, it is—it's—it's—they say it's Marvel Television, but it's a distinction without a difference. It's not even—there was a Marvel Television. They made the original Daredevil television series on Netflix, but uh, this was made by Marvel Studios. Um, and before we talk about it, I'd like to begin with an excerpt from the real Daredevil: Born Again, written by Frank Miller, illustrated by David Mazzucchelli. Uh, generally considered to be—I apolog—I just want one thing for clarification. CU, some people, I guess, were confused. America has moved forward an hour, I guess. Uh, a lot of other places haven't yet, so some people are like, "Why late?" It's like, "We're actually on time." Okay, yeah, we're on time, like wizards, but uh, it'll be what? Two weeks, I think, just over before time goes back to normal, about. So just, yeah, just letting people know. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, no worries. Yeah. So I'd like to uh, read an excerpt from Daredevil: Born Again. It's a comic book storyline that I really, really like, um, which probably shouldn't be a surprise. Uh, basically, all you need to know—'cause I would recommend reading it—but all you need to know is that Matt Murdoch confronted Kingpin and lost, but survived. And in the wake of this, Kingpin—he ponders what will become of him, Matt, and he thinks to himself, "What is it about Matt Murdoch? He was a minor concern, a promising talent to be observed and cataloged, and even occasionally flattered, and perhaps one day to be turned to the Kingpin's way, but he is more than this now. He is much more than this. He always was, and I, I have shown him that a man without hope is a Man Without Fear."

So, Platoon, why don't you tell me what you think of the original Daredevil series on Netflix? Um, I liked it quite a lot. I had never seen it before until, obviously, Daredevil: Born Again was coming out, um, and I realized I'd have to go and watch all from the beginning, and wasn't massively looking forward to it, because just [ __ ] time, effort, work. It's another strand of the MCU that I'm now going to have to keep in my brain. But then, basically, was hooked from episode one of the original Netflix version. That was—that was a very nice experience going through it, um, and like, I, I kind of assumed that I would need to understand all of it to go into Daredevil: Born Again, because, you know, it would all be incredibly relevant, and it would improve my viewing experience. No. Um, it kind of the opposite is the case. I think the more you know, the more you remember, uh, the uh, the less enjoyable the new one becomes. But just—just to be reminded that actually like superhero stories with like more manageable, local, appreciable stakes are more compelling, much more compelling as characters than the latest laser-shooting, flying, massive Multiverse-fighting, world-ending threat-destroying nonsense that we, we typically get from the movies. So to be, yeah, reminded that this is—this is like the best of, of what Marvel-type content could be, um, was a nice experience. And then, of course, you get all three of those seasons back to back. I thought like, even season three, I think, was probably my least favorite, just because of a few little narrative tricks that I'm not a huge fan of, like, u, you know, psychic projection-type, walking through people's memories, discussing, you know, present tense context with people that you only remember having, you know, they, they've died already. I, I just find those a little bit too convenient. But the overall story again was still compelling. The Kingpin is a tremendous villain. Um, that, that dynamic, then playing off each other all the way through. He's a presence even when he's not on the screen, which is—which is usually the sign of a very good villain indeed. Um, the only one, I guess, that I wasn't blown away by would be Defenders, and that was because I forgot it existed, and then I watched it out of order. So that's—that's the normal reaction. Yes. Lego. Incredibly conventional takes that I have, but that, that would be my overall uh, yeah, summary of the, the old Netflix special. Hey, Rags, what do you think of the original uh, Daredevil series on Netflix?

So, um, as of not too recently, I had not engaged really with any Daredevil content at all. Pretty much all that I knew about Daredevil was from Fringy talking about it, talking about how much he really liked Daredevil, uh, and so now that I've seen uh, the original three seasons and Defenders, I got to say that Daredevil has gone from a character I essentially didn't really know anything about apart from the general premise to kind of one of my favorites. Um, the shows are well done. Uh, Defenders is—but seasons one, two, and three, in all of their own ways, I really enjoyed them. They felt different from one another. We've got a pretty wide cast of likable characters that are interesting, that have their own perspectives on the world and their place in it and what they should or shouldn't do. Um, I really liked a lot of the construction of the—it's kind of a lot of the stuff that Platoon had said, the, the sort of low stakes, people punching each other in hallways and in alleyways and warehouses and stuff, but it's shot well, and it is choreographed well to where you feel a sense of, um, real, like real excitement to it. Um, in particular, I think while I was watch—it was in season three, uh, when Matt was escaping the prison, that entire sequence was like, "Oh [ __ ], this is like really, really—I'm really enjoying this." There was this uh, this, this kind of intensity to it, um, that, that I really got on board with. I really liked, you know, Frank Castle, and I really enjoy Kingpin as a villain. I like Murdoch, and I, I just kind of—there's so much to like about it. Um, there is—it's just—it, it feels like a show that they don't really make anymore. And when you watch the show and then you sort of remind yourself that this is a part of the MCU now, it makes it feel all the more bizarre that this show with its small stakes and its uh, construction and its thematics and its cast of characters that you actually, you know, give a damn about, is, is a part of something that's just so much worse than it. Um, uh, but all this to say, I suppose, I really, really like the, the Daredevil shows. I'd recommend everyone watch the first three seasons and, um, uh, I, I'm very glad that I have those in my, I guess, under my belt, and I'm ready to talk about Born Again once uh, once it comes to that. Muley, what do you think of Daredevil?

It was fun getting a real refresh on it, because there's countless highlights throughout seasons one, two, and three that give a sense of exactly what we had. We used to be a real country. Okay, we used to make steel. We used to know things about stories. They used to do stuff that makes you go, "Of course, 'cause that's a good idea," you know? We don't do that much anymore. And uh, season one, the pilot, holy [ __ ], what a, what a dense and intelligent way to introduce and create the foundations for, or a series that never—it's, it's, it's so much better than you could have ever expected, especially if you have any awareness of the—especially now, all the TV shows ever made in association with Disney Marvel, right? It'd be like, "Holy [ __ ], how did this one even exist?" Um, one of the most striking things about it is the look. It's, it's shot like it's um, made by someone who cares about how things look. That's insane. We don't do that anymore. Absolutely. Like, that's one of the—if anything, of all the things that need fixing, that's so far down the list. I feel like it'll never be approached. Like it's uh, you know, we got so much other [ __ ] to solve, but um, you know, there's, there's so many different moments that just are satisfying to watch, super engaging, and uh, you're sort of—for someone like a Daredevil, who I, I was familiar enough with for many reasons, it's, it's like, "Are they going to tackle this? Are they going to tackle this? Are they going to focus on this?" Blah, blah, blah. And it's like, they managed to basically cover almost everything, which is pretty difficult. He's one of the more complicated characters in terms of all the different pushes and impulses in his life, of what can affect any given decision, and then his power level, and then the uh, sort of enemies he fights, that sort of thing. It's all like a giant set of variables. And it was crazy because watching season one, it was like, "Oh yeah, they give us like the, the villain meeting where they have a whole bunch of cast of characters that all get about like two to three episodes each in terms of their arc getting taken down, and it's like a gradual progression of him cleaning up the city until he can reach Kingpin, sort of thing." It's like, that's like structure, that's like a plan, that's [ __ ] insane. And it's even more insane to know that they didn't have a preferable amount of time and money to create the episodes in seasons one, two, and three, and they had to really fight, and they were very passionate. And it reminds me of some other TV shows like Firefly, or perhaps something close to like Buffy, and specifically Angel, who uh, several people who worked on those shows ended up in Daredevil, and you can see that DNA, and it's wonderful. And I, I—it's just so juicy, and you love to drink it all up. Uh, not to sit here forever talking about it, I would say my uh, my most memorable and favorite moment is going to be season two, Punisher initial arc. Not just the rooftop—that's easily like, you know, sitting up there with like, "Holy [ __ ], that's one of the best things ever"—but specifically the graveyard with Frank. And it's not just that it's um, a really strong exploration, and giving an actor all the time and space to be able to perform it—might be my favorite performance in like an isolated scene throughout all three seasons, which is seriously saying something, by the way—but it's the fact that they would give that much time to solely character. Uh, it's just a scene about a man talking about his, his past and his what he's been through, and you know, you, you watch all these things, and it's funny 'cause it's been, you know, I watched it as it was coming out, or around then, I can't remember exactly when, and then now, and almost every time I hit one of those scenes on the rewatch, I was like, "Never again. Never again will this happen. There's no [ __ ] way. It's just impossible. Like, we got so much to figure out before this could ever happen again." And so yeah, um, pretty in favor. Got my criticisms, as with everything I watch, but um, very happy with so many scenes, very passionate about a lot of what they decided to do, and uh, you know, special shout out to one of the best castings for one of the best superheroes being uh, Charlie Cox as Matt Murdoch, Daredevil. It's all excellent stuff, and you know, everything you guys hear, if you haven't seen this show about Kingpin, it's also pretty true. Uh, they treat him extremely well, and so does the actor, and it's all, all quite wonderful. And one could argue, sealed those three seasons. If you actually argued they weren't canned to the MCU and they were just a show from start to finish, you could do that. Put it in a little box, keep it safe, put it at the bottom of the ocean, enjoy that whenever you want. But they made more. They made more. I suppose that's where we are today. So, um, Daredevil is like one of my favorite superheroes, um, in part it's because the character is comprised of several fascinating contradictions. He's a blind man who sees. Like, Matt Murdoch is a blind man who sees everything. Matt is a devout Catholic who makes a habit of dressing up as the devil and beating people to a pulp. Matt is a talented lawyer who regularly flouts the law by conducting acts of vigilantism. Like, Daredevil himself is, in any ways, a walking contradiction. And the Perpetual tension that exists there is uh, what makes him like such a fascinating character to me. Um, and then you add on top of that that he's not really an archetypal superhero. Um, it can sometimes be unclear whether Matt is seeking to dispense Justice or Vengeance. Um, at times it seems as though Matt just simply enjoys hurting people, and that his alter ego of Daredevil is a means through which he can indulge his violent tendencies, um, which of course invites opportunities to explore that along with these other um, points of conflict and these, these um, as M mentioned, desperate influences on his life that sort of push and pull him in different ways. Um, his susceptibility to certain vices, his uh, struggle with that sort of inner turmoil and channeling it in a way that will um, create a positive impact and will, you know, create a life that, that um, is, is good and meaningful. Uh, and then you add on top of that that unlike most heroes, Daredevil is defined by a disability. He, you know, he has his intellect, his agility, um, and uh, he has his radar sense, like his, you know, the, these incredible abilities, but he is blind. He can't see. Um, and this—and it feels like this uh, this, along with various other aspects of the character's history, contributes to him being like something of a Perpetual Underdog. He's a scrappy brawler, like his dad, um, with nothing to his name and essentially uh, like his core just being this um, this, this grit and determination. Um, he, he's just—like, this character is incredibly robust, which would probably explain why uh, he boasts so many compelling stories across various mediums. As mentioned previously, Daredevil: Born Again, the uh, graphic novel is widely regarded as one of the greatest comic book storylines of all time, um, and it's just one of several great runs of the character. The director's cut of Daredevil, which—on a recent rewatch—that's a solid film, man. It's solid. It's got a strong thematic core. It's, it's actually like worthwhile, um, which of course then brings us to Daredevil on Netflix, a television series which—basically, until the release of Kingpin—um, with specifically with regard to live-action, like big-budget, uh, relatively big-budget uh, superhero television—stood alone in the realm of quality superhero television, as far as Kingpin—oh, the Penguin. Yes. Up until the release of the Penguin, Daredevil was alone in this realm, as far as I'm concerned. Like, Charlie Cox owns Matt Murdoch. I, I think it's like a casting that is essentially—it, it—I would, I would describe it as being similar to the amount of ownership that like Robert Downey Jr. and Hugh Jackman can claim for Tony Stark and Wolverine respectively, in terms of having defined, you know, the sort of the broad perception of that character. Mr. Freeze. Um, yeah, sure. I'd say that uh, Charlie Cox imbues the character with a tremendous amount of depth, um, and you know, kind of with like seemingly effortless precision captures the, the, the, the sort of the Perpetual conflicts within Matt: you know, his composure, his compassion, his rage. Um, and likewise, I would say that Vincent D'Onofrio is also brilliant, um, and delivers an amazing rendition of Kingpin: like, simultaneously threatening yet vulnerable, bold but also somewhat insecure, you know, he's a, in a sense, a hopeless romantic, but also just this incredibly, at times, cruel and vengeful um, entity. And, and I'd say that the whole cast is generally delivering great performances. They're bringing to life a collection of really solid scripts, um, that, that just abound with several superb scenes. Delving mainly—like my favorites, when we're talking about this show—are delving directly into the motives and actions and ideology of the likes of Daredevil, Kingpin, Punisher, Stick, um, you know, basically every scene that Matt has with Father Lantom is amazing. Um, the arc between Daredevil and Punisher at the beginning of season two is just really, really strong. Basically, every time that Matt meets Kingpin, I've got a smile on my face. It's—I, I—it's—it's just the—like, throughout the journey, these scenes will be emerging, and, and they're just like, "Yeah, this is what it's about." Um, and then you add on top of it, uh, as M had mentioned, you know, Daredevil looks great. There's, there's like a desire to actually like achieve a look, um, that's sort of brought through with really uh, like brilliant lighting and shot composition, and uh, at times, some like truly inspired visuals. And uh, of course, you know, the fight scenes are iconic for good reason. Um, and something that makes them all the more impressive is uh, that you consider that a lot of these sequences were planned and shot within mere days—not weeks, but days. Um, I believe the, the, the hallway fight in season one, which I would say is the best of the hallway fights, though I'm a big fan of all three, um, I think that was like shot in a day and a half or something—a, like a really insanely short amount of time, um, which is just—like, that, that just blows my mind. That these episodes were turned around, like, at least in season one, in eight days. So, you know, is Daredevil a perfect show? No. It, it has its flaws. It definitely does have its flaws. Um, is Daredevil an awesome show? Yeah. Like, I, I am very fond of this show. Uh, I really like—and, um, you know, for a long time after it was canceled at the end of season three, along with all of the other Netflix shows—which I didn't really shed a tear for the other ones—but uh, you know, for a long time my—man, I wanted Daredevil back. Um, but then Marvel Studios started making awful films and shows with shocking regularity, um, which uh, which brings us to Daredevil: Born Again, which—um, yeah, I suppose before we uh, before we like delve into it, it would probably be worth sort of going over the background of how this show came to be, because it can help sort of uh, it, it can just sort of linger in the back of your mind as we, as we talk about some of the decisions that were made, and, and essentially like, you know, what this show is. Um, so on Netflix, there, there was a—they had uh, there was like a deal to produce uh, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, that would then culminate in a Defenders crossover miniseries. Um, and that was started like early 2010s. Uh, Daredevil came first, then there was Jessica Jones, then uh, Daredevil was such a success, it got a second season, and then they did Luke Cage, then they did Iron Fist, and then Defenders happened, and then after that, all of the shows got second seasons. Second, and in the case of Daredevil, the third season, pretty rapidly, along with Punisher getting a spin-off show. Uh, but then they all started getting—they, they were started getting canceled. Um, like when Luke Cage and Iron Fist got canceled, like, "Oh, okay." But then when Daredevil got canceled, was like, "Oh, they're all done." And yes, they were all done. Every single one of them got canceled. Um, every one of them got their season, and then they were done, uh, which is strange. The reality is that just seems strange that they would all essentially get canceled within the span of a year. Uh, but you know, there was uh, there was big fan—like, fans essentially wanted to bring Daredevil back. Specifically Daredevil had like a kind of a noteworthy um, like initiative to bring it back. Uh, and you know, then we gradually started seeing Daredevil and uh, and Kingpin showing up. We saw uh, Matt briefly in Spider-Man: No Way Home. We saw uh, Kingpin in Hawkeye, which—um, I have now watched. Holy crap, it's a bad show. What a surprise. Um, and uh, and, and, and yeah, Kingpin got brought back in that—if you remember, Echo shot him in the head. Um, that was—that was the end of his storyline. And, and then that—but you know, it, it seemed like it was kind of almost testing the waters, right? Like, gradually introducing them. And then I believe it was in 2022, Daredevil: Born Again coming back. Oh yeah, 18 episodes, I think, was the initial plan. Wow. And uh, is that one season? Was it supposed to be one season of 18? I believe so. Um, that was the initial plan, with, you know, this whole creative team that got brought in. Uh, and then it started shooting early in 2023, and then the writers' strike and the, the actors' strike happened, and then there was the announcement: "Yes, there's going to be a creative overhaul," uh, which is kind of like noteworthy, I would say, for—Marvel doesn't typically essentially like announce failure, um, in, in the same way that you might see with like other—for instance, uh, DC has, has typically been very clear about things that have failed, and projects that have been canceled, or uh, all of these things. Now, this is not necessarily good in terms of, you know, improving people's perception of it, but like, Marvel doesn't typically announce like actual like defeat, um, and this was kind of a concerning one, right? Of like, "Oh yeah, no, we're going to—the, the, the main creative team that's going to be involved in this show is gone, and new people are going to get brought in. New stuff is going to get shot for it, and it's, you know, it's going to be a creative overhaul." And when you see that, it's like, "Oh [ __ ], that doesn't sound good." Um, and uh, now it's kind of something that looms over this show is this sort of thought of like, "What exactly—what—what is the—what is it that we are watching here?" In terms of like the, you know, the efforts of this original creative team versus this new creative direction. Um, and I suppose like a way that, that might become pretty clear, it's just by going through it. So why don't we do that? Why don't we—we're going through episodes one through three today. Um, did you want to mention the production changes, like what they are exactly?

Well, I don't know if there's any definitive source on exactly what we're dealing with, but that one I'd sent you the other day, um—oh, well, yeah, want to read that one? Um, relatively on point. I mean, so—so to be absolutely clear, everyone's got a different amount of information about this. Like I said, there's—I've heard multiple accounts on exactly what happened, but broadly, right? From, you know, correct me where I'm wrong here, but they, they created a significant amount of episodes. The writers' strike happened. Uh, Vincent D'Onofrio and Charlie Cox contacted Kevin Feige and said, "The show is not working. It's not—it's not what fans are going to want. It's not what we would like to have." So they got someone else to start doing uh, changes. And so once the writers' strike was over, they essentially restarted, but—from what I gather—and we're only really going to be able to figure this out, I think, once the season is out—in terms of what's true—but the source that I had—'cause uh, I was just—I was on Open Bar, and there were different accounts of what—is definitive—but the one that I thought was true, and the one that I'm willing to bet is true, at least so far, judging from what we've seen, is that episodes one through six were kept, but they were shifted to become episodes two through seven instead. All—all of Vanessa's scenes have been reshot to bring back—AET Zur—I'm not going to pronounce that. She got replaced with a different actress initially, um, though the original script has remained unchanged regarding what her role will be. I'll skip one of these because they're kind of spoilery, because we kind of like to do it, you know, chronologically with this sort of stuff. Um, the big event that happens in the first 20 minutes of this uh, was originally not—not done by the person who does it, and that—it wasn't even shown. And uh, you know, when we join the team, a lot of the biggest events that happened in episode one were just all done already, and uh, that we're not going to see uh, basically all the characters we want to see until as late as episode uh, eight or so. And that we have to go through the episodes that are intact that were from the previous production that even D'Onofrio and Cox said weren't good enough. That is crazy to me. Interesting. Like, yeah, we're gonna bring back Daredevil, but you don't—but none of the main cast of that show for, for a while. Well, and if you know of these three episodes, the first one, in retrospect—and we can go over this—I feel is very pragmatic in terms of trying—it's like a problem-solving episode, and that'll make sense, I think. I can argue that uh, once we're through the major events of it, but if you watch it knowing they stapled it onto the beginning, it starts to become kind of fascinating to compare what we get in the next two, and what we're going to get in the three following that, at least. Um, in any case, this creates—before anyone's seen anything—that's disastrous news for a season of television. I would say that's—that means we're dealing with a [ __ ] Frankenstein's monster at best. Yeah, sounds like Quantumania, Multiverse of Madness kind of [ __ ] going on in a different way, trying to staple together everything. How they expect to make anything good? Well, I, I think what I almost find fascinating about that is like, so you're actually like showing me [ __ ] that you thought was so bad that you needed to fire a lot of the original people and bring on new people, but like, you're showing us this—it's in the show—this is like comprising the majority of this season. Like, that's fascinating. Almost like, "Dude, like, this—these episodes, apparently you guys didn't like them enough that you thought something—" Yeah, but you're still—you're still showing it to us. Okay. Um, on top—I mean, just because—is it worth trying as best we can, even though it shouldn't take too long—to just say what, what Matt Murdoch and what Wilson Fisk did post-season three of Daredevil to the beginning of this show? That's something that we can—that's something we can do now. So Daredevil, you know, season one uh, released in 2015, so you can conclude it occurred there. The more relevant thing would be Daredevil season three came out in 2018, after Infinity War, uh, but there was no reference to, you know, the snap or Thanos or anything like that. And this was by the point that um, essentially the shows—it seemed like they weren't allowed to like reference the MCU. You watch the first season of Daredevil, there were a lot of like pretty direct references to the Avengers and, and certain characters, uh, but by, by the end, that was all gone. It essentially exists in its own kind of world. So, you know, what does that mean? It's like, okay, so Daredevil season three, 2017 or early 2018 is when it took place, um, by this point now in the timeline, it's like, "Oh, we're like nearly a decade later," right? And it's like, yeah, pretty much. Um, it's, it's nearly a decade since then. The question is, "Well, wait, did Matt and Kingpin and, you know, as well, did Karen, did Foggy, did Dex, um, did Frank, did all of these characters get snapped?" Yeah, Mahoney. I'm—I wonder if we're ever going to see him again. Apparently, we're going to see him later in the season, but I'm wondering about Maggie mainly. All right, I—yeah. Um, so, so you know, did, did all these characters get—'cause you, you know, there's, there's a bit of a problem. It's like, okay, so the, the core conceit of this show is that Kingpin is out, and he's going to become—and Matt did—what about that? Um, if you recall, in season three, Matt was [ __ ] lied that uh, Kingpin got out. He was so lied that he essentially went on a like a downward spiral because of it. He was furious. Um, he lost faith in, in, in essentially like justice for a while because of it. Um, and now we—to conclude—it's like, so Kingpin got out and was like actively rebuilding his, his Empire, and what was Matt doing? Now that would lead you to think like, "Oh, well, maybe Matt got like Snapped, and that would explain why that was able to happen." But in Hawkeye and Echo, there sort of, you know, there, there's, there, there are

And he gets no acknowledgement. And then season three inherits that problem of, like, Stick died with little fanfare. Um, whatever. In any case, yeah, I would say even though I broadly agree the Hand stuff drags it down, one of the things that really did stick out about the Netflix Daredevil is just how dense each of those seasons is. Like the idea that you have both the Hand storyline and you have the Punisher storyline condensed into one season of television um is quite impressive, especially when you not infrequently hear the defense of, say, Daredevil Born Again: "Oh, it's a slow burn," which is just an excuse for [ __ ] all happens. Something similar happens with, like, the Echo show as well, which is the other one that I vaguely remember bits and pieces of. But another very slow burn during which Kingpin, well, he is involved, but what is he really doing? And why is he really doing it? Um, and like he wants to, what, like recruit the person who shot him in the head as a kind of surrogate daughter, but doesn't succeed in this endeavor because he gets mind [ __ ] at the end of that, which is going to get something better. He's he's cured of his childhood trauma.

Uh, you might remember that in season one of Daredevil we learn of uh of of Fisk's backstory, um and it is it's grim uh to say the least. And uh Eko cured him of this uh she and and American magic powers. Absolutely. This was a this was like a defining part of of of uh Fisk's history. It was something that he had to like seriously work through. Trying to essentially, like, Vanessa helped him essentially work through that in a way that he integrated it and it it sort of made him like even more dominant as an entity. Uh, but that that's cured. He he is cured of his childhood trauma, which will be relevant to this because while the Daredevil show is now, you know, canon essentially, like for real, so was Hawkeye and uh Eko. Yeah, to bear in mind is that like, so it's not until basically the final scene of the Echo show where Kingpin, having had his mind raped by Native Americans, sitting on his private plane wondering, "Well, what do I do now that I've lost my entire reason for being?" Um, and he happens to see the news at that point about the vacancy for the position of mayor of New York, and that's when he decides to run for mayor of New York. Is basically the post-credit scene for the Echo show. There's nothing in the Echo show that will tell you anything about his campaign, how he got there, why he decided to do it. You don't miss any story in that, well, you don't miss any part of that story by not watching Eko because it is just an afterthought. And yeah, but in Born Again it'll probably take them like at least half a season to establish how he becomes mayor. Oh, be like that would be like a huge massive plotline in the world that is, I would say, on its face unfeasible and unbelievable. But um but I guess we'll get to that when we get to that. It's really interesting to see that journey.

What I was going to mention as well is just that uh this, you know, for anybody who was curious about their choices, Daredevil Born Again I would go as far as saying respects the continuity of Hawkeye and Eko. Unfortunately, like if there was any choice you could make, it would be to not have them be canon, but secondary choice would be to ignore them, not acknowledge them. Yeah, but uh we go as far as not only referencing their events but like confirming them: "This is what happened, and now we're moving on from that having happened." The reality is that broadly those events are acknowledged more so than like the original Daredevil series, um which is embarrassing. That's just that's terrible. Talking about the new F this this is conf like these events we'll go over them when we get there, but that's in episode one. That's one of the new creations, not like the old shitty one, which isn't an excuse. I want to put that on record by the way. If you have a season of nine episodes and six of them are crap and you go, "Yeah, but we knew they'd be crap," it's like, okay. And yet and yet you promoted it to me and I paid for Disney+ to watch it, so like, thanks bro. Uh, we can go over more of that too when we find out what decisions have been made, but I was just I'm what I'm trying to say is like that wouldn't make it not crap. You know, like knowing it's crap ahead of time doesn't mean it's not crap. M, you don't get points for that. Like, you kidding me? Gotta call SP this sort of stuff. And besides, at this point, you know, if we're to conclude the significant amounts of episode one was the was what the new directors and wanted to do, it's like, "Oh man, I don't know if I even [ __ ] like what you guys think is the right way to take this character." You know, like like you I essentially I have to sort of hold on with the promise of, like, "Yeah, but we're going to do what I think is good for the character in my opinion of storytelling." It's like, "Yeah, but what is your view on storytelling? Because it might it might just be [ __ ]." You know, but yeah, you can replace bad with bad. It's been done many times. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Uh, but you know what, uh why don't we begin right at the start? Episode one, Daredevil Born Again.

So late at night, Matt, Karen, and Foggy emerge from the quaint offices of Nelson Murdoch and Paige and his um the storefront of his family's uh store, um and they're bantering with one another as they walk over to Josie's bar. And um you know something that Karen says while they're walking along uh the the sidewalk is, "This Hell's Kitchen nostalgia is running pretty thin with you guys, you realize that, right?" And Foggy replies, "Not nostalgia, reverence for the past, yet hope for the future." Like that was a really quick um that was a really quick like meta wake-up call to me while I'm watching this show that uh that would that that in particular stood out to me as a line crafted for a very specific purpose. This is the thing, I enjoy meta lines in particular contexts. This one to open with, by the way, the opening line, the the one that's cleanest I found anyway was, "I like to think we have evolved," which is like what what do you what what's what what what's being said here? And the thing is like these meta lines get catastrophically worse when you know what happens in this first opening 20 minutes. Um, yeah, I can't believe they're the balls to have those lines and then have what happens happen. Uh, yeah, those lines, like there's a place you can put them in, I think, if you were going to try and reassure people of what's going to be happening as a variation of the three seasons or whatever. Um, but wow, you put them right at the beginning, right before a certain thing happens. And I assume it's because they're trying to compensate. They're like, "Oh boy, they're not going to like this," with how quick they do it, well, with how quick they do what they're going to do first off, like what are you thinking? But it does feel that way um with, you know, Matt, Karen, and Foggy having fun times as they're walking down the street. Look at him. This is what you want to see, guys, right? He hey, who compare if you will, cuz I can be nice and spoiler-free here. The the fact that this opens and they have their main characters, the mouthpieces of what could be called the the respect and the the uh legacy of the original series, announce that we have evolved and we're going to respect what you care about versus right, cuz that's that to me I'm like, H, it's a little bit it's a little bit egoy. Maybe you could have shown me that before you make that claim about yourself. Compare that fringy to uh meta lines in a certain show that we're a f fond of where they essentially amount to apologizing to the audience. They're like, "Sorry that we made these mistakes, and we're going to do our best moving forward." That's what like the promise is here, like the the distinct impression I get is, "We're pretty good. We're good." Yeah, exactly. This was written with the smug, "Wo Jack" sort of look on their face. I was like, that's how that feels. It's quite the gamble. I'm like, all right, [ __ ] prove it. How PS off.

So as walking down the street, Matt mentions on actually um because does um right from the get-go, even before this, it feels different. The show feels different with the way that it shot the establishing um elements of the New York streets with a cutaways to random New York stuff happening, the music that's playing over it, it just feels really different. Not necessarily bad, but very distinctly different. I would say that, you know, right out of the gate it looks more boring. Uh, it's less interesting-looking than season one Daredevil, in particular. It's like a different the cameras that they use or the shots that they use or um the there's something about the original Daredevil seasons that kind of reminded me of the old and and I mean this in a good way, but like older cop drama shows in a sense, the way that they're shot, the way that scenes are sort of composed to give clarity and a sense of how one scene leads to the other, how conversations can be followed easily. Um, cuz a lot of Daredevil is people talking in rooms, um and in this it's much more zip here, zip there, dynamic, you know, looking down from above, cutaways to random New York stuff happening, CGI pigeons. It's all really strange, um and it's not necessarily bad, but it gives you that like, "Oh, we've already lost something about the original three seasons. It's already gone." It's not shocking in that neat way that the originals were. So uh Matt, he mentions Cherry as a new character that we're going to be meeting soon that he's retiring from the NYPD, which prompts Karen to exposit that uh 30% of the NYPD has retired in the last two years, which um you know might explain why we don't see or hear from detective Mahoney at all in these three episodes. Anyway, I just enjoy that it's like, "Hey, this will provide me an opportunity to explain to the audience that this is happening." Funny explain, but you're specifically referring to in-universe cuz meta there's no explanation for this kind of garbage. I would say that like what I'm getting at is that if she said, "Man, isn't it crazy that all of our friends and family have died and won't be appearing?" It's like, "Oh, that's an explanation, I guess, but not really." In a better way, it's like, "What the [ __ ] is going on?" And um man, as someone who was like less and less familiar or or just wanted to take this for what it is instead of considering meta information like this, this opening 20 minutes, man, like it's it's um you know it's only once we get to the end of it I can speak more on exactly what I'm concluding about it, the more and more I think about it, but just uh to to to put a thing, it's like people very much care. This is going to shock everyone in chat who's seen the original show. People very much care about Matt, Karen, and Foggy. All right, some might even call them the main characters. Some they are the main characters. Yeah, I mean, like Karen has substantial like screen time. Should have mentioned so the original like production didn't have those two in it. Matt was in it, but Karen and Foggy were not. Wild. Apparently wouldn't even be acknowledged in any capacity at all. Yes, that is insane. This uh this caused issues with fans, and so when they managed to do that re-production, it was marketed that, "Miracles have happened, and we've got them in, folks. They are coming here. They come Foggy and they back," and everyone was celebrating. I'm just saying chopping at the bit to play these roles again in these beloved. Think they be choing at the bit to get them at in these roles again. You would think everyone would be on board with this. So yeah, point I'm trying to make is the like you have to understand this if you if you're out of the loop that people were like, "Holy [ __ ] you're bringing them back. Thank goodness. Can't wait to see the show now." Yeah, yeah, me too. I I sure love my three characters together. I'm getting Star Wars sequel flashbacks.

So with regard to, you know, the a whole bunch of cops retiring, Matt remarks, "The city finds other ways to protect itself," which elicits grins from Karen and Foggy. It's like, aha, Daredevil, which again feels like a reminder. Daredevil has been active for like a decade at this point. There is no reason to conclude that at any point in the um in in the since we've seen them at the end of uh season three that um Matt has stopped being Daredevil. I mean, to the contrary, we've seen he even got new suits from that guy in She-Hulk. He has been staggeringly active to the point there'll be there'll probably be some consequences for this, as in like he'd be well well known, one of the most well-known heroes in America at this point. Look, the reality is there like Black Widows on The Avengers, like Daredevil, Daredevil beats Black Widow like in terms of in terms of capabilities. So there's no radar. Obviously, that's like it's it's the knowing meta line from the responses of Karen and Foggy. Did you get the impression that either of them were conflicted or had bad feelings about the fact that by the city finding other ways to protect itself he is quite clearly referring to? Totally chill and accepting of it, which uh you would think that there would be obvious friction there, especially with what's been discussed in previous seasons and what's about to happen about and what's about to happen. True, but it is weird that it seems to be like like, "Oh, Daredevil, isn't he great?" I like, "Well, that's complicated. We had three seasons talking about how that's complicated, didn't we?" You know what? One of one of what would be Foggy's core memories at this point would be stumbling into Matt's apartment, seeing him on the verge of death, like you know, dressed up as as a you know, proto-Daredevil, Man in The Mask. Yeah, it's like I imagine that lingers on his mind. We know it does in at least in the original series, but yeah, whatever. But hey, it's Josie's bar. You guys remember Josie's bar? They hang out there with some degree of frequency. I like this place. Yeah, I mean I liked it. Yeah, I I remember I enjoy drinks here with my good friends Matt and Foggy and Karen and all these other two-person three. Yeah, and Karen and yes Karen. Yes, I love Karen. Yes.

Um, so there's a few conversations going on. Um, Matt and Karen they're chatting about hooking up, but they decide against it because that would violate the friends code. Would you hear that and you're like, "Oh, so we that's different." Yeah, that is different. What do you mean? They're not just friends? It's it's just okay. Um, and then uh but but the thing is we don't actually hang on this conversation for long because we've got other more plot-relevant conversations that we need to move on to. So um you got Cherry sitting with Detective Kim uh quitting the NYPD, which he insists his retirement and um and Kim she she presses him a bit and Cherry explains, "The vigilantes, such as Daredevil and the White Tiger, are the future. You know, they are out there, and everybody celebrates them, and it's so much more difficult for us." And on the the TV above the bar, news is playing footage of the White Tiger ending a robbery. It's like, "Wow, thanks for the exposition, Cherry. Very helpful, Cherry. Thank you, Cherry." But Cherry, because we know him so well, I'd be like, "You must know so well," a part of your will that vigilantes are more saturated than ever. They actually recently saved the world from a giant purple space monster. There must be some really complicated and interesting and developed opinions about the nature of vigilantes at this point, right? Like for him to say, "Yeah, this," considering all of the struggles we've had in the first three seasons of the Netflix show on top of all the recent events, just feels strange. It's like, of course we still need police, but at the same time, like, man, there's so many interesting things to discuss regarding vigilantes in this world. What does he what does he think about the Sokovia accords? Yeah, why are we referencing Daredevil and White Tiger? I know that they're in the local area, but at the same time, like to like Spider-Man, you know. Yeah, like worldwide heroes saving you from aliens on the regular. Strange lives in New York, travels dimensions. He's yeah, in a different dimension at the moment, maybe, but still. But you know, but but the thing is is we're going to see White Tiger, so that's why you mentioned White Tiger. We're going to talk about him like he's always been there, um even though he hasn't. Is Cherry homeless? Know these things then. And then Detective Kim just sort of states the forthcoming conflict of the season, the role of vigilantes in crime fighting. She just kind of like she kind of like makes a statement like as if she's talking to the audience like, "You should expect that this is what this season's going to be about." It's like, okay, thanks, Detective Kim. You've always been there with your insights into you know into the state of New York in Hell's Kitchen. Um, and so Foggy, he's chatting with Kirsten McDuffy. Oh, yes, about his decision to leave Hogarth, Chao, and Benowitz, which um which he did this like again a decade ago like in the in the timeline. He did this. This was a long time ago, but he's like restating it like as if, you know, what it's like what why would you do that? Why would you do that other than to provide exposition to people who might not remember? When you start to think to yourself, before anything significant has happened, why aren't we having Matt, Karen, and Foggy at a table? Especially considering what's about to happen. Who the [ __ ] are these newbies? No, he's talking to Kirsten McDuffy. She's always been there, um and he's talking about leaving Hogarth, Chao, Benowitz to re-establish Nelson Murdoch and Paige, a decision which she uh makes fun of him for because, you know, yeah, what kind of loser, you know, would establish a law firm with his friends like based out of his family's cherished store? Like what a loser, huh? What an idiot. Not like her, she's really smart. She's really good at her job. At first, I thought it was a really weird thing to remind the audience of like Foggy's decision to do that, and then I was like, it can't be that. What what else could this be serving? I was like, oh, is it to try and argue that he's the one that inspires her to make the decision to join Matt? Yes, because she's thinking about leaving the the DA's office at some point. That's what the purpose of these little moments are, isn't it? Is to try and provide a bit more context to these characters cuz we know nothing about them, and we're about to see them in roles that baffle us in the next episode or even partially in this one. Uh, one being because these two work for Matt eventually, right? So we need reasons for this. It's like, well, one is the guy retires, and he finds something out that's going to drive him toward it, and then the other one is the she heard the notion that you should believe in the cases that you fight for, and that changed her mind about the whole thing. I guess, on top of I I suppose uh being in the vicinity when something happens to that guy. I guess I don't know. It's all very um interesting to retrospectively look at every event in this episode because it's all meant to repair this season, uh make it stronger, which I don't think it's doing a good job so far because we need a very long and unbroken scene for Karen, Foggy, and Matt. Please now stop wasting my time. We're not there yet. We need to cuz because with all of this, Karen then asks Foggy about Dumb Benny and then tells him everything about Dumb Benny as though like Foggy doesn't know anything about his own client. She's like, "Oh yeah, Dumb Benny, this is what's going on with him." So it's his client. Like why you we've got to know about Dumb Benny. Yeah, it feels like you're telling this to us, not not the person that you're actually talking to. It's really crazy, and it's it's crazy that she brings this up and and Dumb Benny's about to become incredibly relevant very quickly. Um, but in any case, um we cut over to Karen who tells Matt that Foggy is at the bar having drinks with Kirsten, and you know they have a chuckle about it, and Matt's like, "H, don't underestimate Foggy. You know, he's got game," um and and then they like laugh about him referring to their firm as NMP for some reason. Like that's really funny. If that's not something a lot of people do with a lot of firms. Yeah, like yeah, whatever. But and then and then uh then Karen suggests that Matt get some new glasses. Okay, yeah, terrifying. I mean, someone might be like, "Isn't this a bit nitpicky?" Be like, every line is incredibly important for real estate right now because we're about to run out of the chance to have Eddie Moore. Let's just put it that way. Yes, the plot is about to actually begin here. So um also the um the the banter was just way better before um the way people would talk and chat, go back and forth. This is just already a pretty pretty big downgrade. Also, I guess uh Foggy, sorry to step out for a moment. Um, so I guess Foggy and um oh, I forget who is his his blonde girlfriend. I guess they're not done. I guess she's disappeared. How much she about him? Po to get married? They gonna get married? They get married. Forget her. Flush it down the [ __ ] toilet. That was interesting how their relationship ended up being, with how they met and how you know where where he where we first meet her at the uh you know, in the office building and Foggy like stands up for himself in the firm, and then that turns into her leaving and a romance, and she really did care about him, and he cared about her, and it was nice to nice to see that change over the seasons, and they were going to get married, and now she's just like, oh well, just vapors in the wind. I guess she's gone too. Yeah, that could be the first confirmed victim of this uh breakdown. All right, Melissa is out of the picture, and we know because they're suggesting that uh Foggy would be dating someone else or the flirting with. So she's just not even considered. She's long gone. Gone. So um receives a phone call. Matt EES drops and uh the aspect ratio changes. I I saw that people on Twitter really like this. Okay, why? Cuz the aspect ratio changed? Like is it supposed to be like how he's narrowing in his focus onto something, right? So that's even though that's I mean, I guess, but you know it's really good. They never do it again though. This it's that could been well like if they would have committed to that as a stylistic choice of whenever he's focusing on something the aspect ratio like narrows in. It's like, okay, that's something. I think that the Netflix show already nailed a lot of the ways that they portrayed that sort of thing because I feel like an aspect ratio change every time would be a bit obnoxious. So they can only do it the once, and at that point it feels like it's just to be commented on. You know, so and so we have you did it, Netflix. You got us to notice. He's he's talking to Benny, his client. Remember Dumb Benny that was mentioned like 30 seconds ago? That's him. And um and and he's he's panicking and and Foggy tells him to stay put in his apartment, which is only a 5-minute walk from Josie's. He's going to he's going to come and come and talk to him. And um yeah, Matt and Karen are going to get up and and go see what's going on. Uh, but meanwhile, you know, the the there's somebody who is picking a lock and then and then a fly gets impaled on a paperclip. It's like, oh [ __ ] it's Bullseye. Remember Bullseye? It's also the correction of the lightbulb because he's got his OCD, right? That's right. You see the gloves with the bullseye on him. Bullseye. He's here. Um, I wonder what he's been up to for the last decade. How is he able to be out mean after all the horrors he committed? Yeah, like after all the horrors that he was adamantium. This was adamantium didn't exist yet in the MCU, but he was getting his spine, and now he's just out. I assume that the spine was given to him by the Oh, I'll be fair enough. Karen. Yeah, I suppose we'll never know. I get we will never know. It will not be revisited. Probably not. Um, but he's out and he's here. And so Matt and Karen join Foggy outside. Oh, sorry. Oh, I thought someone was saying something. Um, I can though if you want me to. So like um like yeah, sure. I I wasn't entirely convin well, fck it, that's the understatement of this entry. Nothing about this is convincing, but why would you expect to get the audience going, "Oh my God, it's him!" Why would you reload who is about to commit the very bad thing rather than bad thing happens and then the shock of recognition when you learn who it is? Like why do you cut away to, "Oh [ __ ] it's definitely Bullseye," then bad thing happens and Bullseye is responsible for it, and then, okay, well, that was kind of [ __ ], but they just front-loaded it into the, "Oh [ __ ] it's Bullseye" part. Like, get excited, it's Bullseye. You remember Bullseye. Get excited. I've heard one theory that it's a mislead and that he's not the one that does what happens to the first to victim, so to speak, which is just going to create even more problems. H. Um, why why why would that be? Like it doesn't really change anything. Well, because it's all a fake, right? Or at least that's a theory, but Bullseye like Bullseye did show up, and like I guess the theory would be that whoever actually did it in conjunction with the victim planned. I like I said, dude, I don't want to get into it until they give us that because that'll create so many more problems, right?

Um, so Benny on the phone, he insists that he can hear somebody downstairs, um and Matt's pretty confused like why Foggy didn't tell him that Benny was being threatened, um and basically Foggy says, "Well, maybe I didn't want to give you an excuse to suit up as Daredevil," which you might be like, "Wait, but you were smiling before about the city finding other ways to protect itself," which is it? This is complete [ __ ] for many reasons. One, you guys would have discussed over the course of the [ __ ] near decade the nature of all of this, and you would have settled it by now. No, you have like an opinion about Daredevil. You have a definitive way of working. Two, how would Matt not know about this? He's got the hearing to not only tell every call you're having at all times that you but this is not going to work no matter what is what I'm trying to set up here. If um if you've managed to avoid every last piece of information getting to Matt about the nature of how you're dealing with your client, which is their client, correct? Yeah, I mean that so he's done all that except tonight, and you know has the call right in front of Matt or at least you know he knows how Matt's hearing works is my point. So it's just like, "Oh, this was the night that he just couldn't keep it a secret." It's like, but why would you why would you keep from Matt that you've got to put the client that you're all working with in your apartment to protect him from being potentially killed? Why would you keep that from him? That's insane. Foggy wouldn't do that. They would obviously have to discuss it, custody and things like that, not even necessarily that, just the fact that this is this is a problem they've got to solve together. The idea he's like, "I kept it from you because I didn't want you to be Daredevil for it." It's like, "I'm Daredevil all the time anyway. What do you mean?" Yeah, exactly. All those conversations throughout seasons one through three, they had these arguments, they came to a kind of resolution. It's not a new thing. And yeah, as has been mentioned, smiles in in reference to it earlier in this very same episode. And then you've got the the double impossibility. It it's it's impossible mechanically for him to have kept this secret, and it's impossible for him to have the motive to want to keep this a secret. None of these things add up. Um, if he what what even is the conversation in the office about this client that is all of theirs? Oh, have you seen what's going on with what's going on with them? Any of these? It's fine. Got guess that's odd because your heart rate seems to have increased. You you can't lie about this. It doesn't make sense. And something that's worth adding on as well cuz Matt's going to run over to Foggy's apartment. Remember Matt's hearing is really good. He can hear things from from far away. Um in the basement like what is actually going on at Foggy's apartment? Really curious line too is when Foggy says, "He's in my apartment. It's just down the street." Are they implying they don't know where Foggy's apartment is? That feel again that's that's for the audience. It's like, yeah, it's pretty close. Well, because yeah, I'm assuming that's just a really clumsy line because there's no [ __ ] way they wouldn't know where his apartment is. Why would he say that? It's just such a it's such a crappy line. Like, yeah, it's dumb, but it's just to say like, yeah, it's pretty close, um which I would conclude it is anyway. CU you know I I know whatever. In any case, um you know Matt Matt uh Matt runs uh like it sounds over the phone that that Benny's being attacked, so you know Matt he's like, "Foggy, Karen, stay put," and he heads down the street and he suits up. And moly, you got you got to show it on screen. I do have to show it on screen because people went crazy over this. We don't exactly know why. Come on, show what his what his terrible intro. Give me a yeah, look, you got to wait. All right, that's good enough, and it's probably copyright safe too. Is our first significant shot of Daredevil in Born Again. Now uh chat, you should be able to notice immediately that the anim is off. The weight is off. It's not quite right. It was funny as uh I watched this episode. I mentioned to Fry earlier with uh my sister and her husband, the famous two who watched Quantum Mania with me and I didn't say a thing, and they saw this and went, "Ooh." Mania 2 is their name now. They had an ooh reaction to this, not a yay. It was a oh. It's like watching someone hit their head on a pole. You're like, ooh. And bear in mind when he when he lands they play the new rendition of the Daredevil theme. It's the they drop that beat right here. Um, we could talk about that later though. This such an important shot. Why would you want to use this for it? Not I don't even mean the composition. I'm mostly fine with how everything looks once it's the movement of it. It's like, why would you? It's the fact he's clearly CGI. Yeah, and and I mean, I don't know, man, for for considering that one of the things that Daredevil, the original series, is is renowned for is its practical fights. This is a bad way to start with a floy CGI of Daredevil. Yeah, the introduction of ation they were talking was a floy CGI fight with a She-Hulk as well. Yeah, yeah, but people don't like that we're not getting a She-Hulk season two, so they should have learned their lesson. Dude, I saw a thing where someone on Twitter was like, "Oh, the fight with She-Hulk is better," and people like, "Oh, we like She-Hulk now." Like what is going on? Could explain it to you, but yeah. So there he is, flumpy CGI Dad, and he's going to flumpy CGI his way across the flumpy CGI rooftops, which is all that's all CGI as well. Yeah, he's running and they've kept it dark to avoid the cringe, cover and hide it. Yeah, and they didn't even manage to avoid the cringe. It still cringes. This is actually the I would say harder-to-notice cringe compared to soon. Yes, but he's he's parkouring across the rooftops, and yeah, bad. Do not like. Do not like the running across rooftops. Um, oh, this this the the whole seet. Why didn't you just get somebody to run to run forever? Questions will ask. They exist. Yeah, it's like when we get to the CGI pigeons, it's just like, why why couldn't you just have done the real thing? Just photograph the real thing, and it would have looked real forever. No, we instead all this time and money went into No, we have to have a CGI very clearly CGI Daredevil running across rooftops to get to the scene of the crime. And there CGI Daredevil. So you know something sort of a fun fact about the original series is that even though it's said in Hell's Kitchen, a lot of it was not shot in Hell's Kitchen because Hell's Kitchen is uh pretty gentrified, um so they went to areas of New York that uh looked more like Hell's Kitchen, sort of reminiscent of the comic. And you might remember you just got a lot of scenes on rooftops, you know, water towers, the city in the background, lots of shots like that. Looks real nice. Um, you can go to a roof and just shoot somebody running across a roof. I don't know why. I don't know why too. You had a whole big sequence of rooftop running in there. Rooftop running. That's right. And people app like I don't know, man. What do people like more? The CGI flumpy running here or like those you remember those videos of people doing like Assassin's Creed parkour in like real life? They power and they be running across the rooftops and jumping around

This, um, the take from a lot of people who are very passionate about the Netflix show is like, well, it depends on how they do all of this, I suppose. But I think, in retrospect, it was never going to matter if it was going to happen in the next, in the first like 10 minutes; that was never going to be something that people were like, "Yay, that could be done really well."

Yeah, cuz all it makes people think is, "Wow, you brought him back just to kill him off really quickly at the beginning." Okay, yeah. Um, but that's a choice that I would not have made myself. Look, he's he's not dead yet.

Um, that's true. He's bleeding out, and Karen's applying pressure to that wound. Uh, two patrons—well, not yet, she isn't—but uh, the two patrons, they walk out from the bar, and they're both shot through the head. Um, they're just done. And so, and then there's a thick blanket of smoke in the street, and Bullseye emerges and he throws a CGI smoke grenade into J's bar.

Yeah, so this was the one that uh, uh, my sister and husband—instead of like with Daredevil, they went, "Ooh, this one"—they went, "Oh, that's awful." Um, so first and foremost, what I don't understand about this is why did you make—like we we could say, why did you make the whole thing CG, but why did you make the the the grenade portion of it? You could have thrown that and then CG the smoke. Why did you make that CG as well?

Yeah, just throw the grenade at—literally because they like, "Well, we got to have it land perfectly." It's like, "Throw it a few times, Bud, then take multiple"—it's the Jackie Chan thing—just do it as many times as you need to to get it right. You guys know, when in a Spider-Man one, the Toby Maguire one, when he catches um, uh, when when he catches Mary Jane and all of her stuff flies up into the air and he catches it on the the lunch tray—that that was real. They had to do it a [ __ ] ton of times, but Toby Maguire actually was able to do that. And here we are, God knows how many years later—I'm not going to look it up—and we're still talking about it, and we still remember that specific sequence from a movie. This will this will be smoke; it is great forever. This looks terrible immediately. God, it's so—it feels like it's not finished at all, which is uh, I mean, they finished shooting this like over a year ago, so like I don't know, man. I mean, why can't you just like—can't you just throw a real smoke grenade? Everyone—people have them. This is based on a real thing; buy them. Well, you—I think you just go buy smoke grenades. Let me actually check—the smoke that will be here for the remainder of this scene is fake.

Oh boy, is it fake. Like throughout the whole—throughout what's about to come. So uh, yeah, he he uh, he he, you know, the the patrons—oh my goodness—and and Kar—and she she retrieves her pistol from her handbag as Bullseye approaches with his gun raised and says, "Hello, Karen," which um, you might—this is an incomplete callback to what Bullseye said to Karen when he attacked the bulletin in season 3. He said, "Hello, Karen, it's nice to see you again." I don't know why they didn't just do the whole line, but I guess not—that's okay. Partial line is fine, but uh, whatever. Uh, Daredevil swings in, and he tackles Bullseye through the window of J's bar, which initiates this season's rendition of the expected one-take action scene.

Be to show—known—I'll do my best as you're talking through it—of just because this is this is going to be tough to avoid copyright, right, because I want to show the whole thing, but I can't. But take this for example—humble humble chat—just check out their bodies; just focus on it, really give it a little look-see, and and already tell it's like, "Oh, go—you don't have to focus much; you don't really have to focus much"—they're clearly [ __ ]—it's clearly CGI.

Well, and so I want to get ahead of like some people like, "Actually, they are real. I've seen the behind-the-scenes where they're filming this." It's like, "They are not real. You can tell"—whatever whatever this is is not real. Why—whatever this is is not what they filmed in those behind-the-scen—whatever happened—this reminds me of the [ __ ] thing, the the the the new thing where whatever physical [ __ ] they did, it's not there anymore. No, they changed it. So what you see is that because when when Daredevil swings in, he tackles Bullseye through the window, but first of all, the angle looks really weird. Like he swings in from from like the side and down, but then they sort of tumble like through the like—real somebody real tumbled through the window—but then they fall behind the bar, and then it switches them out to flum CG Bullseye. Yeah, and Daredevil you can sort of see it. Yeah, they they tumbled behind, and then—yeah—definitely not real; that's definitely not real. And he and he—yeah—so you know, we we'll just work through it as best we can while trying to show as much—yeah, like I said, this is going to be difficult on my end, but I'll do my best. So like—like he said—smash through, and then look at the way Bullseye looks when he moves from behind that—yeah—look at that—look at that—that ain't real; that is a flum CG Bullseye. But he emerges, and he throws another CG smoke grenade, and then he throws a knife into some lady's head before Daredevil gets up, disarms Bullseye, engages him in close-quarters combat, and the rub smoke to try and prevent you from seeing just how ugly this [ __ ] is. Because I don't know why he would want there to be everywhere. What is the utility? What does he gain from throwing a second smoke grenade that wasn't already accomplished with the first smoke grenade? And what was accomplished with the first smoke grenade? Why would—buy—is the last person who would want a smoke grenade going off—this, you know, he he wouldn't know it, but you know, Matt—smoke or not—doesn't really make his life any harder. Like he he doesn't need to—just to be fair, it's a hard counter to Bullseye—a smoke grenade—yes, a smoke grenade is absolutely a counter to Bullseye. It's going to make it harder for—with something that Daredevil would do in the show is he would knock out lights, and he would like to—he'd like to fight in the dark—gives—he does do that in this fight, but like the idea would be that he would—if anything—he would be the one throwing the smoke grenade, not uh—anything. But at the same time, you know, Bullseye doesn't necessarily know that Matt is blind or that Daredevil is blind, so—but at the same time, it's—I just don't see how it helps him. But um, yeah, they they do a bit of fighting, uh, and Daredevil knocks Bullseye to the ground and then tosses his gun away, which uh, you know, gives Bullseye just an opportunity to throw a dagger at his chest, but it's all good—CU—armor. It wouldn't have been good if it hit him in his mouth, though. Then that would have been game over for for Daredevil.

Um, they keep throwing punches at each other as the patrons are trying to navigate around them, escape the bar. Um, a guy stumbles in front of the camera, and then you know, Daredevil turns into a floopy CG fell as he knocks Bullseye down with his baton. That might be—want to uh, to see if you can—you can gra—I was just sort of trying to grab the best examples of how fake they look—and uh, look at that, man—so ugly. And you know, someone—I think this looks bad in and of itself, but when you know that this is supposed to be like the spiritual successor to three iconic scenes of—yeah—what what they accomplish with those scenes very specifically is to have so many real-life variables and to have planned it all extensively with such great like uh, passion and purpose and to have nailed it eventually and to be like, "Yeah, we [ __ ] did it. This is"—like—making fun of it—yeah—like—this is pretty painful—pretty bad—weird—like lighting doesn't work on them either; nothing about—yeah, it's it's got that horrible icky plastic sheen. And like—spotted this on the first watch—but having been quite depressed about that, decided to try and distract myself by wondering what the response times for police and ambulance are in New York City.

Um, as the fight goes on and gets longer and longer and longer—like—seems to be a bit of a delayed response from the rest of the world to what's going on here. Is you've got people lying outside dying very slowly, and there will still be nobody else responding. From what I remember, by the time this fight is over, they don't get there until—yeah—the fight is is finished. Rough neighborhood, okay. Um, so it's before the lights go out as uh, this this uh—it's one of the—cuz the cuts are pretty apparent—it's it's um—there's actually there's actually a few pretty bad ones. So like it's when the lights are still on; there's a part where a guy walks in front of the camera, and then they turn flum CG. Um, yeah, I think I think—oh, I think I think I'm trying to—it's it's going to be hard to—%—he catches the baton like in the a—after he throws it—it's right before Cherry shows up on screen. Oh, okay. So when the lights are still on, it's just—it doesn't look so good. Yeah, there you—yeah, yeah—that's—yeah—when—and then he yells, and he gets rid of the—yeah—which is even like uh, notably, I'd say the second of the three iconic Netflix ones; there's about four or five very noticeable places where they likely stitched um, the the wner together. The thing is, before anyone would be like, "Oh, well, that's not as impressive," it's like, "Well, the variables in that sequence are insane. Like the amount of work that it took to to pull that together"—he's fighting—he's fighting a whole bunch of people in a hallway while like throwing a chain around, knocking out lights on the ceiling—um—like—and of course, it's it's all—it's all real; it's practical. There's no points where they take over with CG or where they try to stitch starts together using CG. Cuz again, like there—it's—I I am like—there there's the part where um—cuz cuz after he catches the baton like Matt sort of is is you know, he he's listening to uh Karen assuring Foggy that help is on the way, and and then they keep fighting, and then Cherry like walks out, and there's like this floopy CG like patron walking with them who like gets a knife thrown into his back and like collapses, which is like hides another transition—that's one worth showing—that one looks pretty bad as well. Um—as—yeah—out—yeah—and then it's like, "Oh, yep, you're gone." It's like, "Dude, look at this." It is funny, as—when you remember—wasn't it the Echo Show when they made a big deal of that one-take fight between Echo and Daredevil and they said how incredible and gritty and grounded and realistic this is, and we did it all in one take? They haven't even attempted to say that for this opening fight scene, which kind of suggests that they put more effort into the Echo fight than the the first fight in the Daredevil Show featuring actual Daredevil. I mean, you know, having recently rewatched it, I don't really like that fight at all, but like—no—it is more practically—it is more practical than this. There was there was there was like one or two noteworthy instances where it was a flum CG Daredevil, was like, "Oh, [ __ ]"—but here it's like on the regular—like everything on screen isn't real.

Um, in any case, we see outside that Karen is applying pressure to the wound; Cherry alerts the NYPD about the incident, um, and then he ventures back into the bar to help get patrons outside as Daredevil and Bullseye keep fighting, and Daredevil knocks out the lights. Patrons close a set of glass doors; Daredevil and Bullseye, you can see them silhouetted on the other side, you know, exchanging blows, um, and then we—to conclude that essentially like Matt knocked Bullseye to the door and landed on that guy, which is a bit awkward. CU—Matt would know the guy is there; Matt would have known that he was there. That's right, because he doesn't need to see him to know that. So he threw him on there, then it landed on him, and also just puts these people in danger a little bit—uh—well, a little bit—a lot. He has to like—CU—cuz you know, something to notice that Bullseye's just like targeting everybody; he's just throwing knives and [ __ ] at everybody; he doesn't care; he's not just targeting uh, Daredevil. And so he um, he he—Daredevil yanks one patron out of the way with his baton, but then Bullseye knocks out the other two using pool balls, and Daredevil catches is one of them, and he sort of just sits there for a bit as um, as Bullseye becomes a flum CG man, which you definitely need to show that when he lurches into the hallway—this one looks pretty bad—from where you're talking about when he stands up and go—uh—when when um, when when Daredevil catches the uh patron that gets hit with the the pool ball um—Bullseye like lurches through the doorway into the hallway, and he is a flum CG fell there. You will see it from from where you paused there onward. Yeah, yeah, I got you. Um, look at that—look at that—oh yeah, that ain't real; that is not real. Um, also someone said, "Can you please stop comparing it to the Netflix show?" No, no, no—it is it is the to theet show—the—I'm going to be comparing it to the Netflix show [ __ ] constantly. It's—this is season 4; this may as well be—yep—look at that—look at that [ __ ]—what the hell? You couldn't just videotape a guy walking into a hall? I I'm guessing this is just them trying to stitch it together like they can, but I don't know what to make of that other than like, "How did you plan this [ __ ] out?" Maybe you should have planned it to where the te—like—cuz again, there were there was something to be said about the way that you plan out—you know, obviously 1917 was not filmed all in one take, obviously—but a lot of the transitions were like very purposefully and deliberately placed at points where they could stitch it together to where it would be the least noticeable. Now there are plenty of times where it is noticeable, but um, there's like definitely an effort made to do that. And of course, you know, with reference to the fight in season 2, there's no CG being used there. It would just be like, "Oh, we'll move the camera past uh, you know, one of the guys that Matt's fighting or will move it past Matt, and then it get shrouded completely in black, and then you can try and stitch in one—there will focus it in on the door, and then the door flings open; we'll cut to a new take there. There are like these efforts to try and stitch—and then of course, with the season 1 and season 3 fight, there are no cuts at all; it's just a whole bunch of really clever ways of switching people out, right, that like, you know, Charlie Cox will enter in this doorway, and then the stunt man will emerge from that room and then do the fight and then you know, walk into another room, and Charlie Cox emerges again. Um, there's a really—in season 3—the the fight in the prison—there's this really cool part where they like—it's like they get thrown into a different room, and then they switch out Charlie Cox for the stunt double, and then he does the fight for a while, and you don't see his face, and then they tumble behind like a the like the bed in the the nurse's office and then switch it back out. It's like, "Cool [ __ ]"—this is just really noticeable.

Um, yeah, it's like uh—it's on top of everything we've already discussed; it's like uh—try and remember for those who don't—Matt's world, as he described it, is like the world's on fire. You can picture that everything has like an orangey tint, and it's all has like—for lack of a better term—like a scent, or pheromones are all flying off. Yeah, it looks really [ __ ] cool on one hand, but the other is that—and he does say this himself—in some ways he can see better; in other ways he can't, you know—there's very specific um, pros and cons to the way that he sees. Now I think when he describes it to Karen, he even says something specifically along the lines of he doesn't know how to describe it, so it's even safe to say that whatever the show gives to us as Daredevil vision isn't really what Daredevil sees in a way—it's just like an approximation of it. For—see something pretty—transition of mediums—is that he's able to navigate any given structures because there's like a—not maybe echolocation is a bad way to put it—but like it's the the vibrations and the beating of hearts and the way that everything is structured—like there's a—you can sense limitations, stop gaps, and uh, different sounds that make for like a map in his head, a mental one. We know he can navigate spaces really well, and we know that he can detect heartbeats. I bring all of this up because I didn't understand when we first watched this; I was like, "Daredevil is seemingly disabled by this woman having fallen down in front of him," and he sort of grabs her, and bu—Bullseye is like lumbering off, and it's like, "Oh, you—what are you doing?" Remember, from his POV—imagine what you can see as Daredevil right now—is he's heading through a hallway, and just when you turn right and go up the stairs, there's a heartbeat, and then there's a second heartbeat just a bit further than that—those are people—innocent people—that Bullseye is walking toward. And uh, where is he during this sequence? He doesn't appear like—and they've thrown in obvious [ __ ] ADR to try and account for this huge mistake because Daredevil should have been actively chasing the [ __ ] out of him. He's like, "Let's get these people out of here." It's like, "It's not over, dude; he's still killing people; he's right there." Yeah, but but he is—he is out for like a good 20, 30 seconds here, which gives Bullseye opportunity to throw a knife at some dude and punch some lady as he gets up the staircase. It just takes a while for him to show back up. I think it's after he punches the lady—it's like, "Yep"—and there's there's Daredevil—there he is. Um—now—now—no—I'll wait on that that bit for a minute.

Um, so yeah, then we get more floopy Bullseye stumbling up the staircase, um, and then runs up the staircase, and there's a whole bunch of [ __ ] that's going on in this bit, but it's really hard to keep track of. Um, like he ta—he attacks Bullseye, and he's deflecting his knives, but he tanks several knives to the chest, back, and legs while adding a few blows on both—like—at this point, he's got like 10 knives in him. Mhm. I like, "Okay, yeah, he's got like one, two, three, four, five"—he's got quite a bit. All right, let's chill out a little bit here. Um, like it's a little bit ridiculous at this point. Well, what's kind of annoying is um, Bullseye should have picked up—cuz he has what we call a brain—that he should have just tossed a knife into Matt's jaw by now. And and remember like, Bullseye has an almost like [ __ ] aim; he has the best aim in the universe. It's it's—if uh, if you didn't know any better, you'd think it was magical. It is—it is like supernaturally good. Isn't that how he like his power set's introduced in season—doesn't he like—he throws the baseball and bounces it off a lamp to hit the coach to kill him? He has he has like an innate ability to throw things accurately; it's not something he has to like train to do; he can just do it. Well, I mean, this this very episode showed us him like—Bullseye—to use a pun—a fly with a paperclip, didn't it? So like we know how good he is; there's not really an excuse for him not being that good here.

Um, well, no, but see, he's getting tired. Look, they're getting tired. By the way, this would be an example of like the flanderization of Daredevil; they get tired in the fight, so they get tired here, but like it doesn't look right. It looks like they're kind of like throwing themselves into the walls. I don't—I'm tired because of what he does next. No, that's—well, there there's definitely that, but I would actually have said like—I would have argued against this in production; I'd be like, "Yes, I know they do tired mode in all of the the prior ones, and that that's like a staple, but that's not why you should do it in this case. I don't think Daredevil should be ever in a position of stopping; he should be in complete fury. He's got the dying heartbeat of his best friend pushing him forward in this entire fight. You understand that—doesn't he—he doesn't stop to take a breath; he's just [ __ ] going for it. You should make him scary."

Well, and um, as as Rags has pointed out, like Matt's about to do something that it seems impossible to do if you're really [ __ ] tired. Um, it's it's something to note is—CU—of course, it is a really cool thing about the fight in season one and two and three, but in season one like they get tired, but the thing is is that they stay tired. Like the fight becomes a lot more sloppy the more the time goes on; like they—it's not like they—it exactly compared to like this where it's like they get tight and and they do all this [ __ ] [ __ ]; it's like, "Dude, I don't know, man, you guys don't seem like that tired; you just seem like arbitrarily tired, and then you could [ __ ] go a million miles an hour." Um, compared to by the end of the fight in season one, like it's like he's barely even able to stand up; like it's a very consistent kind of um, tired, but you know, whatever—look, he's getting tired; that's what happens—Daredevil and the people he fights get tired; we're just like Daredevil. Um, but in any case, yeah, they they have that bit um, where it all gets intense, and then uh, Daredevil once again gets distracted by Karen's desperate pleas for Foggy to hang on, which gives—gives Bullseye an opportunity to throw Daredevil's baton into his face and knock him out of the fight for like the next 30 seconds, cuz now we just have Bullseye slowly lurching up the staircase and onto the rooftop, and then you definitely got to show this—floopy CG Daredevil—he uses his baton to shoot onto the roof and then somehow launches himself several feet into the air. There is that, but we get another transition of real Bullseye turning into floopy Bullseye—floopy Bullseye—obvious cut too, but like the second you see him, you're like, "Oh"—it's like video game Bullseye—but whenever I say video game, I obviously mean bad video game—bad video game—we'd much rather be playing a video game than watching this right now, for sure. But you got to show them doing the jump—I shall on there—cuz like I don't know what the hell I'm meant to make of this. He jumps [ __ ] like 10 feet in the air. I don't know how—like—he never—this was—it was never like this before—how he was—like—he is a guy—he is just a guy—human—he can take a bit of punishment, and he has like super perception, but that's not—he doesn't do anything that's superhuman apart from his ability to perceive things around him basically. You should—aside from his—aside from like his radar sense—like Matt is like Bruce Wayne—like in terms—he's a he's a guy—he's a guy—he's a regular guy; he doesn't have super strength—but like look at this—look at—like—first of all, look at that [ __ ]—yeah—uh—and and then you got to show the jump. Oh, right—the jump after it—yeah, I got you—the—yeah—the big jump—that's the thing that drove me crazy. Like, "Why did he even leave the building to do this? Why did he just go up the stairs? Why did he do this?" Stairs aren't meant—stairs aren't meant for people to walk up and down—fringy—look at that—how the [ __ ] is he jumping so high? You look at—look at—dude—Bullseye is falling over like the Grand Theft Auto 3 death animation. Look at that [ __ ]—what the [ __ ]—what is going on? Everything is fake; nothing real—looks like it's the scene in like Captain America: First Avenger just after he's become the super soldier, and the first time you see him properly running and jumping and like they they've obviously augmented what he's done to convey the fact that he is now a super soldier. It looks like this, which is bad for this cuz this isn't supposed to be that at all. What the [ __ ]—and now they are just both CG goobers when they don't need to be. Yeah, like the roof is CG—like—basically at this point—floopy CG Daredevil just punches floopy CG Bullseye and beats him to a pulp on the flumpy CG rooftop. That's what—for me—I was getting maxed out with this; I was like, "You're not [ __ ] serious"—that they're CG right now—this is—you don't—this is unreal—look at the—you know, when he first punches him in this little clip, like the way he falls—he's like light—his body—it's like his low gravity—like—what is that? So so again, to remind everybody, the core point of the criticism is here—this looks [ __ ]; this looks [ __ ]. If it was CG and you couldn't notice that would be one thing, but this looks bad; it looks really bad when the precedent has been established that we are very real and grounded. That's what makes it even worse, right? Like this on its own—having it—it's—be the like—like I said—spiritual successor to the opposite where everything was real cuz they had no choice—damn it—cuz they were only making these episodes in days, and they didn't have a massive budget for this [ __ ], and and it's like—this is just worse. Sorry—this is worse—that's the one-take fight, and it sucks; it's so ugly, and nothing has any weight; nothing has any true feeling. A lot of it is confusing me in terms of people's [ __ ] abilities and motivations and decisions and just why—why is it so thoughtless and so quick? Is it worth also mentioning that one of the like the major points of praise for people who have liked these first episodes and admit that there were problems—most people have said something like, "I really enjoyed the first 15 minutes; it was really high-octane; I liked that bit"—that's this bit—we've just—we've done the good bit; we've done the bit that people liked—now it's all downhill—and like it's not—it's—I'm just—I would never not be impressed by the season one uh fight; it's only—it's like 2 minutes long; it's pretty brief, but goddamn is it like [ __ ] tight and clean, and you can see all of the—I think I think that's what is particularly frustrating about this fight is like the efforts that they went to essentially hide it because a lot of it looks bad. You have a dark room filled with CG smoke to cover up—to try and cover up the—how—how fake it looks as best as possible, and then you put them on a really dark rooftop where you can't see anything, and it feels like we need to remind people—like—just because it's nighttime like doesn't mean that it should be difficult to see what's happening. Like Daredevil—you know—substantial amounts of the Netflix series takes place on rooftops at night, but there's very deliberate like lighting to make that you can see everything that's going on. This is like the worst kind where the lighting isn't like sharp enough to actually highlight the people or the key objects in the environment; instead, it's just like everything is really dark, and it's difficult to see like what's going on. It's not impossible, you know, it's not—it's not that dark—but like it really muddies it, whereas the fights in, you know, season 1, 2, and 3, and broadly just the cinematography and lighting provides a tremendous amount of clarity. This is a much more insecure fight, which is kind of funny when they have more resources—this one would have probably been planned out for like weeks—when again, the fights in season one, for instance, were mapped out in days. I might compare it to um, when Obi-Wan and Vader have their rematch where a lot of people's initial reactions were just like, "Oh, so [ __ ] hype—this is—we're back—we're finally back—the prequel—the OT fire—yeah—oh my God"—it's—and then once enough like days had passed, it was like, "Man, the choreography was awful; the the like the story that's built up to this is terrible; they've had like really confusing uh, little pieces like that connect it all—the little lines they give each other—and then like the broad story that's happened"—it's just like—"And now Kenobi is known as possibly the worst thing that happened to Star Wars," which is saying something—by the way—that is saying something.

I think this Accolade series is is like—this is already foreshadowing to me, you know—it's like, "Oh, boy"—yeah—but the one-take fight is over. We see that Karen is still pleading with Foggy to stay awake, but he can't. Foggy—Matt's best friend—is dead for all intents and purposes. Uh-huh. On—wow—he's been cast in season 2—like—yeah—that's not—it must be for flashbacks. Well, you know, may as well discuss it cuz I think chat will start mentioning it anyway; they want it addressed. There are storylines in the comics of Foggy Nelson uh, faking his death, and there's a comic that's even referenced in this very scene through the numbers on I think uh, their office that references a comic where he does exactly that. So the assumption is that this is Foggy somehow faking his death, and of course, that just raises a [ __ ] ton of questions—like one—Bullseye was in on it—what—why—what in the world—and then of course, I've seen people highlight that—what some of that's kind of confusing is when when he gets shot—he—if for lack of more specific terms—it's from the right—the shot itself—we see Karen, Foggy, and to the right of him the bullet comes, but then we see Bullseye arrives from a completely different angle. Yeah, so the implication being like, "Was the shot from Bullseye? Does it have anything to do with Bullseye?" And it's just like, "What in the world?" So it would just be a huge coincidence that Foggy was setting up a fake his death, and then Bullseye came to kill everybody—like—what? Well, that's how good his aim is; he can he can crash events; he has perfect timing as well. I thought you were meming when you were like, "Maybe"—no—it's a very real—and to be honest—bring—unfortunately, it's gaining more and more traction as like a probably what's going to be the case. Uh, I don't know how they're going to explain this—how are they going to fake it such that he couldn't be detected by Matt? It's like he must have taken a drug and then all the people—the corers—ETC were in on it, I guess, and then he disappears. Well, I don't want to get to that point. Okay. And we and we are to conclude that Karen is not in on it because uh, she is—unless she's just acting in-universe—which, by the way, unfortunate to tell you, but the the fan theory includes that she is very aware of this being a fake death, bro—that—which is—that's impossible. I mean, like—fair—even if you're willing to accept that he maybe took a drug that hides—like hides all of the ological signs that Matt would be able to detect, and so he can fake his death—B hasn't done that—so like if she's lying—he knows—he has to know—on it—obviously—that's the most prominent theory I've seen, but there's other ones that include—but not limited to—just like involving the Hand mechanics and that somehow he brings you back through that or something like that or God forbid the [ __ ] Multiverse gets involved. You know—you know—no—oh—well—then he is dead, and a different one gets brought in. Well, that's what I'm saying—whatever they do, it's going to be bad. And Hand will be like, "Oh, yeah—the—oh, yeah—Foggy and us—we—then we go way back—yeah—we'll resurrect them, of course—well, we owe Foggy a big one." The problem is, we've already had several examples of—"What do you mean—how did this happen?" It did—you're like, "Okay, you know"—it's like—"How—how the [ __ ] is is person doing X?" And you're like, "They are"—okay—well—so the fact we've done that enough already in this show means that we're probably going to get some

Having the shock value, it's like, "Excuse me, this isn't your shock value; this is someone else's." It doesn't take skill to be shocking. It's not like, "Oh, good job, you were shocking," like that's an accomplishment. It's like surprising me in a horror movie. Good job, surprising my senses, especially if they're going to [ __ ] undo it. It's like, so you took it as a payoff for yourself, and then you didn't even want to commit to it, just running with the hypothetical that they do, even if you don't run with the hypothetical that they do undo it, and they bring him back at a later point. The thing that makes it cheap shock is that, unless you're going to go and do something very, very important based on the decision you've just made and make it absolutely integral to everything in your story that follows from it, then all you've done is kill someone principally for the shock value and because it's a convenient way to have characters flip motives, but that you didn't have the time to actually show or explain.

I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that that's kind of what we've got here. It's a shock, and it's a cheap shock because we're going to forget about it basically in 10 minutes' time. You know what that reminds me of? Is what we concluded about Arcane season 2, where anytime they needed a character completely flip, they throw him into a [ __ ] portal, and then they come back out, and they're like completely different. Like, yeah, well, they wanted a whole adventure, and, "Trust me, bro," you're like, "You can't do that; that's cheating." Like, "No, offscreen story doesn't count; stop it." That's funny, too, because that doesn't even apply to people like Caitlyn, who flipped like three different times in the series. She didn't go through a portal—multiportal baby, multiversal invisible portal in between scenes. 'Cause yeah, you're ably right.

And I guess with all that said, all that criticism, now we can hit the actual significant criticism. Yeah, um, you know, Matt yells to the heavens, and he screams at Dex, "Why?" And Dex chuckles. He pats M—Matt on the b—he pat—God damn it—he pats Matt on the back, and this prompts Matt to toss Dex from the roof of this four-story building. Dex hits the ground really [ __ ] hard, as you would falling off. Now, regardless of what's about to happen, what's about to be revealed, uh, you know, it doesn't actually matter what happens next. Um, Matt Murdock, Daredevil, a character who throughout the first three seasons has routinely struggled with the question whether he should cross that line for a variety of different reasons—his faith, his relationship with, um, with his friends, what it would even do to him as like an entity, whether that would sort of spill over into the way that he interacts with, um, other people that he fights as Daredevil—this is just like a persistent thing that Matt has to grapple with. Right at the beginning of this new spiritual successor to Daredevil, Matt just like casually breaks that rule.

To add to that, we ended season 3 with an iconic rant regarding how he will not break as a person. That Kingpin has tried; he will not bring him to destroy himself and to cross that line. He's brought to what it's supposed to be in that moment, quite his wits' end regarding that decision. He's been wrestling with it throughout the whole season. Again, what I'm getting at is season 3 worked really hard to tell a particular story; it had a conclusion, and then its follow-up says, "Nah, nah, nah." If you're gonna get—if you're gonna get Daredevil to kill someone, you're going to have to work long and hard, and it has to be a very particular way of executing that. Well, they did it in 14 minutes. Like, you know, we had a conversation with some people who didn't even recognize something. Matt—Matt has to like frequently, you know, think back to one of my favorite scenes in the entire show where Matt speaks with Father Lantom, essentially to like ask him for advice on how to sort of grapple with the situation he finds himself in, which is that he is now, after just encountering roadblock after roadblock, realizing just how powerful Fisk is and the seeming impossibility of stopping him through conventional means, that he is now entertaining whether or not he needs to kill Fisk. Um, and then, you know, Father Lantom gives the speech about that, how he believes in the devil in the way that the devil manifests in the world, like through people. Matt wondering, you know, if you had the chance to to stop that person, that entity, from hurting anybody, would you do it? And then stop him. How that's like a—it's the—the point being that it's something that Matt seriously is grappling with, and like MOA said at the end of season 3, the conclusion is, "You don't get to destroy who I am. I beat you!" Right? Like him screaming at the top of his [ __ ] lungs. I love it. Um, and it's—it's just like, yeah, now in this, it's like, it—you can't do this; you just can't do this.

For the other perspectives, I've already seen it once or twice in chat, so the argument that, well, does that mean he should never ever be brought to a position where he might take a life? Like, that's really not the point. The key word, I believe that Rags used, was "long" was—was in there. Uh, you have to give this breathing room, setup, and uh, understand that this is going to be a mega important payoff. I could have written this such at the opening five minutes where, um, I don't know, [ __ ] Galactus arrives on Earth, and he's about to eat Earth, and then Matt has the capacity to blow him up with the button, and so he presses it and then says, "Oh no, I'm damned," 'cause Galactus counts as a nice person, or that there's a person who's on Galactus's shoulder who's an innocent person, and he blows them up, too. Like, well, would he not do that to save the entire planet? Like, that's really not the point. If, of course, if I was to try and force Daredevil into a position where he might have to take a life, it probably would be through Fury, and it probably would be through a friend being killed—death. Or they did this in the first like 10 minutes. Yeah, they didn't earn this. I would have—I would have—this needs to be like a—a—a season of something that's being—we don't even know why Foggy is dead, but there's a couple of bits that—that make you think this—this should be the culmination of the season and not the beginning of the season. Absolutely. You've got the—these—these two interweaving things. We'll come on to—to Kingpin a lot later, but the fact, you know, you're going to choose, as—as the show does, to skip what could be a really, really interesting story about his rise to power and just have him in power at the beginning. But if you take that resolution from season 3, you know, "I will not let you destroy me, change who I am," and you've got the character who has the most to try and prove that wrong throughout this, which is effectively all of season 4. You've got the rise to power, and you've got him—like you could have a Kingpin story which is about him completely try—well, trying to destroy Matt's faith, not only in like his own moral goodness but in the system for which he fights. And if you get him to the point at the end of the season where the system seems to have failed him and Kingpin is about to become there, and everything he trusts is now collapsed, and then to top it all off, his friend gets killed, and the person who does it will never go to prison or will escape justice—that when you've broken your hero, and that's a really, really powerful way to end a first season and set yourself up for a second season in which he has to go on a redemptive arc. But to kick it off like this, just for the shock value, mainly to sort of reshuffle your character deck as well, because obviously we've introduced a bunch of completely pointless people who are going to take on the roles that should be given to Foggy, and—and all the way through it's just—I don't understand how they looked at their own plan for this and thought this was the best—best way to do it. Like, all of the story you could have told, and they thought, "No, [ __ ] it." Just first eight minutes, keeping track here. They've got the Foggy dying payoff they've yanked in the first 10 minutes, and Matt committing murder in the first 10 minutes. And to be absolutely clear—'cause we've already covered this—it doesn't matter what the fate of Bullseye is; this was the intent. Matt chose to murder—do it.

Mhm. Um, he did it. Remember, Matt thinks if he crosses the line, he's going to hell. Yeah, this was—and this was, to be clear, he had him; it was over; he chose—got him, and he chose to throw him off the roof. Super important that these things are understood because it's super important for his character. For those who don't know, this is essentially like Matt condemns himself to Hell by doing this. But as M indicated, you know, that uh, Dex inexplicably survives. "No [ __ ] clue" is a good way to describe it. Landing on a building. Yeah, exactly. It is. I just want to tell that same story because I've been waiting for this moment on—on EAP as well, right? And I'm not naming names, okay? Who knows? But I—the day I saw this, I was looking at Discord; people were having a chat about the show, and someone had highlighted, "How in the [ __ ] did Bullseye survive?" And someone replied, who was clearly a little bit more in favor of the show, "Well, he has the enhanced spine." How does he—he not—he not Wolverine? He doesn't—he didn't even land on his sp—he specifically landed face-first. He doesn't have an adamantium skull; he doesn't even have adamantium. He got that surgery before—before they found adamantium, so it's just like a big old steel [Music] spine. It doesn't matter if you have an adamantium spine, but the rest of you is floopy [ __ ] goo—human juice—that is—it's not going to do [ __ ] for you. He should just be dead. Land on—even if he landed on his spine, which he didn't, I don't know how he survived, but he did. Um, which again, in the—in the realm of bad writing, um, a bad, dumb writer would look at that and go, "Oh, that changes things," right? No, it doesn't. Matt broke his rule. Um, even if—even if Dex survived, he broke it. Yeah, he did, with everything that—that entailed. But uh, you know, I'm sure we'll explore that in tremendous depth going forward. But this is the consolation prize. I would say all of these things having been snatched immediately, I'm like, "Okay, at least it'll be interesting to see how all of these characters, all these beloved characters, deal with this." It—yeah, um, I suppose so. You know, something that people pointed out, and I guess it's worth—well, I suppose maybe not if Karen is faking, but—uh—the part where Dex hits the ground and—um—like Karen, it almost seems like she's terrified to turn around to see that it was Matt who fell from the roof. Excellent performance. She is acting—she is acting her heart out, um, which she pretty reliably did in Daredevil.

De-brand, you understand this will be more because that means, on one hand, you drag in the beloved original characters; they give you their 100%, and then you're like, "Okay, you can go now. Yeah, see you. We'll see you in a couple—we'll see you in a couple months." Yeah, like I just—yeah, um, pretty—and of course, you know, Charlie Cox, he's acting his heart out as well, which again, it—it—it bothers me not because he's doing—he's doing a great job, but he's doing a great job for this material. Really is really—but—but we still got plot to do. CU Cherry, he stumbles onto the roof and he sees Matt dressed as Daredevil, which I guess was another thing of them essentially explaining why Cherry is some other guy who knows Matt's alter—well, so just can we just be clear of like—and then Cherry discovers Matt is dead. We're like, "Who the [ __ ] is Cherry? Who Cherry? Who are you? Sorry, Foggy just died, Matt's best friend, the character from the three seasons of Daredevil and also in Defenders." Okay, hey Cherry. Okay, Cherry knows guys. Cherry knows. Remember how huge it was for Foggy and Karen, respectively? Like, but now Cherry knows. Now Cherry knows. Cherry has entered the hallowed halls of people who know Matt's Daredevil. It's a very small club, and he's in it. Um, so Matt lets the mask slip from his hands and tumbles to the ground as he cries, and uh, it's that shot that people praised, and I don't understand why. It looks so fake. Look at that [ __ ]; it's so CG; that ain't real, and it's meant to look real. It doesn't look real. Look at that; it look—oh, this—oh, yeah, this—this looks [ __ ]. Yeah, like just drop it; film it slow motion, you [ __ ]. Exactly. Drop it and film it in slow motion. You have the technology and the funding; you could put a green screen behind the physical helmet, and then you can composite it on top of this shot. It's not—you could drop it into anything. You could drop it into a New York street; you could drop it in space, at the Taj Mahal—the—that's limitless potential—into a toilet—into a toilet. Like, the show—no, but they—they had to do it this way because it's about to transition into the new opening credits for Daredevil: Born Again. I'm not sure what we should say about like where exactly we should go with this, um, in terms of talking about it. It feels like there are a few—well, they're different; they're new credits; they're not the same uh, as in the original series. You might remember that the original series has really cool opening credits. You know, yeah, like blood red—red liquid—blood stuff. Yeah. Well, though—though I think Molly, you said that you thought it was more like wax. I'm pretty sure it's wax; that's what it's meant to look like. Yeah, in any case, still blood red, you know, creating all of these relevant images for like Matt and the world that he lives in and his—and you know, his religion. Um, it's a really cool uh, opening credit sequence with a really cool theme that uh, at this point has essentially cemented itself in a way that uh, has not really been the case for a lot of other Marvel characters because they tend to change their themes a little bit too uh, with too much regularity. Like, what—what would you say is the Captain America theme, for example? It's like, well, there's a few themes, but not one. Iron Man had a few themes, but not one. Spider-Man had his own theme that was consistent. Yes. Um, but uh, but yeah, Daredevil's is consistent, not just in the opening credits but often appearing, you know, throughout um, each season, even in Defenders. Uh, it's really cool; I really like it, and I really like the theme. We got these new visuals and a new rendition of the theme. Um, if I may—might just be because—yeah, I mean, obviously, get through what you're looking to get through, but the main thing I just want to comment on there is one particular visual that, when they created it, they should have realized what they had done wrong. One—you're talking about—yeah, you do—it is uh, it—it is uh, it'll be on screen soon enough, but there's the—you know, the Nelson & Murdock and Paige, which you might remember was written on a—on a—um—I can't—getting the name—yeah—at the end of season 3, the promise that they're going to re-establish Nelson & Murdock, and Paige is going to be right there with them. Well, they did, for 10 years; we just didn't get to experience it or—ha—yeah. Like, it needs to be said that the—the end of season 3, which by the way, I—okay, okay, ARJ, it's—it's okay if the story ends, and we get to think those three are working together to make people's lives better indefinitely. Sunset stuff. But if you continue the story, okay, what's the first thing you show me in your opening credits? This—kill Foggy. Foggy dead. Daredevil broken, destroyed, and their law office crumbling to pieces. Like, you destroyed the thing we never got to see that we would have really liked to see, and we assumed went well. Yeah, but no—no—look at that shattered—um—it's like having Indiana Jones 4 beginning with opening credits that have all the museums of the world exploding. Well, like beginning in Indiana Jones 5 where he's a depressed alcoholic. They would never do that. You're—you're having one of your crazy—it's not real; they never do that. Well, so—you go ahead. Actually, I will say your story—you know, your music—if you want to use a choir, I'm all for it. I love choirs in music; there's—I—you know, the Halo [ __ ]—love the Halo soundtrack, and that's got the choir in it. I really like choir and—in score music. Um, and you know, your—your—your story that it accompanies it doesn't have to have a religious angle to it to justify the use of choir, but—but it's a little bit odd that this one relies very heavily on choir when, if the first three episodes are any indication, Matt's Catholicism ain't that relevant anymore.

Nope. It's a little bit weird. And now, of course, this bothers me a bit because it's a central part of the character; it's—it's indispensable; it's—it's a huge part of it. It informs like what he does and how he operates in his—his moral framework, both for plot and for character. It's very ingrained in Daredevil; he is—it is a part of Daredevil that you cannot extract without creating someone completely different. Mhm. Also, to be clear, we're shown the church crumbling, their law office crumbling, the—the image—the—the symbol of law being the scales crumbling, and uh, the badge of a police force crumbling—like the—the—the Imp and Statue of Liberty crumbling—like the implication being like everything's falling apart, but you know, we're going to rebuild him, and by the time we hit the end of this season, Daredevil will be back. And I'm just—you're like, "Really, now?" Well, and it's just funny; it's like, "Dude, you already did this in season 3. This is what season 3 was." And you know, now might be a worthwhile time to mention it; this is called Daredevil: Born Again. This ain't—this ain't Daredevil: Born Again; it's not even—it—it can't be. Season 3 is—is already something of a loose adaptation of a Born Again storyline. It's loose; it's not, you know, it's not like super direct. I mean, you know, Iron Man and Captain America show—been Born Again. Um, but—um, it's—it's a loose adaptation, so not only can't you do it again, but this one's not even making any effort to do that, but it's called that; it's using choir. Yeah, it's been stated—I can't remember if it was by Charlie Cox or by the showrunner—but that uh, Born Again is only in name; it has nothing to do with the—the comic. It's—matter—see, because the show is Born Again, but it's—it's not—it's not—it's not referencing Born Again; it's not anything about Matt being born again; none of that. Particularly frustrated that they would choose that one, and they'd be like, "Religion is going to take a backseat in this one." [ __ ] Even if they wanted to—to only take sort of a kind of thematic uh, inspiration from—from Born Again, and they do want to show that because of what's just happened, everything in his world has—has collapsed. I'm not a big fan of opening credits which basically are the extent of the story exploration of all of these things, 'cause the opening credits here are telling us his faith is collapsed, the church has collapsed, New York City has collapsed. I would quite like to see that in the episode. I would like him to reflect on that. I'd like to see him go to the church and realize that he can't find any solace there anymore. I'd like to see him have a conversation in confession and realize that like he's not worthy of this; he has to leave because like he—he's already condemned himself, and then build up to—over the course of this initial season, at the end of which maybe he starts putting these things back together. You can't, though, just show me a bunch of statues collapsing in your opening credits and then proceed as though all of that story has been told, and then we just move on doing whatever the [ __ ] we want to do next. That's not really how it works. We'll be talking about it, but like we are skipping the year—like we skip one year later. We skip everything that happens between this—this event and where Matt finds himself now, um, with—and it's like, "Dude, you're going to skip over like the aftermath of Foggy's death; we're going to skip past that aftermath to like his new status quo." That's ridiculous. Um, and—and of course, it's, you know, the—the—the sort of the absence of any scenes, 'cause uh, her absence is going to be particularly felt, but there is no Maggie in this—no Maggie. And you might remember that at the end of season 3, she was essentially going to be taking the place of uh, Father Lantom, who Matt had many conversations about morality with, you know, throughout the years, and that she was going to take that place and—and help guide him and—and help him sort of work through his problems. But uh, no, bye; she's not here either. Um, she's probably the absence that annoys me the most, uh, 'cause you know, at least Karen shows up for a bit—a little while—at least Foggy was here for a little bit. No Maggie. You don't—why you don't need her, do you? Because we—we've got these brand new incredibly compelling people who will take up all of this—this burden. He's got a new comfort—done. Yeah, I'm sure all of this is—it—it'll mean something; all of this is leading—it's going somewhere. Um, so—and—and also this—this is probably—this is less of a thing, um, and it might just—again, this might just be my bias, but uh, I don't—they changed the time signature for the—the theme, and I don't like it. It's—it's—I—I don't like it. The original one is—is 4/4; this one is 6/8, and it's like—I don't know, man; I don't know. There's something about it that feels off. We don't hang on those long notes for as long as we should; it just feels like we're kind of racing. And plus, like, in a sense, it's almost been supplanted by like a new—a new um, light motif. The actual like light motif for this show is—up—let me try that again. It's like—it's like—yeah, all right, that's—you—a new one. I don't like it as much as the old one, but whatever; that's—that's fine; that's just—it could be a lot worse. As I'm seeing all these visuals on the screen with no music, I've got the Dragons theme in my head. [ __ ] Arcane. We don't want [Laughter] [Music] that, truly. But anyway, that's—is my enemy. Yeah, his [ __ ] kill count is insane. Now he probably killed Maggie. Well, hey, look, he could run for mayor later. All right. Oh, yeah. Okay. Uh, okay. So yeah, after the one year later, we have cut to one year later, and Matt is in a new lame apartment. And now you might remember that Matt's apartment in seasons 1, 2, and 3 just provided ample opportunities for awesome lighting 'cause he lived next to a giant billboard because he's blind, so it doesn't, you know, it doesn't bother him. Let me—let me illustrate that just right now. This is—they will never achieve a shot like this in Born Again ever again or—sorry, no, because he lives in a sterile white box now. Well, yeah, and he doesn't live in Hell's Kitchen anymore. He is, 'cause you can see New York in the background. He lives in, I guess, Long Island—like Brooklyn or—or Queens or something. He does. He said he was moving back into his apartment at the end of season 3. I guess. Well, he lived there for a while, but then when Foggy died, he had to get out of Hell's Kitchen—his home. He can't—why—why did they do this? And it's probably because—well, they weren't thinking about it really. Yeah, they didn't—they didn't realize that Hell's Kitchen—they were like, "Well, no, the setting is New York." It's like, "Well, it's New York, but it's Hell's Kitchen specifically—his neighborhood." It is uh, hard to understate—his apartment was a gold mine—a deliberately designed gold mine for imagery. His new one—spent a lot of time in there; a lot of scenes happened in his apartment; it was a real location; it's an important place. His—his new one is a—the place that it seems fine to live in. Um, it's basically a new—it's—it's like a new apartment—the kind of new apartment that gets built—the sort of minimalistic, you know, modern sort of style rather than the super cool like Neo-Noir. Yeah, look—right. It's—look—the old one was super cool—like a Neo-Noir sort of like uh—but yeah, whatever; it's like more expensive and more sterile and worse. It's a very thematic apartment. Yes, with personality. We just need some CG, go—but we're good to go. And—so what we see is that on the news they're talking about the upcoming New York mayoral election. Um, now something to—not—in terms of keeping track of timeline, uh, Matt is not watching the same broadcast that Fisk watched at the end of Echo, but it conveys the same information—that there is no clear front runner in the race, which means it's safe to conclude that Daredevil: Born Again takes place roughly when Echo ends. Again, reiterating that this is—this is like actually about a decade after—after we last saw—um, these characters in—in season 3. It's been a while. Um, and then the news also mentions that a bunch of murals have been—been appearing around the city. Um, I'm guessing that—I guess that's going to be relevant later 'cause Muse is showing up later. So you know, that'll be—that whatever. Um, Matt then picks up the remote, turns off the TV, and leaves the apartment as the camera hangs on a leaflet for Foggy's funeral; it's still sitting there. I guess it's on his mind, but we skipped over all of the turmoil that would have occurred in the, you know, that time. Yeah, it would have been hard—working brilliantly so.

This next part's pretty funny. So Fisk, he's eating some breakfast in his apartment uh, in New York, and he—he's wearing his wedding ring. They sort of show—they put emphasis on the wedding ring, and—um, he picks out a suit, and then we just have this very loud and obnoxious musical sting play as like we cut to an image of the painting of Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan. This [ __ ] was hilarious to me. It—it's like this loud stick—it's like, "What? Excuse me? Hello? What are we doing here? You're supposed to draw thematic relevance out of it, idiot." God, I like—that's us—that's us in the top, and Daredevil is the guy on the bottom there—that we're with the corpse—that's us—that's the thematic relevance. That's a good shout, Rags; that's a good point. There's something about the fact that they chose one of the most recognized paintings of all time that almost is like, "Wow, couldn't have picked a little bit more of a unique one." Like, I like this painting a lot, but like—this—this is a really—this is a really famous painting. Like, "Do we want to pick something else?" No, it's okay. Um, anyway, we got a whole bunch of mobsters who are comprising the five families that are gathered in the room, including members of the tracksuit Mafia, which you might remember—we—we saw—seemingly get obliterated in Hawkeye. I'm not even sure how they exist. Like, there were like hundreds of them that got taken out at the end of Hawkeye. For anybody who either didn't watch or watched and can't remember anything from Hawkeye, they were the clown car Mafia; they just [ __ ] keep appearing constantly with seemingly with no like serious intent; they just turn up to get killed. They're just like, "Look, I'm here; look, I'm here." BL—the name is very much giving you an indication of what they are. The Tracksuit Mafia is not the name you give to a serious outfit at all. No. Nope. But they're here. Um, and they're arguing with each other for a moment, but the tension is diffused by Vanessa. There she is; she's in the show; okay; she made it. She sits down; she—she wasn't going to—going to, but they changed their mind on that. Um, so she sits down at the head of the table, and she outlines their—how their takings are going to be disseminated, indicating that she is running the business right now. But the door opens behind Vanessa, and Fisk enters, and he's fiddling with his hand for a moment before asking to speak with her, and she seems kind of a little bit surprised to see him there, and all the mobsters—they get up and leave. Now you can feel free to interrupt me at any time; we're just going to be going over some of the dialogue here. Um, Vanessa, she says, "You left the bed I sat beside for months while you recovered, and for what?" So this is presumably in reference to Echo shooting Fisk in the [ __ ] face. So funny how many of the sentences in this [ __ ] show could begin with, "As you know," like, 'cause every single time you're like, "Why would you say that to them? They know this; they lived it. Why would you say that?" But it's—it's true almost every time that this show does try to acknowledge the events of the other two shows that came before. The writers don't know how much they want to acknowledge them; they think that they should, but also they don't want to rely on them. So like most sane people who didn't watch the Echo show or the Hawkeye show will hear this line and think, "Well, guess that was referring to something that I missed. At what point did he spend months in a hospital bed?" But then it won't ever really come up again, so you—you kind of wonder whether they should even have bothered acknowledging it if they're not really going to make it a pivotal part of the story. But then again, if they're not going to make it a pivotal part of the story, why tie these things together in the first place? I don't know. And then uh, she—oh, sorry, I just—just saying it's like—it's like a problem they have to solve, and they've done it in a really [ __ ] way as opposed to like we said—first step, ignore it; second step, [ __ ] de-canonize it. Obviously they're not going to do that, but—third would be like, "All right, you have to incorporate it, but you have to fix it." It's like—I mean, you know, can it just be a project he was working on for other reasons that are unclear or something? But you know, instead they just have to be like, "So we'll make it such that he abandoned Vanessa to focus on Echo and the Hawkeye storylines." Like what? Oh, I wouldn't—I didn't get that impression after the end of season 3, um, that he would abandon her. That's insane. I want to be specific—this is a decision the writers made, and it's like, "Well, thanks. You've locked us into that now. Why—why'd you do that? You didn't have to, but now you have," and it was a problem deferred because like—he just—by having him out of prison for the prior shows, they've already made a pretty big [ __ ] up, or at least like there's something they have to account for in the fact that by being out of prison, he has broken this most solemn promise he could make at the end of season 3—like, "I will go to prison, and I will stay there as long as you leave her alone." Just by being out of prison, you have to start asking questions like, "Well, like, did he stop valuing her being safe? Did he change his mind? How did he get out? How did he recover from being shot in the [ __ ] head? How does any of this make—sense?" We're still in the mode of—this is the one of the good episodes, quote-unquote. This is one—one of the original, recreated, new production episodes, so all the writing in this one is supposed to be the good stuff. This is the upgraded [ __ ]. Yeah, and you—and—and of course, you know, you—the point has been raised, but you're left with the problem of—so Fisk got out, and Matt just decided, "All right, [ __ ], I'll just leave you to it, and I'm not going to go—you," even though—even though [ __ ] Fisk—again, he made this promise—alternatively, he was going to come after him and Foggy and Karen relentlessly. Um, and Matt just decided, like, "Oh, well, you know, who—who needs to

Her to be that character this show wants her to be: a shrewd, hard-nosed businesswoman with her completely own independent ambitions, who values the crime empire more than the man, to the extent that she's prepared to ditch the man and keep the crime empire. Seems to be the re-going forward, you know.

The real sad part of this? Do you remember in *Echo*? And this is really pulling some distant, well-flushed memories, fellas, but remember the notion of "Queen Pin"? Oh yes. So that was hyper-cringe when it was said, but luckily there's no substance to it in the writing. It's Echo being [ __ ] and we'll never see her again. However, I feel like without…like this is…this is Queen…yeah, this…this is it. And you'd be like, whoa, wait, it's not like they've said she's better at the job than him. True, because that would be…that would be profoundly strange to hear and frustrating in every way, shape, and form that would be. But you know, in any case, Fisk says he has enough signatures to move forward with his plan. That's the scene. And thus…all right, so thus begins the first of many baffling, uh, little…I don't even know how to describe them. Almost like…like they're…like they're not…they're not like scenes in and of themselves; they're like these kind of vignettes between scenes.

So we got BB Yuck. You might remember Ben Yuck, um, prominent character…character one, you know, dedicated journalist looking for the truth. Brave. Um, kind of a shame that we didn't get a lot more of him. I really like Ben, um, season one, unfortunately. But…but this is…this is his niece, BB Urick, and she runs the BB Report, which is like a video series where she conducts interviews with the citizens of New York, asking them questions about the topics of the day. And so she asked these citizens this time, in this little thing that's like 30 seconds long, about their feelings on the state of crime in New York. And this woman remarks, “Dead Devil’s been gone for a really long time, and the city needs him back.” And that's the scene. That's it. It's…the little B segments are…um, well, they're annoying. They're annoying in their artsiness, but they are also basically pointless conceptually. I like…what I thought they were trying to do with them is that you will be able to get, effectively, a window into the evolving world state. These are all like Vox pops, showing people reacting to the massive decisions being made by our main characters, which, as a narrative device, it's a lot of potential with it. It's just they don't really use it in that way. They tend to use it to either give you very on-the-nose exposition, like, “Dead Devil’s been gone for ages, isn’t it terrible,” or they try to do it to give you a very, very loose caricature of, say, the kind of person who supports Kingpin’s run from afar, which is just redneck, basically. Um, or they just use it to fill time and don’t really tell you anything at all about how character decisions are changing the nature and the character of New York itself, which is what they’re supposed to do. These are supposed to be the character of the city, so it would be great if they had used it properly in that sense.

I like the idea; it’s just we don’t really get it ever. Al, um, I don’t know if you spot it because that’s…it’s just…stood out to be a bit…got a Super Chat that’s vaguely relevant, I suppose. I don’t know if this is supposed to…did Daredevil anything else, but it says, “You guys have a weakness; that weakness is artsy films. They’re not for you. I get it. But unfortunately, your criticisms usually amount to boredom, which isn’t good criticism. You guys need to embrace the unconventional, because conventional films are killing art.” Are you on the right show, M? Or…yeah, the word “B,” I think you are. I think you’re lost. I feel like this is just not applicable to us at all. We don’t tend to use “something is boring” that is the criticism. Well, yeah, because “boring” is usually insufficient as a criticism. Boring is incredibly subjective. Like if someone says, “I’m bored,” you can just say, “I’m not,” and that’s kind of like the end of the conversation. Boring is not…off the top of my head, right…um, I don’t think…like what would qualify as us having celebrated greatly like the quality of a particular art-house films would be…would *The Father* count? Would *The Lighthouse* count? *Black Swan*? *Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind*? Would that count? These are films that are very unconventional; they don’t regard like superheroes or hyper-action; they’re very much character-focus, character studies, or…or um, you know, thematic through-line sort of stuff. But I mean, the thing that we’ve always wanted to focus on has never been about even genre. I mean, we…we haven’t covered many romantic comedies because you could argue they’re not for us, but they’re still…we would still apply the same standards: characters, consistent plot, that sort of stuff. Um, I just…I…I don’t know if…was it…was it the first two and a half hours here that has prompted this? Cuz I feel like we’ve done nothing but reference things that are wrong as opposed to saying it’s boring. I, to be clear, some people said that they found *Daredevil: Born Again* boring, and I was like, “I did not find it boring.” That was not my criticism; not…whatever…I was not bored. I wish I was bored; it’d be nice if it was just boring. Yeah, but…um, I don’t know. Obviously, we cover more conventional movies, I would say that, but yeah, we really…we don’t tend to want to use “boring” as our main criticism, nor do we tend to want to say something is “fun” as to why it’s good.

So next up, Matt enters the bland offices of Murdoch and McDuffy. Remember Kirsten? They’re together now. They…they are partners; they got their new law firm. So that’s…what I wanted is…what I wanted to see. I did not want to see Nelson Murdoch and Paige at all. I didn’t want to see that; I wanted to see Murdoch and…what’s her face? Yeah, McDuffy. It’s great, McDuffy. Um, all right. Um, I’ve heard broadly…like…people…yeah, I didn’t really like her in the comics either, or something like that. I’m just like, okay, why is she here? Like what’s going on? What’s happening? Like no need to get conspiratorial. Well, you get confusion, right? You’re like…you…you gave us back our characters, killed one, lost the other, and have replaced Matt’s now partner is a Black woman. This feels a little bit like a stereotype, doesn’t it? We don’t like doing this; this is silly. Interesting. That’s kind of…what a weird coincidence. Who the [ __ ] is this person? McDuffy…McDuffy. You know…come on, you know…partner, and they’re going to go on adventures…law adventures together. It’s going to be great. And so she asks him if he’s okay, given that he’s going to be giving a statement at Dex’s sentencing, uh, the following day. And he insists that he’s okay. And Matt mentions that he has not heard from Karen, which is…now we can…we can talk about that a little bit more once…once we get to that scene, cuz…you know, the day comes…this scene is…something you will notice is that there are a lot of…there were a lot of scenes in…in this show that are like maybe 20, 30 seconds long, and it’s like kind of jarring. Um, usually it’s just kind of a weird way to structure an episode of television that you just have these scenes that are like 20 or 30 seconds long that exist just…just to convey plot. And then…oh, now we’re over here. Like really annoying. So…

Matt takes the stand at Dex’s sentencing, and he provides his impact statement, and he says that justice will not be served on this day because whatever sentence Dex receives will not bring Foggy back. But he hesitates for a moment when he hears Karen enter the courtroom, and then he regains his composure and continues as Karen watches from the back of the room. And Matt says that Dex is a self-styled assassin with a grudge out to murder his perceived enemies, which…um, is a strange thing to say given that like Dex didn’t really have a grudge against like Foggy at all…or Matt twice. Well, so I think the only time…so Matt Murdoch never met Dex…like Daredevil met Dex, but Matt Murdoch never did. Foggy met him once, and that was because he was there at the Bulletin when he attacked it. Now, of course, you know, he went after Karen in a sense, but like he did that because Fisk told him to. And if there’s anybody who Dex [ __ ] hates now, it’s Fisk. So what are we talking about? No idea why he killed Foggy. Now, of course, the thing is is that he did this…you know, he was there and he did this, but like you’d almost be thinking to Matt, it’s like, “Wait, but why would he do this?” Like he never had any…like it…it…it doesn’t…it doesn’t really follow that Dex would specifically target like…Nelson Murdoch and Paige, rather that maybe he’d go after Daredevil. Like he…he could go after him, but…um, I just…I don’t get it. Now, of course, you know…yeah, I’ve heard the response to this that we will find out later in the season, and if not later the season, next season. All right, that’s…by the way, if there’s ever…uh, something I don’t understand or anything you guys don’t understand, at me…consider that my preemptive response to any criticisms. I’ll tell you later…or really later. We’ve talked about this before. Conventionally speaking, what you’re going to want to do if you have a shocking revelation is to provide us an acceptable one, and then you put the shocking revelation when you’re like, “Oh [ __ ]! Oh, it was…oh!” But the thing is, I think the show might think this is so awkward that Bullseye has good reason to want to kill Foggy, which…like, not really. No, the show has to think that the big…because it’s one thing telling the audience, “Yeah, you’ll maybe find out later,” but like your characters in your show also have to react based on the information that the audience has just been given. If this story doesn’t hold up to us, it really shouldn’t hold up to Matt either, especially since like the number of times in the Netflix show you see him go and investigate the story behind the story, as it were…all the times you see Karen do the same thing…like you shouldn’t expect that characters will just roll with whatever [ __ ] explanation you’ve cooked up because they’re supposed to be smart. They don’t roll with those kinds of [ __ ] explanations, but they kind of…they kind of have to…to justify not going for a very, very long, involved investigation for the rest of this season, I guess. No, I mean, it’s…it’s…it’s the reality is is that…um, I would say that this is just cope. It’s the kind…it’s the same kind of cope that…that happens for a lot of [ __ ] stories where it’s like, “Oh, no, it’ll all make sense in the end,” and then it doesn’t. It was just bad writing the whole time. Terrible writing. That…that would be the thing. Generally speaking, if it doesn’t make sense to you now, it’s because it doesn’t make sense at all. It’s not because there’s some bit of information that you’re missing. That’s often not the case; it’s usually just bad writing, plain and simple. That’s the easiest meme in the world, though: the “[ __ ] Scooby-Doo [ __ ]” and it’s like, “Mystery Box, take the thing off.” Bad writing, yeah, exactly. But…uh, in any case, Matt urges the court to punish Dex to the fullest extent of the law, and the judge asks Dex if he has anything to say, and he’s like, “Nah.” And uh, that prompts the judge to sentence him to…without the possibility of parole. And when the verdict is delivered…kind of like silently celebrates. No, just life. That’s what she says. Oh, I thought he had per…per victim or something. Oh, okay. Well…well, cuz there was 11 counts, so I guess 11…then he ain’t getting out of…was the point. Yeah, he’s not getting out of…yeah, unless…unless he can pull a Foggy and somehow return in adventures…whatever…11 times, he’s not going to come back. Oh, they’re getting him out of prison for sure. There’s no…but yeah, Matt…Matt silently celebrates. I saw people on Twitter praising this. It’s like…I mean, I would expect him to celebrate that…that he’s going to jail, but yeah, okay. Yep. All right. Um, he’s a good actor. So that brings…that brings us to what we’re talking…all right. So in the hallway outside of the courtroom, Matt sits down with Karen, and he asks her how she’s doing, and she says, “San Francisco’s nice.” Oh, she left…she left New York; she left Matt; she went over to San Francisco. We change “left” to “abandoned,” please. Can…can we…why do they do this? I don’t [ __ ] why they [ __ ] do this. They brought all three back, and here we are. Who makes these creative decisions? The smartest people, clearly. The smartest people…far more wise than you and I will ever hope to be. Matt asks if they can chat over a cup of coffee, but Karen refuses. And so Matt says, “I know you’re lying; I’m just not sure who to…me or yourself. You tell me, Karen, what do you expect me to do here? What do I need to do to have a conversation with you? I tried calling; I’ve left messages.” And Karen says that she’s been busy, much to Matt’s frustration. And so then she says, “My friend died too, Matt, and then I lost you. You didn’t talk to me for weeks. I was halfway in and then halfway out.” And Matt tries to defend himself, but Karen shuts him down before explaining, “I came for Foggy, and I came to say I’m sorry it ended, and I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I’m really glad you’re doing so well.” And then Matt chuckles to himself. Oh, sorry. Sounds like there was a really, really good season that happened at some point that we didn’t see. Don’t say “Czy Weish.” This crazy to skip all of this stuff that we would obviously care about to show us stuff we don’t give a [ __ ] about? That’s crazy. Why would you do that? So…Matt chuckles. We can…we…I…I’ll just get through it. And then, of course…but…but like I said, feel free to interject where you feel appropriate. Um, Matt chuckles to himself after she says that before saying, “I refuse to believe that a tragedy had to destroy everything.” And Karen simply says, “But it did.” And then she asks Matt what he intends to do with Daredevil. And Matt says, “I made a promise to myself that I’d let the system handle it…all of it. Besides, I’m not him anymore, and I won’t let myself be.” And then Karen wonders if all of this will help, and Matt remarks that it doesn’t make it worse. So then Karen stands up, and it prompts Matt to beg her to stay. And then she hands him the severed horn from his suit that he lost in that fight with Bullseye before leaving again. And Matt sits alone in the courthouse. Bye Karen. Goodbye Karen. That’s it for her. For how long? When are we going to see her again? Well, so this is the thing…who knows right now? But the thing that I read, which is one of several accounts of what we’re expected to see, it could be as late as episode eight or seven. You might remember…great decision…you might remember that uh, Karen met Maggie when she was uh, planning to leave town, and uh, Maggie talked about her story; she talked about, you know, her relationship with Matt because uh, Maggie is Matt’s mother, and…and uh, she basically abandoned him, and…and he grew up…with his…with his dad; he was raised by his dad alone with no real knowledge of his mother. And she talked about how it was important for Karen to understand that when you know someone like Matt pushes you away, you got to hold on tight…got to hold on even tighter. Um, this was an important sort of lesson essentially that Karen needed to learn about understanding and relating to and sympathizing with Matt. Yeah, this was at Matt’s like lowest when he had pushed both her and Foggy away. Well, he went through something in lower off-screen, so…oh well, I mean, that is fair enough. But no…uh, this time she abandoned him; she left; she…she went…she moved across the country. And right here now, as Matt is begging for her to stay, she’s like, “All right, see you. Bye-bye. Goodbye. I’m going.” I know you were sad after your…after like our best friend died, but…I didn’t call you. And actually…by…this is once again another thing that was like…you could get there, but it would take a hell of a lot of work and time. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, all of that happened off-screen.” And then also, why would you want to do it in the first place? Exactly. Like they…they’ve had their ups and downs over their past, you know, three and a half seasons together, and where we got left off was like, “Oh, like I think they can really…I really would be invested in their relationship and how they get along and what this dynamic means for not just Nelson Murdoch and Paige, but also his…you know, his…um…you know, his daredeviling and how he looks at that part of his life and what his next steps will be.” Um, all those things happened in a hypothetical show that we clearly didn’t get because this is what we’re stuck with, and it sucks to see, and it’s completely out of character. Oh yeah, it’s assassination is what this is; this is called. We got a figurative one here, and then we had a physical one earlier, right? So we’re on a roll on this, apparently. Good episode…or better episode of our *Daredevil: Born Again*, going great. But uh, yeah, that’s…now something that I…I…now it’s probably not the case, but it probably says something that I felt it was the case throughout this scene. I genuinely wondered if they were in the same room. I seriously, for a while, entertained…like, “Dude, were they even in the same room?” Like…well, they don’t touch…there were…yeah, it was just that they never interact with each other directly, and you know, maybe it could be said as well that it was just…like the whole thing felt distant and wrong. They didn’t feel like they were who I knew these characters to be. Uh, in…they…they almost certainly were in the same room, but the fact that I…I entertained for a moment…[ __ ]…did you not have them there on the same day? I don’t know. It feels like it speaks to something, right? Like there’s something about that, but you know, it’s just a thought…a theory…a game theory, if you will.

So back in his lame apartment, Matt’s preparing his dinner, and he turns on the TV and listens to Fisk declaring his candidacy for mayor of New York with an anti-me agenda and an anti-vigilante agenda. Uh, yeah, what he would…so this is horseshit. There is no way…if we could list a billion different things you could run on…if the list of this…you can’t run on this. At number one, it might just be what he’s running on…like that might be the number one thing you can’t [ __ ] run on, dude. Did they give a reason for why he’s out of prison, period? No. Uh, didn’t…there’s…there’s only an implication. Remember, there’s an implication…wait, why am I not…in season 3, we had a reason. It was that he was an informant; he was…well, I was just saying that in season 3, we had a reason; he was an informant for the FBI, so that was able to get him in a position where he could negotiate…um, for himself, you know, certain things, right? Get an apartment…then eventually get to actually furnish it…certain…certain rights and privileges that he was able to…but this time it’s just like, “No, he’s out; he’s just out; he’s free.” I just…that’s…that’s just…I don’t believe it. You…you have to give an explanation, and it will probably be a bad one. I don’t see how you can write it to where he’s free, man. The implication is that he basically managed to overturn like his prior convictions…like that there’s a quick…there’s like a half-line to say basically…yeah, they got it wrong anyway. Hello, mayor! Hello! Don’t the fibber straight through system singap region to Hell’s Kitchen. That doesn’t work. Change it to San Francisco. We can hear you. All right. Well, yeah, I was just saying that like there’s a half-line to explain it; it’s basically undoing all of it, and they can’t be asked to explain how they’re just like…[ __ ] you, we’re moving on now. Something to remember is that at the end of season one of *Daredevil*, um, Fisk was escaped from like a police…with a whole bunch of dudes with [ __ ] rifles jumping out and mowing all down to get him out. That’s just something that’s known about Fisk. How is he running for mayor? It was on the news; the news covered the shootout on the bridge. You can’t…that’s one of many things that he did that everybody knows about. Like he…everyone knows…everyone knows the whole point of him essentially leveraging, you know, power to…to…sort of…in season 3 was like everybody knew was [ __ ] basically, but that he was able to play the long game such that he got a sufficient level of power and protection. Like it’s not meant to be that everybody actually thought he was a great guy. He is a known [ __ ]! It…like it cannot be understated; he’s a real jerk. He ran a whole crazy essentially program to…like…like with great effort, basically brainwash an FBI agent into faking himself as Daredevil, killing countless innocent people, including the execution of a priest in a church…like…and that person just did it again last year. Yeah, yeah. And…and he’s like, “You know those pesky vigilantes? I actually survived an attack from one!” Like that’s another line at some point in this…he just like…you killed people with your fake vigilante? Are you [ __ ] kidding me? Why would anyone take you seriously on this topic? You…you tried to destroy the reputations…and remember another thing that doesn’t [ __ ] work…you can’t do this in this universe. Vigilantes defeated the giant purple man who tried to kill everyone. Remember, the Sokovia Accords were repealed; the world decided that apparently trying to regulate vigilantism was the wrong call. Back…show forgets that…two candidates with two positions that you get…so like…we don’t even know who Fisk is running against for this, but one of the candidates has proposed registering vigilantes on just…like a list…like a sex offenders registry, but for people who…I guess…and they…and Fisk’s response is, “Well, that’s not enough; that’s just stupid; we need to outlaw them completely.” Which…how are you…how do you expect to win an election by promising to outlaw like people that the show tells us are popular in every other situation where they come up? They’d be more popular than stars in our world. That’s…that’s the reality that a lot of people don’t seem to grasp is just how popular they would [ __ ] be. And…and you’re telling us like, “Oh, yes, the world’s going to elect the mayor to stop vigilantism.” It’s like…so what about the aliens? What about the regular inter…with aliens that we’re having that are only kept at bay by superhero vigilantes? What you need to…I think would make more sense if…again, though, this would require basically a season in which we actually get to see how he deals with, you know, his own massive unpopularity; how he manipulates people into supporting him…but a season in which he runs for…for mayor of New York, and he…like he reprises some of his previous tactics; that he creates essentially an entire class of…of vigilantes who go around doing bad [ __ ], and there’s plausible deniability. He keeps himself distant, and he runs on a kind of populist message: “There are good and bad vigilantes; the only way we can be sure that we keep in control is we have them on a register; we know their identities. Tony Stark, he told us all who he was; that’s the good and responsible thing to do.” And as he gains more and more power, uh, his like false-flag vigilantes are driving public opinion into the support for registering these vigilantes, which automatically means that he’s going to be protected the next time Matt Murdoch decides to wear the mask again. He’s got to register himself, or he’s against the law. And he’s corrupting the system that Matt keeps saying he believes in in order to further his own political aims and ambitions. And you can kind of see him creating the chaos and then promising to fix it. And I think that would have been interesting to watch play out, but you can’t just have him turn up now and say, “By the way, running for mayor…don’t vigilantes suck? Yeah, vote for me,” and then people [ __ ] do. Why he personally cannot run on this…and then the world…you need a lot of work to be done to argue why the world would be in favor of this; why they would elect on this sole issue…like this isn’t the world you’re working with, guys. There’s a lot more going on that you seem to have ignored. So it’s like…it doesn’t work at any level. It wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t Fisk running for mayor on this topic; it would be confusing. You need a lot of setup, but him especially…he cannot [ __ ] do this, and it’s just…like he did, though. And there has to be an insane amount of laws that say if you’ve committed certain crimes or whatever…you can’t…can’t run for office. No, it’s all good. You would think so. Yeah, someone who’s convicted in the state of New York might be prevented from running to be the mayor of the state of New York…at least the city of New York. You would think that that would be the case. And…and of course, like the show really shouldn’t then draw attention to its own inconsistency by having him run on and win this by subsequently, in a later episode, getting a vigilante acquitted because of how popular vigilantes are. That’s…it just doesn’t add up. We are…we got a whole bunch of new characters we’re about to meet now as well because we’re…we’re about to meet the Fisk team. Exciting! So there’s Sheila, his campaign director, and Buck Casman, who is basically replacement…fix Wesley. That’s who he is. Wesley. Remember how awesome Wesley is? This is lame Wesley. Well, season 3 certainly remembered Wesley. Yeah, but this show won’t. He will never bring him up again. We never recovered from losing Wesley fully, even the Netflix show, but this show is like…cringe…with…be like…look, it’s like…your Wesley’s son…Wesley. Yeah, he’s British; that’s good enough. So basically, they’re debating whether or not, you know, he needs to change his uh, positions, and…and Buck is insisting that his polls are so good that he doesn’t need to change or refine his positions. And then this guy, Daniel Blake, a random staffer in the background, interrupts Sheila, the boss, to just bolster this claim, and he’s like, “Everybody on social media is talking about him, including the BB Report.” Oh my god, he’s…that like…it means something. Wow, the BB Report. And then he’s like, “Yeah, Fisk can fix it; it’s trending hard on social media.” And then Fisk…he stands up and he asks Daniel why he would vote for him, and Daniel replies, “Me, Fisk? That’s the coolest [ __ ] thing on the planet.” What the [ __ ] is going on? We just…be absolutely clear here…the writers had a scene to make, which is, “Let’s justify how Fisk is starting to win this. How do we do it? Well, one, the name sounds pretty damn good, and two, he’s winning.” It’s like…what? That’s all you got? We’ll bolster it with a little Vox pop segment later where one of his redneck supporters say, “I’d kind of like to see him smashing heads; that’s pretty cool. I’d vote for him. Get [ __ ] done.” Well, yeah, because it’s like, “Oh, yeah, he gets [ __ ] done.” It’s like…what kind of [ __ ] does he get done? Gets people killed regularly. He certainly does get [ __ ] done. Yeah, he’s a very busy boy. But uh, there’s a…a fairly transparent dynamic. This…this is the first time it really plays out, but like it’s become…it becomes a consistent theme later on. You’ve got this conventional pollster woman who gives him the conventional political talking points, and her job is to be wrong about everything. And then you have the younger kid who…like he clearly sees the…the potential in…and they will become closer over time, and his instincts are basically correct. And so that’s…over time…that he becomes more of this…like I guess…like an apprentice-type character, and the pollster woman is kind of pushed out. But then you have to wonder, if she’s wrong about [ __ ] everything, why is she even still employed at this point? Isn’t it obvious? The show just favors one over the other. It’s like, “Sorry, it doesn’t matter what your actual history is; by…we’re doing something with this Randy…this [ __ ] Jungo TikToker for some reason. Like why? Y…” Then also British M is here. Yes, he’s also just a part of the team. That’s right, lame Wesley. So this brings us to another riveting scene. So Kirsten tells Matt that he needs to meet a new client called Heather Glenn. And that is the scene. I almost want to talk about why the scene exists now, but I guess we’ll wait later. Yeah, it’s so [ __ ] cynical, dude.

Um, so Matt’s walking down the street, and he’s listening to various pedestrians talking about Fisk’s mayoral campaign, and a stunningly large number of these people are speaking positively of Fisk as if they don’t know all the things he did, which they would all know the things he did. Well, because it was a huge deal; it would just be…it…every single…every single…you know…that would be running…it’s like Fisk [ __ ] decapitated…he killed a lot of people. Remember all of the murders? Exactly. Like it’s…it’s crazy. It’s actually crazy…institutional corruption to its core…like the…the…all of the reasons why he could never possibly be elected…but never mind. M, it’s all good, though. But um, yeah, to…to collapse…to make him at all believable as a candidate…like that’s the other thing which is…is missing because we’ve extrapolated…we’ve gone way beyond the bounds of Hell’s Kitchen, and New York is now kind of the place…character…of…of the piece. You would need to show how massively [ __ ] it has become in order for people to say to themselves, “Well, maybe…like the criminal who knows the underworld, which is like destroying this city, would be the best person to fix it.” And they…then you could have the people in the street reference all of these things and say, “Well, like…better to elect the guy who knows how to beat them cuz he knows how they operate.” But like nothing about the city seems particularly wrong; there’s a couple of potholes, and that’s about it. So what…where’s the desperation that drives people to vote for desperate candidates? That…that seems like another missed opportunity. You compare it to *Daredevil*, the original series, where like you get the very strong sense that [ __ ] ain’t great…like in Hell’s Kitchen…that it’s like…not…you know, things have gone wrong. It’s like kind of a…I mean, part of it is that like everything seems really like clean and polished and…and…and fine compared to the much more sort of grungy, kind of like down-in-the-dumps sort of vibe that you get of like Hell’s Kitchen has shown in…in *Daredevil*. M, you know that there’s that…um…but you know…whatever…it’s like…look, right…Matt…he’s…he’s…he’s got to have his…uh…meeting. He meets with Heather in a cafe, and he asks her what she’s looking for in legal representation, which prompts her to ask him what he’s looking to get out of therapy. And then the pair realized that they’ve been tricked by Kirsten into having a date. And…um, I don’t know what to say about this other than they have a really boring conversation about her coming from Queens and him coming from Hell’s Kitchen, and then the music insists that they’re hitting it off. One of the things…upon rewatching the original Netflix show…is remembering that the Night Nurse was going to be leaving soon…when…even when you first meet her, it’s like you’re not going to be getting as much of her as you might have liked to, considering the chemistry between her and Matt is near off the charts. Like those two talking to each other…you can tell something’s building. And the fact that they have such great purpose with each other in the storyline compared directly to this…where this conversation…I was spending most of this conversation be like, “Why are we here? Who are you? What the [ __ ] is happening?” Coffee ad. And then you’re like, “Oh, this is the setup for Matt’s new girlfriend.” You’re like, “What are you talking about?” Oh, I could tell by all the not-chemistry that is happening…like…actually, what are you guys doing? This…nothing between these people. Who is this woman? What is happening? And it’s like…y…

Shows them they're like, "That's TG," he's like, "Yeah." Pockets the cash. "Please give me, please give me my down payment, my house, please." "Yeah, just yeah, sure." It's CG. Yeah, they like, "Wow, it almost looks better than the real thing." You're like, "Yeah, I know, used the revolutionary new uh, good at my job." Yeah, this is why Marvel projects cost [ __ ] money. Why? Because they can't go out and film pigeons, dude. Sometimes I wonder if they, the costume they already have, if they had budget remaining or something like, just just make some pigeons, fill it in, so that we, you know, fulfill our budget or whatever, taxes or whatever [ __ ] pigeons. Um, but yes, this is our transition to the scene of Matt returning to the offices to speak with Cherry, um, who Matt describes to Kirsten as his investigator, as though she wouldn't know who he is and what he does. Um, you be absolutely clear, Matt has lost his team and has gained two replacements that do their jobs: Kiren, who is, yeah, Kirsten is basically, she's foggy, yeah, uh, and and Cherry, cuz I mean Karen essentially demonstrated that she was she was kind of the investigator. Yeah, yeah. So, so yes, these are actually just the replacement characters. Kirsten is f— also it means that we are losing out on all of the um, like like Ben's spirit essentially carrying forwards through her. And it also, and what this also means is that um, Karen and Ben's daughter will probably not meet. No, probably not. Well, but but yes, maybe season two, guys. BB will be in season two, maybe. Yeah, but um, all right, so so Cherry. Cherry's he's been investigating Fisk, I guess, in a broad sense, and he says, "Half the cops hate Fisk's guts, and the other half would dive off the Chrysler Building for him." Now, actual poor [ __ ]. Yeah, you know what? I think this is a strange thing to say, considering that a few years ago, literally every single cop in New York hated Fisk for killing many of their friends. But there's no reason why would like him. No, remember Karen said a third of the force quit in the prior two years. So maybe literally every single new cop in in uh in New York would throw themselves off the Chrysler Building for Fisk. That makes so much sense, dude. 100%. Do you remember uh when Tower was running for reelection DA uh and Foggy, the notion of Foggy going against him was laughable. Everyone was like, "You're insane," but then he ran on a single issue: "I'm going to put Fisk away for good," and several cops were like, they immediately went against Tower and for Foggy for that. Got the entire force, Mahoney and all of the other cops were on his side because all of the cops hated Fisk, every single one, to the point where he had to, he leveraged him stepping out of the race to get Tower to talk to um uh Ray, right? Later in this show, you get the line, one of them said, I think it's the pollster woman who's wrong about everything, who says, "If you lose the cops, you lose the city," but if half the cops already hate him, then how did he ever win? And then then you get the later beat with the police chief who hates him and will resign and promises everyone else will resign as well, so he has to go, like like jumping ahead, conscious, but like he has to go and try and, you know, fix that problem in order to try and keep the police on side. So it's like the show tells us the world state is one thing, and then it acts as though it isn't, and then it tells us that it isn't, but then it acts in a way that it doesn't tell us that it is. It doesn't understand what the position of the cops really is at all in this show. Is that they have three different ones? Pretty bad. And so then um, Cherry explains that Fisk's campaign is seemingly clean uh and that he is working with a lot of cash because his wife is a quote-unquote "investment sorceress." "God damn, she's so good at a job." So wow, I like, is just fully clean, despite the fact that she is the head of an organization that takes care of five mob families. What the [ __ ] is clean about that? What are you talking about? Didn't didn't Fisk himself say to her like a few minutes ago that, "I can't be seen to be involved in any illegal activities?" "Ago, yeah, it's magic. It's actual just [ __ ] magic. There's like everything's clean." It's like, "Oh sure, everything's clean." Yeah, that's what you meant to take away when she said she made it bulletproof. She meant it's it's it's all good. I can't, it's all it's all clean. It's like, "Oh, okay." Fisk never really, she was able to do what? Yeah, she did what Fisk could not do, could not do. Yeah, because because a huge part of Karen and Ben's like storylines was discovering a lot of this stuff and doing lots of digging and getting threatened with the things that they discovered. Yeah, because the business was very much precarious in the sense that if somebody was looking hard enough, they would figure it all out, and and that it was obviously illegal. But no, she she sorted it out, she made it bulletproof, so it's all good. And so um, Matt, F— should have done that. No, he couldn't. He's not he's not as good. Um, and then Matt says, "If the city actually elects him, maybe New York is getting the mayit deserves," and then he tells Cherry to drop looking into Fisk. He says, "It's not his job." Um, this is called character assassination again. This is character assassination. This is the last thing that he would say. Mhm. Is getting stacked up there for characters either dead or assassinated. Pretty crazy. Uh, but yeah, no, he dropped it. It's all good. I it's not his job. So we got another BB report, and she asked, so she asks two citizens if they would vote for Fisk. One lady aptly points out that he's a psycho criminal, and the other indifferently says that politicians and criminals are the same. And that's the scene. All right, du. So uh, yeah, so there we got Matt, he's watching the mayoral debate, and Fisk crushes his opponent with facts and logic. He's like, "Ah, you're you're posturing, uh, whatever your name is, all that [ __ ]." It it's being presented as though he's laying down the SM, like he's like, "Oh, look at him, he's defeating him, he's he's kicking his ass." What I was struck by is that the other politician let him essentially hold a pause when every single debate ever for like politicians, if there's a pause, that opportunity get seized by someone else, but he just sort of silently lets Fisk [ __ ] [ __ ] on him. Okay. All right, you're a very polite loser. But yeah, anyway, I I wanted to see that entire that debate could have been one of the most narratively useful things in the entire show. I I actually think we should have seen the whole thing. It it tells you everything about what Fisk is, who he is, how he campaigns, how he's winning, who he's running against, what the issues are, why he's popular, all of this [ __ ], and those debates are naturally dramatic anyway. It's not just talking at a camera, it's eye drama stuff. The show should have given us that. That sounds uh sounds like it would have been hard to write. Yeah, that's probably the reason why. Too difficult, can't be bothered. So uh, after watching this, the next day Matt, he meets Fisk in the street, and he asks, have a conversation with him, and as they walk away, uh, it's treated like a [ __ ], like in-universe what it is to us, you know what I mean, as the audience. Yeah, and uh, they they start walking towards the camera, and it shifts into slow motion with very dramatic music playing. It's like, "Guys, you need to you need to chill, you need to climb out of your own ass and work on your storytelling. You need to get your CGI artist to depict you crawling out of your own ass, less pigeons." Journal. Um, like really really interested to note that Wilson Fisk, in the middle of the street, is having a conversation with the lawyer who was pivotal in taking him down. Like, "Isn't this kind of like, people would notice?" Is this this is an that's happening? No, they meet in a public place where several people even acknowledge that they are there. Yeah, they just meet there, and then they go and have lunch. Um, this looks similar to the uh the the diner that um uh Frank and and Karen went to. I don't I don't know if it's the same one. It's a very it's a very common diner layout. Yeah, but uh this the corner door and the yeah, it's just a very common diner layout. We got a ChonGo scene here. Um, something something that uh M kind of mentioned it before, but um, something that uh I was struck by when rewatching, you know, the the Frank scene in the cemetery, uh, I was struck by this sort of sense of, "There is absolutely no way that in the new show they will allow for a 10-minute scene that is just a charact, you know, two characters talking to each other," that is like something that would never happen in Marvel Studios Production. This that means writing a scene that's 10 minutes long, that's right, and that would be boring. This that would be boring and difficult. This is the longest scene of two characters talking to each other. It's about 5 minutes long. Um, basically every other scene, well, yeah, about 5 minutes long, and and it's like, yeah, that's the longest will be allowed, and it's it's kind of noteworthy how long this scene is in comparison to all of the other scenes in the show that are quite short. Noteworthy how thin it is, considering this should be the chunkiest conversation possibly in the season, and they I I already remember all the information I get from this scene is just, "Hey, you best not be Daredevil-ing, and you best not be Kingpin-ning," pretty much, but they get there and with more words, so more, let's work through it. Um, so they're in the diner, and Matt remarks that Fisk has lost weight and gained muscle, which um, might explain in Hawkeye, Fisk gets hit by a car, and he tanks like an explosive arrow like right in front of his face. I don't know if this has meant to be dealing with the fact that seemingly both Daredevil and Kingpin are way stronger than they used to be, but uh, might not, he might just be saying like, "Hey, you lost weight, that's cool." Um, and so Matt asks if he if uh if Fisk has had any children, and Fisk says, "I tried to mentor someone, but well, that's the closest I've ever come." And it's like, dude, isn't it crazy to think that like you meant to conclude that that while Daredevil, the Original Series was running, like Kingpin had Echo as essentially like an adopted daughter and just never brought at all? This is like Anakin Skywalker having an apprentice. What oh, what? That's crazy talk. It's just funny that you know the first line that uh the first line that Fisk says in Daredevil is he's looking at the painting and he tells Vanessa that the painting makes him feel alone, obviously speaking to this core problem that he feels alone and isolated. But like why? He had he had Echo. She was really charismatic, so she'd make me want to stare at a [ __ ] painting. All Netflix show fans, you'll say, "Yes, yes, he cared about Vanessa, yes, but who do he care about the most?" And they all say instantly, "Echo," that was the one. And so asked, "Didn't she shoot you in the face?" And then after a bit of silence, they laugh. "Funny, oh women." And so uh, Matt mentions that he doesn't make it to Hell's Kitchen much anymore, and Fisk says the same. It's like, "H, that's uh weird, considering that both of them like love Hell's Kitchen passionately," but you know, now they've moved out, they're moving up in the world. Well, you've noticed that um I think because he he'll say it later, but Fisk doesn't say he loves Hell's Kitchen, he says he loves New York [Music], which you know, you could say that in a sense, loving Hell's Kitchen could apply more broadly to New York, but the reality is the scope is expanded dramatically to the exclusion of like Hell's Kitchen. The fact that the fact that they both note that they've come up in the world after saying that they don't go to Hell's Kitchen much, it's like that's a that's weird that both of them would say that considering that they love Hell's Kitchen. They would upgrade to not be here. Yeah, "Isn't it great that I don't live in Hell's Kitchen anymore, and you don't live in Hell's Kitchen anymore? That's awesome." It's like that doesn't follow really at all. Um, but in any case, a fan outside cheers for Fisk. He's like, "Yeah, FK, yeah, you're a cool guy, I guess." And so Matt labels him a "man of the people," and Fisk says, "A rich man by his very nature, I maybe I should, I might just start doing the voice, a rich man by his very nature is self-serving, I serve my city." By the way, I love Vincent and offo as well, of Fisk. Okay, I'm not I just I find him fun to I find him fun voice. Big powerhouse batteries that made Daredevil what it was. That's right, yeah. Um, Matt isn't convinced by this for obvious reasons, but though he says that his days are being Daredevil are over, which prompts Fisk to make clear that he had nothing to do with Foggy's death, and he references this promise that he made to Matt at the end of season 3. And it's funny that he would even say this when Matt would be like, "Well, yeah, of course you didn't, because Dex [ __ ] hates you, and you hate him." Um, something that is noteworthy about Fisk is that if you in any way like go after Vanessa or his mother, like that's a death sentence, that that it's over for you. And um, Dex very aggressively targeted Vanessa um after he found out about what uh what Kingpin did to Julie. So there's there's just no, he wouldn't need to say this. This is so bad in so many ways. Kingpin did not keep tabs on Dex at all is what you're telling me. He didn't want to try and stop it? You keep an on him in the hospital. He knew this guy was hellbent, psychopathically, and very capable of killing him and his loved ones easily. You almost killed him at their wedding. So sure, okay, that makes total sense. And you're telling me now as well, it's been a year, and Matt still has no idea why what happened to Foggy, whatever it was. No clue. No, you think that might have been something he'd be hellbent on finding out, you know, who's responsible. You think their mutual excellent investigator friend uh would maybe help to n work? Why would buy do it? Who hired him? Who forced him? Who convinced him? What's going on? Why did this happen? And the fact that it's been this long and that he finds out from Kingpin that he wasn't involved, like you guys would have had this conversation already. This would have happened already. Daredevil would make [ __ ] sure this happened already. N— no, but now he knows. And so um, Fisk insists that Kingpin isn't back, and he's a new man, and he notes that things are not good in New York and that it'll make New York a better place, but as Platoon mentioned earlier, doesn't really seem that way. So I don't know why he said this, doesn't seem that way, and also why would you trust him? These two characters having this conversation as blandly as they do, taking as much on faith as they do, not asking the questions they should be asking. Like, Matt is sitting opposite the guy who knows his secret identity, who has previously used law enforcement as his own private army, and who now is running the city. Like, you don't have a casual conversation with someone like that. You should be incred scared of what he's capable of now. Something to note is that Fisk has always said this, he's always said that he wants to make the city a better place, but he was saying that back in season one, like when he was doing his evil deeds. Like him saying, "I want to make the city a better place," doesn't like that's he always believed that it's but his way of going about it was very destructive. So like why would this mean anything to that stupid um and and yeah, like and then Fisk asked Matt why he gave up being Daredevil, and Matt says, "My best friend was killed, a line was crossed, I felt like I lost the privilege, and despite the good I was doing, I was causing damage." "Nice try by throwing a guy off a roof." Well, so the clear bit of math that should be done immediately is Matt, if you weren't Daredevil in that situation, everyone would have died. And putting to putting to one side specifically even that situation, um, Daredevil is the only reason that Karen is alive. Daredevil is the reason why Kingpin ended up behind bars twice. Daredevil was an indispensable aspect of that. Daredevil, along with three other vigilantes, are the reason why New York was saved from being destroyed by the Hand. Why would he say this? Daredevil has consistently saved lives and and saved the day reliably. I think that I assumed the show would lean on, and it it doesn't really on it at all, is that the crossing the line being the throwing the guy off the roof, like he no longer trusts himself to be the Daredevil that won't kill people. In a sense, he fears that he if he did it again would become like The Punisher as opposed to the Daredevil, which would be an interesting angle to explore. That's a ever got around to explore it yet. They did that, yeah. Foret one year, one year later, he's already experienced the realities of giving up Daredevil. I hate to cite it, but Defenders explores this uh not to the extent that I would have liked. I don't even I don't like much of Defenders except the map portions; they're pretty pretty solid enough. But the thing is, beginning it with, "He's given up Daredevil," was already to be like a you know, like the what have you got, and you know, he puts it back on eventually because he realizes there's too many people who need too much help. There's there's helpless people screaming out there in the city that he can hear, you know. It's like you just can't bring himself to not at least get out there and save some lives when he knows he's the one who can do it. That sort of stuff is like very basic. You're telling me, done that again. He's just been listening to people begging for help and ignoring them this whole year. Yeah, I don't know about that. I don't think I believe you. Yeah, don't don't buy it. Sorry, don't buy it. And um and so that prompts Fisk to say, "I was told you tried to kill Dex that night," and Matt nods. And so you know, he acknowledges that was what he was trying to do. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And um and then Fisk remarks, "It's hard to come to terms with a violent nature," which uh then prompts essentially the only relevant part of the conversation. Matt says, "I was raised to believe in grace, that we can be touched by the Divine and transformed into a better person. So if you say to me that you're a new man, I say fine, but you should know I was also raised to believe in retribution. So if you step out of line, I will be there." "Okay, but not as Daredevil, right?" "No, well well." So the thing is, Fisk, Fisk says, "I," who this caution is from, Matt Murdoch or Daredevil? It's like what he said, he what? Oh, I said, "No, see his dual nature, we're doing something here," that's probably what the writers think. Yeah, we're doing something here, don't worry. Well, the I mean the season, from what we gather from a little pieces, is going to be just, we're building them back up to Daredevil and Kingpin by the end of it. That's what they're both going to be. And I'm just saying, you're like [ __ ] off. Not your, yeah, but it was your m— them, that's that's that's the opening credits. It all crumbles apart, build them back up. It's like, "Who crumbled apart? Who did that? Who did that?" But by the way, this this is something that maybe be worth uh spending a little bit of time on, something that seems to be a consistent trend with bad writers and bad writing is um in sequels that is is um almost this attitude that like, because it is a different season or a different movie, you can sort of come in there and like reset it any way that you want to have like a new storyline, rather than rather than following up and feeling like obliged to ENT follow up on what came before and lead the characters in the logical direction that they would go in based on where they ended up at the end of the season. Instead, it's like, "Well, no, we can do whatever we want, and this time we've decided that we're going to make it a story about how Daredevil and Kingpin need to rebuild themselves," like as though that isn't a story that we already did in season 3. Season 3 is about that. It's about both of them essentially rebuilding their identities, and now it's just happening again because they felt like it. They and they wanted to, so [ __ ] it, regardless of whether that was the best direction to go in. It really is annoying. In any case, Fisk, you know, um, Fisk says that Matt liked being on the rooftop with Dex dispensing justice, and then Matt tells Fisk to stay in his lane and that he'll do the same. And as uh as Matt stands up, Fisk states, "When he becomes mayor, he will not tolerate vigilantism," and then Matt says, "It appears we really do understand each other," before leaving the diner. That's their scene together. So thin, like I in there [Music]. Mhm. Um, and then then Matt's with Heather again. They're going they're going on a walk and having a Bor, just a just a just a vacuous conversation basically until Matt hears on the news that Fisk got 53% of the vote and has been elected New York. Wow. You should get 0.53% of the vote because some people F— in the wrong bubble. So yeah, he won. And so then we cut over to the campaign office. Fisk, he's celebrating his victory, but he looks over to Vanessa, who sort of stares at him for a moment before walking away, and he heads he heads up to the roof, and Vanessa meets him there, and then he looks at her and says, "I know about Adam," and Vanessa looks away for a moment and then asks Fisk not to kill him, and Fisk says, "I'm not that man anymore," before making a promise to Vanessa. You didn't have to write this. In case it isn't clear what's happened there, Vanessa cheated on Fisk with Adam at The Echo Show. Like the joke was CU, he was crying a lot that he'd been turned into Cuck Pin, and now he actually has he actually is cucking. You had so in your mind did decide whether or not it would be Cuck Pin or King Cck? Kingck? Let's go with that one. Well, King Cck implies he has power in. Yeah, I I think [ __ ] Pin is my I like Cockp— L, they both have their charm, but Cuck Pin is I don't know why, for some reason, the Pin part is the more essential element. Listen, better to be a Pin than a King. Okay, as we all know, he is the co— and he's got his Queen Bin. He has become [ __ ] Pin, the destroyer of worlds. Like yeah. Um, and so wouldn't it have been interesting to actually see what the real Kingpin would do if he learned that Vanessa had cheated on him? Like what his real reaction and stuff would? Well, can we be clear, she wouldn't, first of all, that wouldn't happen. True. Just just want to make sure that's out there. Yeah, yeah, this is not this ain't the same Vanessa from the original series, and not she's not the same person. For for most of the audience, he's not the same Kingpin either. Like how I don't know what the precise audience crossover is between Echo and this show, except that neither of them seem to have had much of an audience. But for people who didn't watch The Echo Show, they don't know that his mind was profoundly transformed with magic. So they don't know that he's a different person because magic healed him of his trauma. So they're watching this thinking, "Who who is this person, and what did he do with Kingpin? Why is he now like this?" Yeah, cuz I mean that's essentially what we're to conclude, right? Him saying he's not that man anymore, it's a meme, but like I think we are seriously meant to conclude that Echo curing Kingpin of his childhood trauma has changed him into this guy, into Cck Pin Pin. Yeah, this is the American Indian magic spell turns you into a Cck, and the AR, the MC, it doesn't it doesn't change you into some cool warrior or give you a new perspective on life that accentuates who you are or anything like that or let you access the spirits of the ancient world. Nah, you're a cuck. Yep, Cuck Pin, who he is. And so um, Fisk, he goes and gives his victory speech as Matt walks Heather home, and then Fisk goes, I guess he goes back to the rooftop again, cuz he's back up there, and then Matt walks down the street, and you see Fisk is cast in white light while half of Matt's face is cast in red light. Oh, oh, this was the this is the part that was clearly directed by top films, high top films. Yeah, this is for film Twitter. These shots are for film Twitter for sure. Yeah. Um, pretty cringe. And that is episode one, the the what the the apparently better one directed by the new directors. Yeah, this oh [ __ ] this me with a lot of hope and optimism. The reason why I completely buy this by the way is because even they were smart enough to know, "We can't just open the season with episode 2," which would have, had it been known eventually that Foggy had died at some point in history, Karen's no longer a part of Matt's life, that he's got a new LW team, that Kingpin is Mayor, and that we've got to find a way to defeat him. That would have been the start. You see how this episode gives us a whole bunch of context, but the what's funny is the first reaction you have to all of it is, "Where the [ __ ] is the context for this context?" Like this is still nowhere near enough, because if you look at all if you break all of this this episode up into what they've done, they gave us what was it? Three scenes for giving Matt his new relationship. We we gave a reason for why he met her. He met her, and then they talked, and now they're together. That wasn't originally in it. It was just that they were together. That was there. That's crazy. Then of course, Kingpin was just already mayor, while in this episode they're like, "There's a reason why he's mayor. Look, we gave reasons. There you go." And we shown his team. Look, he the reason is, he won. The reason pretty much the reason is not enough votes to win. And then of course uh the manipulative as [ __ ] opening 20 minutes, which is like, "We give them a winner, and we show the characters they love. Look, they're there. Look, there they are. Look, look at them go. Oh, walking around. Oh, well, one's dead. Oh, well, the other's gone. Well, you know, there you go." They were in it, front-loading it too, which to me is just hyper manipulative. It's like, "Look, you like them," and it's like, "You know what? I do like them." Where you where you taking them? Where did they go? And you're like, "They'll be back, maybe in season two." Like, "Oh, that's great." And then Matt's team, like those few scenes and a few lines to just make them feel a little less abruptly thrown in. I actually think at this point it's like, "Why did we have Foggy talking to Matt's new Foggy?" It's like to introduce her easier than just dropping her in. Like, "See, look, it's like passing the torch or some [ __ ]." They really should be called New Foggy and New Karen, except Foggy, shitty, shitty, shitty Wesley. Um, but now Karen is shitty Karen. They made Karen shitty. Is also shitty. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, this is all a pragmatic attempt to ease the fan base in because they knew that no one was going to like this [ __ ], and yet they went ahead with it for they shot it. I see anyone saying stuff like like, "Oh, well, the winner is like really, you know, honoring the past," and like the fact that they had these characters in there and that the performances really just like all of it, every last piece is designed to get you involved, get you happy with this when it's not something that I see any substance for at all. It's so surface level, so shoved in quick, and it all feels like um the weird like almost conciliatory like, "H [ __ ] it. Yeah, yeah, fine, let them have that, whatever they can have the scraps of the things they enjoy," like the the show as it was initially intended essentially emerged back when Marvel thought they were [ __ ] hot [ __ ] and they could do whatever they want, including like just ignore essentially everything that came before. Like, "We don't need to acknowledge or do anything with the Netflix show. Like we're [ __ ] Marvel, we can do whatever we want, including just having we'll get the same actors at least for the you know, Matt and uh and and Fisk, but [ __ ] everybody else, and it's our new format with new characters, and and it'll be great, and everybody will love it." Like we were lucky that before this abysmal season launched that they got this episode into to account for the main characters. But of course it makes sense there like, "Well, there's no accounting for Maggie." He like, "Nah, she's not important enough to them." It's like we don't even remember it, probably. Obviously Mary didn't get remembered; she's out. Um, what I hear is Mahoney will be, but not for a while. What I mean, it's like Jesus Christ, the cast, like what have you done? Yeah, Bullseye and and of course Punisher, Bullseye, Karen, and Foggy were like, "You're getting all of them back, folks." Like, "Oh, we know, is that what's happening?" But then it's like, "Yeah, but you're not going to mention that we got to sit through a whole bunch of like [ __ ] that's has nothing to do with what came before, but you still want to advertise like, 'Hey, you'll love it, it'll be great,' even though you [ __ ] know it's not good because the people who made it got fired." To be absolutely clear, right? And as as more days go on, the easier people, I think, will understand this. Uh, Charlie Cox being on my screen means nothing to me if the writing is this awful. I'm happy for them. Sh— up as Wolverine, right? It's like, "Hey, yeah, I like you, but I hate this script." It's the thing like you have to understand like I'm very happy for the actors. I know that they're passionate about these roles. It's great and everything. I want them to have careers. I want them to be able to play the characters they want to play, but at the same time, it's like I don't want to see them doing this script. It sucks. Pretty painful. Yeah, you'd think the sheen would would wear off pretty quickly as well. Basically, after episode two, it's great to see say Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin, but like do you really want to see him in therapy effectively saying, "Fine with it as as long as I get to watch it?" It's like, "No, that's not Kingpin, that's somebody else." Why bring the actor back who everybody likes to play the character everybody likes if you're not giving him the character that everybody liked? As far as I'm concerned, do that. I'm not I'm not comfortable blaming Echo or Hawkeye for this. This is choices that they've made in this show. You didn't have to do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They referenced Echo, they referenced the stuff in Hawkeye, blah blah blah, sh— sure, it's bad, we all hate that, whatever, but this really is this is a demon of their own creation. They didn't have to, what about those two shows meant that we had to kill Foggy and Karen had to get assassinated and leave and Matt's not the same person either? What? Why? Why should those things be laid on the feet of Hawkeye and Echo? And uh, yeah, episode one was relatively well-received. I don't think it's going to this is one of the things I said I think to Disbrew actually. I was like, "This is going to age really badly," like 100%. Fans are not going to look well on this in the future. This first episode, it was dead on arrival for me. I hated this one the most, I think. Uh, yeah, well, me and Fringy would already essentially out by the time you get halfway through that uh action scene with Bullseye. I was willing to entertain some contexts, but as soon as I saw the sludge, I was like, "[ __ ] hell," like we're [Music] doomed. Um, I had stayed away from a lot of the uh clips getting released cuz I just wanted to take the episode in as it was, and Jesus, so many decisions throughout each of these scenes are catastrophic. Um, and this is the selling point of, "Please keep watching, who knows what'll happen next, guys," like woo. Also, like that took us 3 hours and 40 minutes to do one episode, by the way. I think the next few will go quick, BEC quicker, sorry, because uh we had a bit of preamble there, and uh you know, a lot of changes have been accounted for now. Um, it was a tough one. Yeah, loads of the stuff that that we had to explain why it doesn't make sense will continue not to make sense, but the explanation is now in place. I mean, this is the thing, if you take it to mean, which I I do believe that two and three were how this the season began, it it kind of makes sense in in the we go straight into a court case like uh this episode is is just trying to make the

Aite, just beat it out. It's like that is a huge chunk of viewers that it lost by, dude. Agatha a [__] a villain for for Scarlet Witch, who, like, a spin-off of a spin-off, a spinoff, exactly, a spin-off of a spin-off. Like, sorry guys, pretty bad. Well, in uh, judging from two and three uh, which by the way, first three episodes, if if you're not like, like it's rare that it's going to build up if you've already pissed off the audience this much, which you know, it's easy to track with uh, different Chats on different streams of people being like, I've lost interest. Lost a lot of people didn't even give it a shot. A lot of people gave it the one episode and gave up. Some people I've seen give it one, two, three and give up. So it's like if the good episodes a seven, eight, n holy [__] dude, like this is going to crash. And the idea it's like, okay, season two, it's like it'll have a lower viewership. Season two will be lower, even if it's better, it'll be lower more than likely. This no, this ain't no Andor where the word of mouth is positive and it spreads and spreads and spreads.

Well, the thing is, Andor's first, second and third episode, you can call them boring, totally fine with that. Everyone's got their own experiences, but writing wise they're rock solid in terms of foundations for the whole season, establishing characters, showing the state of the world. All of the the the the work for the special effects is is good [__], like it's it's all important for the story going forward. And there's a reason why Andor built up over time. If they want to pull that off, they got to, this is some rabbit out of a hat [__] okay, you got to really uh, change it up in these next set of episodes, which as I've already implied, two and three are not that um, maybe 4, 5, 6 will be, maybe 7, 8, 9 will be. We'll find out. Yes, we will. So I suppose we should get started on that second episode. Yes, we should. Two and three are almost like a partnership in some ways, they actually are more connected than episodes one and two were.

So it's New Year's Eve and Fisk is sitting in his office, about to give a speech to the city, and his Assistance Office apply makeup to uh, the gunshot wound when Echo shot him in the head. Um, he refuses, and F should want to cover that up, but they should, but for some reason they don't want to. And so then Fisk says, "New New York doesn't need a gun-toting vigilante who wears a skull on his chest, or a man who dresses in a spider outfit, or a guy who wears devil horns to save us." Um, and what, people are happy that they ref, he referenced Spider-Man. Yes, they are, people very happy about this. Um, stop drawing attention to how much this doesn't make any [__] sense. These people saved you from a universe killer, what are you talking about? Like, why, how could you ever reference Spider-Man being bad for the world? Are you insane? Wasn't that, didn't um, oh God, B the most recent Spider-Man film, because doesn't it end with James Jon and Jameson doing that sort of Infowars skit telling the world how bad Spider-Man really is? Is that how that one ended? It's been so long since I've seen it. Well, so far from home end with him uh [__] on Spiderman and praising Mysterio. Oh, that's probably what you were thinking about. I was just trying, Happ to, no way home. Well, J Jonah Jameson shows up, but it ends with Spider-Man swinging around New York on Christmas. I can't remember if J Jonah Jameson talks about him though in the end of that. What I was trying to remember was whether or not that there's any possible way you can explain that Spider-Man and the invocation of Spider-Man would be seen as a negative. There's no way, proba, out there helping people. The spell didn't erase Spider-Man's history, right? It was just uh, Peter Parker's connection to him, Peter Parker's history. So everybody would still know that Spider-Man saved the universe, yeah, that he was there with the Avengers. So yeah, this wouldn't work. Yeah, no, no, no, you're right. It's no, I know what you mean. You were trying to figure out if there was some way to rationalize it, and the answer is no, there isn't.

And Matt's watching these remarks on TV and he's he's he's big mad, but we don't have time for that cuz we got to introduce a new character, that's Hector AA, which um, fun fact, uh, this actor played R Menendez in Black Ops 2. Play that one, but I hear it was a good one. Well, he was pretty good as Roman, he was like kind of of a standout. I've heard that there's um, I think one of the issues is that Call of Duty tends to not go on sale much and it tends to just like persistently stay expensive, and I would like to go through and at least play like the campaigns. Um, I heard that the recent one had a good campaign, but I it's just it's a big ask for me, uh, but I would like to catch up on maybe some older ones because I I hear good things about Black Ops 2. I like Black Ops 2. I do. I I consistently hear good things about the story. People kind of fight over it, but Black Ops 2 was honestly kind of ambitious for a Call of Duty game. It's like got branching paths and choices that have like consequences for the story that are like reasonably significant. Um, like the choices will affect the ending in a in a big way at points, and it's like, yeah, that's cool. I appreciate that. And uh, yeah, R Menendez was uh, was strong as a uh, as an antagonist, notably so considering that Call of Duty games I don't feel like they typically excel in that front um, when it comes to ant, basically the only ones that anybody remembers is maerov and Mendes, and marov is like bit of a clown, you know, like he's a bit he's a wacky crazy guy. But yeah, hey, what about Kevin spy? He was in uh, that was Advanced Warfare, righted Warfare, yeah. Um, yeah, that's [__] is it, who was it who didn't know the context for that? It was it was on real BBC, the uh, I realized that Gary was saying press have to pay respects, he had no clue that that was its origin. That's how far and Powerful, yeah. I think a lot of people might not know the origin. It's become so commonplace. Yeah, it's also, but like it's become SE semi sincere when something actually sad happens, chats will say they'll put F, yeah, yeah. Case in point, because the actor is dead and there's lots of Fs in the Chan. Well, and I was actually going to say, for what it's worth, I thought he was very good in this. He was, yeah, he was good in the RO, it was an interesting story concept. I don't remember much about it. Execution is the thing that you know will let things down, but the performance was strong. There were times when it's like, man, he's he's really putting his all into this. Yeah, um, which uh, I suppose we can talk about where the story for this character ends then once we get there um, in any case, he is um, he he he he descends into the 168 Street Station um, and Hector sees two men roughing up a guy and they say he's been trying to DOD DOD them, and Hector intervenes to try and stop it, and a brawl ensues, and that provides the guy that was getting beaten an opportunity to run away. And amidst the chaos, one of the asants trips over his friend on the ground and falls into the path of an oncoming train. You say it's an oncoming train, it's quite clearly a green screen. It's not really like as much is a Ninja train is my problem, not a pige pig. It looks really bad. Is uh, you got to show it on screen, yeah, and you can you can CG the death, but it shouldn't be too hard to film a guy in front of a train like that. There's not there's not really much danger there. Practical effects when people get thrown in front of trains, that that should all be done practically, but it's like it's not so much find death and make it's the lingering shot after which just looks really very very very bad. Mhm, mhm. Look at that. Yeah, yeah, man. Also, this is incredibly inconvenient, isn't it, that he trips right when the train's coming? I just had a thought, by the way, um, with everything we find out, does it not make no sense at all that this guy didn't immediately shoot him to death? Um, I who, yeah, I mean, I'm suppose so, right? Absolutely would he's the kind of, I mean, it's not a spoiler to say at this point, he's a corrupt cop. He is a corrupt cop, and uh, there's no Witnesses, so, and he's definitely the kind of cop that will kill Witnesses if they get in the way. We find this out, so he would obviously just killed this guy, he would just do that. That's a yeah, so bit of plot armor that saves Hector here because he he decides to arrest him. He reveals himself to be a copy, arrest him, and this is this is going to be our story for the next two episodes basically.

But before we get to that, BB urick, she asked New York B disappear, beloved baby. And so one man calls Daredevil a clown who's more trouble than he's worth, and another guy suggests that people who feel obligated to help others are whiny losers who will eventually pray on the week. What the [__] that was a clown. We don't need him. When did this happen? I don't know, weirdo. I don't know. I just find it funny that the second guy's like, yeah, they they help people, but then they're going to hurt them. That's what happens. It's like, wow, you're smart. That's just such great great Insight. Yes, we needed that. Thank you, BB. And that's it uh, and then so uh, so we're we're with Fisk and Sheila informs him of all of his forthcoming appointments and notes that uh, police commissioner Gallow has yet to answer their calls, and so f f don't really care that much. He wants to talk to she about how old the May's desk is, and he wers if LaGuardia sat at this desk, and he tells Sheila that LaGuardia was was his father's hero. Um, and then the camera focuses on Fisk's bruised Knuckles before before he starts glazing LaGuardia more. He really likes LaGuardia, he loves him. I thought that um, I thought that it was going to take a different direction where he was asking how old the table was as if the table, you know, had seen so many mayors come through it. What kind of, you know, what kind of changes were signed on this desk? What does it mean? He's taking his place behind it now, is the you know, the desk like a symbol of the institution and you know, if the desk could talk, what would it say about him? Something about that, but it was about, well, yeah, you're right, Rags, because because someone might be like, but that's what it was. It's like, no, he he pondered if the desk might have been old enough that LaGuardia was there, and then he started talking about LaGuardia specifically. It's like that is kind of a weird angle to take it um, and it's kind of funny because you know, I mean, we saw dad and he never mentioned LaGuardia. Now, of course, we didn't see much of him, but he never really talked about LaGuardia, you know, it's like, okay, all right, sure. Um, and I don't know, all I know about LaGuardia is it's the name of the airport, so I I guess he was the mayor of New York, and I want to say it was the I want to say the 20s, he was like his weird mix of like, I think he was a Republican mayor, but he was also a socialist, and he smashed like the Irish political control over New York politics at that time, so he was kind of like a very Hands-On. I I can see somebody like Kingpin looking up to him for the fact that he just got involved on the ground so often, uh, but it's quite an obscure reference, and as you say, it's not particularly supported by anything we actually know about his father, and it doesn't really go that far in terms of Kingpin's own characterization either. Um, it's it's just kind of that I think they're just trying to give themselves a bit of like historical sense of of time, place and context, which I'm in favor of. It's just I like it to be tied more into my narrative. I think that's pretty reasonable.

So uh, Sheila then um, says that Fisk needs to forge connections with the city's key players, most of whom hate him, didn't stop him from winning, but whatever. And then uh, she tells Fisk that Vanessa's refusal to be publicly involved with his political career is hurting him in the polls, and uh, Fisk says, well, you know, Vanessa and I, we have work to do, we need some leeway. I like, okay, so I guess this is what's happening with Fisk and Vanessa then. All right, sure, fine. Later, they mentioned the district attorney, there's no mention of Tower at all in this, is there? No, because the new district attorney is hawber, yeah. So Tower's gone, which I guess, you know, could be the case after this much time. Sure, it's it's not that it's impossible, it just again feels to me like indicative of, do you even know who I'm talking about? Yeah. And then they're like, oh, feel like Iron Man in Civil War where I grab the rers and say, do you even remember them? And then they say back, I remember none of them. Um, so matter is at the 15th Precinct and he's speaking to a client and he overhears the police beating Hector in an interrogation room down the hall, trying to coers him into signing a confession. Um, this is what prompts Matt to speak with Hector. So right out of the gate, wow. So like if you weren't there that day at that time, like this wouldn't have happened. That's pretty convenient. And of course it'll be convenient because it's pretty like relevant to Matt's life, like Hector as it turns out will have a a bit in common with Matt. Yeah, but you know, whatever, that's okay. And he uh, he speaks with Hector and Hector insists he was just trying to break up a fight and didn't mean to kill anybody, or that he didn't kill anybody. And Matt concludes that Hector is telling the truth about that, but that he is hiding something from him, is going to represent him as his lawyer. Pro Know M, and I know you love this scene, so um, FIS he he he is in the car with his staff and they're held up by construction work. Big hole scene. I might uh, I might just, I might just finish this scene and then we can talk about it. So Sheila insists that Fisk not do anything drastic and maintain the status quo, but Fisk and discount Wesley uh, Buck disagree with this conventional wisdom, and so Fisk steps out of the car and he sees that there's a big hole in the road which is causing the tra traffic jam. He approaches the foreman and tells him to fill the hole. The foran says he's waiting on permit approval to fill the hole, and Fisk says, "Consider it approved," and the foran's like, yeah, okay, Mr. Fisk, let's get to work and fill the hole. And then a bunch of pedestrians nearby, they whip out their phones and record Fisk being like, "I said I was going to get things done. I'm getting things done," and then they [__] cheer for, they cheer for him, everybody. It's how an eight-year-old thinks politics, 100%. Yes, this was written by an eight-year-old for five-year-olds. Jesus Christ. See, he's getting [__] done, he's getting things done. pH that Hull. Um, I think the best summary of this scene is when they walk in back, doesn't um, jungo Tik Tok man say something like, "Sir, great work on that hole filling. You have filled that hole so well," or something like that. I remember just being like, Oh my God, kill me. Actually kill me. This is pathetic. Look, I get stuff done because there was a hole and then I filled the hole by doing stuff that it's like none of this works this way. And it's like, yeah, well, build the yeah, just just in case is though it's it's still better than any of the other support [__] we've got for why people like him because until this point we just had, oh, he smashed, he smashed a guy's head once. It was cool. It, at least he's doing something. He fills holes, man. It is pretty, yeah, just just to be clear on why this is [__], like I the the idea is like, well, just I approved the permit. It's like, oh, well, if that's how it works, then why are there any problems ever in the world? How is it that politicians don't just achieve everything that they want to do? They need to be like Fisk and say, yeah, fill the hole, do it. I cut the red tape by saying it doesn't exist anymore. I can do that, fill the hole. I'm getting things done, wooo. Yeah, I'm filling holes. You know, the reality of this situation that they would never portray because it would be boring as [__] is he someone says, what is the hold up? Why can't they do it? And it's like, well, there's you know, statute 748 and blah blah blah 623 and then there's the fact that you cannot be doing this regulation wise because of this this this, and then they have a [__] guy come in and be like, okay, you're going to need to get a meeting with this person and this person, and then you're going need to move this here, move that there, and then once you can get approval from these people, you can then work, but only at these hours, only these restrictions, and you have to use these people in this Union and this this like like every, there's a reason why this is so frustrated in real life, like. And the thing is that there are people who run on the notion that they will fix all this stuff better than the previous people, and then you get the story of they start to understand just how [__] hard it is to get all this stuff done because of the crazy regulations. It's like you can't just blooder it and go fill that hole. And then they go, we will fill that hole. It's like it's like you need to explain to the ryer there was a reason why bureaucracy exists as much as everybody [__] about it. There's a reason why there is such a thing as Bureau. It didn't just happen for no [__] reason. Mean this is borderline corrupt, you can't do this, you can't you laterally decide you as an individual what you want. Yeah, the permit's approved. It's like, oh, oh, I could atast, I know that they called you Kingpin, but you were not the king. I could have at least tolerated, right? They find out about the whole and then they recommend whatever, it's a [__] pothole, don't worry about it, we got other things to do. And you have a moment of fist going, hm. And then we get like one scene where he's organized some [__] and behind the back of his advisers he's actually managed to cut through the red tape and he comes back here and announces it with something that he's planned and he shows, you know, he's got like, I've got the paperwork and I've got whoever he needs, some Foreman or whatever, to announce it like that. I could have believed a lot better than just, there's a hole, it needs fill in, fill that hole. It's so childish. Good stuff. And this this is the primary scene to be like, this is why people like you're just like, okay, all right, yeah, you could use it to you could use it to tell us more about, and I think it's kind of what they wanted to do is to, I say that is it though? I I don't know. Basically, the idea that a man can turn up and effectively say [__] the law, what is the point of a law? It's men who make the city, not laws, and so he willingly tramples over them that you do need to see come like come up for that, you need consequences, which could be really interesting if you were actually going to flesh out the political rise of Kingpin to show how he deals with the people who tried to hold him up against this, how he can use his Newfound popular support against the people who would otherwise have held into account, and it becomes like a story about the dangers of you know, popular demagogues who will trample over all the institutions and they will do so with this tidal wave of public opinion and support. It's kind of a story about the failure of those institutions that they allow a person like this to be so popular that he can destroy them. That's all interesting stuff, but we aren't, we haven't had any of that really for the first three episodes. Is just this is this is why he's popular, guys, he fills a hole. Well, and the notion of a mayor who gets [__] done. It's like, yeah, they still had to sign stuff and meet people, like even those Mayors in history, even though the leaders, the political leaders, still have to sign things, that's how they get stuff. Yeah, there's nothing about this that's politically Savvy. It's not like you've got, you know, the whole idea of essentially like The Savvy one who can get a whole bunch of [__] done. It's like, well, why don't we see them essentially like forming these massive coalitions, Reaching Across the aisle and managing to negotiate deals, convince people to get on board, apply public pressure to get people, you know, essentially the actual politics game rather than fill this hole, you don't need a permit, fill it. It's like, oh yeah, [__] that's some [__] compelling political drama there, huh? Also be so much cooler for him to be finding these sorts of opportunities and then planning ahead of times, like get everyone there, just get civilians there, get the Press there and make it seem spontaneous. I'm just going to arrive and I'm going to say fill that hole, but in the reality of it all, he's done all of the work behind the scenes, signed everything, and that the one guy he speaks to about filling it is like a paid actor, and you could have like the scene where he talks to like other politicians in the city and regulators and people like that who would oppose him, and he treats them exactly the way he used to treat all the Crime Boss cartels. The way he kept those people in line is the same device, the same skill set he uses to keep the rest of his City's politicians in line as well, which is again is kind of like commentary on the similarity between the crime and the institution, which like you've had a line referencing that with the the Vox po person saying, oh, politicians and criminals are all the same. Show it, show us how they're the same. That would be really interesting. Don't just tell us and then forget that it's a theme. Yeah, this this screenshot here, I say sums up the writers like the the hands we're in solid whole work, you know, fill in that hole, say this is a mature show, like ah yes, we need some mature storytelling, mature show if you're eight. Well, no, it's mature because did you see someone over there said [__], which uh, by the way, nobody swears. Well, they swear, but they don't say [__] the the word [__] is never said in uh, Netflix Daredevil, which you know, I'm not bothered by the of swear words. I noticed it immediately. It did seem uncharacteristic for a daredevil show to have that. It has all of the very serious subject matter, but it doesn't have that word specifically. So it is like, oh, like okay, but here they're like [__] and it's like, IC mature storytelling. This is the mind of a brain, this is the mind of an idiot saying something like that. Hey, there's now I can curse, that means it's a that means it's a that means it's a mature show. It feels like it feels like the recanting uh, recalling, sorry, of of the memory in Fisk's head, like this doesn't feel like a real Scene. It feels like something he imagined he could pull off. Dude, the fact that it ends with like everyone cheering and clapping, he like, are you kidding me? Like [__] hell. And then everybody cheered. That's what I mean. All of those people that he had killed, he filled that hole, man, he filled that hole.

But uh, so um, yeah, now now we see we're back in the offices of Murdoch and what's her name and uh, kir she's girl Matt took on the hector Hector's case, but Matt is certain that Hector is innocent. And then Cherry just exposits that Matt taking on this case would make it seem as though he's siding against the NYPD, seemingly again having forgotten that the NYPD holds very positive opinions of foggy and by extension Matt. Um, but I guess they have short memories. NYPD really likes them, they were memories. So the idea that they would that he would be taken on this case, like are you kidding? That's stupid. Foggy da stuff, they would remember a lot of people would remember. And it's almost like they don't even remember it's like, you know what Matt's going to say every, you know, you have a right to a fair and and a just trial and competent uh, counsil. It's you know what I mean? It's like you do want like you what are what are you talking about? Like why are we pretending like they wouldn't even understand that right? But like, okay, no, this is the situation. If Matt takes on this case, NYPD is not going to like him. Um, and then and then this prompts Matt to ask Kirsten what he said to convince her to leave the DA's office and join his firm. And Kirsten, you said that I was brilliant, which is true. Now I got to tell you, smart and funny. I got to tell you, Marvel's flashback at Marvel flashbacks, the era of the era of encouraging people and you know, to us and as a consequence, characters and stories to glaze themselves. That was a mistake. That was a stupid idea. That's got to stop. I'm getting tired of it. I'm getting so tired of like seeing these characters who talk about how awesome they are. Like why why would why did this become a thing for like a decade? Why hasn't it gone away yet? Oh my God, seeing this I was like, no, you did the thing. I don't know who this lady is. I don't care about her, and one of the first things you tell me is she's brilliant, and that is true. Like what, stop inod new character, and then you have the new character talking about how great she is and everyone agrees. Yeah, and and Matt agrees, he's like, yeah, yeah, that's true. Not even like a snide little uh, bantery thing, just like an agreement. Yes, you are brilliant. The thing is is that you could push foggy into situations where he would give himself the credit of being good at his job, but like not like this. It would push to it. No, it's just the earnest thing of, I recognize now that this is something that I can do and that I should do it. There's a difference between that and just this sort of arrogant like, oh yeah, I'm awesome. It's like you got to understand, I've not seen her do anything yet, so like I guess I just got to take her word for it, but I don't know, man. I'm tired of this [__] I'm tired of seeing characters talk about how great they are. It's really annoying. It's so funny cuz You' be like, well, what are we supposed to do? It's like, show us how brilliant they are that they're good at their job and at least have other characters compliment each other rather than saying it about themselves. Annoying. It's annoying and stupid and dumb, and it's got to stop. But anyway, she uh, she then adds and that we take on the hard cases, and so she relents and lets Matt take the hector case. And so Matt says to Cherry that he needs to speak with Hector's wife, track down the witness Hector saved on the platform and do some digging into Hector's background because he's hiding something. H he's keeping something. Um, and so next they're in court and the gallery is filled with police officers on one side, and Hector notices that his wife isn't there, and so uh, we meet the new DA hawber, the hawk, and he enters the courtroom and curs is like, ah, drad, it's the da damn. And hawber asks uh, the judge, judge Cooper, that hect to be denied baale, and before Matt can open his mouth, George Cooper denies baale. Matt tries to make an argument again, and he's immediately shut down, and then he makes his argument, and then he's like, nah, sorry, he no bail. It's like, oh, you don't even got to let him speak. Okay, all right. All I gathered from this was I thought like cinematically they were trying to tell me that this judge is is poised heavily against the defendant and M, yes, I was like, okay, okay, I understand you're saying that he may very well be corrupted as well for all we can understand here. No, he he is to be fair, no, he is fair. Yeah, he's a fair judge, supposed to be. And then and that's funny, Hector's like, oh, and sa P. It's like, dude, how's that Matt's fault? He [__] he get to make an argument. He's just like, no, sorry, bye, ba Deni. It's like, oh, okay, all right. This is the first court scene in the show. All right, good start. Okay, up some momentum, but uh, it's a really short scene cuz that's it. Now we're over to uh, Daniel, you remember that the yeah, May Fisk. That's [__] awesome. He's uh, escorting BB to Fisk's office for an interview. Can just very, this is how easy it is to get a one-on-one interview and complete access to the mayor of New York. You find an intern and you give him your number, and that's it. Cuz that's the excuse he gives, right? He invited her here because he met her at a bar and she gave him his number, her number, even, and gave the impression she was into him, and he's like, yeah, sure, I'll give you a an interview with the actual sitting mayor of New York, the mayor of New York. There, no checking that at all, like does he not have security? Does he not vet people who come to see him, given his background? Like, how does he know that she's genuine? But no, just [__] it. No, yeah, they did not, they needed BB in a room with with Fisk immediately, and their justification was just, I don't know, Tik Tok guy, Daniel, yeah, he knows a in, so he gets her in. And uh, so then F compliments her work and asks for a name, and she says she's just, she was named after her Uncle Ben urick, and Fisk obviously he knows that name cuz he [__] choked him to death in season one, and um, but but we're not going to dwell on that potential source of drama, we're just going to move on to ENT. Basically, this scene is just for BB to exposit the current problems that Fisk has to deal with. Claims noticed on when you first watched it was that she's here to interview, she asks zero questions. Yeah, she doesn't ask any questions. She at the end she tries to ask one question, but she gets told to leave over ask a question. Yeah, like so for so this is her interview. She tells Fisk that she has a source who says Gallow is going to resign as commissioner, and then exposits that Gallo has a good reputation and the rank and file of the NYPD are going to stand behind him in protest to Fisk, and she continues to explain that the NYPD is underst stuffed and Vigilantes are picking up the slack. This is her interview. She just shows him these things. She's being she's being antagonistic to the person that she wants to have an interview with, but she's not asking any questions. Yeah, you think they would have opened with something soft and simple like any normal journalist would, and you build up, but it's so um, I don't even know to like nuts and bolts as a writer being like, so in this scene Fisk needs to find out about the Gallow stuff, let's just make it from BB. How do we write that? It's like like that, there you go, it's done. Like, oh, okay, she's not exactly, she ain't got the uh, the tact and the pragmatism of her old man. I'll I'll say that I miss Ben. The Apple fell far from the tree and landed where Karen is, and now Karen's not a part of the show. The tree was on the edge of a cliff, right? The Apple just went mayone down here. After she tells him a bunch of things he should already know, uh, he dismisses her, and then she's like, oh, want to ask about Vanessa, and then she gets escorted out, and it's like, oh, okay, that's it. And then FIS is like, oh, I think BB is used to being underestimated, let's use that. It's like that's the [__] what the [__] was this scene? Who is B? What the [__] is happening in to tell him things that he already knows and then leaves. It's so annoying, dud. That we learn we learn all we need to know, we learn that she's very important because he says, I have a feeling that woman is used to being underestimated, like so will not say it. Tells us it tells him the problems he should already be aware of, and then it tells the audience this isn't important character who will we will be seeing more of later. Pay attention to this. Foggy's replacement, Karen's replacement, spending all this time with Daredevil, including his new girlfriend who he didn't know anything about, and then on Kingpin side, it's like we've got fake Wesley, Tick Tock man and BB urick, like what the [__] is going on? Yeah, the hero definitely doesn't need all these new goobers showing up. And she goes on pause after the scene as well, by the way, which is another, she's got this incredibly story. She has everything she needs to publish. She probably should have published it already. She goes to meet

The only I I find it funny that this is even happening when it's like, okay, what man of cash? That's right. Yeah. Um, whatever. So uh, Fisk, he attends the funeral of the deceased officer Shanahan. That was the officer that fell in front of the train, and he wants to speak with Gallow, who swiftly tears into Fisk. He says all of the things everyone should be saying; it's crazy. He just lists off all of the things that is public knowledge about Kingpin: my personal mission to ensure you have the shortest term of any mayor in New York's history. Um, yeah, like he just he just tears into him, and Fisk, he he's got nothing to say; he's just big mad. And this is the scene, basically. There's not really to be about it. Gallow just says all the obvious things about Fisk. Yeah, [__] you, you're a monster, you shouldn't be mayor, [__] you, [__] you, [__] you, [__] you. That's it. And then and then Fisk is like big mad, like, oh, see, oh no, the the kingpin's coming back. His Persona is taking over. GNA get you. So um, we have you have another scene that doesn't really achieve anything except for, you know, strict plot advancement. Kiren and Cherry meet with Hector's distant wife, and uh, Cherry just uses this as an opportunity to search his bedroom and finds the white tiger costume and amulet very well hidden. Yeah, just in a just in a box under his bed. A box under his bed. Yeah, and that's the scene. That's the scene. That's really that's that's all that there is to it. And so um, and now we got our next scene. Matt goes on another date with, and it gets interrupted by a call from Cherry, and then that brings us to our next scene where Matt talks to Hector in prison. It's like, dude, we just had like four scenes in a minute. What the hell is going on? Why do we have all of these pointless scenes? The future is now, old man. Yep. So Matt uh, Matt meets Hector in prison. Oh, sorry. Yep. Well, no, just how like remarkable, and it it doesn't really hit home precisely because it is so quick, but his super suit is under his bed; it's just there. That's how the rest of this episode plays out. Yeah, White Tiger is known for his ferocity in battle and his bravery, not for his intelligence. Clever. Okay, it's just yeah, pretty funny. But uh, yeah, that then uh, Matt uh, goes to prison to talk to Hector about it, confronts him, and uh, Hector uh, Hector basically rebuts all of Max's accusations by saying he wasn't in his suit or wearing his amulet and had no extra powers, which means that him being the White Tiger is not relevant to this case. Matt L and correctly disagrees with this before uh, basically [__] on Hector for being a vigilante, which is like, okay, I mean, it could be that he's just be lying and being [__], but it sounds like he's almost being sincere here. It's like, Matt, you're a vigilante for a decade, like you know people in glass's already been through the arc; he knows all the arguments, and we're just going to have to do it all over again. Yes, we are. We're going to have to do it all over again. And uh, Matt is certain that the DA's office will discover this information for themselves, which doesn't seem to bother Hector at this point, uh, though he does eventually apologize for keeping this from Matt, and uh, that's basically it. That's that's the scene. It's also questionable whether it should bother Matt again. It kind of entails jumping ahead a little bit, but we've just been told by BB that, oh yeah, it's cops are thin on the ground, so you know, vigilantes are picking up the slack, so they're clearly being placed on the side of law enforcement now. We're being told that if it's public knowledge that you're a vigilante, people will assume that you go out looking for trouble, which will harm your case because vigilantes are bad, and we will pivot later to the only way we can get you off innocent is by telling everyone you're a vigilante because it means you're good people. It's insane, which you know, how in the real world, if Peter Parker was on trial, everybody would hate him. Oh well, you know what I saw someone saying, we're not going to talk about the Amulet. Don't worry, we will. The Amulet of Kings very soon. So uh, next we have Gallow is meeting with Fisk to gleefully attend to his resignation, and then Fisk just starts rambling about how much he loves Philly cheese steaks. He's like, ah, yes, Philly cheese steaks. Yeah, they're great. I love them. They're they're really delicious. Num, num, num. And then uh, he just reveals that he has a picture of Gallow's secret family, and uh, Gallow is big mad. And then Fisk just sort of like happily says, oh, there will be no pay raise for the police or anything. Yeah, none of his demands or interests or whatever will be fulfilled. This was referred to by several people as a return to form. Excellent Kingpin scene. No, why? Why? Tell me why. Why was because he used very clever manipulation of power and information to get exactly what he wanted. What do you mean? CL He just got a picture of the dude's secret family. So first thing for me is is uh, like what a lame way to write that. It's just like, Gallow has a secret kid he doesn't want to know about, so there you go, done. You know, it's just like, oh well, I mean, it would have been more interesting, wouldn't it, if Gallow were clean and you had to find a way to to do this, but then of course I started to think, why do you want Gallow as the police commissioner? He [__] hates you. You could have installed someone who's loyal to you. I guess the concern would be all the cops leaving, but like, who cares? I don't know. Yeah, get new ones. Isn't that what we just established had to be the reason to get him elected in the first place? Like, oh, and also like, I don't know, man, get rid of Gallow and then just bump benefits for the cops; that might help. You think that would be the way? Because if his concern is cops leaving, then saying you're not going to get any pay rises, no extra training, no extra staff, that that's going to drive more of them away, and it's also an incredible risk to take for a guy who hates you and has just said that he wants to make you the shortest mayor in New York's history that he won't go to the press and say, I resign, and by the way, the mayor threatened my family. Yeah, he's an evil man. Sack him as opposed to, you'd be like, I'm happy to accept your resignation, like, off you go, and then he can sell to the people with the gations were I've managed to push through all of your demands, all your needs. I believe in the police; I support them, get things done. I didn't understand this at all, like, why is he trying? Why are you using manipulations that will make him hate you even more? He already despises you, and you want to give him an extremely powerful position. Like, yeah, but I have control over them. Like, do you? Do you really? Mhm. Because like, he walks out and discount Wesley's like, well played. It's like, shut up. Just there to say that your writing was good. Like, oh yeah, good writing. I mean, you can spot the patterns of the kind of person we're dealing with who's who's putting this together. They [__] pat themselves on the back for their own scenes. It's like, this is not impressive; this is stupid. Just like, okay, yeah, all right. Um, which brings us to uh, which brings us to a pretty important scene. So um, Matt and Hawber, the DA, are meeting with Judge Cooper to discuss the White Tiger Revelation, which the DA's off found out. So um, yeah, Matt Mata seeks to suppress the information, which Hawber once admitted uh, because he thinks it will benefit him. He calls Hector a vigilante, which prompts Matt to say that Hector wasn't in possession of his mystical amulet at the time of the incident. I lost these are words that come from his mouth. He says this court of law, mystical amulet. He wasn't he wasn't amulet. Like, Matt is supposed to be intelligent; like, he's supposed to be pretty good when it comes to the law. He's not supposed to be a [__] clown who says [__] like, n mate, his mystical amulet. You have to consider that what we're talking about whether he's acting in a vigilante said like, oh, he wasn't wearing his mystical amulet. It's so good; there's so much wrong. Like, you need to go all the way back to hang on; he's the White Tiger; that's crazy. Exactly. Like, if if that's the Revelation, are they not just new charges now as well? I don't even know if like whether or not that gets admitted into this court case is one thing, but it's just like, we might actually need to do that case first. Like, this case is dependent on that being proven true or false and to know the extent of it. That's what I mean; it's like this this it just it it expands the scope of this uh, of this incident significantly because like, unless unless the conclusion is that vigilantism isn't illegal in um, in MCU New York, but like, if that's the case, then what what exactly is Fisk's platform? Is it just like, I'm going to pass a law that says that vigilantism is bad? Is that even within his purview, or is that something that the state would have to do? Like, the state of New York. But hey, don't worry, we're not going to talk about ass. I don't even understand that would raise a lot of issues. So remember, they found his costume and then they put it back under his bed. Oh, that's nice. And then Matt says like, if we found out, it's only a matter of time before the DA do it. It's like, not not really. Find out if if you just get rid of that evidence in the box or hide it. How does the DA find out? What's the information they detect? But they must have. Well, of course they did; they 100% did. I don't know what the [__] they found would be. Matt brought it to them to suppress it. Yeah, I was going to say, no way Matt tells them that; that would be insane. Okay, so I don't know. Yeah, I don't I don't know if they found the same box through conveniently; they had their their search of his house got approved through a warrant like the day after [__] Cherry did it, and then they found out. And the irony, of course, being if Cherry had just taken that box, then it would have been hidden forever. How have they not already searched his house? I don't know. I don't know how any of this [__] works. He was arrested for murder, and they didn't search his house. Cherry got there before they did, and it's not hidden; this under his bed, like obvious [__] that's yeah, and it would be evid and now and it would be it'd be evidence; they would have taken it; they would have, you know, taken the Box, put it in lockup, but uh, no, it was there for them. So no, they didn't search it, which meant Cherry could find it, and then somehow the DA found it, and then it became a point of conflict. But it's okay cuz Matt insists that the uh, insists that it's more prejudicial than probative, and Hawber, you know, he c as it suggests IR relevant pattern of behavior um, and and then Matt's like, no, no, no, the jury needs to only be deliberating over what happened on the platform that night, and Judge Cooper agrees with Matt, which baffles me. Okay, like, I just like, how is it? How does it not demonstrate irrelevant pattern of behavior? Like, go down regularly at night to pick fights. Like, whether or not you consider it good or bad is one thing, but like, it's a relevant part relevant. This is the mind of a person who is willing to do this and does it regularly; it would be of great. It's now going to like come out anyway, so you're pretty much done with that. Like, like, it's not you're not keeping it a secret for his life. Evidence in court doesn't mean that it's not going to come out through various means. Can't be admitted as evidence in court if this gets entered and we miss trial and retrial, then it would be like all the footage of White Tiger displays his motivations and efforts. It's like, Matt should really consider this could save him. Got to be careful now. Figure this out instead of just no, but he has decided to lock it off, and the judge agrees with his argumentation. The judge agrees y that it would be more prejudicial than probative. He is convinced. Bear that in mind; he is convinced by Matt's arguments. So yeah, um, the and Hawber is [__] pissed off, and I understand why cuz that's [__], but whatever. Anyway, we got another BB scene, another great BB scene. Um, she interviews two old people about how nobody has any respect for anybody anymore. That's the scene. All right, nailed it. Yep. All right. So uh, Matt meets with Cherry uh, the Beet looking over the New York skyline, and he's holding the seven Daredevil horn in his hand, and um, Cherry says he can't find Hector's witness and wonders if Matt's judgment is clouded because Hector was a vigilante like he used to be. Matt kind of gets big mad at this, and then Cherry's like, hey, I like the new Matt, you know, getting out of Hell's Kitchen, wearing a suit and doing good as a lawyer, which I find a weird thing to say when Matt was a lawyer for a decade doing good in Hell's Kitchen. He left. It's a good thing he left his home, and it's not like he was wearing a suit and doing good work as a lawyer with Nelson Murdoch and Paige. The implication is that his work as Daredevil wasn't good when it was actually objectively good, like in terms of the information you would have as Cherry, you would know Daredevil was a [__] hero. Mhm. Daredevil, if you go if you actually find out everything you can about Daredevil in this universe, his total axe, you'd be like, dude, you're like a god; you're like an incredibly good person. He saved New York; like, he saved New York from the Hand; like, why are we why are we forgetting about all of the CRA? It's treated as though Daredevil is like an indulgence in some angry vigilante who's not like not good. Now, of course, it's complicated because there is a question of how much Matt enjoys essentially beating people up, but like the reality is is that he does have a rale for why he does what he does, and it's and it's a it's a fair one, and it yields good results pretty consistently for all of the, you know, the the the chaos and the the bad outcomes and stuff. Ultimately, Daredevil comes through and saves the day every time. It's additionally ended by the fact that he's not speaking to a character who has known strong opinions on this question or even that much knowledge of history. If you hadn't killed Fog off, for example, and you had him in this scene and they're talking about as they they not infrequently did across the Netflix run, you the comparative merits of doing things by the book, not putting yourself in harm's way, being able to do all the good work you need to do within the system. That scene would mean more because we know where both characters have historically stood on the question. I don't know who Cherry is still. Yeah, that's a why do I care what he thinks? And statement Sherry makes is like a declaration of his character because we have nothing to compare it to. You're right. Yeah. Every I thought he was going to say every statement he made could have been made by Foggy. It's um, it's kind of interesting, right? It's like he's known Matt was Daredevil for a year. Did they talk about any of it at all? No, I guess not. Yeah. What's his perspective? Retreading this ground? Did he did he have a change of heart when he found out one of like? I don't even know if they're close friends. I have no [__] clue like if was was it like like a revelation to see that, oh my God, the Daredevil is the Matt Murdoch; that's crazy; that changes my whole perception. He was a great lawyer, but he was also punching people at night. I can't believe or was he like, wow, you're incredible, Matt; like the sacrifices you've made, the life you've led, blah, blah. Like this scene implies to me that he's like, don't be Daredevil and don't be biased because of your time as Daredevil, which is just weird. Mhm. Very weird. But whatever. The name of an anime. I work at a law form law firm, and my boss is secretly Daredevil! [Laughter] Point. So uh, yeah, that's I mean, that's the seeing Matt Pats Cherry on the shoulder. He leaves cuz he's got work to do. Erry. So uh, he he walks down the street and stands opposite to church listening to the pastor's sermon for about 15 seconds before leaving. It's like, oh, that long. Yeah, they gave you the Catholic [__]. Okay, shut up; there it is. They they gave me 15 seconds of him standing Church. Yeah. Why doesn't he go talk to Maggie? No, she's dead. Bullseye killed it too. Okay. All right. You know, Bullseye hates Maggie. Actually, he would have more reason to dislike Maggie than Foggy. Well, oh well, because yeah, because uh, Maggie, she covered for yeah, she lied; cover for them. Yeah, remember he did the big scream in his truck; he was really mad about that. Unironically, he would have more reason to kill Maggie than Foggy. That's true. Yeah. Um, so uh, so Matt begins trailing Powell, who was the surviving officer. So Shanahan, he's the dead one. Powell's the living one. The corrupt then he's he's corrupt, and he he follows him; he trails him, and then Matt receives a call from Heather. Remember Matt's girlfriend, this one real funny like we were going to have a scene together; we will not be having that scene. Okay, no, we won't be having a scene. I have a new client, so I can't we have dinner, and her new client is Fisk. Fisk is her new client, and and he has come with Vanessa for couple's counseling. What a huge mistake. So Vanessa is upset that Fisk disappeared, which prompts Fisk to explain that he was assaulted by a vigilante, and the recovery process was difficult; thus, he couldn't stay in touch with Vanessa um, and ask Vanessa or she believes that's for the best, and Fisk briefly talks over her, and then he falls silent. And so Vanessa then exposits that she took over the business and made it more profitable and stable than it had ever been. She made more money than Fisk and better handled the subordinates than Fisk. That's what she did. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it so much. Why they just like you put your fingers in your ears and go, la, la, la, la, la, la. Not listening. Not listening. You're lying to me. Did made more money, and um, and uh, and then she she said that Fisk's absence made her lonely, but his return left her confused. Ah, see, cuz she kind of likes her life without, you know, making money and being in charge, and now and now the cuck's back. [__] Pin has returned, and he's cramp; he's really ruining things for her. I can't I I imagine if you the kind of person who was legitimately really interested in seeing what a Fisk Vanessa crime duo dynamic would be, and this is what you got instead, you would be. Now, granted, if you had investment in the show, you already hate this show anyway, obviously, but there's just another thing that would have been neat that we're just not going to get, or maybe they will later, but I guess we'll find out. But she's just better than he is; she's better at his job, and he needs to prove something to her when they're in couple's counseling after she cheated on him. Isn't that crazy? That's that's an angle to go down, but all right, sure. And um, and then uh, she says that she's come to counseling because she believes they don't have a choice, whereas Fisk says that he doesn't want to lose his wife, and that's the scene. It's just no. It would have been nice to have a long interesting like relationship session if they had difficulties to see what they'd both say, to see what they both compromise on and are willing to do, and like there there's deep deep in this there is an idea that's interesting that they could do something with, but this show is incapable of making that interesting. But it's like it's partly because I don't think even it knows, and I certainly don't know who cuck pin is as a character like since he was lobotomized by Native Americans. Who is he? What what are his values? What is his personality? What drives him? What motivates him? Does he have some deep dark angry part of him that's still there somewhere? Does he really care about losing his wife? What he tells us he does, but how does expressed that given that he doesn't have a personality anymore? And you could theoretically use a scene like this to start rebuilding his character and showing us who the new cuck pin is, but as you say, we don't really get very much of of that. It's just he's there to be kind of belittled, and that's it. He has no agency in this question, and he doesn't assert himself in any way, and this is supposed to be your main [__] antagonist. What are we doing with this character? How did you drag him into a therapy session? [__] He needs therapy; he needs help; he needs to which is weird. You think he wouldn't need help cuz he got cured of his childhood trauma, so he's like sorted; he's good; he's fixed. Isn't that the most disrespectful, embarrassing [__] in the world? The idea of like, whoa, don't worry about your childhood trauma; let it go. I will help you mag for you're fixed. How's this useful to people? How is this in any way helpful? Maybe they should oh, they need to seek out a shaman, a flaming star so that so that flaming. He's gone though, dude. You know. Oh, you're right. Oh, the hard thinking, like, would I ignore it? Would I be able to do this? Would I be able to like trying to write this just like you make him a scroll; you make the other [__] Kingpin a scroll. The Hawkeye eeko one was a scroll, and this SC this guy he was captured, and uh, I don't know [__] whatever you want to do, just just Jesus Christ; like that's your that's your Escape. Just scroll his first scene is that Kingpin just bashes his head in, and all of his green out everywhere. You took Vanessa from me; I'm going to get you. And Vanessa was like, actually, I'm a scroll too, but SC as well. Yeah, but that BRS if you hadn't done that, let's let's pretend the echo thing just didn't happen because it I think it's the longer this goes on, the bigger a mistake that particular scene was because it accomplished nothing, and now this show doesn't know what it's doing with its character. But if you hadn't done that, you've still got at the Kingpin who is you driven by this incredibly traumatic past where you know, he witnesses his father beating his mother for his mother's answering back to him. If that Kingpin was still the character in this scene, watching him slip into becoming his father as like his wife starts to drift away and like the violence is still in there and he's barely trying to restrain it, you could tell a really really dark and tragic story as he slowly becomes the man he swore he wouldn't be against the the woman who is now the standing for his mother. That could have been really interesting. We can't do that though because we've had to size all of that part of his backstory, and you just denied yourself all of these really really like fantastic opportunities for drama in order to give us this instead. This [__] dessert of a SE. Oh God, I don't think anyone like this. It's just of course not. Of course not. That brings us to the final scene of the episode. Matt overhears a call between Powell and his buddy; they found the witness, Nikki Torres. So Matt calls Cherry; tells him, hey, go go there and and wait there, and uh, he heads to the address, and Torres lets Matt in, but he doesn't really want to go against the cops um, before they can even have much of a conversation. Matt overhears pal coming in, and he's coming against him, and he tells Torres to escape the apartment and meet Cherry. And so Matt, for some reason, lets pal inside and tells him that Torres is gone. For some reason, he does this. And so pal pins Matt to the wall, and he reveals he's got a Punisher tattoo on his arm, a little Punisher skull there, and then they start to beat the [__] out of Matt, and uh, he just sort of lets this happen until they point a gun at his head, and he uh, he he kicks their asses; he fights them; he and he's he's beating them up and throwing him around, and uh, it's I don't know. I mean, what to be said about the action scene? There's blood. CU BL The end kills the guy, maybe on his neck. We got cuz cuz I need to go all the way back back to what the [__] Matt's choices were here. He gets the guy out through the back; doesn't go with him, even though the door would be locked, and they would search this place first. He gives you plenty of time to get into Cherry's car and Escape. For some reason, he hangs out behind; gives them arbitrary information and risks getting killed by them or having to kill them. Why? Yeah, unlocks the door. Exactly. Remember this is the cop that like the case is basically being made by; he's like the primary Witness. Why the [__] would you want it known that you went to the apartment with the Nikki Torres guy? Met that Co the cop can sell any story he wants here. Yes, of course he can. And I mean, now and now regardless of what happens, he now knows essentially that he really has to worry about Torres. It's like, oh, [__] this lawyer got him because he probably wants him to testify, right? Like, whereas if he just disappears, you got no idea what's happening; you wouldn't know Matt was behind it, but now you do. Yeah, because he decided to stay behind for some reason. I guess this thought was, well, I'm blind; they're not going to do anything to me. It's like, I don't know why you that just get out of there. The door was locked; they have to break it down before they can even get in to search the place. And then finally realizes if you close the window behind you that takes I'm talking like it could be 20 seconds; that's enough to get out completely, but no, they he stays there. So why do this? I think the reason not almost have just like this case has almost just been completely destroyed in this one moment because he all he needed to do was to turn up the next day and say, look, I had this star witness some a bunch of off-duty cops turned up at his apartment, and you know, they were there because he opened the door without wearing gloves, so we've got fingerprints, and they beat the [__] out of me, and I was a defense lawyer, and they were quite clearly there to try and kill him. Might be worth mentioning that to the judge at some point or indeed bring it up in the court case. Honestly, dude, this would take over; this is a more important case. This whole scene, the two cops beaten to a near death. I have to say near death, even though it's obviously [__] death um, by the lawyer defending the the person who's going to be made innocent by the witness who lived in this place. Like, what the [__] is going on? This is hyper corruption everywhere. I think uh, the only conclusion to be drawn is if this was initially meant to be episode one, they needed to end on an action scene. Yes, that is to say, is this mandated action scene? Well, so the way you film it then is that Matt is actively like chasing the police or rather racing the police to this apartment; they all get in at the same time, and he says, go the window; I'll stay, you know, and like the cops like, what? And then get out of the way, you [__] idiot, and then he fights them. That's how you do that; you don't do and he beats them, and then he he does a scream, which, by the way, I consider this another instance flanderization. Daredevil screams. So he screams in this one; he does his primal scream because remember he did that when he was fighting Bullseye; when he fight Kingpin, Bullseye did the scream. That's what Daredevil is. One-take action scenes and getting tired and screams; that's that's Daredevil. Could you testing his own ability to you know, be the upstanding man? Is he testing his like worthiness to be Daredevil again? But then like he can't; he realizes he can't withhold from like the violent impulses anymore, so it confirms something to himself about himself. Like, I I keep trying to read in some character motive for do what he's doing, but they kind of destroy it when one of them pulls a gun on him because at that point it's not a moral choice anymore; he is fighting in self-defense cuz his life's in danger as opposed to just well, that's then the question becomes like, why did you put yourself in this situation? You could have destroyed everything by doing this. Yeah, yeah. I mean, for all you know, you have cuz they saw you do this. So yeah, you're done. And just uh, this is the moment Murdock is this is the moment where it's like he clearly [__] kills this guy, and I just wanted to be clear, chat, this is how it sounds. I'm just going to let it play with sound for a second when it first happens. I think that that's the intention, and they're going to do something with him accidentally having killed having killed this guy because of the way it looks and the way it sounds; it's so obviously fat gone like [__] it's like, why did they shoot it to have him land on his neck, his head twist that way, and to have that sound? What am I supposed to think other than he's dead? Oh yeah, but he's not. He's no. Yeah, he he's actually good to go for the boing either. Yeah, he's not crippled; he's not seriously; he's good; he's little ice pack can't take care. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But uh, yeah, that's the end of episode two. Yay. Is that better or worse than uh, being meaningfully that episode one takes the brunt of the damage because it's the one that establishes all this [__], you know. Exactly. And that was the new guys. But hey, no, there for optimism cuz they directed Loki season 2, and that was a really good show. Oh yeah, I love seeing stuff like that. Oh yeah, no, we're in we're in good hands. It's like, what is okay. Um, all right, should we move on to episode three? I suppose so. We going to continue this thise is there maybe one last thing worth pointing out about the previous episode is that it's probably going to be at some point incredibly important that there is only one like female therapist in all of New York, which is how like the hero and the villain and the next villain all happened to coincide on this one person, and I just I I don't know how yet, but I'm sure that's going to [__] things up massively at some point somehow. It yes, and there's no way there's no way that buck why would buck set up for Fisk's like therapist to be the woman that matters dating? That just seems like a disaster waiting to happen, so it can't be on purpose, right? It has to just be an actual coincidence. I think it's a coincidence. Yeah, that's not very that's not very cash man of you, I must admit. No, I got to admit. Yeah, that's right. Uh, but you know, whatever. That's uh, so episode three. Matt visits Hector in prison uh, on the day of the trial, and Hector tells a story about his favorite beach in Puerto Rico, and there's the kis, which is a tree frog that doesn't croak but sings its name, and then he imitates the the call with a whistle and describes it as a magical sound, and he explains that the K mates for life, and so every sunset thousands of these frogs start calling out to their One and Only Love. The Music of the island, and Matt promises Hector he'll be reunited with his family, and he'll see that beach again. Oh, jeez. Yeah. All right. No, I know, right? It's just like, oh well, okay, you're uh, you're not making out of this episode that's uh, we got to have a tragedy um, coming, but that's it. I mean, that's you know, that's the scene. It's a little story about frogs, which I suppose I don't mind. It's the best story so far in this show in show. Yeah. No, I know this guy talking about the frogs on the beach, and uh, so now we got a scene that is actually just redundant. So there are two guys who park a truck at a port, like an abandoned port, and they're met by an Irish guy who takes their keys and wallets and then shoots them. And then the the Irish guy says, let me tell you about my favorite beach in Puerto Rico. Watching this episode together, and I I said, guarantee you someone in this episode will summarize what we just saw, and it'll make the entire scene pointless. CU There's nothing in it; there's no characters; there's no like dialogue or information that's uh, you know, additional to the whole thing. It is car with guys, another car with guys, guy gets out and shoots the two guys. Yes. And uh, that will be true. We got a BB uh segment before that. The next scene Mak this this whole scene redundant. So BB he she interviews an old guy who says he has no problem with pointing his gun at somebody who invades his privacy and another guy who says he doesn't have the answers and walks away. That's it. That's scene. He's like, yeah, I you want answers; I don't got him. Bye. I got to go; I'm going to Jersey. Um, and yeah, now he's gone. And so uh, yeah, Fisk he's eating breakfast with Vanessa; she's on the other side of the table; it's very uh, it

Of his partner's death, and Pal just relays a false story in which a deranged Hector attacked him for no reason and intentionally killed Shanahan. That's it.

And so Matt begins cross-examination, and he presses Pal on whether he and Shanahan were truly alone that night on the platform before Hector showed up. Then he asked Pal, "Have you ever met a man named Nikki Torres?" Pal says no. And then Matt explains that Torres is a confidential informant who worked with Pal and Shanahan directly, but Pal again denies meeting Torres that night. Um, and then in the gallery, a cop who has a Punisher tattoo on his neck tells his partner that Torres cannot be allowed to testify, and Matt overhears this.

That is everything conspicuous. Punisher tattoo, like a gang tattoo, but isn't it funny to think it's like, yeah, that's just like a whole scene and all that's to be said about it is just the plot that is conveyed in it. We pretty much knew all of this. Yeah, this is all just information; like this is redundant basically. You know, maybe, maybe would be too soon to—no, sorry, sorry, Pon, go ahead. I'm just trying to work out why New York cops would idolize The Punisher, given what he's done and how many of them he's killed. Like, how would that even come about? I understand what I think what the show is trying to convey, but would it ever be like that? Could you imagine the New York cops, sort of getting—not corrupt ones, I don't really get cuz they must be corrupt ones. I can see why because Punisher didn't kill cops, unless I'm—Punisher went after—a blank was a strict, pretty much evil-doer. There was some collateral damage though. He, he, yeah, he injured cops like to get through to other people, but he like punched them and then disarmed them; he wouldn't kill them, but it was always—especially the trial—sorry, you there was the—in the trial everyone would know what Punisher was up to. Yeah, like he, he went out and he specifically went out to kill really bad people; he didn't go after cops unless the cops were obviously blatantly evil, which is why the evil ones would not like him.

Yeah, right, but that—know me, I guess there must be a whole bunch of them who are who are big fans. Well, that's obviously the storyline they're doing; that it's practically a symbol for corruption is the—the evil cops using the Punisher symbol. The Punisher will have to come and stop them. Yeah, 789 is probably, for all we can guess right now, going to be Daredevil and Punisher going after the corrupt cops or something like that; that could be 456 as well. I really don't know. Yeah, can't wait to see how they ruin Frank Castle; that'll be exciting. But, but I mean, yeah, it's worth emphasizing again, this courtroom scene is basically redundant; it's just characters like saying what we know that they would say anyway. Nothing like—no new information. Had a way more dramatic and interesting uh cross with Matt and this witness, right? Like, like really dig into him, get him to slip up in any way, shape, or form about the story. Mostly exactly just runs, you know, all the information we already had. Yep, but no, it's just—it's that's just conveying stuff we already knew. So go back to the point; they have evidence that those corrupt cops were at the apartment of the guy he's just denied knowing; like they have that evidence, the finger absolutely.

Well, if this happened in the previous Seasons, there would be a scene after that fight where um Matt would be talking with Foggy and Karen, and they would discuss what the next plan of action would be, and you'd get their perspectives, and they'd set a plan and then execute that plan. But none of these people ever give you the sense that they're in control or in plans because the—the cops plan next. Having said that, like, yeah, "thus can't be allowed to testify" is they send a guy in uniform on a police bike to intercept a van with a plan to stop him, but like if—if they've just said, "No, we don't know him," and then Matt says, "Well, he's my witness and he's coming to court," and oh dear, he got killed mysteriously in a traffic accident involving a cop—how is that story going to play out? Not just a cop, it's Pal, the guy who was just on the—he and he was being transferred by a man who works with the law firm of Moch and other girl; like that's—it's just like that's a disaster; it's all a disaster. Court case is a [ __ ] mess; no one isn't it? It's great; you can't get away with that; you're so blatant.

Well, yeah, cuz CU to be clear, so what happens is that Cherry, he seemingly puts Torres in a van, and uh he's driving to court, and then Pal, the guy who was just on the stand, pulls him over, pulls him over; he's like, "Yeah, open the back," and then opens the back and it's empty because Torres—they put him in a taxi, then get him there. It's like what? So, so he, he just testified, got on his bike, went to go hunt down Torres personally; like what insane nonsense? And what was he going to do? Just execute him right there and then? What could he do in the street? I don't know; I don't know what the [ __ ] they were going to imply—to shoot him and then shoot Cherry in the head? What the hell? Who—Cherry, his buddy, his investigator friend? Oh, right, right, Cherry. Sorry, every once in a while I just need a reminder of who these people are, but uh I can't believe it. No, Torres is there, ruined, then replaced, and he gets to the stand and Matt asks Torres if he was passing information to Pal and Shanahan on New Year's Eve, and Torres pauses for a while, his heart picks up, and then he denies ever meeting Pal and Shanahan that night, and Matt gets big mad; he just declares that Tor has previously said he was being beaten on the platform when Hector saved his life, and he keeps pressing even though Hawber is objecting and the judge is telling him to stop; he just keeps going.

Really disappointing. This is a moment to write Matt in a position where he's—he knows what's happening here; obviously someone's gotten to him; he's obviously terrified; he doesn't want to die; he doesn't want to give the testimony that he believes would kill him. So Matt, what are you going to do? Like, think it through, discuss it further with him, maybe decide like this has to be another avenue, or try and reassure him subtly through subtext of like the correct thing to do. No, just get mad; just be real mad. Yeah, get mad, and this—this gets him nowhere, basically. He has to stop, and then he just—it would be really neat if because you know this—this is not Matt's first rodeo; he has been a part of this for a long time—if he would have already known this was going to happen and he had like a backup plan in case he didn't give the real testimony, or he had expected this and had some trick up his sleeve just in case. Um, but I guess not. So you think that they might have like recorded the conversation where he, you know, admitted to all of this and told them exactly what happened so they could use it as evidence? You can treat your own witness as hostile; they do it in Daredevil season 2. This is the testimony you gave; we had you sign an affidavit testifying that this is what you did; are you now perjuring yourself? Like, what do you think will happen to you if you end up in prison? You can treat him as H—there are things you can do, but would require a longer scene and a more intelligent writing stuff, so of course we don't get that. No, why? And also, is the victim supposed to think that if the guy doing the testimony was—he aware that they—they tried to kill him on the way before he even gave the testimony? Is he thinking now that—exactly. You can—should have used lawyer Fu to overwhelm him, to be like, "We've got this, this, this, this, this, this; you are not escaping from this; do not enter into a position right now where you'll be behind bars for the rest of your life; like this is your moment; this is the time, seriously, dude! Like, like the evidence against all the things you're trying to deny even took the stand—is that cool? Cherry as a witness—did the guy who just previously told us he'd never heard of the witness come and try and kill you in your van on the way when you thought he—thought you were holding the witness? Yes, he did. Oh [ __ ]! Story's kind of [ __ ] bizarre. It like the guy is the man in the courtroom with us right now jumped down the [ __ ] witness stand, went into his bike, attack, pulled them over. Why? Why all of this? So um, Defenders is not a good show, unfortunately, but no, it has a really—it has a really cool scene where Matt is in court and he's uh advocating for his client who was essentially paralyzed by some kind of like um chemical uh—like some kind of material and—yeah, yeah, it's—it's—it's a really good scene, and the scene after it's quite good as well, you know, him talking to him about how he's going to—you know, how—how it is going to be difficult essentially living with the disability, but that he's got to push forward. Uh, but in any case, this is a scene where you see essentially aggressive Matt Murdoch in court; it's—he's very much aggressive, but it's aggressive in a controlled and directed manner that is actually achieving his goals; it's not just some [ __ ] Hail Mary that's not going to go anywhere. Like, it's almost like you need to remind them—it's like there are ways to essentially present Matt as being like aggressive um that don't just involve him essentially rambling like a madman about something that he can't substantiate. Like he knows better than this. The biggest thing is like—P say they've tried to kill you twice in the matter of hours; what do you think's going to H—do you think that if you say nothing that that will actually save you? Why would it? But yeah, in any case, nope uh that's it, and he withdraws Torres from the stand, and we're to conclude basically that they're [ __ ]; they have no case now. Yeah, and you know, good job Matt, you know, from this—the whole reason we're dropping the Torres angle is because the writers want to do something else; they just want to get something. Yeah, they want to go somewhere that everybody on Twitter loves. Y um so uh that's the end of that. And so why—why has that just become synonymous with it being bad—something on something everybody on Twitter loves? That's—that is the era we're in, man. Like getting that, you know, the flickering Vader that was like Twitter gold, and they're going to do it again probably because of that. Yeah, B basically like the conclusion whenever it's saying that it's just that people on Twitter tend to react very um in a very strongly positive way to basically any new content without really thinking it through. You see the discussion that was happening for like a lot of famous people of um you can't get certain roles unless you reach a certain threshold for Instagram followers. Instagram. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like this stuff matters; it sucks that it matters, but it matters, but it does. Yeah, Twitter engagement—that's so—Buck meets with their heads of the five families to—to resolve their disputes—onf of Fisk and Luca, who was the leader of the track Su Mafia, is Big mad about the idea of paying restitution to another leader and wants to speak to Fisk directly. And this was one of the most depressing scenes I think in all three episodes cuz you can directly compare it to the equivalent scene in Daredevil season one and how they are automatically characters, and these guys are nut, but otherwise it's the same. Yeah, each of the—each of the leaders of the different organizations that Kingpin was overseeing, you know, and Wesley was his mediator in a lot of those situations; they each had their own objectives; they had their own prerogatives. Madame Gao had like—and Nobu had their own plans that were related to essentially uh orchestrating what they needed for the Hand. Um, the Russians had their own agenda that was often, you know, coming into conflict. Leland was just self-serving basically and was looking like drug creation, distribution, the money man, and like the interest that everyone else had then had like double motives and stuff that were revealed as the season goes on. To compare to this—who the [ __ ] are even any of these people? We are—we are the guys, and we are up to no good. Vague, vague bad doings, and we're with each other over our vague bad doings. It's like, "Oh, okay, all right." And then—and then for some reason like he's like, "Oh, I don't want to talk to the m—Aon boy," and Buck, he thinks has got a really good [ __ ] comeback, and it's, "I don't work for the mar—I work for the man," and he says it like really proud of himself. It's like, "Well, but we find out this wasn't even from Fisk; this was from Vanessa." Exactly. That's right; Vanessa did this. Why does that—that line doesn't work—the man. Yeah, but I guess, yeah, I know it's pretty stupid, but that's the scene. It's like—component—we have mentioned it before, but the one component of that season one [ __ ] we had—Wesley was way better at this [ __ ] than this [ __ ]. Yeah. Mhm. And of course Wesley's dynamic with Kingpin was super interesting because he was genuinely loyal to him; he was his friend; him—they liked each other. Yeah, but uh no, now we got crap—cuck Wesley—cuck has to have—cuck Wesley—cuckle. I think the other like very important aspect of the season one one is that all of the heads of those cartels are all their own people; they all have their own agendas, and they all potentially pose a significant threat because you—you get the impression of competence basically from the moment you see them; they're all—all rivals; they're not subordinates in that way to Kingpin, so like he has to politically manage them, but just by virtue of him not telling them exactly what to do, what to think, and paying them off simply—like this does—you get a huge amount of sense of—of like there is a story which is going to involve these people; they all have their own stories as well, and they will all intersect in interesting and complicated ways going forward. Will we ever see these people again? Even—they—they're not there to make the same point, maybe not for the same—not for the same thing because it's like you said they have different agendas such that the Russians ended up becoming like a real threat; there was like a serious threat that if the Russians turn on Kingpin, he—he was going to be [ __ ] even after the Russians were taken care of; they were spoken of—it's like, "Hey, remember—not put him on bad footing with the others," cuz it was like, "Oh, this [ __ ]—like this went to [ __ ]—like this was not good; this made things more unstable, and it gets in the way of our plans, so careful Kingpin." That was—and—and you know it's the same like having to deal with Nobu, right? Like Nobu's like, "I want this building specifically; I do all this [ __ ] for you; I want this building," and it's like, "Okay, well, how are we going to deal with it?" It's just—it's—it's more dynamic and interesting and like actually well conceived; this is just like [ __ ]—this is just thin crap, but whatever—that's the end of that scene. So we got just like ambiguous mob things, basically—like they're all up to their ambiguous criminal activities, and they're—they're bumping up against each other for just vague reasons, and—and they got to settle it, but we're done with that now. We got the team—Matt, Kirsten, and Cherry discussing the plan going forward, and Matt basically says their only path forward is to put Hector on the stand and tell his side of the story. That is the scene; that's the only thing that matters in this scene—waste of time. It's like, I don't get it; I don't get why we have so many of these like 20, 30-second scenes that are pointless, but whatever. Um, now we got [ __ ]—we—we got another cuck Pin scene. Who—who thought that this would turn into another EAP cuck episode? Unfortunately, it's kind of a—it's kind of a [ __ ] trend, I guess; I don't know; it's bizarre, but anyway, [ __ ] Pin is waiting with Vanessa; they're waiting in Heather's office; she stepped out for a bit, and uh Vanessa tells um Fisk that Buck was sent to negotiate with the five families behind his back, and in response Fisk says, "Let's not fall into a place where I don't trust you," which is a weird thing to say when it's like, "Well, you shouldn't"—she went behind your back, so yeah, it's already over, and neither of you are acting in character, but this is where you want to go, so I guess we're here now; yay! You're actively working against each other; woohoo! Vanessa leans forward, which prompts Fisk to kind of shrink back, uh and then she says, "I don't like watching everything fall apart," and Fisk retorts that sometimes chaos must reign, even temporarily, to build a stronger order. Here comes [ __ ]—sometimes things have to be stupid. Okay, actually a Big W is not an L at all. Well, here's the thing; we got—we got some great [ __ ] coming. So Vanessa, she questions whether that's true and instead suggests that Fisk is punishing her for cheating on him. H—it would be nice if he was, but I don't think he is—definitely not—never cheated on him in the first place. Mm, but she did—she did—a tragedy—she and he's like, "I can't believe a—we could allow a tragedy to ruin everything." See, it's a parallel like with Matt, but that's it; that's the end because Tether enters and it's like the conversation comes to an end, and Co—Co—not—yeah, no, that's a different Co—no, but uh no, we got—we got the uh—all right, sorry. So um, man, all right, so this is the scene—Hector takes the stand, and Matt invites him to tell his side of the story. Hector explains that he'd finally saved up enough money to rent his own place and was—and on that night on New Year's Eve was going to place flowers there for his wife, and she's looking like, "Oh, jeez, I was estranged from you, but now I won't be," cuz that's basically all the cheers—she was estranged; now she's not. And then um he talks of how he intervened on the subway platform to protect Torres from the two men who did not identify themselves as police officers, and Hector claims he was just trying to help and that he didn't want to hurt anybody. And so Matt says, "You decided to risk your own safety to help a stranger; wasn't the first time, was it?" Hector is uh perplexed, but Matt continues, "I'm just saying that you put yourself in harm's way before many times; the question is why?" Hector then explains simply, "Because a man was in trouble," and Matt then says, "You intervene that night because you're a hero." Kirsten, knowing where he's going with this, tells Matt to stop, but instead he reaches into his bag, holds up the white tiger mask in court, and asks Hector, "Are you the vigilante known as the White Tiger?" This is a really great TV show, and I enjoy the legal aspect of it. He's like, what—what—what thought do you even have first, you know, there's so many at once. Matt—Matt more than anyone else should know the dangers that con—as a single action—this might be the worst thing that happens in the three episodes—M trial might be um maybe the end of your career; this is certainly the end of his character. And nice job—nice job just outing Hector when he didn't want you to do this without talking to him—family in the crosshairs when your explicit reason for using a mask was to protect your loved ones, but [ __ ]—he has come up time and time again in the Daredevil show where Matt Murdoch will—and the people that Matt Murdoch loves will be in danger if Daredevil's identity is discovered. This is our only chance; it's the only way to get him out; we got—we got to—possibly discussed this with my client before, even though declaring him as White Tiger is a whole case in and of itself that'll end with him going to jail. Mm, yep. Nice. We've already had the conversation with the judge accepted that this was all going to be inadmissible stuff, and the judge off, and the whole aim here is to try and convince the jury that it doesn't really matter—the facts don't necessarily matter because he's good people, so we need to tell the jury he's good people, which kind of just put me in mind of the—is it even the first court scene in season 1, the one where he stands up and says, "I've been preoccupied with, you know, issues of morality"—like morality has no place in the courtroom; it's the facts that matter—and it convinces that jury, but not this one. Well, this one he just gives the [ __ ] up and does something insane that we should destroy everything side. Yeah, exactly. CU naturally the chaos erupts uh when this happens, as it would, because you can't tell a judge, "Hey, I think this evidence shouldn't be admitted because it's—it's more—it's more prejudicial than probative," and then the judge says, "I agree," and then you're like, "Ah, n [ __ ] that!" Here it is—here the—here it is T—good luck everybody. I'm not all like 100% familiar with the inner workings of the American legal system, but don't you have to provide—like both sides have to provide each other with copies of the evidence that they plan to enter in and then draw on during the course of the trial? That you can't simply say, "Oh, here's a brand new thing that I haven't forewarned you of, Mr. Defense Attorney, or Mr. Prosecution Attorney." I—I thought like you had to be quite public with what you're going to do; like you can't do this—no, is not allowed. You can't—you can't just do this—dispa—mistrial—new trial—two trials—trial with new evidence. Exactly. It's like—it's worse—it's—it's all of the worst aspects—it's a bad trial, and now the world knows the identity, and of course you gained nothing from this point out. This is not Phoenix, right? True, that's true; this is not Phoenix, right? And it's like drastically out of character—Matt would never have done this; he wouldn't even have done this if White Tiger asked him to—if he asked him. Yeah, that would be a very serious conversation—like, "Listen," and—and Matt can't reveal that he's Daredevil, but he would say like, "Listen, I've defended people like this in the past," something like that—you're like, "Trust me, this is not something you want to do." It's just—and if you tell me to do it, then—you know, we talked about it before—this is character assassination; is what this is, aside from all of the problems from a plot standpoint; this is just flat out character assassination. Matt would never do this. Disney manages it once again—once more—they find a way to completely assassinate a beloved character; like they can't [ __ ] help themselves; there's been one every episode—one just big bit of character assassination for Matt. I can't believe I'm saying, "Thank God they killed Foggy."

Well, yeah, that way he's coming back, baby; he'll be so—um, yeah, they get—they get called into Judge Cooper's chambers uh him and Hawber are lied with Cooper tearing into Matt for making false representations to convince him to suppress Hector's vigilante activities, only for Matt to reveal this information, thus making a mockery of his courtroom—one might say he showed contempt for his courtroom. Um, and then—and then Matt's like, "Well, I had to do this because you know someone—someone got to—got to my star witness," and—and then Hawber just points out like, "What about biasing the jury? That's what you said before, but now—okay, doesn't make sense. You said it's worse for your client for it to come out, but now because you've lost your witness, it's better. You said it is more prejudicial than probative, and the judge agreed; you—you now—then—no, it's not actually." Yeah, exactly; it's just lying; it is um—and then—and Matt starts arguing about why Hector's activities as a White Tiger are relevant. It's like, "Dude, you argued that they weren't! What is going on? You can't do—what are you doing?" It afflicts everyone because then Hawkman also has to flip his reasoning because he was in favor of this coming out, but now he's not in favor of this coming out. Yeah, and then the judge has to flip because he said, "No, it's not admissible," but now—"Oh, well, I guess you've done it now." Oh God, that argument. Yeah, we can touch on this. So—so basically Cooper says, "Striking the Revelation from the record would be pointless," and then he'd be like, "Oh, mistrial," and then he's like—declaring a mistrial would be pointless because everybody now knows Hector is the White Tiger. It's like, "Okay, you're forgetting the big part, which is that the prosecution made their argument without this evidence." Yep, so now they're [ __ ]. Well, every witness up to this point—all of the arguments made up to this point from everyone didn't include the [ __ ] White Tiger; like there's no point in doing a mistrial cuz it's going to be relevant going forward. It's like that's why—that's kind of why you got to do it; like you need to start over; it's [ __ ]—you got to do it again, but it said they're like, "Nah, no—no, cat's out of the bag, so no mistrial." It's like, "Okay, okay, sure." And um—and—and then um—and then you know the judge basically points out like, "You revealed this, so now you have to deal with this," and uh before they go to court, Hawber tells Matt that he's basically an enemy of the DA's office at this point. It's like, "Man, that's—he should count himself lucky that—that's the worst thing that—that's what would happen." This [ __ ]—this is so beyond unacceptable; it's—it's just—that's the end of his career; he's done; he is absolutely done. Um, God, remember when it was faintly scandalous that the writers of She-Hulk said that they had no experience writing courtroom dramas, and everyone thought, "That's a bad thing," but at least Daredevil does—there's some good court scenes in Daredevil, but yeah, no, I know that's again—it feels—you mentioned the scene of him talking about, you know, "Those ladies and gentlemen of the jury—are the facts," and it's like, "Oh, [ __ ], that's some good [ __ ]; I love that one." Yeah, and then of course—ever—"You didn't call me to punish you, right?" The big bad Punisher—where am I? You want me—come get me—I punish—I'm right here. From this point—it's be a court scene—all the arguments from this point onwards are—"Isn't it great that he's a vigilante? Don't you love him because he's so good—St—right thing—look, he even did the right thing for the police, so the police should like him too. You like him, so you should acquit him," like as if that's a—a good counter to the reality that he was there—somebody died, and he fought them. It's like, "Oh, [ __ ] man, that seems like—in the absence of a witness who can say otherwise—I don't know, man—you were basically relying on—he's such a good guy, he would never do it." It's like, "Oh, okay, that sounds like a rock-solid argument; I'm sure it'll work." And then of course, you know, where it's going. Uh, did anybody have anything else to add on just this? There's more, but we have to do more context first, obviously, because I want to talk about the witnesses. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yeah. Um, well, no, after that we get another BB scene. Um, she interviews a man who believes that Hector will not get a fair trial because he is Puerto Rican. Yay. So uh Hector—Hector, you know, Matt visits him in court, and Hector rightly tells him, "You should have asked me before revealing my altero," and Matt retorts, "Well, I'm just trying to keep you out of prison." It's like, Matt—he's [ __ ]—you've doomed him. Yeah, he has to—he has to like go—if he can possibly get out, he has to leave the country. Yeah, he's gonna—he—he's got to go back to Puerto Rico. He has to go back to Puerto Rico. Yeah, exactly. I hope you like those frogs, dude, because you're going to hear a lot for the rest of your life. I mean, we joke, but it's like, yeah, you might go back there if you're not killed, you know, which is much more likely—well, not—not just you, but your whole family. Yeah, because they'll target you; they might—any of the people that you interacted with or fought—now they—instead of it just being this isolated incident—now it's this and all the other ones that you were now at risk for cuz again Matt's explicit—more often than not reason that he cites for why he wears a mask is to protect his loved ones; that is his rationale. It's safe to assume that Hector had the same rationale, and he took that from him without asking him—terrible. Yep, he—but—and all his excuses are—"I had to take a big swing"—that's what he says—"a big swing"—couldn't even justify to save their [ __ ] lives; they just wanted the big moment. Oh, you know, by the way, people on Twitter love this scene; they were like, "Yes, this is great courtroom drama; they lov—this [ __ ] off"—they thought it was great—great. There's such an easier and way more interesting scene you could write instead—like if you'd actually given them the conversation in advance, and you could have this conversation about what the sacrifice of being a vigilante really is—like Matt could say, "I know who you really are; I could use this, and it might get you off, but here are the consequences, and your choice now ultimately is—do you sacrifice yourself and go to prison or—and in order to save your family, or do you stay out of prison, but knowing that everyone you know and love is now going to be in danger for the rest of—"That is a complicated moral decision. Yeah, and like having them flesh that out would be really, really interesting—much like, you know, the rooftop scene in season 2—that's—it's a conversation about what being a hero really is, which is the kind of thing that this show should be doing, and it doesn't because it thinks that this is what good courtroom drama is instead. Yep. So Matt tells Hector that even if he's acquitted, his days as the White Tiger are over, but Hector—RS that White—uh, someone in chat just made me realize—does—has anyone got the pieces together that this guy Matt Murdoch is now the lawyer for White Tiger, Spider-Man, and The Punisher? That's a good point. Wow, curious. That's a good point. Yeah, that is quite an observation. And uh so yeah he uh Hector explains that being White Tiger is a calling; it's who he is, and then Matt says, "Well, you know, there are other ways to help, and you got to think about your family." It's like, yeah, he does—thanks to you, now he does—that's your fault, Matt. Uh, which then brings us to the last, you know, major courtroom scene where Matt just calls a bunch of witnesses to talk about how White Tiger helped them in the past. What is this? I don't know; this is insane nonsense—to talk about how White Tiger helped you—prosecution should be objecting at literally every [ __ ] word of this. Mm, it's insane. Um, lit—yeah, it literally doesn't matter how many people he helped; this court is about—well, let's roll it back further than that—we don't even have proof that he's White Tiger yet; there's nothing—nothing definitive about this—he didn't actually say that he—well, I guess at this point we have to conclude that he was even—yeah, but the prosecution—like if—if—if we to believe this witness account of like—"Guy saved me in a mask," and it's like—he's shown that he's of the perfect character who would never kill like a police officer—toss him into a train—be like—"We have no—no idea if you're talking about the same man"—this is—this is completely just random [ __ ] from random people who couldn't even see his face—like the prosecution could use all kinds of arguments like this to get this out—like why would this ever be accepted? And of course there's a whole process for witnesses; it can't just be brought in; you can't just drag someone—say—say nice things about this man White Tiger—tell him White Tiger's great—all right, yeah. And he said—and basically that is the gist of it—they—uplifting music—by the way, they play some uplifting music as Matt and Kirsten read like these police reports about how the White Tiger assisted the police on several occasions, and then um he—he says Hector is clearly an ally of the police, and it's like—therefore—what are you saying—that it's impossible—that—now of course he doesn't have to prove that he didn't do it, but like I mean is this a particularly compelling argument for why he wouldn't have done it in this particular instance? It's like, I don't know; I don't see why—like it's—it's funny as well like when he kicked off his own court case by basically saying the police institutionally corrupt and they might try and murder my witness, and now this man is good because look he helped the police—that's what I mean—it's like their positions

Pretty straightforward. It's all good, uh, I guess. The deliberation—mention—was it ever mentioned that he was on a, the um, that that he was on a a phone call right before this happened? Was that was that ever brought in court or mentioned, uh, like the nature of his phone call right before this? The problem is people talk about it as if it's like a robust and compelling legal drama, but like there's really not any delving into the facts of the case at all. Like that's—they didn't even cover one of the charges, basically at all.

Basically, the gist of the courtroom scene, as Pal says—uh, Pal tells the false story, dead fails to breach that false story, uh, Matt brings Torres to the stand, he doesn't tell the story, then he says Hector is White Tiger, then he gets witnesses who say White Tiger is great, and then he's not guilty. That is what happened in this trial. That's it. How we—how are we pretending like this is some sophisticated like legal drama? This is stupid. It's childish. This is She-Hulk level, um, yeah, except that that this show is ostensibly pretending that it's more of a legal drama than She-Hulk did, cuz She-Hulk could rely on, haha, we're comedy, so who gives a [ __ ] if we don't take it seriously?

Like, for instance, the guy who they made fun of—you remember where they shape-shifting like lady? Yeah, yeah. And and they just like just completely lost over it. It's like, oh, that's not informed consent. That is uh, that is bad, but it's like, oh, but he's a—he drives a Cybertruck, so it's funny. In any case, that's the end of this courtroom scene, and uh, Matt, you know, Hector does some acting. He's doing some acting. I appreciate the effort that's going into it, but uh, man, the writing. And so—um—but but the thing is, this is happening—you got a whole bunch of the police officers, they're glaring, they're glaring at Hector from the gallery, and Fisk, he's big mad watching this on TV, and he asked Daniel to contact BB Urick to arrange another interview. Why we haven't se—we haven't seen her, cuz she—dude, he was—he was trending, he was blowing up. Even the BB report was talking about him, right? Okay, it's like she's one of the most popular shows, you know, there, Jo Rogan, then the BB report, then who's next? I don't know, Ben or something, or minus whatever it is, like yeah, she's right up there, she's in the top five on Spotify. Well, there, even the line like they used like, we've got friends at the New York Times, so she's bigger than the the New York Times is, and like obviously he's only going to give interviews to one of them because you don't want to get massive coverage, you know, you wouldn't want to Times and BB. No, no, no, but it's—I—it wants—yeah, it wants to show that he's, I guess, increasingly trusting of this this random intern, and that he understands the more direct appeal of alternative media, I guess.

Um, okay, yeah. Well, we got uh, we got two scenes left. One is another lame scene with Heather—remember Matt's girlfriend? I remember. She she has had very few scenes in this show, and she's third billing. I just find it so funny. She's had what, maybe like five, six minutes of screen time, tops. Really not a lot. But um, yeah, he's cooking dinner and uh, and he starts talking about Foggy, and Heather decides to pry a little bit, and Matt remarks that Foggy knew how to enjoy the good moments when they came, and the two raise a toast to Foggy, and that is the scene. Yay, we did it. So uh, final scene—cool that they acknowledge Foggy, you know. By sometimes we're not talk about, though. Yeah, I'm just—I'm just giving them the—they deserve, of course. Good job, writers. Foggy is a character. Nice one. Uh, so Fisk, he's talking to BB, and he says that the Hector verdict was a miscarriage of justice, and he says that juries can get things wrong, with reference to himself, which is pretty funny. It's like they can get things wrong when it was on television, like you getting bailed out of a police convoy by a bunch of armed soldiers. May as well just say Doctor Strange actually took care of it because he threatened his family or some [ __ ].

And so um, it is funny that they've actually written it in such a way that the Kingpin is right. Like they've actually made him correct—that trial was a travesty of justice. That was [ __ ]. Um, and so he he's like, vigilantes are a threat to any society based on the rule of law, and while he's saying this, Hector suits up as the White Tiger. He's—streets—he's got his mystical amulet and—us—him with supernatural powers, and he walk—he walks down the street and is shot in the head. Yeah, yeah. So there were—so I—where do you even—so like he—his method of travel as a superhero in a superhero outfit is just walking down the street in public. Yes, that's right. The guy whose mystical amulet gives him superpowers—well, it doesn't really do him much good. Also, like a guy who professionally goes around beating bad guys—I said this from FNT yesterday—he's more easily distracted than a Metal Gear Solid guard. CU—they they play a noise, and he's say, oh, was that noise, and he walks off and just gets shot in the head. Did nobody think of trying to distract him before? Ever? How did he get this far without being killed? Just to be clear, apparently this is a reshoot, by the way, um, because they needed to redo it to more prominently show The Punisher icon on the guy who shoots him. Um, that's what I read anyway. I don't know—not necessarily confirmed. I just find this scene is so cringely done. But like, you just show it—show him—show them—M—look, what do you mean? That's the end of Hector? Oh, sorry, I was delayed. I couldn't see that you were showing him, right? I was asking you—show him, but you are—this is the end of Hector. He got two episodes, big storyline ramping up to, you know, the the him—him getting free and returning to his calling, and this is his end—just shot in the head.

I wondered if that—that was reshot and like he's ended here because like obviously the actor died, so maybe they had to re-jig things, and he was supposed to play a bigger role, but then obviously he couldn't, so like that's why you never see his face in any of this—these moments here, like when the minute the costume is on, anyone could be playing this role, and I—I don't know if that caused—like that's possible, but it's worth remembering that if we're to conclude that not only these two but the next several episodes were part of the initial run that was before, I believe, he died in the end of 2023, and these episodes were primarily like March through June, July of 2023, the original plan—this might have been it. We—I think we're doing like three major arcs over nine episodes, and this—we've done the first one now, which is the White Tiger related one, with an intro. Uh, The Punisher one will come in, the Muse one will come in, and obviously Kingpin and Daredevil needs to be sorted out. Like, I don't think we have room for White Tiger.

So as I understand it, embarrassing—White Tiger was uh, the first prominent Latin American superhero in not just Marvel Comics, but in American comics. Oh, well. And now he's just gone. Bye. That's a [ __ ] shame. Like poor Hector, he didn't—I liked Hector. He didn't do anything wrong. I did—I did like Hector. So what should have happened? Right on—like a—there's two things for this, right? First of all, there should have been the White Tiger case that puts him in jail anyway, so that would have been the the sad end to this, cuz uh, Matt's going to [ __ ] him over. But secondly, Matt should have been protecting him. He should have been like, bro, everyone knows now you've survived the case, we know the cops are trying to in a corrupt fashion destroy you. I [ __ ] heard them saying it, like we know they tried to kill you, the star witness several times, like we need to get you to safety. But nope. Yeah, no. And imagine if the angle was he's like, I'm going to suit up no matter what, you can't stop me, and then that prompts Matt to dawn the Daredevil costume again, cuz that's like—doing anything but no. Bas, it's kind of remarkable just how much this is Matt's—yeah, this—I mean, it basically is, and there's going to be a moment in episode four, five, whatever, where he's like crying to his therapist saying that this is all his fault, and then we're going to be sitting here being like, yep, yep, yeah, y—yeah.

Um, I've seen a few people point out that he'll be replaced by a different version of White Tiger in all likelihood, and it's like, yeah, okay, but like a different—different character. Well, just that there were different versions of the White Tiger. Um, he's the first, but there are other ones. This would be made possible, presumably because the—and shoots him in the head—doesn't think to pick up the amulet—then the amulet that everybody now knows gives people superpowers—it's just like, yeah, I just leave that on this corpse. Why not? Not yeah, his niece is going to be the White T—or is like the White Tiger in the comic, so great speed across to that happening in the story. And then, of course, yeah, just so everyone knows, this is the person who did it. The bait is that it's Punisher. Obviously, it's not—be mad at the corrupt cops for this. Obviously, it's kind of a bit awkward because everybody, even on Twitter, seems to immediately identify this. It's like, well, so this—this isn't really working as intended then, right? No one would ever thought Punisher would shoot him. And literally everybody's like, well, yeah, but he wouldn't, though. So like now you just have to wait until—lad—essentially gets revealed. Matt—Matt is going to be mad at Frank, and he's probably going to go after him and then shout at him for doing this, and then Frank will be like, you're insane, why the [ __ ] would I do that? And we're just going to have to wait for all of that to get done before we can move on because it's like obviously not—I will say I am a little—I am just a little bit struck by the fact that um, you dedicate two episodes to establishing the character, and his storyline hits a dead end to advance—like that's it, he's done. How is this not—this is frigging—I know that we know that by the waying is cringe, and I'm not saying that it's bad because it's fridging, but I do find that funny. He was fridged for Matt—like he was fridged for Matt's story. Kind of nothing about his story made any [ __ ] sense. He was just getting pinballled by the writers until we can make his like corpse define what's going to happen next. You—you spend two episodes building up this character, and his story just hits a dead end. What's the point of that? The point of this other than pure shock value? Why establish Hector and give indications of his motivations to be a vigilante and even give indications of like the nature of how he attains power for just to hit a dead end? If he gets shot in the head, or make him choose between what life he has to commit to or leave him alive and in prison so that maybe he can come back later or something. Like he seemed like—I—I get—I get that feeling like I get with characters that they're the victim of a story, and it ain't their fault, and it ain't fair, and I don't like it, and I'm like, well, Hector is on that list now. He seemed like a cool dude. I liked him, and it feels like he's being thrown away, uh, basically like tossed it into—crumpled away and join [ __ ] in the bin. Can't he with Maggie—Maggie BL money? Yeah, so that's the end of episode three, and that is all that is currently out. We are a third of the way through, as you can tell. We love the show. Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm so thrilled that Daredevil's back. I—I'm so happy. Um, um, I'm—I'm—I am—to be serious—this is like [ __ ] grim. Like this is really—this really sucks, man. Um, I went from knowing nothing about Daredevil to really liking Daredevil to watching these three episodes and I'm like, well, this isn't canon. Yeah, pretty much. Um, this is just some made-up [ __ ] that is not in any way, shape, or form going to be considered whenever I think about the original Daredevil series. I hate it. It's probably not going to get more than two seasons because they're shooting the second one, but the viewership is bad, and the perception of the show is only going to decline. It will not improve. It will only get worse from here. It will get worse cuz it always basically gets—it basically always does. I'm curious to see this switch over and how blatant or not that it is, um, but I—I assume the next three episodes are just going to be part of the course—bad. I mean, I assume the whole thing's going to be [ __ ]. I—I don't think it's going to improve. I just assume it's going to be bad, and whatever the correction is, whatever the course correction is, is just going to be what—like bad writers think that the course correction should be, which doesn't necessarily make for good story. And if they're responsible in large part for that first episode, like I know that a lot of the challenges that they needed to deal with, in a sense, were not ideal, but they did a pretty bad job of dealing with them anyway, so like why would I expect that anything's going to improve? It's probably going to suck. The next season's probably going to suck because Marvel can't make good shows and movies. Why would we act like any of the upcoming projects are going to be good when for the last four years they've released like 15 films and TV shows that are all terrible? Like the best one is No Way Home, and it's—it's not great. Like it's got lots of problems—stuff—terrible stuff. Yeah. Meanwhile, the—the average is like a two. Everything is oscillating between one, two, and three. Why would anything change? Why would I expect anything to change? This is why—like the longer the time went on, the more that I didn't want this to happen. I didn't want there to be a Daredevil continuation in the MCU cuz it was going to be [ __ ]. It was going to be [ __ ]. It was going to get dragged through the dirt. It wasn't going to have like much artistic direction or creativity or just good like plot structures for a season of television since they seem to have a chronic inability to write television shows. Um, and and then, of course, just like [ __ ] CGI—like I—character assassination. I—like what a—what a [ __ ] up. This was really—like the idea of bringing back Daredevil was so—that was just an easy win if you—if you just maintain—even if it was a little bit worse than like, you know, the—the—the lesser parts of season two—that probably would have been enough to—to get you like a lot of positive reactions from people. Like it would have been enough to make people happy. Um, and it's—it's not—it's not even close to that. And—and I don't know. I'm almost like bored of like having a—like can we—like can we pick up the pace and essentially like all get on the same page that this was bad? Like you got to wait—like yeah, I guess people have turned on it already, though. Like it's not doing well. That's true. Maybe, you know, a week or two after it's like, oh, it actually wasn't that good. It's like, oh, really? Yeah, no [ __ ]. But now they already get in their second season—that's probably going to incorporate like the feedback so far has told them like, hey, no, not too bad, you know, like you take it in the right direction. But I don't know why—why would it—I probably not going to get a third, though, um, because if the viewership is as low as it is for these first two episodes, I don't see that it would make no sense to continue this [ __ ] further. If uh, season two is even lower viewed than—than one—one's already bad enough, and it will be lower. And how do you fumble that bag? It's Daredevil. People were just rearing for it. But then I guess you ask that for a lot of things, right? How do you screw up Blade? How do you screw up—yeah, you ask how you screw up Daredevil, and then you look at like, oh, well, we're 15 minutes in, and oh [ __ ], yeah, that's how—okay. It's like you hit all of the things that you should do to ruin Daredevil. You just—boom—you did terrible CGI, fights, so much of like—mois—as can be terrible courtroom drama, desecration of beloved characters, bringing in these new people no one cares about that have no character—essentially all the things that the first three and a half seasons were building up towards are just not discarded—totally. It's—it's comes across as calculated. You don't accidentally—but it—like you know how um—like what would a good example be? Like you'd think that a fanboy, you know, who was bad at writing, would write a—they'd write something bad, but it wouldn't be like insulting—destroying—they wouldn't—if if a fan wrote Daredevil, there would just be a lot more action scenes. It would be a whole bunch of—be more Punisher, which I wouldn't mind. Um, be, you know, and that—and you know, there'd be more fights with the ninjas like in the Hand, but just like cool ninja fights. It would be more like that, probably. Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't uh, you'd have the—you know, Nelson, Murdoch, and Paige, and they would be having their fun adventures, talks, and everything. They wouldn't want to get rid of them or desecrate them, and if it happened, it would happen almost by like complete accident in a way that's different than this. They'd all be friends, and they'd be working together, and—and that they keep coming back together and—and helping each other. That would be what you have—Daredevil and Paige like actually be in a relationship, and that would be the thing that they'd want to see, and the thing that would, you know, be carried forward. But no, it would be this like, you know—what I like about Daredevil—like I don't like Foggy—kill him—I don't like Paige—get her—or Karen—I—I don't want her to send her off to the other side of the country. Um, we want to get rid of them—like no—no one would do that. But I don't know, it's like—it's—we'll introduce White Tiger and [ __ ] kill him.

This uh, this show was simultaneously the byproduct of Marvel thinking that they were so great that they didn't have to incorporate any of the aspects of Daredevil that people liked, yet at the same time feeling compelled to integrate those elements without understanding why people like them in the first place and what made them so good in the first place. It's a really—it's a—it's a—I would say that this, you know, for as much as I hate it, in a sense, it is a more fascinating kind of bad than Marvel has typically made recently, where it's just been like plainly [ __ ], whereas it's like this is like the product of a variety of bizarre creative choices and, you know, essentially algorithm gone haywire for how to make a show—something like that. There was an algorithm, and they rewrote it halfway through, but they didn't like write that well either, and so now you're left with this sort of tangled mess that um, essentially maybe right at the start is going to coast by because it's the actors that people like, but the longer that it goes on, I—I just don't see that anybody's going to feel positively about this cuz basically every single Marvel television show has had the same trajectory—various degrees of, you know, how long that timeline was extended out. But you remember how much people were glazing—Moonlight—that [ __ ] ended real quick. Remember how many people were glazing—Falcon and the Winter Soldier? They got quiet eventually. People talked about Loki and how great it was, and they might have casually say, oh, it was cool, but they couldn't tell you anything about it. No—no one talks about these shows anymore. They have disappeared into—and the W—and The Sopranos and B—the first three and a half seasons of Daredevil and the first three—yeah, that's right—the first—the first three seasons of [Music] Daredevil—they don't—this stuff is already like—it—it was rotten at lunch, and that old stuff is fresh forever. I will say, um, you know, if this has bummed you out a bit and you haven't—you haven't read it, you should read Daredevil: Born Again, the original graphic novel that comes—that is very much a recommendation. You should read that instead. You—it's a—you should, man. I [ __ ] recommend the director's cut of the 2003 movie. Yeah, the director's cut of Daredevil 2003—that is solid. That is solid. If you've heard people say like, no, it's [ __ ] and goofy—watch the director's cut, and there's parts of it that are goofy, but like that's a—that's a sound script right there. Like it actually is—there are several scenes where you'd be like, that was just good, man. That was good. Yeah, that was good. Exactly. And talk about a film that actually manages to balance—you could say—two and a half antagonists decently well—the the thing that everybody said was impossible for years, and they did it before Spider-Man 3, cuz you got Kingpin, Bullseye, and you know, for—for a time—Electra as an antagonist, and they, you know, Bull—Bullseye is like a [ __ ] goofball, wacky—I love him. Kingpin—Kingpin's cool in that movie. H—and what have we got next week? Snow White. The week after that is—next week. And then I think next week is Daredevil after that, and then after that is the Minecraft movie. Oh my God. I'm ready for quality, man. Oh, this is going to be a—oh, man, what a rancid month—month or so we have ahead of us. Oh—oh boy. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's episodes one, two, and three. Woohoo. It's going great. We wouldn't recommend it in a million years. No—don't stay away. No—just like—just—just watch the original—just watch the original series and then stop—season stuff—stop. It's just a slow burn. Okay, it'll get better. All of these things—it'll all be fixed—definitely. Well, those—uh, before we head out, how about everyone here gives a little update on what they may or may not be up to? You so please. Oh, well, uh, I—I will say I've been—I've been quite uh, distracted uh, by Daredevil recently. Still working—working away, but uh, that's the main thing that's been occupying—re-watching—re-reading—graphic novels, you know, getting prepped and everything, but yeah, just—just working away. What—that's my update. Sort of same for me. Daredevil has kind of consumed my life, uh, but kind of in a positive way. Um, I've been really busy with IRL things, uh, and now that I'm caught up on Daredevil, I'll be able to work on some other stuff. Um, so yeah, hopefully some stuff soon. And then Golem streams—hooray. Yeah, basically exactly the same—very busy—Daredevil has been a nice little break. Captain America for video might one day be done, and then more Golem one day in the future—more Golem—everyone's just on the—then more Goab—that's how it goes. I think does R has random—Darryl—I think he did number two the other day. I think—I don't know how far he got through it, though—horrifying but also necessary. Uh, myself, you know, did all the—the Daredevil setup and uh, payoff here, and more setting up to do different things in future, but work continues as expected on multiple projects, and still yet—who knows what may or may not happen. The comedy arc's progressing somewhat. I hope—maybe—maybe three—three weeks—I could begin to imply a date on when that'll start releasing. That's—that's the best update I can give on that for now. Um, you know how it goes, fellas. You know how it goes. And at the same time, uh, we've done like—I think we're there—16 Super Chat catch-ups to be released, as in they are done. We still got a few more to—to get done, but they'll start probably releasing faster at some point if we figure out how that's going to work exactly. Um, yeah, and you know, bit and Bobs coming. I mean, as you just heard the—oh my gosh, you know, so many great things are on the way, fellas. Oh yes, breaking down media—that's what we do. So um, yeah, you know, we'll see you next week, folks, or the next thing that you may be watching, but for now, I'm going to say goodbye. So see y'all later. Later everybody. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.