The Superior Foe

This episode opens strong. We wake up with Bullseye and get to spend the morning getting to know him and his relationship to other people. It's a fascinating lens into who he is when he isn't killing people, and I love how much this sequence humanizes him.

He eats fried eggs. He exercises his throwing muscles and practices his motions. He feeds his landlady's cat and exchanges pleasantries with her. He donates money to the homeless. All these ordinary things to do, as if he were just an ordinary man.

And then, without missing a beat, he picks his spot and arranges to kill.

Once Bullseye enters the diner, you can feel the tension growing despite his pleasant demeanor. Special attention is drawn to his consideration of the building around him, particularly the silverware on the counter. It's like seeing the world through different eyes, calculating the angles right alongside him.

And then he places the call, and it's immediately obvious what he's doing. Bullseye lies, claiming to have seen the Punisher in this very diner, to goad a squad of Task Force officers to storm the place. He concludes his call with, "Shit, he has a gun!" to make sure they come in force.

All for this.

There is something brutally cathartic in watching Bullseye slaughter an entire squad of AVTF officers to Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind". Since the Punisher took off to go film his special, it seems Bullseye's decided to pinch hit for the role of the homicidal antihero whose brutality conflicts with Matt's moral high ground.

We're not supposed to like Bullseye, not supposed to condone what he does, and the episode takes that as license to just have fun putting these fascist thugs through a fucking blender. And honestly? I'm kinda here for it. I'm liking what Bullseye's selling.

Even though he's obviously just stepping in as Substitute Punisher, it's a lot of fun to see. Bullseye's more stylish than the Punisher is. More fun to watch in motion than Frank, a straightforward soldier type who shoots people with guns until they're dead.

"I'm one of the good guys," he assures a restaurant patron as he turns the diner into a meat grinder churning cops into bloody remains. It's meant to be ironic, meant to be a horrifying juxtaposition against the mass slaughter he's committing.

And yet.

If this was late 1930s Germany and these were Nazi Schutzstaffel he baited into this trap, I think most of us would agree with his assessment without reservation. Why is it any different when it's the agents of American fascism? Should it be any different?

Food for thought.

But the obvious counterpoint is that Bullseye picked this fight himself. He isn't protecting anyone in this scene; He's just killing cops. if anything, he actively endangered the lives of every single person in this diner by calling in a police raid on every single one of them and then provoking the cops to start shooting.

Even if you don't think, like Matt of course does, that Bullseye's wrong to barbecue these pigs? The way he does it recklessly endangers a lot of people's lives to no end but the thrill of carrying out a pork roast.

This is such a great opening scene and a real solid look at what's going on for this character, and I love it.

Getting into the meat of the episode, Matt and Karen take video testimonies of the people Matt freed from AVTF captivity last episode. They're building a counter-narrative against Fisk's claims of "Safer Streets," shining a spotlight on the people the Task Force have made disappear since they began operation.

This is a good move.

Also, Jacques is quitting the show.

Jacques: I gave Karen an account number. Use whatever you need, whenever you need it.

This is a really sweet offer from Jacques. He's bailing on all of this but he leaves Matt and Karen with access to his extravagant wealth to supply them however they need.

Though it rings a bit hollow when you remember what we established last episode: That Fisk had Jacques arrested so he could seize all his money through civil asset forfeiture. My guy, you were convicted. That account is most certainly emptied out now.

I do hope we see him again though. And I hope he brings Kate next time!

But as is, for as much as the show is playing this as a noble departure from an esteemed colleague, it doesn't really land. It's hard not to see Jacques as a man of privilege taking his first opportunity to dump the cause and run off with his tail between his legs, writing Matt a bad check as a consolation.

So we're losing a Swordsman but we gain a White Tiger, as Angela officially joins Matt and Karen in their operations here. Took way too long to get us to this point but we're finally here, and Angela has now fully embraced Hector's mantle.

And then there's this asshole!

Remember the First Mate from the sunken ship that we kinda forgot we were looking for? He was last seen seeking underground railroad help from Ariana, the owner of the Aegean Gardens, before the AVTF raided her business, arrested her, released her, then changed their minds and went back to re-raid and re-arrest her because this series is horribly paced.

Ariana is among the people we rescued, so she would be able to put us on the trail of the First Mate again. But the show doesn't want to waste time having us track him down. So he's just. He's here now. He shows up at the front door and goes, "Hey, I'm the First Mate you were looking for, and now I'm here."

The show genuinely does not give a single solitary fuck about how or why he's here all of a sudden. He just. Is. Fuck you, that's how. Rather than fleeing New York for his own safety, he used psychic divination powers to pull Matt's secret safehouse location out of the threads of the universe.

Then he went over there unprompted so that they could use him as an informant because... I guess he's just super invested in the plight of the vigilantes and values it more than his life, or something.

I might be more forgiving of this if the show was so tightly paced that there just wasn't enough time to go searching for him. But they spent most of episode 2 spinning their wheels and doing nothing. And later this episode... We'll get to that.

Just remember that they had more than ample time to track this guy down believably and they decided to do it this way instead.

Matt and Karen also agree that they need to finally rope Kirsten into their Resistance because, quote, "We need an attorney to take his statement."

Do we?

I'm a little confused as to what the plan with this guy is. Are we planning on suing Fisk or something? Going to Hochberg and asking if Pretty Pretty Please he'll prosecute his boss? Why is Karen treating this like we're preparing a legal deposition?

I thought the plan was to disseminate the accounts of Fisk's victims to the public. We can't try Fisk in the Court of Law so we're going to hang him in the Court of Public Opinion. Is that not why we were having Soledad go "I was illegally detained by the Task Force and I will Resist!" to a camera a moment ago?

Why are we preparing a legal statement? What trial process do we think we're procuring this for?

But all that aside, um. Question.

Isn't Matt an attorney?

Why do we need to drag Kirsten into this? If we need an attorney for some reason, what's to stop Matt from doing it? I know Fisk is trying to keep Matt Murdock and Daredevil separate in the public's eye, but why does Matt care about staying disassociated from the Resistance?

Wouldn't Hero Attorney Matt Murdock (Who saved the mayor's life, doncha know!) interviewing the First Mate lend a ton of clout to his testimony? Why is Matt still so fervently shielding his secret identity that he won't even associate Matt Murdock with the Resistance independently of Daredevil?

If Matt's voice is so dangerous right now that the Kingpin's afraid to let it be associated with the Resistance, then why shouldn't Matt use it? It's not like Matt Murdock is a usable public identity for as long as Kingpin remains in power anyway. If anyone should be going in front of a camera right now and saying, "Fuck Wilson Fisk, I support the Resistance," it's Matt Goddamn Murdock.

But no, we're going to have Kirsten do it.

Speaking of....

The AVTF raid on Kirsten's office is a pretty good scene. In retaliation for Jacques's arrest, they smash up Murdock & McDuffie. Ostensibly to find Jacques, but really just for the fun of wrecking McDuffie's office.

Hamish Allan-Headley does a great job with his facial acting in this scene. He walks around barking outrage and accusing Jacques of terrorism to cover up the dock workers Mr. Charles had Fisk kill last episode.

But he doesn't believe a word of what he's saying, and it all comes through his face. He's practically giggling with glee every time they cut to his face, not even trying to hide how full of shit his words are. Because why would he need to hide it? He's the authority in the room.

He's just having fun bullying a woman of color. Jacques's escape gave him a chance to go "Own the Lib" and he's taking advantage of it. For fun. Like a proper fascist, he tells obvious lies and doesn't even pretend to believe them because it's a game to him, an exercise of power.

You know I'm lying. I know I'm lying. But my words carry the weight of authority and authority decides what the truth is, so ha-ha eat shit. It's funny that I can just say things and they become the truth, no matter how much they aggravate you.

That being said?

McDuffie: You assholes better have a warrant, or I'm going to bury you under so many lawsuits that your grandchildren's grandchildren will still be paying your legal bills! Powell: Safer Streets! I don't need a warrant or probable cause. North: We don't even need to knock.

Oof. Cringe.

Whoever wrote this knows that no-knock warrants are a major controversy with police conduct right now so they pulled it out of the headline and pasted it into the script. And it just feels super forced.

If you want to talk about no-knock warrants, let's talk about them. That's a great idea for the show. Let's talk about no-knock warrants!

Give me time to get attached to a likable civilian character, and then have an AVTF officer suddenly break down their door and come in guns blazing. Let the startled civilian, not understanding why someone is exploding through their door, grab a gun and start shooting.

Then let's send Matt out to try and protect this "cop-killer" that the AVTF are now hunting in force; Someone who just defended their home from intrusion by a group of cops who no-knocked the wrong address; Cops who created an unnecessary lethal altercation with a party unrelated to the crime they were even pursuing.

That is how we talk about no-knock warrants.

But just having a cop go "By the way, we don't knock, A-HYUCK!!!" just feels like the show reaching for clout. "I referenced the thing! Are you proud of me? I said the words!"

Mr. Charles returns for a confrontation with Fisk. He raises valid questions about how stupid the central plot for this season is.

Charles: You know what I wanna know? Why is wombat shit cube-shaped? I mean, it's the strangest shit I've ever seen. Apparently they like to stack it into little, like, little walls to mark their territory. Heh... Isn't that weird? Little Lego walls of wombat shit to get the biches? They literally shit bricks! Fisk: Charles, you are not on my agenda. Charles: I have another awesome existential question. Why is my non-cube-shitting ass sitting on a pile of HK416s and rocket launchers and other assorted weapons when this, all of this, is not supposed to be in a warehouse in Brooklyn? It's supposed to be on its way to Guinea-Bissau to win the hearts and minds. Fisk: Because Daredevil knows it's in New York. Charles: People need these arms. Shots must be fired. Fisk: If you put these on another boat, we'll have the Northern Star all over again, or worse. And I don't need my city turning on me. Not now.

Mr. Charles raises a very good question. Why are these guns in Brooklyn? Up until this point, all we've known about them is that Fisk is trying to move guns secretly for Valentina de Fontaine. They come from Europe and for some reason or another, it's very important that New Yorkers not find out that the American government is transporting guns through their ports.

For.

Some reason.

But now Mr. Charles drops their destination: Guinea-Bissau, a country in West Africa.

So the CIA is trying to secretly move guns from Europe to Africa by way of New York?

I feel like there were probably easier routes to move these guns through, if I'm being honest. And I still don't understand why the American federal government transporting guns even needs to be kept secret from the American public.

I'll say it again, this intense need to keep the shipments from being traced to Fisk would make more sense if he was moving drugs or humans. It might be criminal for underworld dealers to smuggle guns on the black market but the American Government can move all the guns it wants with no questions asked. The Mayor of New York helping the CIA transport weapons is not a crime.

What are we doing here?

But setting that aside, Fisk's answer to Mr. Charles is wild. We can't send the guns back out because the ship will just get sunk in the harbor like the Northern Star.

Daredevil did not sink the Northern Star. Fisk's people sank the Northern Star. On his orders. They had orders to sink the ship if it's boarded. For some fucking reason. And they did so. If you want to avoid another ship going down in the harbor, just don't tell them to scuttle their ship on their way out. It's that easy!

"Daredevil might board the boat again!" Cool. He can wave goodbye to the guns as they leave New York forever.

What are we doing here?

The A-Plot of this season is so fucking stupid, I swear to the Living Tribunal.

And this scene ends with Fisk killing Mr. Charles's bodyguards in a show of force.

Fisk has Buck kill two CIA operatives so he can threaten a ranking CIA officer with deadly force, and the show expects us to believe he'll wake up alive tomorrow.

The CIA!

Okay, show.

Somebody thinks that they're writing a crime show about cartels and organized crime. Like, the Crime Boss shooting the Buyer's men and then pointing a gun at him and going "You'll get your goods when they're ready, do we understand each other?" is such a stock Crime Show trope.

But you can't just map Crime Tropes onto the U.S. Government and expect things to work exactly the same way. Everything about this setup from the gun smuggling to Fisk threatening the CIA is completely ridiculous.

Karen recruits Kirsten for the "We need a lawyer" plot point and it's tense, because Karen can't tell Kirsten where Matt is which doesn't foster a great deal of trust.

Again, I don't know why she can't. I don't know why Matt can't come here himself and say, "Hey, I'm working with the Resistance and can't be seen in public. We need your help." She'd probably be a lot more amenable if she just knew he was safe.

Seriously, why are we just letting everyone think Daredevil kidnapped Matt Murdock into the Siberian wastes to freeze to death?

I don't talk about Vanessa much because it's difficult to get a bead on her. She's a very compelling villain by way of how opaque she is. At any given moment, it's hard to tell how sincere she's being or how many layers of 4-D chess the words coming out of her mouth are.

Is she playing Buck? Is she playing Heather? Does she actually feel some attachment to them or is she using them for her own ends? What's her agenda, her ideal end-goal in all of this? Does she believe in what Wilson's doing or is she pursuing her own goals? Or does she not support his dreams at all, but doesn't want to say it to his face?

One thing I think is clear is that she does love her husband. She's been trying to convince him to cut and run ever since Bullseye started hunting them. She's more concerned with both of them living safely than with Wilson's plans for New York.

But for me, she is so good at playing the game, at being an inscrutable figure of authority who buries her true feelings beneath a mountain of calculated responses. And it makes it very difficult to really build a solid understanding of what she's really thinking at any given moment.

Vanessa is genuinely scarier than Wilson, and we see her flex those strengths when she disarms the growing tension between Wilson and Governor MacCaffrey. Vanessa is a formidable adverseary who I'd be terrified to have to go up against, far moreso than her simplistic, dim-witted raging bull of a husband.

...

Yeah, uh. We're gonna talk about that in a moment.

While Karen's off recruiting Kirsten, Matt visits the diner where Bullseye killed all those Task Force officers. I don't know how he found out about this but he did, and he decides to check it out himself.

Matt is able to clear the diner of cops by dressing up in an AVTF uniform and throwing his weight around. I have mixed feelings about this scene because I feel like, in a smarter show, it could provide some interesting commentary.

What Matt's doing here highlights the perils of police anonymity, which is another major talking point right now surrounding masked ICE officers.

If: A - People must show deference to police who have absolute authority. B - Police have no burden to prove identity. Then: C - Anyone who dresses in the uniform may wield their authority.

People with ill intentions impersonating ICE officers to carry out their crimes is a serious problem right now, and the show could call attention to that very issue right here.

But AVTF officers aren't anonymous, so it doesn't quite hit the same.

Indeed, it would probably be difficult for the show to criticize masked law enforcement considering its protagonist. Superhero media is always limited in its ability to criticize the police for things superheroes do all the time.

It's the same reason the Punisher's always rings hollow when he tries to go "No, cops shouldn't style themselves after me! Stop aspiring to do all the wicked cool violence that I do while looking like the most awesome aspirational motherfucker ever to live!"

So Matt just plays the role of "Fake Commanding Officer barks really loud and the subordinates skedaddle" and lets the opportunity slide right on by.

Then he goes to bully a priest.

Dressed in police uniform, Matt intimidates a priest at his own church into violating his sacred vows and revealing things that Bullseye has said to him in the confidence of privacy between man, priest, and God.

The show tries to skirt around the fact that Matt is openly violating his own faith right now by saying that he wasn't technically a priest at the time he took Bullseye's confession so it's not really the same but that just feels like hand-wringing.

This scene hits so weird. I feel like Matt wouldn't bully a priest into revealing someone's confessional secrets. I feel like that's not a thing Matt Catholic Guilt Murdock would do. Maybe that's just me, but I thought Matt was more religious than this.

Not that it really matters because Bullseye lives in the apartments across the street from the church. As soon as Matt's done here, his super-hearing suddenly detects Bullseye over there anyways, so this priest interrogation was pointless anyways.

This brings us to the confrontation.

This fight is really cool, though the frantic camera motions and cutting in some parts of it make it difficult to follow the action, particularly later in the fight when Bullseye starts throwing things.

Bullseye gets away, but this confrontation allows Daredevil and Bullseye a brief moment for Daredevil to learn Bullseye's agenda in all this.

You'll never guess it, but the man who tried to assassinate Fisk at the end of last season is planning to assassinate Fisk!

Then he gets away on a motorcycle, and we're done here.

...

So. Uh.

Yeah, all of this was a waste of time. Everything from Matt entering the diner to Matt bullying the priest to Matt fighting it out with Bullseye right here? All this amounted to was Matt learning that the guy trying to kill Fisk is trying to kill Fisk.

About eight minutes of this episode is time-wasting fluff where Matt walks around in an AVTF uniform, acts tough, and then gets in an utterly inconsequential fight just for the fun of putting a fight onscreen.

But remember, we didn't have time to have Matt track down the First Mate organically; He had to magically teleport to Matt's safehouse so that we could do this instead!

Kirsten takes the First Mate's deposition or whatever they're doing here, and it's a really good, tense scene. He finally reveals everything he knows about their shipment, their orders, and the actions leading to the ship's sinking.

But then it ends with this facepalm of a line.

Karen: The marshals are on their way. They'll keep you safe.

The marshals are on their way.

The marshals are on their way.

We are trying to hide this man from the Mayor of New York City and our plan is to put him into the custody of New York City law enforcement.

Karen.

Karen.

What are you doing?

Just because Fisk has his own private army of Bad Apples, that doesn't mean he's not also in charge of the regular cops too! Again, it feels like they're just trying to write Fisk as the Mafia Don and then mapping it onto his mayorship. If your enemy is the government, then the police are not on your side.

So. Obviously, this ends with Buck shooting the First Mate dead.

He also shoots the marshals for some reason because the show thinks he needs to do that.

But obviously this is how putting the First Mate in police custody ends.

Of course that's how it ends.

How did Karen think it was going to end?

Does she think that we and the police are trying to assemble a prosecution against Fisk? That Hochberg is chomping at the bit to take down the Kingpin? Why did she send him with the cops? I don't understand the decisions the characters are making in this show.

This brings us to the final set-piece of the episode: Fisk's boxing match. There's been a bit of hyping for Fisk having a boxing match against some wrestler guy going on in the background. I haven't really paid it much mind because I wasn't sure why it was happening.

But Matt lays it out and it's actually a really cool idea.

It's not about the opponent Fisk's fighting, but the place. Fisk has been training to get in the ring and have a big public boxing match in the place where Matt's dad used to fight.

This is what it's about. Fisk is using himself to bait a trap. He wants Bullseye to come for him there, which he arranges by exposing himself. And he wants Daredevil to come for him too, which he arranges by walking on his father's grave.

The episode slowly and ominously builds to this match. Wilson sends Vanessa away so she won't be party to it. He sends Buck away to deal with the First Mate so he won't be in harm's way either.

We sit with Fisk, soaking up both the peril and the triumph he is placing himself into. You can feel it in the air; One way or another, something is going to change dramatically tonight.

And then the fight comes, and he fights hard. He hits the highest of highs, with the crowd screaming his name.

And moments later, the increasingly tense cord finally snaps and the explosion of violence we've all been waiting for surges into the ring.

A commemorative glass sculpture of Fisk and New York that Daniel bought for the match finds its way into Bullseye's hands and becomes the instrument of the foreshadowed fall. The shadow of death has been lurking over this match and growing ever stronger.

And now, at last, it comes.

...uh, for Vanessa.

Who, despite Wilson telling her not to come, showed up just in time to get hit by a piece of shrapnel from the sculpture when Fisk shattered it.

...

What!?

I think all the hinting and teasing that Wilson was stepping into his final moments was meant to make it shocking when it turns out it's his more expendable wife character who dies in his place. But. Like. To anyone who's familiar with the history of female character expendability, it's not that shocking.

What would have been shocking is if they actually put their money where the mouth is with all the "If you kill Fisk, you'll make him a martyr" stuff and let Wilson die here. Let Buck, Daniel, Vanessa, and Powell carry on his legacy and make it ten times worse, thus vindicating Matt's moral high ground. While also opening the door to make a statement on fascists' capacity to devour each other.

Instead, I think they're planning to "martyr" Vanessa so that Wilson can go scorched earth in retaliation. Which doesn't really prove the point that killing Wilson would be bad.

You want to make a point about how martyring fascist leaders is bad? Then do it. Martyr Wilson. But instead he gets to pop his wife for a free 1-Up, as is so often the plight of wives and girlfriends in media. Vanessa is dead now because she was standing near Wilson when Bullseye attacked.

What's especially wild about this is if you remember that Vanessa's supposed to be the one Bullseye has his vendetta against. She's the one who made him kill Foggy and then abandoned him in the prison. They somehow managed to kill Vanessa as collateral damage in the conflict between Bullseye and Wilson over Bullseye's vendetta against Vanessa.

And that's if she's actually dead. There is a real chance that they'll get her to the hospital next episode and she'll be fine.

And it's.

It's a weird position for the show to be in because if they killed her, that sucks. This really felt more like it was Wilson's place to die than Vanessa's. If she's dead, then she'll be just another in a long line of interesting female characters discarded into the hands of death so that a nearby male character can be mad about it.