Long time fans of Daredevil will know he gone toe to toe with a wide range of adversarys that count such names as Kingpin, Bullseye, the Hand, Elektra and *checks notes* the Man-Bull among them. However in the tenth episode of Netflix’s MCU adjacent superhero show, blind, crimefighting laywer Matt Murdock finds he has to engage with a foe he never thought he’d ever have to lock horns with. That’s right, after a long and prosperous friendship, best broskis Murdock and Foggy Nelson are finally going to have it out after the former’s incredibly checkered vigilante career has hit the latest bottom in a long line of rock bottoms.
It’s all there in the title. Nelson Vs. Murdock. And while the violence in Daredevil has been pretty fucking raw up until this point (did you see the Murdock/Nobu fight last episode?), the emotion that’d built up between the two friends means that things are about to get even closer to the bone.
The jig is up, the cat’s out of the bag and after getting sliced into ribbons by Nobu and beaten like a dusty carpet by an opportunistic Kingpin, a near-death Matt Murdock has managed to make it as far as his apartment before collapsing due to his injuries. He’s found by his long time friend and co-founder of their law firm, Nelson & Murdock, Foggy Nelson who, up until now had no idea that his best buddy had a side hustle dressing up in black and throwing hands with local criminals.
After getting him patched up by an unseen Claire Temple who is getting the fuck out of dodge thanks to the trouble fraternising with the Devil Of Hell’s Kitchen has gotten her into, Foggy finally has it out with Matt over an entire friendship that now seems built entirely on lies. Not only is he wounded about being left out of the loop and lied to about Matt’s special abilities, he’s horrified that a man who supposedly respects the law is going out at night and commiting crimes every time he tries to take the law into his own hands.
However, while their debate is peppered with flashbacks that boyh establish their friendship and shows us the first time Murdock turned vigilante, it seems that Wilson Fisk is having a high old time. Not only has he seemingly gotten that pesky vigilante out from under his feet, but yet another one of his criminal conspiritors, Nobu, is out of his hair – figuratively speaking, of course – after the fight with Murdock left him ablaze. Of course, this leaves his remaining partners feeling a little concerned, and while money man Leyland Owlsey sucks up to Fisk, Madame Gao warns Wilson that his attempts to oppress the city isn’t going to go hand in hand with his step into the limelight as a pillar of the community.
However, the walls may finally be closing in for the Kingpin after Karen and Ben manage to make a connection to his past that could finally wound him for good – but a mystery person has seemingly beat them to it when disaster strikes a Fisk Fundraiser…
A couple of reviews ago I mentioned that it was a shame that the show didn’t give us more time with Nelson and Murdock before all this criminal shit hit the fan but I suppose the sprawling and snowballing nature of the show precluded it when there was so much plot to shift. However, in the most emotional episode of Daredevil to date, we not only get to witness two friends at loggerheads, but we getva raft of flashbacks to take us through the various stages of their relationship. Not only does it offer up some genuine emotion thanks to the efforts of Charlie Cox and Elden Henson, but it manages to shake up the whole secret identity thing that Marvel Studios has been trying to eliminate since Tony Stark enigmatically announced “I am Iron Man”.
So let’s start with the flashbacks that start with Murdock first meeting Foggy in college which not only delivers the finest “youthing wigs” I’ve ever seen since Edward Norton’s emo mop in American History X (revel in the sarcasm) but while it gives Elden Henson amble chance to revisit his goofy party animal persona from Idle Hands, it manages to create a bedrock for the two characters that feels fairly solid considering the show has waited until the tenth episode to unload them on us. Now I think back, quite a lot of Daredevil’s first season has been spent on flashing back to fill in some narrative gaps whenever the need arrises, and while this particular form of storytelling can often be rather intrusive when it comes to other shows, Daredevil has always managed to give it’s backtracking a legitimate reason to exist.
But while we’ve now seen Matt’s original accident, his childhood, his father’s death, his training by Stick and a comprehensive run down of his friendship with Foggy right the way up to them agreeing to start their own firm, it’s the flashback that retells Murdock’s first outing as a vigilante that keeps things memorably dark. However, while watching Matt pulp an abusive father whom our hero could hear when he was hurting his daughter (something that would turn anyone into punch throwing vigilante) us fairly haunting, the real emotional punch comes from the scenes between Cox and Henson set in the present.
While both actors have been doing solid work since they first walked on screen back in episode 1, they really excell themselves here and the moment when Murdock starts crying in response to just how badly he’s hurt his friend is an emotional gut punch that’s easily the equal of the visceral one that the Nobu fight did last episode. But better yet, the fact that these guys haven’t neatly made up by the time the episode ends really sells the drama beyond a bitter spat. I have to say that when it comes to keeping its superhero lead in a constant state of misery, the sight of an emotionally wrecked Murdock, pale as a ghost and literally covered with stitched up slices and yellowing bruises, proves that Daredevil is a superhero show dedicated to shitting on its lead from a great height like no other.
As a result, the rest of the episode is kind of a blur. Karen and Ben finally get dirt on Fisk when the former convinces to the latter to visit a care home for his sick wife – but in actuality, Karen is trying to stop Ben quitting the story when she discovers the location of Wilson Fisk’s ailing mother who tells them of the murder her son perpetrated at twelve. Elsewhere, the episode ends with a swanky soirée being held for Fisk ending horribly after a bunch of guests, including his beloved Vanessa, is poisoned by a mystery, would-be assassin. While both of these revelations are seismic in what they mean for the show going forward, they both are utterly and easily upstaged by the Cox and Henson show which might suggest that some of the other plot threads may be in danger of finally running out of steam with only three episodes to go.
Searing performances and yet another clutch of well judged flashbacks proves that Daredevil is continuing it’s impressive hot streak, but staging a random poisoning of a supporting character so late in the game suggests that the show may be grasping for plot when a smaller episode count could have tightened things up a little.
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