‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Episode 3 Deep Dive
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Greetings and welcome to House of R, a Ringerverse podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Mallory Rubin.

She's here to ask if there's a division of hypocrisy at Rubin and Associates. It's my favorite slippery piece of shit. Oh, wow. Joanna Robinson. What a way to greet me in this new room that we're in. It's a really Hawk-heavy intro today, and I think that feels appropriate. I love Hawk, as you know. It's Hawk, and is this show Darren Eppleborn again? Or is it Hawk and Buck Cashman ride again? Because that's how I feel about...

Listen, are we here today to talk about the entire third episode of Daredevil Born Again in theory? But are we really here so that you can talk about Buck Cashman's actual Cashman scene? Yeah. I mean, mostly. Mostly. Honestly. I felt like it was a treat just for me. It was. It was a treat just for you. I, meanwhile, had to settle for zero zingers from Daniel Blake. Zero. Zero.

He basically said, yeah, okay. How do we feel about each other that, like, you've glommed on to Daniel Blake and I've glommed on to Buck Cashman in a Daredevil show? It's disturbing. Yeah, so it's pretty... It's worrying. It's pretty tough. Are they goons or are they henches? Ooh. Per Matt's definition. That's a good question. From She-Hulk. That's a good question. Jo, before we delve further into the distinction between a goon and a hench,

Some quick programming reminders. Let's do it. We got a lot cooking, as always, including me today in this inferno of a studio. We'll see how it goes. We'll see how it goes. Next up, here on the House of R, at the top of next week, double Yellow Jackets. We will be catching up on the fifth and sixth episodes of Yellow Jackets here on the House of R. Then, later next week...

We're doing something. I will be out of town traveling. You've got some special stuff cooking, but we won't say what yet. It's Daredevil. Adjace. Adjace.

Exactly. Exactly. Also, yeah, we've gotten a lot of messages from people being like, where's the Yellow Jackets episode? It is coming next week. Yes. I think they're going to be even more stressed that it's not going to drop on Friday, but we're moving Yellow Jackets to Monday because of the Daredevil release schedule. So our Yellow Jackets episodes will now go up on Monday. So we'll do five and six on Monday and then... Yes. And then seven on Tuesday because of my travel. But then on Monday! But then mostly Monday. How hard is it to remember that? Yeah. It's fine. We're

We're doing fine. What else? We're doing fine. What else do we have to offer? The Ringerverse is also, of course, full, robust, overflowing with podcasts, video podcasts, content goodness. Mint Edition. Listen, Junior Mints, you got a good one coming. Not only are Steve and Jomie chatting about this really good Invincible season that I'm enjoying quite a bit more than season two, but they're talking about Novocaine. And they're not just talking about Novocaine. They talk to Jack Quaid.

So that is thrilling because Jack Quaid is one of the patron saints of the wider ring reverse universe. Is he?

Yeah. Okay. We love Huey. We've got some notes on Huey. Okay. We love Huey. You're canonically a huge Lower Decks fan. Yes. Yeah. Yes. That's definitely a thing I say. Jomie is a huge Lower Decks fan. You love Jack Wade's work in The Hunger Games. You're a big fan of him in that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. That's exactly right. Jack Wade. I do enjoy his social media persona and presence. Oh, he's delightful. Wonderful stuff. Spoiler warning.

No, how can the people follow along? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot going on. Tell us. Including we did the Last of Us trailer breakdown. Catch up if you haven't. Absolutely. Yeah, my mom caught up today. She was texting me about it. The Midnight Boys, whoop, whoop. Whoop, whoop. Are, of course, covering Daredevil week to week. Always. Having robust debates about it. So, listen. Why don't you just subscribe to our pod, to the Ring of Earths. Great idea. I mean, couldn't be easier. I agree. On your podcatcher of choice. Yeah.

Follow us on social. Your social media platform of choice. Whatever that might be. Entirely up to you. Whatever that might be. Yeah, correct. And then, of course, as people have done this week, you can email us. Yes. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. We got a lot of Daredevil emails this week. The legal community has decided to weigh in on the bona fides of one Mr. Matthew Murdoch Esquire. Yeah. So that is...

All I have to say about that. Spoiler warning. Fantastic stuff. Here's the spoiler warning. It's the friendly neighborhood one.

Everything that happened in this third episode of Daredevil Born Again, everything that's happened in Daredevil Born Again to date, anything that's ever happened in the MCU, anything that happened in the Netflix Daredevil series or wider Netflix Marvelverse, and also comics canon. All of comic history. Anything that has ever happened in a single comic book could come up today. Perhaps legal precedent will come up today. We're going to talk about some art. Wadir? Yeah. Perhaps? Yeah, exactly. Just so. Just so. That's it.

Those are the programming reminders, the spoiler warning, and now we are ready for our opening snapshot. Okay, Joe, we are here to talk about The Hollow of Sand, the third episode of the season, once again, directed by Michael Cuesta, who also directed episode two, written by Jill Blankenship. This checked in at 47 minutes, so about 40 minutes of...

Actual television when you remove the previously on in the end credits. Give us your quick opening snapshot. Amuse-bouche thoughts on this episode of television. Did you vibe with the trial heavy courtroom drama aspect of this episode?

Is the fact that you got one scene with Buck Cashman enough to sell you? Did it just leave you wanting more? How are you feeling about episode three? The buck stops nowhere. Do you know what I mean? As far as I'm concerned, never enough Buck Cashman. I literally, with my own mouth, on our top 13 moments of Daredevil said, I would like this to be a legal procedural. You did. Yeah. And I...

I'm not sure past Joanna knew what was right. Interesting. In this world. The thing is, not like this, is what I would say. Is this...

in that it's like devoid of some of the like really goofy CGI and stuff like that from the first episode. Yes. Right. But I'm struggling to understand who this Matt Murdock is personally and we'll talk about that and perhaps that is incredibly intentional. Yeah. And I am willing... Sort of has to be for this season to work. Really has to be, right? So I'm struggling to understand this Matt Murdock and...

I'm not really yet connecting with Kirsten and Cherry and some of the other auxiliary characters. I think that as far as like a few episodes performances, I really do...

love camaraderie as hector i think he is beautiful performance wonderful in this episode really so there's a lot of plot i have a lot of questions i have a lot of legal precedent questions i have like same i have a lot of questions comments and concerns um but you know the hector while he was with us uh is an incredible part of the team uh

Can I offer a quick correction before we get to your big picture things? As you know, I'm almost 100% correct about everything all the time, right? Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Last week, I got so excited to talk about Red Hook, New York that I do know, which is upstate. Mm-hmm.

And I talked about this great comic book shop there, stuff like that. I got so excited about that, that I just completely neglected to process the fact that it would make no sense for them to be talking about the Red Hook in upstate New York. Rather, there is a section of Brooklyn that is also called Red Hook, which is clearly what they're talking about. I got many messages about this, including from the owner of that comic book shop, who was like, thanks so much for the plug. Also, you're wrong. Um.

Well, guess what? You still told a lot of people about that comic book shop. And now they know. Now they know we're ready. When they make their way to that red hook. Molly, what's your what are your big picture takes on this episode? Episode three. Let me just say I would not rule out Buck Cashman trying to make his way upstate at some point. Why not? He's he's he's got his fingers in everything. You couldn't keep Matt Murdock in Hell's Kitchen and you can't keep Buck Cashman.

In any of the five boroughs. He'll work for anyone. I mean, it's entirely possible. He doesn't work for the mayor. He works for the man. For the man. I had a lot of fun with this episode. I was so compelled by Hector emotionally and found the performance so beautiful that...

It gave me a little bit less anxiety maybe about how the season overall will feel in terms of the like, what did they cut? What did they move? What did they chop out or chop back together? Because I was able to invest in this character and care about him in a relatively short span of time. And that was something I was very worried about. Like, are we just going to be moving in and out not only of different characters,

the story of the week characters, different villains, different potential heroes, different foils, but also different visions for the show. How like, are we ever going to be able to like fully immerse ourselves in any sort of level of investment? So just the fact that I came to care so quickly about Hector was a, was a real win for me as someone who was like really looking forward to the show, then a little nervous, then easing in. And it was like, okay,

Of course, now I'm mourning his loss and that is deeply sad. The end of the episode was painful. Very painful. And as far as we know, this episode is pretty much intact from the original stuff that they shot. So yeah, I also wasn't distracted by anything because we weren't trying to shoehorn things in that weren't originally part of the episode. Yeah, so then to that point, the fact that this is very clearly a relic of a different

in the creative arc of the show makes me less sure of what it represents about where we're going.

going. So I still feel like a little maybe unsettled in just what the rhythm and flow of the show will ultimately be. My... I had such a visceral, like, response to the decisions Matt made and the way that he behaved in this episode. But I will say that's not the first time I felt that way about Matt. I think the things he did in this episode were, like, the most appalled I've ever been by his lapses. I've had moments before where I'm like, would Matt leave Foggy and Karen hanging during the Frank Castle trial like this? I don't think so. This was, like...

a level of base hypocrisy and almost cruelty. Yeah. That I had, I'm like, if it's a deliberate choice to show us that he is absolutely at sea without Foggy, without Karen, and he will actively confront that at some point, then I'm interested in that and compelled. And I think it's a potentially really interesting creative choice for the show that makes me mad at and upset with and disappointed in a character I love. Yeah.

We'll see. Like, we'll see if that's something that Matt grapples with more actively over time. But yeah, overall, I had fun with the episode. The thing I'm worried about on that front, and again, we'll talk about Matt Murdock, lawyer, in a bit, but like, I don't know that the show, the show is not giving me an indication that that's the story it's telling me. Matt Murdock...

uh 2.0 yes but i don't feel like in in the sequence that you're referring to from the original season two of the original daredevil that's matt murdoch in the throes of his like electra re-obsession spiral out sort of thing and that's a story that we can understand we're like he's spinning out but this doesn't the other is the fact that he ditches

Foggy and Karen for Frank's trial were like, that's horrible, but I understand the story that I'm watching. Listening to the Midnight Boys talk about this episode, they were like, Matt Murdock, great lawyer. Matt Murdock won the case. Matt Murdock's doing great. That was not my read. I know. And so I was just sort of like, but I think it's some people's read on the show. They're just sort of like,

he really did it in this episode. And I think that's, if that's a read, I think that's a slight failure of the show. You know what I mean? I will say for me, that was not my read for even a moment. And I felt quite the opposite that like the reason that they, because Mac could be defending anyone. Mac could be making reckless, irresponsible, almost soulless decisions about how to

to defend a client who had done anything. The reason to make that client a person who puts a mask on every night and goes and defends the city is to show us that Matt has lost touch with the core thing that used to drive his life and is actually making decisions to justify that distance to himself. Right.

Right? When he's like, you don't have to, the mask doesn't define you and you don't have to put the mask on. He has basically allowed Hector's life to be forfeit and his right to make decisions about his life to be forfeit so that Matt can tell himself it's okay to put the mask away. That's so true.

I think that is on the show's mind. That is certainly an interpretation. Yeah. Another interpretation I've seen is that it's Matt sort of defending himself when he puts Hector and the idea of White Tiger on the stand and then parades a bunch of people to talk about how important, how great he is. Yeah. It is Matt sort of telling himself...

what I did mattered. And even though I don't have access to that anymore, which I think is a little different than what you were just saying. But all of it, I think, is the same thing, which is like Matt's relationship to who he was and who he now is

feels like it is on the show's mind or at least... Absolutely. But I feel like... And maybe I'm misinterpreting it and we will see as the episodes roll on, but the moments where even we hear a Kirsten being like, what the fuck are you doing? Or our guy Hawk saying, what the fuck are you doing? Or whatever.

On the one hand, that could be an indication of here's a hero spinning out. Yeah. Right. On the other hand, it could be something like Wonder Woman where it's like, Diana, no, Diana, no. And it's like, the point is, Diana, yes. Like, she should be doing the thing that people are telling her not to do. So I actually like, I hear your interpretation and like, it's the one that I...

Hope is true. Yeah, I think the fact that... Yeah, for sure. We'll see. I mean, I think the fact that Cherry is, like, shaking his head, like, what the fuck? Kirsten, in front of everybody, is like, Matt, don't do this. And then Hector, they sit down together, and Hector says, like, that was not your secret to tell. Yeah.

I think Matt is... He does not leave that interaction feeling ashamed. He doubles down and tries to vindicate himself to himself and also to Hector. But everybody around Matt who, in theory, would... I mean, I think the fact that Matt is lacking somebody... The Father Lanthim, the Sister Maggie, the Foggy and the Karen, of course. Like, somebody to actually have, again, that active...

interrogation with of his own impulses. Like that was always the thing is when Matt felt himself being pulled down, you know, into the devil's lair before that he would talk about it with someone. I think the fact that that's not happening leaves open not only the pathway to continuing dissent, right, which is worrying, of course, but the question of whether Matt knows this thing is wrong. But every person around him told him it was wrong.

it was wrong. So I think to me that makes me feel the show is saying it's wrong and the question is when will Matt accept that or he has a brief moment of returning with Heather to like the system worked, right? Let's pour the bourbon and then he's going to find out

In the next episode. How much guilt is he going to carry? Yeah. I mean, perhaps. That Hector was killed and it's like, what good is the system then? I hope you're right. I just am not as convinced as you are that the episode was clear on that messaging. Yeah. Okay. Should we dive into it? Let's do it. We're going to go in kind of two clusters today. We're going to go chronologically inside of each of them, but we're going to separate the Wilson-Vanessa episode.

Buck Cashman scenes into our first chunk here, and then we'll go through the Matt Hector trial of the white tiger scenes. So let's start first with scenes from a king and queen pin marriage. We have a lot of chaos in Chekhov's Red Hook to talk about. Just a very...

Love snark. A lot of lip from the truckjackers. It was fun. It was very sassy. Enjoyed it. Yeah. I hope that guy comes back. Yeah. He had a lot of fun brutally murdering people. And so this, you know. And actually, I really loved that moment re-watching it a couple times. It felt very, we got some emails in defense of Daredevil and I will maybe probably address them a little later. But like,

It looked very comic book-y to me. Like, the shot of the driver who had complied and hadn't spoken out and had done everything he was supposed to do and then knows he's going to get killed anyway and is sort of like, well, you know? Like, that was such, like, I could just see that sort of in a comic panel. Yeah, for sure. And then, yeah, I love Olivia Irishman. Big fan. Who doesn't? Who doesn't? You know, we'll hear from Sheila later. It's not great for...

It's not great for their future plans for Red Hook. You know, she's got some concern. Property rates. How are they going to sell this as a dock locale to be coveted? Well, not like this. That's for sure. Speaking of things to be coveted, I'm still missing the traditional omelet. We are back at breakfast. Egg white city. My goodness. Some orange juice and some lovely like china for the caffeinated beverages. Beautiful spread.

Wilson and Vanessa are as far away from each other at this table as they could be. And it's not just that they are both literally at the head of a table, at the end of a table. Two heads, right? Two people who are like, I'm at the head of the table. Yeah, yeah. But the way it was filmed so that they're both kind of on the margin of the screen. We talked last week about the way that they were sitting as far as possible from each other on the couch at counseling. So to be right back there where the physical distance and the emotional distance are really heightening each other was...

Oh boy, we felt that keenly in this episode. A cop I've seen around the old interwebs is there are some pairing scenes in Citizen Kane where you see a newly married couple sitting close and intimate to each other and then later at opposite ends of a table that looks staged very similarly to this table. Though this is like a...

a scenario we've seen. Right. A distant, chilly aristocracy sort of classic setup. But I think that when we, having, you know, fresh off of our rewatch, when we think, we talked about this last week, we think about not only the omelet he made himself, but the omelet he then, it's so beautiful that then there's an omelet for him and Vanessa. Yeah. And Vanessa comes behind him and holds him close and then sits down right at his elbow and they're just like there together. Bringing her into that

Exactly. Not just literally here as sustenance, but like you are a part of the rhythm of my life. Yeah. And then to watch them just sort of like with yards and yards between them is just... It's sad. It's tough. It's sad. Mallory...

Joanna. A couple other things. This starts with an upside down shot of Wilson Fisk. Once again, this is the second, at least the second we've gotten. Oh, third. Yeah. Right, because we had the initial table reflection, the diner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The diner, but then there's also when he's in the Red Hook room, he's like shot down with the overhead light sort of table reflection. So I think like four. Let's start counting upside down. Let's do it. Watch. Let's do it. Let's get a tally going.

Along with the flag pin, and this has been true. Yeah. He's got a little red apple pin for, cause he loves New York. Mayor of the big apple. Yeah. How do you feel about Wilson Fisk being on team red apple? Great. I've got Draco Malfoy. You have Wilson Fisk. Yeah. I feel great about it. Okay. I feel good about it. Yeah. Uh,

You love Kingpin. You agree with his politics. You agree with his approach to everything. You love a mayor with a bloody knuckle. Like, you're a big fan. I'm like, that guy fixed that hole in the middle of the road. Yeah. In no time. Cut through that red tape. In no time.

No, Todd. If you cut through red tape, you get to enjoy a red apple. Okay. And this is just a thing that I know to be true. I had a delicious pink lady apple tart last night, and then it led to me talking about and showing my tattoo, and that was just a wonderful, wonderful little moment. So what a week for the red apple hive. Well, congratulations to you. Thank you. And to Kingpin for joining Team Red Apple. Thanks. I wonder what his favorite type of red apple is. He likes something very rare. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Though now he's all, you know, I'm the man of the people. He's not eating a Red Delicious. Don't even put it in your mind. It's not happening. Daniel Blake might eat a Red Delicious, but we'll be pissed if not. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Oh, man. What an episode for New York. Tough shot coming at the Knicks. Very tough moment for the Knicks in this episode. The old Knickerbockers. That's exactly right. Joanna, from that beautiful omelet sharing...

What do we call it, sharing? Way back when. Back in the day. To reminiscing. Yeah. To another thing that Vanessa and Wilson used to share, which was a love of art, right? This was one of the... It was the kind of like meet cute at the gallery. Rabbit in a snowstorm. This bridge to finding each other, to forging this connection with each other.

Wilson reaching out to Vanessa through art and allowing her into his life, the wall and the childhood wall and that association with his father and the murder and the hammer and all of it, this like ability through art to commune with each other and to

figure out how to say something and convey something that couldn't be said, right? Art is like the origin of their love story and their bond. So this was a fascinating way we talked last week about like, oh, okay, all the... Bunch of art pieces around her. A lot of art. You know, now we learn that she's like... Washing money. Going full Marty Bird. Yeah. Wow. Full Marty Bird with great works of art. Uh-huh. My goodness. And so...

This was an interesting scene and interesting choice in a way to kind of simultaneously take us back, port us and them, back to a moment where this was a source of connection for them and then show us how...

far apart they are currently. I mean, thinking about not just everything you beautifully iterated, but thinking about that season in season three of Daredevil, when Wilson goes to get Robin Snowstorm from incredible guest star, Leslie Ann Warren. And at the end of that exchange, she's like, Vanessa would want you to have it. And Dex said, tough shit. And you said, I can fix it. And I can. Yeah.

And he's like, this blood spatter enhances it. It's fine. Actually, it's just a smudge. The richness of the wood, you know? Until it's a spatter later. That's his understanding of who Vanessa... I mean, like, Vanessa, he loves because she wanted to, like, embrace all of him. That was all part of it. But he also had this other understanding of her as someone with, like, you know...

a sense of art and story and all this sort of stuff like that. So it's crushing for us to think about Vanessa as someone who's like, this is just something I can launder money through. That's crushing. Totally. It's crushing to think about, I mean, because as much as I don't want

Kingpin on my Apple team, personally, I am always rooting for these crazy kids. Same! I just want them to be happy. Oh, man. I talked about this last week. The fact that it was Sheila, right, who was like, this is hurting you with more traditional voters. And so the fact that he's like, forget your career, honey. Forget everything that you've built. Forget all you've done in my absence to hold everything together. Yeah.

I've decided for this esoteric plan that I'm not sharing the details of with you. I've got a bigger goal in mind. And actually, like, there's a couple different interpretations of this here. Is the Wilson Fisker saying here someone who genuinely...

is trying to leave his life of crime for something? Or is he like, I actually would like crime to run rampant in the city so that I can swoop in and be like the savior of the city. And we know no matter what, the knuckles are bloody. So no matter what, there is on some very base level a way in which he's not leaving this. The base level of Adam's skull. Yeah. Probably. Or the basement level of some structure where he's keeping Adam. Who knows? But like, when will we see that

soon-to-be corpse. What episode will we discover Adam chained and beaten? Upside down shot watch and Adam watch and suit watch all together. But, like, that's... So, I mean, why wouldn't he bring her in? Why wouldn't he tell her, like, the full scope of his plans? I don't understand it, and nor does she. Yeah, I think, like, in the later scene before...

Heather really kept the mayor waiting. You know, Heather's not in the room, kept the mayor waiting. But... A classic Irish lass. Genuinely wild stuff. But did give Wilson and Vanessa an opportunity to talk about some things. And yeah, like the don't make me stop trusting you. Don't give me a reason to stop trusting you. The way that he... That's like a classic...

Gonna put this on you. Not make it about me and my insecurities, but this idea of trust. Like, he clearly doesn't trust her and doesn't feel that he can... You know, in season three, when she just, like, when he brought her in and she implored him to, right? And the way...

When she's looking at the surveillance layer, we're like bracing and is she going to have a second thought? No, she's like, this is... That guy should die. Exactly. Not only am I ready for this, I'm ready to escalate it. And so the fact that he's not only like, because when he says, you know, I'm reaching for, I know it hurts to just sit by, but I'm reaching for higher goals. And she says, such as, and he doesn't, you know, as you're noting, reply. It's not just the withholding there. It's that coupled with the fact that she's like,

as we heard her say last week in the double premiere, you left. I sat by your side. And then we have all of our history with him that she didn't have to recount, which was

You didn't know if I would accept you, and then I did. Yeah. Right? I was the one person. And then you left Chasing Echo. Yeah. Like... Wild stuff still. Just frankly astonishing stuff in the history of this show. I don't know why. What if it's all about that? It probably is. Vanessa is, like, very fashionable. So stylish. And she, like, he let her pick out, like, his clothing in the original Daredevil series. You know who never wore a Hawaiian shirt? Adam, I feel. I feel sure that Adam...

To go back to what you said about the conversation they had in the Heather's office last time. Yeah. Or, no, a different conversation where he's like, you know, putting it on her. Yes. Is that not exactly what Matt did with the cops at the end of episode two? Yeah. When he's like, you don't want to do this. Totally. Don't make me do this. Totally. Yeah. Matt and Wilson continuing to make the same mistakes, not only as they have in the past, but as each other. Delicious stuff. Are you a Francis Bacon fan?

Head? The painter? Yeah. So the Freud triptych here, Lucian, Sigmund's grandson. I looked at it. Yeah. It is indeed yellow. It is yellow. The yellow one you remember, I remember was like... I think it's interesting. A triptych is interesting to me. Three studies of Lucian Freud. Yeah. A triptych is interesting to me if it's like...

if we were under... If we were watching a tripled show, and perhaps we are because Frank Castle isn't here yet. So if you want to think about... We think about Daredevil and Kingpin as foils, but if it's Daredevil, Frank Castle, and Kingpin as, like, triangle foils, then that's interesting to me. Yeah, I love that. It made me think, just hearing the word triptych of Moon Knight and the triple mirror, you know, and all the different aspects of Stephen's self. So... Triptychs are also, like...

You know, oftentimes when you see a triptych in a museum, you're in the Jesus section of the museum. The, like, Renaissance or heavily Catholic section of the museum. Yeah. I mean, we're still waiting to ramp up the... Let's go back to church. Catholicism. Yeah. Please. Honestly, when we got the hollow of his hand line at the end from Heather, I was like,

Thank you. Thank you! More! You and I are always walking around and we're like, why isn't this conversation more Jesus-like? I know! It's like, why is this my response? I guess because it's a Daredevil show and that is what I am accustomed to want and need. On the Vanessa front, we did get an email from our listener, McKinley, and I think, I feel like we alluded to this last week, but just in case we didn't, what do you think of the theory that...

They said we wouldn't hear the cause in here. So I didn't want you to feel like you were missing the moment of terror when we hear the cause every time and forget it's God. I implore you to never do that again.

Yeah, today we can't hear anyone in the studio, so they've just locked us in here. And perhaps these cameras aren't even running. We don't know. Honestly, entirely possible. Perhaps these mics are off and they're just like, let's just let Joanna and Valerie lose their minds slowly in a room. McKinley. Goal! Yeah.

I'm very curious about who hired Bullseye. I'm wondering if it was Vanessa. She was the one to comment on how dangerous Dex was in letting him off the leash to achieve their end. This is in the previous iteration. Is it possible she did the same thing to take Matt off the board, assuming he would go too far? If you notice, Dex had plenty of time to kill Foggy instantly with a headshot. Karen, too. But he shot him in a place for him to die slowly, leaving Karen unscathed so she and Matt could be tortured with Foggy's slow death.

death is the target matt is a target karen is a target foggy who hired dex i feel like it had to have been vanessa vanessa given that she's like employing buck cashman inside of this episode to do her errands like i like this because of the uh the the promise

Let's talk about some promises that are made in this episode. But the promise that this makes to us of, you know, a number of different things inside of the Wilson-Vanessa relationship are going to come to a head. And this, like...

It's not, again, just that Wilson is saying, stop doing this. This thing that you built up while I was gone, that you perfected while I was gone, that you managed to calibrate and control while I was gone. That you came to love. Including Luca, that fucking whiny baby from Tracksuit Mafia. She had them all on lockdown. And he's like, no, put it all on hold. For me, for me, not only that,

strong difference in opinion of how to continue to operate a... Scenes from a marriage. Crime lords.

But the fact that, like, what really struck me about Vanessa sending Bach, because I am kind of like, who does Bach actually work for? Who is he loyal to? But who is he more loyal potentially to? Is Vanessa the man? Vanessa's the one in charge of the crime operation. It felt like to me that he was talking about Vanessa when he said the man. And that is so hot. Well, this is, I mean, one of the many reasons that Bach Cashman. No, no, it's 10 out of 10. No, no, it's not Bach Cashman. Calling Vanessa the man. Man of quality.

A man of moral fiber and integrity. He's a Swifty, I can tell. Did we see any bracelets? No, I just think he loves the song The Man. The idea that she not only is resistant to heeding this directive, as she should be. You fucking built your career? Own it, girl. Yeah. Girl boss. Vanessa Fisk, classic girl boss. Gatekeep, gaslight, do it. I love it. The fact that she's maybe also...

not just controlling the five families, but controlling Fisk's soldiers, Fisk's lieutenants, simultaneously with

withering his stature because they have chosen to follow and listen to her instead of him but also relying on the specter of that stature to still hold sway and influence which is the thing he's saying he doesn't want like I want distance I want to be kept away from it boy that's a combustible combination if that's what is happening but I'm still rooting for these crazy kids but

Put some yolks back in the omelet. It's going to be fine. I'm still rooting for them. Oh, my God. One little quick note on that Sheila interruption to talk about. This is not what we wanted for Red Hook that we already mentioned. It's just that Fisk says, let's inspire, inspire Chief Gallo to help out. To jump ahead a little bit with Fisk.

Hector's death at the end, you know, the cop in the courtroom who, you know, I know Matt has super hearing, but I thought, frankly, very loudly whispered that Torres could not be allowed to testify. I'm like, God.

Guys, come on. What if you texted it on your phone to the person sitting next to you? Yeah, you want some notes at four. Yeah, exactly. If not this. Are you allowed to have phones there? I have no idea. In a court? Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. If not, borrow like the stencil and parchment. Yeah. Knock out the quorum artist.

Take her pastels. Exactly. So, obviously, we see the Punisher tattoo again there. And then, of course, at the end, Hector is killed by somebody who has once again co-opted the Punisher symbol, wearing it on the chest in full Frank Castle fashion. Do you feel like, I mean, we a thousand percent believe that that is the cop, you know, blah, blah. Yes. Do you think there's anyone watching at home who thinks that's Frank? Um, yeah.

Probably. I think that there's a chance that they're like, OK, some people will think it's Frank. And so we get the the fake out. And then the other portion of the audience who knows it's not or strongly, strongly suspects and believes it's not who is then waiting to see when will Matt find Frank? When will Frank go to reclaim his symbol? If that faction of the NYPD.

Is that going to become basically Fisk's personal army? Like, is he going to say, you're going to help me take down Chief Gallo? I feel like he called the hit on Hector at the end of the episode. The stitching together of his declaration. Yeah, his declaration of intent with that moment.

Yeah. So I feel like he already has some filthy cops under his purview. And it's really interesting to me if this is like, I mean, we knew this was coming with like,

the cops and their Punisher logo, how that reflects real life and how we anticipate Frank Castle will respond to that. But if the whole tenor of the show is like this ACAB thing, I think that's, but it probably won't be. It'll be like not hashtag not all cops or something like that. But I think that's really interesting. Before we leave the dining room, can I just say, Fisk gives a little like they're all rats monologue and I cannot watch a they're all rats monologue without thinking of

Frank Costello from The Departed. Jack Nicholson. Of course, talking about, I've got a rat. And I'm not going to do a little rat face because I'm not as brave a performer as Jack Nicholson is. But I love to think about The Departed. Me too. They resisted the urge to show us an actual rat scurrying across. I mean, this season's not over yet. It's true. There's still time. We're only a third of the way through. That happens at the end of the episode. I thought that was a very like...

And Thronesian moment as well when Kingpin was like, well, they're all rats, you know, the bottom of the barrel, they'll kill each other. Yeah, and Vanessa was like, well, when they, whoever wins, whoever's left at the end, they're going to come for us. And that made me think of a lot of different moments in Thrones, but like when they all go north and like someone wins. Yeah.

They come for us. You know, she's always on our minds. You love a girl boss like Cersei and Vanessa. I do. Yeah, I think on the end thing, either Fisk already ordered it, which seems entirely possible, or if he didn't, it's at least then giving us that here is the unity and alignment that he is not actually finding other places, except, of course, with Blake. Always ready to help. But Cashman the Cashman, take me through it.

Anything else on this scene? Simply superb. Just great. This is actually a pretty funny scene. It was great. Oh, man. I like the way he said very noisy mistake as like a finger wagon. He's got that thing. You know what I mean? Luca's here. Victor's here. This is where we get the I don't work for the mayor, I work for the man moment. Yeah.

Yeah. No, no. It's nothing more to say. We've already touched on this. I just think he's great. How worried are you if he is, in fact, loyal to Vanessa instead of Wilson that Wilson will have him killed? I'll cry if that happens. Yeah. Yeah. You'll mourn. I'll shed tears, actual tears for Buck Cashman. Will his head be smashed in a car door? Will we go old school? Or like a pop, like a watermelon?

All the little cuts to the bloody Kingpin knuckles to remind us of what a hypocrite he is. Great stuff. The counseling scene. They're waiting for Heather, as we already talked about. We had a lot of this. I thought the what you're trying to do, it's not going to work line from Wilson and Vanessa replying.

counseling was about a savage scenes from marriage as of a scenes from a marriage moment as possible and i just like listen despite the red apple observation that you already made and the kinship that that establishes between yeah my guy kingpin and did you already order your fiscal fiscal fix it i already had one i didn't need to order it uh i do not support wilson fisk's policies

I would not vote for Wilson Fisk. Seems like you would. I was so, I mean, I just look at with Vanessa every beat of this. And when she said, this just feels like penance, you know? She's clearly right. Like he's up on the rooftop after he won the election saying, I'm already over it. So you fucked another guy after I got shot in the head? Yeah.

No problem. It's fine. Don't look at my knuckles. It's fine. I'm a deeply forgiving person. It's fine.

I'm not especially unhinged when it comes to you. Yeah, I always behave in a measured, rational fashion. It's fine. He's so clearly feeling betrayed by the one person in his life who was like a constant and gave him more every decision that he made to get back to get her back. It's like he left her. And that's what makes this great is that they both have like a reason to be happy.

enraged with each other and to feel so betrayed by each other. I got real, like, Balan Skull Ahsoka energy from him with the, like... I'm obsessed with you invoking Balan Skull, a character we loved that I... When shall we ever see him again? Ah, what a wonderful character. Truly wonderful character. This sometimes peace needs to be broken and chaos must reign just for a moment to build a strong order in addition to the, you know, tear it down so you can build it again. Mm-hmm.

aspect of that. I have to assume that

the rain word choice is deliberate we've talked a lot already both in our preview pod what we were expecting given the mayor fisk of it all and then last episode uh that the devil's rain comic run feels like it's going to be a real like touch point for what fisk is doing here uh seeking to thwart all vigilante activity to be the arbiter of justice in the city etc so that word choice just felt like a yet another you didn't feel like it was a

a nod to Antichrist the chaos reigns meme do you think Kingpin loves a meme like loves a fresh meme here's what I think or do you think Daniel Blake I was gonna say I think if he doesn't that will change by the end of the season because Daniel Blake move over we got spread we got reach it's Mallory's time to shine we got engagement your guy Daniel Blake you think you think Daniel Blake's gonna get Kingpin on Blue Sky yeah

Oh, I think True Social. Trump's TikTok. It's so grim. It's so grim. Anything else you want to say about the pledge that Fisk makes in the BB interview? The rage that he feels watching the miscarriage of justice, as he calls it, in the truck. I mean, you know, hypocrisy, hypocrisy. But, like, I think that, you know, Sheila's like, hey, we've got legit members of the press. He's like, no. Mm-hmm.

this one who is this uncle I murdered you know like but like yeah this idea of manipulating or trying to use my hope is that BB is gonna like use him right back or you know whatever it is but like right now I'm just like

Don't be a mouthpiece for this. Absolute piece of shit. Please. Yeah. And also, why are you spending any time with Daniel Blake? I know why. For access. But why? Also. She loves a zinger. Does she? I still feel so bad for this fucker in the last episode. He's like, so when you gave me your number, it was just...

For my boss? Yeah, Daniel. You know who you would never see do something like that? Buck Cashman. Oh, Buck Cashman is swimming in it. Swimming in it. Now, we did not get the Heather-Matt sex scene in this episode that I was anticipating still to come.

The only steam was coming off the like vegetables on the stove. I loved watching Matt cook. I loved watching him chop those vegetables previously. And I loved watching him cook. Did you love watching him fake not know what he was doing in the kitchen? Yeah, I actually did because I always really enjoy. I do always get a kick out of that. Will we get a Buck Cashman sex scene at some point this season? What do you think? Dare to dream? With Vanessa? Oh, my God. She's the man. So, you know.

Is he really Adam? Is there no Adam? There's no book club and there's no Adam. There's no, what was the other thing? Oh, we can't say. I almost just said it too. And then I was like, that's, that's a pod we fanged. That's a future pod. Okay. You know, I thought, obviously this is just, again, in a deeply dismaying way. So, so mapped on to real life right now that it's almost unbearable to watch and talk about. But this idea that like,

It's not just Kingpin saying, oh, this was a miscarriage of justice. And I would know. Look how I was persecuted and wrongly accused and wrongly jailed and wrongly arrested more than once. And this idea that this character at this moment in time has gone from

fearing the law and needing to evade the law and being a guy who used to hide in the shadows to the point where we talked about the Sonar Primer pod in season one, no one would even say his name and the moment where he went out into the light was like this big, crucial aspect of his arc in season one and now he's like, to hide, to hide is a mockery and a scandal. It's like, well, you used to be the guy who, what is hiding in the shadows any different than putting on a mask? It's just another version of the same thing and now he's gone from

fearing the law and needing to evade it, to wielding it, to weaponizing it, to seeking to control it for these ends that he won't tell Vanessa about. This idea that he and Matt are both trying to channel their vigilante criminal behavior through proper channels, government, police, the courtroom, sort of like, and...

Where is this going to lead us? I don't think to like a... Everyone will be fine. A stately court case. Everyone will be fine at the end. I think it's people putting on brightly colored costumes and punching each other. How did you enjoy seeing Matt finger the devil horn this episode? I did write it in my notes. Stroke the devil horn. I did write fingering the devil horn. But as we got... We got several emails from people. Oh, actually, I want to say to get there. To the fingering the devil horn? Yeah. Yeah.

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Shipping to many countries worldwide. See details at 8sleep.com slash ringer. Bad baby. Let's talk about Matty Murdoch. Let's talk about the trial of the white tiger. This opening of the episode, it's not the opening of this podcast, but the opening of the episode of television was in...

Hector Sell. An exquisite scene. This was so beautiful. It like moved me so deeply. I love this. Hector telling Matt about his home, about the beaches, about the coqui, the tree frog who sings his name, the way he whistled when he was describing this, the way that he talked about how tourists find this sound annoying, but to him it's magic. This idea of meaning for life, the way that they all call out to each other the music of the island. First of all, this is just beautiful.

beautiful right beautifully written beautifully performed let's go to puerto rico sounds amazing i would love to he didn't just say to him it's beautiful he's like to us yes it's beautiful exactly this idea of like any it's the micro and the macro like he has obviously when he's talking about meaning for life he's we met his wife last week she says that's not the man i married and he is longing here for this return to family this return to the acceptance and embrace of this

Yeah.

a comparison, a point of comparison between Matt and Hector, how Hell's Kitchen, The Kitchen, shaped Matt, informed Matt, led him to feel like he needed to, often at the expense of his well-being, his health, his relationships, defend it at all costs. And he hears Hector describing this thing that he is...

Lost a little bit. And he's like, I promise you'll go home and it's fine. You can't do... You can't do the Thrones promise. Promise me, Ned. You can't do it. It never works out. You and I had the exact same reaction to this, which is like thinking about Matt Murdock as... It's funny because I was actually talking to... Preview for next week. I was talking to Sean Fennessy about his relationship to Daredevil and what he thinks of the character. And he was talking about Daredevil as like a...

particularly unique superhero in terms of his relationship to where he lives, which we talked about in our 13 Moments pod. And we talked about Hell's Kitchen as a character in the show. And I was thinking about that. I was like, is that true? You know, Spider-Man's in Queens. Like, you know, we've got different, you know, Batman and Gotham, like Superman and Metropolis. Like, do we have other characters who are more like,

can claim closer association. Yeah. Wonder Woman and Themyscira, like whatever, you know. Yeah. I don't know. And maybe it's just based on like what I've been shown in the last like 20 years of content, but I don't think any other depiction of...

Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, blah, blah, blah. Feels quite like this. Has given me what I feel like I understand is the relationship between Matt Murdock and Hell's Kitchen. I agree. It's like an Eddie Venom level symbiote relationship, right? It's like they are one. There's your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, but then there's like the devil of Hell's Kitchen. Like it's just so... And this is part of what this is. Again, what we're hoping this season is shaping is like

a mat unmoored and a mat out of devil's kitchen is not where he should be which is where we find him in this season right not in the kitchen at all and so uh you know hector unmoored i think is also really interesting we got a beautiful email from our listener carlos who was talking about um call yep it's talking about uh the the cookie the the tree frogs right yeah and carlos wrote yeah

He was like that monologue and then the heartbreaking sound of the coquille over the episodes closing credits. And Carlos wrote, when I visit the island, I wait for dusk. When the coquilles begin chirping, I call my mother without even saying hello. I hold my phone up to the trees and let her hear their chorus. My mother spent the first, I'm going to cry. Me too. My mother spent the first years of her life in the hills of Puerto Rico. That tiny frog is a slice of home to me.

hearing the late Camaro de los Reyes Hector speak so tenderly about the cookie delivered the representation I've been waiting for from the MCU for too long. Ah, what a beautiful email. I just thought that was like absolutely beautiful from Carlos, who's a longtime listener and the best. Oh my God, that is lovely. But yeah, I mean, this was an incredible moment. I know. I agree. And I just like an incredible moment. Yeah.

From an incredible character. And, like, I can't get mad at comic book shows or any show for, like, we've gone through Thrones. We can't get mad at people for, like, killing. But, like, for the characters, I would have loved much more time with him. You know? And now, you know, we know that the actor has passed away. Like, we're not going to get more time with this performer either. It's doubly tragic. It's extremely sad. I love this email so much. I know, too. Obviously about specifically the meaning of the Koki. And in general, I love thinking about that.

A shared language and shorthand of like the sound of a place, the smell of a place, the way the light is in your home. Especially in a show like Daredevil where it's like we're meant to be paying attention to what our other senses can pick up. What's the sound of this? What's the smell of this? On the Promise Me Ned front. Promise Me Ned. One of many emails we got from lawyers this week. I mean.

This one comes from Ryan. Cool. Matt's got a lot of work to do to rebuild his reputation. In the legal community. The number of times I wrote in my notes, I am not a lawyer, but. This seems wrong.

Ryan wrote, when Matt visits Hector in jail and promises that he will get him off, no lawyer worth their salt ever, ever promises or guarantees an outcome of any case, big or small, especially in criminal cases and especially with jury verdicts. Even bad lawyers understand that concept. So let's strike one against Matt Murdock lawyer. It's not going to be the last one. Boy, Maddie, what did you do? Matthew, Matthew, Matthew, Matthew. Oh, Joe, anything on the white tiger card?

comics canon front that you want to know because of course that's one of the things about us having to say goodbye to the character so quickly is that we did not get much time with this version of White Tiger but and this is we don't know if this will be the case in the

Show universe. But in comics canon, and we issued a spoiler warning for that, the mantle is passed on. The amulet is passed on. And both Hector's niece and his sister eventually become White Tiger. These are obviously characters who are established in the show. So we are not necessarily done with, even though Hector was killed in this episode, White Tiger being

as a vigilante presence, as a hero in this community. The amulet's still here. The amulet could still remain a part of the show. The amulet's the power of the three tiger amulets in comics canon. And this character was introduced in 1975 and Marvel's first Latin superhero. So this is a big deal. Big deal. It's such a wonderful performance. Truly, truly wonderful. Simply not enough of him, but a great, great, great performance. I quite agree.

I quite agree. I wish that they would go back and change the first fight we saw being the... CCTV. Well, if we get another white tiger in the season, like if we get his niece or his sister, then perhaps we will see like a more involved white tiger fight. That'd be wonderful. A non-CCTV white tiger fight. Let me tell you something we did see in this episode. Mm-hmm.

Dirty cop pal. He's back. And Joanna Robinson, he's fucking fine. He has some bruising and a few lacerations on his face. On his neck. We spent multiple moments last episode saying, how could this person be alive? If he is alive, surely he will be in a vegetative state for the rest of his existence. He dropped him on his neck. Plugged into every tube. Nope.

He doesn't even seem concussed. No. And he's sassy. He's ready to sass Matt about his sunglasses. Matt, we got another Matt like, are you talking to me? Oh. Matt loves fucking with this guy. And just like walking right into him. Loves fucking with this guy. So they're threatening in the bathroom.

They are threatening each other. And I love this. We got one of my favorite, presumed innocent, a mixed bag of a season of television. But one of the very best scenes was between Jake Gyllenhaal's character and Peter Sarsgaard. And also the cat. But Jake Gyllenhaal's character and Peter Sarsgaard's character who are going to be on the opposite sides of this case. Yeah. In the back. Like...

The conversation in the bathroom before, you know, the devil's advocate. Like, there's a million versions of this scene of opposing counsel or this, that, and the other. The conversation in the bathroom before, usually the men's room, before the case. It's a classic scenario. It really is. It's great. Powell, he fucking sucks, man. There's a lot going on to kind of build toward where we're heading in this trial. One of these things, Joanna...

It's Cherry, who we will now be, I guess, canonically referring to, thanks to Nikki Torres, as Cherry Cola. Alternatively, if you're a 90s kid, Chicka Cherry Cola. Yes. Absolutely. To respect to Savage Garden. Absolutely. I still love that. I love that song. Same. I still love that song. Same.

All right, this is not specifically about Matt, but I'm going to put it on Matt as just like a larger question about the tactics and the approach of the hypocrisy and associates division. The shell game that they play here. Sherry goes to what appeared to be like maybe like a dry cleaner, laundromat, safe house, a lot of...

shirts and plastic bags. Forrest is there and Nikki Torres is there and Cherry brings Nikki a baggie of drugs. A fix. Doesn't want him sweating and puking on the stand, right? They got to get that big reveal. Nikki Torres is a wreck.

He's not actively puking in this moment, but he is sweating. Yeah. How do they think this is going to work? They have not prepped their client for the reality of this. They think this is going to work? Yeah. Oh, no. Also, I meant to mention this last week, but it really came through when he comes in and he's like super sardonic about the fix of drugs. It's real Mike Armentrout from Breaking Bad and or Better Call Saul energy coming off of Chicka Cherry Cola here. Like, it's just...

Get a stick, I think. This sort of like slightly dour fixer energy is pretty phenomenal. What did she make of the mural that Cherry passed on his way to give drugs to? Cherry Gohan passed on his way to bring Nikki his fix. We get another, we assume, Muse mural. There's a tag on it. It's definitely Muse. When is Muse going to actually...

reveal himself in full in the story. Like, we're three episodes into a nine-episode season. Who's the big bad of the story? Who's the big bad of the story? In the earlier iteration of the story, it was a case of the week. Yeah.

So he's not, I mean, the kingpin's the big bad, right? Right. So is Muse just an episode or two, you think? I think, but like maybe just like a later episode or two, you know? Yeah. A little White Tiger-esque arc for Muse. Yeah. But on a slow boil in the background. A little steamy vegetable on the range. Yeah, a slow boil, much like the viscera of the victims that he will then turn into paint. Comic book canon. It's on the table. Tis. What'd you make of this mural?

Triggered. Yeah. Across the Punisher skull. I mean, it's cute. You liked it. You're going to buy a Muse original. I love wordplay. Yeah. I love the phrase triggered. Only the best people use it. And yeah, there's like a skylight underneath. I don't know. It's, you know.

It's another like Punisher's coming sort of moment in the show. I'm going to be really upset if Punisher, I've not watched ahead, so I don't know if Punisher, if the next episode is Frank and I miss it, I'm going to be despondent, honestly. No, but like the good news is next week we're not doing like a classic deep dive. So you and I can do that when you get back. But then the week after is the double.

So it's going to be a triptych. A triptych! We will be Francis Bacon. Wow. When we are reunited. Do you think these cameras are off? Are these lights on? I see red lights. Okay. I see a green light over there. Mistake to put us in this room. There's a counter. I know this is not technically the void, but it is. Yeah, you see why the void earned its name. It's the void of chase. It's the Chris and Andy, right? It is. It sure is. Though even they have moved into C.

Everyone is fighting for... So, Joanna, Hector's trial has somehow already begun. I am not a lawyer, but... I did find this...

I, again, this might be just dumb. Maybe things happen this quickly all the time. I was disoriented a little bit about the passage of time inside of the episode. I like found myself pausing and rewinding to go check that they were changing outfits. A number of days are passing, but like jury selection. How is it? How are we already having a trial? We don't, we don't want to watch all of that. That's not the show. We want every single step of that. Like,

There's... Here's the deal. But then I don't know how much time has passed. So I'm like, how long have Matt and Heather been dating? Oh, your BBY question. I understand. I love a BBY. You do love a BBY.

I think that I'm more than okay with plenty of courtroom hijinks. We talked about My Love of Perry Mason, which is just like throws procedure out the window for the most part. So like to make it dramatic and fun to watch, I'm fine with cutting all kinds of corners. We did have a lawyer point out. I didn't even like put this one in the doc, but we did have a lawyer point out like the

order of the witnesses in this is completely you know because you've got to have like the prosecution and then the defense or vice versa whatever but it's like all of their witnesses they were like pinging ponging back and forth and it was just like you can recall people anyway I'm fine with all of that yeah it's

all the other shit that Matt pulls that I'm just sort of like yeah the only thing that it yeah I just had a little like I felt a little at sea not knowing how long like Hector and Matt had been interacting because like then it makes the depth of the betrayal even greater if they had known each other for two seconds it would have been a fucked up thing to do but it's like how many conversations did they have where Matt didn't say like this is what I think we should do anyway um we're not on Hector's not on the stand yet powerless talking about how shitty the Knicks are and he's just fine um

He laid him on his neck and he's just fine. Oh, my God. So Hawk's tactic here is basically just like, you know, talk about your commendations. Talk about how long you and your now dead partner knew each other. Right. All of that. And then Matt comes to cross examine the witness. And honestly, this was great. It's like, I hear you have a black eye. The best cure for a black eye. Fast hands. Just a little battle and jack. Yeah. Wisdom there, but also like.

I beat the shit out of you. I fucked you up. I thought that... But you can't admit it? Like, that was... That was delightful. Saucy Matt Murray. Yeah, I love when Matt is a saucy little bastard. I thought that Powell... Again, I don't... I'm not a lawyer. No? I don't know how the law works, but...

I'm just like, can't everybody tell that Powell is lying and this is perjury? I know your bit is, I'm not a lawyer, but what you're really giving is like, plain talking country lawyer. Like, I don't know any of your newfangled New York City court tricks. Exactly. But that guy's lying. That's exactly right. That's exactly it. He's just like, as Matt wants, completely shocked and flustered when Matt brings up Nikki and

This is when Matt superheres the dirty cop with the neck tat. Mm-hmm. Say Torres cannot testify. All right. I would like to get to. Not my biggest note for Matt Murdock, but I have a big note for Matt Murdock here.

What the fuck is he doing? Okay, well, two things. This is stupid. And like, maybe he thought a la Perry Mason, he could provoke a confession on the stand. Like, you just say the name Nikki Torres. It's like, you got me. Nikki Torres better be in the next fucking room then. Howevskies. I did learn from our email lawyers. Yeah, okay. Well, I don't know if you know this, but I am not a lawyer. The Hobbit lawyers and the Dragon lawyers.

I don't think I put this part. Again, we got a lot of lawyer emails. I didn't put this part in the notes, but apparently, and TV taught me differently, but apparently surprise witnesses are not a thing. Right. You have to tell. Yes. So if he's going to put Nikki Torres on the stand. Mm-hmm.

You know, like the prosecution already needed to, the DA already needed to know. So this whole like shock reveal, maybe I'll catch you. The defense calls. Doesn't make sense. Yeah, that doesn't happen. I just like, Matt, there have been a number of times over our three prior seasons with Matt Murdock where he has seen somebody get to the jury, a witness, corrupt and befoul in some way.

the sanctity of what is meant to unfold in that courtroom. This was actually like to me just annoying and sloppy. I don't think Matt makes this mistake, whether he had to declare it in advance or not. Like,

I don't think he leaves open the opportunity for somebody to get to Nikki. Now, maybe it ultimately is just that Nikki is standing there, sitting on the stand and looks out at all the cops in the room and loses his confidence then. That's what it seems like to me. But time passed. Like, Powell is the one when they do the silence of the lambs, lambs fake out with Chicka Cherry Cola and Forrest. And we think Nikki is in the van and he was really in the cab. And we're like, what a relief. Like, this is a different day. They're all wearing different outfits.

So even if Nikki just lost his courage, Matt still left open the opportunity for somebody to get to him. And then they have the conversation later. They debrief. Kirsten and Chick Cherry call it. It's happened, I guess. And Matt, they're like, well, maybe the cops got to him. Maybe they threatened his kid. It's like,

No opportunity for those maybes should have ever existed. That's just sloppy work from Matt Murdock. Tell me the good decision that Matt Murdock made in this episode. As a lawyer, I can't think of any. I mean, I guess cooking dinner for a beautiful woman you're about to fuck. That was a good decision. But other than that, I have nothing. I mean, appalling stuff from him as a lawyer. So Nikki loses his courage, Jo.

I thought that was a great and the Midnight Boys talked about this, too. I thought it was a really good scene to watch him because I don't think they got to him. I think it was just him on the stand. Looked down and got scared. Overwhelmed of all of those cops and they're whispering and they're looking and all that sort of stuff like that. It's just sort of like how how do you combat that? That wall of authority, corruption as it as it may be. Matt, does it not go well for Matt?

Joanna, he embarrassed himself. He embarrassed himself. Several times this episode. Kirsten, tough time for Kirsten. These two are giving me such strong John Sansa, like, please have a pre-meeting and get on the same page. Just one conversation. Vibes like, stop yelling at each other for everybody to see and bickering and undermining each other for everybody to see. Mortifying. Unfashionable. Sloppy. Judge Cooper tells him to stand down. And this is a very important email we got from our listener. Honestly, thank you. Our listener, Ashley. Cool.

And I did double check this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ashley said, did anyone else notice how the judge at White Tiger's trial is the same actor as the colonel who likes to be ball gagged and whipped by a femdom in The Punisher? Wild stuff. This is sensational. This is the second actor to be recycled. This now makes me retract and withdraw my question. About John Benjamin Hickey, yeah. About him.

Hawk playing a completely different character than he played in Jessica Jones because now maybe they're actually doing this on purpose. Like, will other characters from the Netflix Marvelverse or other actors from the Netflix Marvelverse come and play different characters here? This is just a fantastic observation. Thank you for reminding us of this. I like to think they're twins. And I like to think Judge Cooper also likes to be ballgat and whipped by Femdom. Yeah. Yeah. Judge Cooper, he sucks. He's terrible.

Look what he's dealing with, though. It's true. It's true. Matt Murdock, who like, did he go to law school? I don't know. Tough one here for Landman and Zach. You know, what did he learn really at that internship? Ultimately, not much, apparently. All right. Where the good bagels are. Exactly. I regret to inform you that we do need to spend a minute here talking once again for the second week in a row about how

Clearly what the show is trying to do with Matt, Kirsten, and Chicka Cherry Cola, which is new Nelson, Murdoch, and Page, is just not working at all. And it's not just the, again, you're my law partner, you're my confidant. There are three of us. We get more bourbon. Yeah, we talk about cases and we drink together. It is like...

this scene where they have to withdraw Powell as a witness and then they debrief and Matt's like, we only have one play. We put Hector on the stand. We hope the jury sees him the way we do. It's our only move. And Kirsten says, we're going to need a lot more bourbon. It takes zero, zero mental gymnastics to imagine that scene playing out. With Karen. With Karen and Foggy. As clearly it should have. And being...

the fabric and lifeblood of the show. So I don't, I just don't understand this. Like again, last week I was very open to, while mourning and quite sad about losing Foggy, very open to this idea that actually seeing Matt, like not only have to mourn and carry that grief, but move into a different phase of his life and have different relationships and like try to find connection and forge connection with other people was interesting to me.

But if it doesn't compel us, then ultimately it's just a period of problem for the show. Yeah. And I don't feel it with these three, like at all. So I'm concerned. It's not, I'm not hopeful. Yeah. And it makes me uncertain about other things. So that's where I am. Then we get to like the worst thing that's- Should they bring back Karen? Will you celebrate? I mean, they've said they're going to. Should they do it sooner than they were originally planning? Should you just like cut her into the next episode? Yeah.

Oh, then maybe it was Karen. That's tough. They said it couldn't be done. Here we are. Okay. Then Matt does the worst thing... This is appalling. ...that we've ever seen Matt do. I honestly can't... I mean, we obviously talked about this already at the beginning of the podcast. I just can't believe he did this. No. I'm so...

upset with him hashtag not my daredevil like I remain really open to this as a an active pursuit and something they're doing for a reason but I just was I was like Matt why would Matt do this because what would outing Hector

What would Matt have done if somebody had done that to him? The Matt we spent three seasons with on Netflix. Obviously, there are plenty of comic plot lines where someone learns his identity. Not even just Matt that we spent three seasons with on Netflix. The Matt who we just, relatively just, saw in She-Hulk defending a guy who makes superhero costumes and saying, we can't release his list because then you'll expose the identities. And then he says, and I quote, Mm-hmm.

We're not talking about celebrities, but superheroes who have enemies who will try to harm them and people close to them. The ones who didn't ask to be part of this life. Miss Walters, Jen, our babe. Miss Walters chose to have her identity be public, but she can't choose for everyone else. This isn't about privacy for privacy's sake. If this information is not protected, not only would it ruin my client's career, it could put a lot of people in a lot of danger and all over one man's misuse of a suit.

Matt passionately defending keeping. Now you can argue if you want and plenty of people will. I don't know the BBYs of all of this. You know what I mean? But like. Right. That this is pre-foggy death Matt and post-foggy death Matt. Yeah. That he's just completely different. Yeah. You know, POV. But it's just so disorienting for us to.

Have that be like the last thing we saw him do in a legal case. Yeah. And for him to do this. I need to see him probably next episode where Matt is like, what has happened to me? I feel like that has to happen by next episode. Maybe episode five at the latest. Okay, so next week's episode, Frank shows up. Karen returns. Matt's like, oh no, what have I done? Muse amassed himself.

But all of that happens on a bench in front of a church. And Fisk swaps his red apple pin for a green apple pin. And then dusts some chives onto a full yolk omelet. Yeah, a full yolk omelet. Okay. I would fly back from Baltimore early. I believe it. On the genuine high comedy front. Aw, good slur.

John Benjamin Hickey. Boy, you're a real slippery piece of shit. You know that. Is there a division of hypocrisy that we're not going to associate? Because Matt, of course, last episode was the one who was like, we can't let the white tiger reveal anywhere near this case. And now he is basically entrapped. Not only is he outed Hector without his permission, he is entrapping Judge Cooper. And just like the goofiest, pulling the mask out of the bag. That was tough.

deeply goofy. Would you have been more compelled if instead he had pulled out an iPad and played the CCTV footage? If he had taken out a text message and someone had texted him a very small text link to the jury on a Nokia? Oh my goodness. But yeah, this was just really wild stuff from Matt. And of course, he did force Judge Cooper to do exactly the thing that he was banking on, which was like

What's the fucking point of telling them to pretend they didn't hear that? Or declaring a mistrial? I'm late for my ball gag. I've got a ball gag to put in my mouth. Let's hustle, Murdoch! And then Matt has to face the real judgment. Hawk Cooper. Okay. Hector. This wasn't your secret to tell. And it wasn't.

What would have been, I think, very... And then Matt's like, you gotta stop. Hang up the costume. Okay, so that actually I thought was... Obviously, nothing is really truly more galling than revealing that Hector is White Tiger without

telling him he was going to do it without asking him. The fact that Hector's like, why didn't you talk to me about it? It's like the answer is because Matt knows what Hector would say. He would say, don't do it. That's why he didn't ask him. Right. But he's like, I put a target on your back and your family's back. Your family's here in the courtroom. So target on your back, target on all these women who have come to support you in the courtroom. Okay. And also don't put that amulet on that gives you special powers that like protect you. Just like, yeah.

Just move on with your life. That was another moment on the amulet front. Actually, I'm glad you said that. Like, that reminds me, the moment where Matt was part of his...

to sway the jury, like, or compel the jury, you know, would you, if he had meant to do them harm, why wouldn't he have, why would he have gone down there without his amulet on? Like, would you go down there without one, with one hand tied behind your back? Like, I wouldn't. Of course, we have seen Matt Murdock do something like that. He can literally do that. That's all he does, right, is do something when he's vulnerable, when he's beaten, when he's injured from death. And so that was another moment where, like, we just, he feels so...

out of touch and out of sync and out of tune with the nature of who he is and why he does the things that he does. Um...

on the more appalling even than outing him front, like, telling him he can't be White Tiger, that that's over, it was just obviously not Matt's decision to make about another person's life. And if anybody had ever tried to do that to Matt, I mean, even when Matt and Foggy were... When Matt was trying to get Foggy to forgive him in season two and, like, trying to fight their way back to each other, when Matt finally lost his patience was, like, we talked about this on our primer pod, when he was, like, he's wrong and he's behaving badly at the time, but he kind of wins us when he says...

I'm done apologizing for who I am. Like one of the core pillars of Matt Murdock's life is like, I make mistakes. I'm consumed by my doubt. And my guilt. And my guilt. But I know that this is the thing I have to do. And nobody will tell me otherwise. And so he just told Hector otherwise. Terrible. In the words of Shambhuvama, you get knocked down, but you get up again. You never get to keep it down. Yeah.

What a jam that was. Yeah. The 90s are alive in this room. I love it. Are the cameras alive? Who can say? I really feel Chris and Andy here with us. Yeah, that's true. Their spirit, it's here. Joe, even though everything that Matt is doing makes us so ashamed to love him, the core of like, you can help in ways that don't require a mask. And then later back in the courtroom when he says the mask doesn't make the man, there is a little bit of the like, you know, Tony saying to Peter,

In Homecoming, if you're nothing without that suit, then you shouldn't have it. Or even a little bit of an Erskine-esque, like, super serum. Yeah. Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen.

I hope that this is a little bit of like a lifeline that Matt can pull on, right? That there's a recognition still of something true, a kernel of something there to nurture. I, the mask is not me. I'm me. I'm Daredevil. Matt Murdock is the man inside of the suit and the man under the horns. Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying you want him to be born again? I would love for him to go from fingering the horn to being born again. To being born again. Born again. The verdict.

You know what I gotta say? I thought Hawk... He lost me a little bit with the... We get all the character witnesses from Matt that we already talked about. Hawk lost me with the, like...

you know, let me tout the merits of all the people who don't wear masks. And also let me tell you how a body becomes a circus balloon full of blood. I also was like, I don't want to Google this, but could this possibly be true? What he's saying about you still being alive? He lost me there. But when he made his whole like good people do bad things speech, I was like, Hawk's going to win the case. I guess he forgot to maybe prove guilt.

So he probably, I guess, I'm not a lawyer, but I guess he wasn't going to open the case. I don't know. He kind of forgot. Exactly. Danny kind of forgot about the iron flea. Hawk kind of forgot to prove that Hector meant to kill Kel Shanahan. Alas, it's been compelling to watch him. John Benjamin Hickey.

of the stage and screen is really fun in this role. He's great. And like, in terms of like, do I want more legal cases? I don't know, but like, you want more Hawk. I do want more Hawk. When he was like, when he was like, I should have top of pyramid.

With 500 ADAs and you're not going to go to a traffic court without one of them crawling up your ass. I was like, this is great, but I would love for you to be the one who is constantly challenging Matt because I don't want to say goodbye to Hawk. I'm not ready to say goodbye to Hawk. I still hope that we get some Hawk Fisk action because he was on that list of people that Fisk didn't want to have a meeting with. I know. That's exciting. Okay, we're to the fingering the horn moment.

Yeah. And we had a number of people write in about this, the way that they shot this moment. Matt comes into the courtroom. It's empty. And he doesn't sit at both Brandon and Ryan, a lawyer, said that he didn't he doesn't sit at the table where he's meant to sit. He sits in what Ryan, a lawyer, calls the audience pews of the courtroom. Right. And so this idea of courtroom as church is

Yeah. Is interesting. And the, I know we make plenty of fun of the phrase fingering the horn, but it's like a rosary. It's like, it's like, you know, you're sort of like you're, you're like holding the prayer. Yeah. Yeah. You're like meditating over an object and you're thinking about, you know, and even like, even the like shots we get of like,

Lady Justice, who is blind. Like, you know, not just in the opening credits, but inside the episode. It's very, like, church-like in terms of, like, you know. Am I remembering correctly? Was this the stretch? The score? Like, the choral...

Very hymn-like surging score. Really felt very church-like. Yeah, great observations from you. So I think that's really interesting from our listeners, but I'm curious to what end. Like, okay, so we're missing Matt in church or any sort of spirituality other than Heather's

Irish blessing, which frankly you can stitch on a pillow if you want to, you know what I mean? With love and respect to my fellow Irish brethren. I did know that phrase right away. I had to Google it. May the rose rise up to meet you, et cetera, et cetera. But like,

I'm missing the depth of the other spiritual conversations we got. And so if the courtroom is the church, like what lessons, what are the sermons that we are absorbing from this particular church? You know? Yeah. It's a really interesting question. I think so. Like a couple of things that popped to mind. We talked about last week, last week, but episode one of the two-part premiere.

Now, it felt very striking that when Matt took the stand in Dex's sentencing, you can fix him. You can fix him. You don't believe in me? There's still time. You have six episodes left. Why not? Okay. Why not? Why not? That he said that justice was not possible. That this was just about pursuing the next best thing, the closest thing, an approximation of something that he used to believe in. And so I was really struck again, like, when Matt

broke out the whiskey with Heather and told her about... I had a kind of funny response to the scene where I was, like, so moved from on the Matt side of it that he, like, wanted Foggy to be present in that moment. It, like, made me so emotional. And then when Heather was like, are you talking about your friend Foggy Nelson? And he said, yeah, so sad. And I was like, and she's like, it's about time. I'm like, fuck off. Fuck off. Anyway, back to the question. I...

It would help if you knew how long they were dating. It really would. Though if like, if this has been months, weeks, and we get something that is presented to us as a first sex scene between the two of them, I'm not going to buy it.

Oh, like the first time they had sex? Is that what you were anticipating? Did you read an interview where they said that? That they were going to show their first time together? There's a shot in the trailer of them fucking. In the shower, right? Yeah. But that doesn't need to be their first time. No. But that better not be presented as like, oh, we finally fucked. These two have...

If she's like, when were you going to tell me about Boggy? Matt Murdock would not go up to Karen's apartment. This guy was choking people, fucking them in boxing rings, but he wouldn't go fuck Karen. No, not good girl, Karen. Brutal. Happy to tell her that he can smell her lunch from 18 days ago, but frankly, maybe that's why. Maybe that's why. You were just saying bring back Karen. I know. I miss Karen. I do.

But the thing that was so striking to me about the presentation of the whiskey and that story about how they had saved up all their money when they were broke coming out of law school and they only opened it to celebrate big victories. And so they had the bottle for a long time. Right.

It was like the idea that not just that Matt wanted Foggy to be present with him in victory, but that Foggy was always the one who believed and helped Matt maintain that tether to belief that the system, that the halls of justice could be enough. Like when all of those early post-reveal days where Foggy was like, why do you have to be Daredevil? Look at what we can do here. That Matt was like,

That felt, for a moment here, restored through Foggy's memory. And so then if he's like, and Hector was killed, well, what is that for? What does that mean? And it's shattered again. You talking about that is really interesting to me because it makes me think like... That's a version of his religious doubt, right? But like, is he doing all this because he's like, this is what Foggy would want me to do?

I'm doing what Foggy wanted us to do all along. And we talked about that last line from Foggy being, yeah, I was, I was, I didn't want to give you the excuse. I didn't want to give you the excuse. Yeah. This idea of like, I'm at this glitzy, glammy office. This is what Foggy wanted us to do. Yeah. And we wanted, he wanted us to stay at Lambin and Zack. Yeah. And I'm not putting the suit on and I'm not punching people in the street, even though I really want to, I'll just punch them in apartments and toss them on their necks and they're fine. Um,

You know, and like I'll live the sober straight and narrow if we think of his vigilantism as like an addiction or whatever. It's not the perfect metaphor, but like I will do what Foggy wanted me to do.

That'd be great if the show made that a little more apparent, but I'm glad to dig through that with you. Can I read this email we got from Amber, which is a bloody indictment of Matt Murdock, lawyer. Please! Amber, who spells her name a little differently, it makes me want to say her name like Boston Rob. Boston Rob. Amber. Amber.

Amber. It's probably just Amber. And she's probably had to deal with that in her life. So this email's not going to say Matt Murdock won the case. Hector was found not guilty on all charges. Great job, Matt. Great job, Matt. Is that not what the email is? Nope. Oh. Amber. Amber is a paralegal. And Amber wrote. Go on.

This is part of a much longer email. But she wrote, Matt revealing his client's secret identity after going out of his way to suppress the evidence, no less, in the middle of the trial without his client's consent. I'd fire him right then and file the bar complaint that day. If Matt had lost the trial, plot armor really helped him there. That man would have also lost his license. And for what? So that the trial can become a philosophical debate on vigilantism?

They need the jury to find out about Hector being the white tiger and they ultimately need the character to die. There are ways to get here that don't make your main character look incompetent as fuck. Like,

Like have Matt subpoena the CIA's credit card statements. You can pay with your credit card to get into the subway if he's lying about, you know, like blah, blah, blah. Just like show Matt being good at his actual job. You need everyone, including the jury, to find out that Hector is a white tiger. Easy. The moment the DA's office gets that information, it would get leaked. You can still end the episode with the closing statements about being a philosophical debate on vigilantes and what I am trying to get at.

Is that by writing this badly, they're actually making Matt look incompetent and irresponsible. And I don't think that's what they meant to do. That being said, and this is where Amber just comes in for the closer. I do have a theory that Matt is actually canonically a bad lawyer. Like his new partner literally told him that he could barely handle his caseload. Foggy was clearly carrying their firm on his back. All of his friends feel bad. So they pretend that Matt is a great lawyer while everyone else is trying to cover for him. I will say, it was a great email. Thank you.

Ever. Rewatching all 39 episodes of the Netflix show in fewer days and weeks than people should maybe do that. I was like, is Matt Murdock a bad lawyer? Yeah. Like, there are plenty of moments where, I mean, nothing quite as egregious as this, obviously. But, yeah. A man, we'll see. We got six episodes left. A man who has lost his grip on his own principles. Interesting. Mm-hmm.

not understanding how the character would feel and behave, bad storytelling. Calamity. Calamity. We will see where it goes. And we should note that the comic book arc

Daredevil number 38 through 40. The Brian Michael Bendis and Manuel Gutierrez three issue arc on the White Tiger trial on the Hector Ayala trial in the comics. If anybody's interested in seeing more of this, Daniel Chin wrote a great piece about it on TheRinger.com on a great website. He's found guilty. Yeah.

He is innocent, is found guilty, attempts to flee because he has been wrongly convicted, and then is gunned down on the steps. Horrifying. So obviously what happens here is upsetting in a different way, but that felt like a good change to make. Anything else on the date night? We already talked about...

Feeling the steam. Heather Glenn, we haven't gotten into her, but, you know, she's a Daredevil comic love interest. Usually, like, rich girl, sort of like a Veronica from an Archie comic sort of figure. So this, like, therapist, slightly more...

salt of the earth kind of thing is a different take on the character. So I don't know if they're just doing her in name only essentially. But yeah, the may God hold them in the hollow of his hand. What did you make of Matt's response to that? It felt to me like he had a, oh, you're also a believer? Should we fuck? Should we fuck and then talk about God? He can use both of those things, I think.

for him and I want it for us. Do you want to do kinky Catholic guilt sex? Maybe that's what we need to warm up to that new apartment. I don't know. Okay. Oh, I did. I thought I saw it. We have yet to go into the bedroom. Lamentably. But I thought in the distance we could see that there did appear to be exposed brick on the wall of the bedroom. Hopefully I haven't completely abandoned how Matt Murdock would

Pick a home. Okay. I have some, a little Hell's Kitchen vibe in the, Hell's Kitchen in the sheets, incompetent lawyer in the streets. Is that what you're saying? New business cards. Patty Murdoch. Is there also room for the hypocrisy division of Murdoch and Associates there? Or will we need to save that for the letterhead? Who can say? Hector's death.

Our listener, Raphael, who was one of a few but not as many as one would hope, who wrote it in passion defense of the show, in among his impassioned defense, noted that the song that plays at the end of this episode, Una Palabra, is the same song that plays at the end of Man on Fire. Just a fun fact. We know that. Great call.

Raphael. Second most interesting observation of the pod after the ball gag. Sorry. If we're being honest and if we're keeping score. But also pretty good. Also pretty good. We already talked about Hector's death at the end. We talked about the Punisher symbol.

Do we want to delve in a little bit further to how we think Matt might respond to this? Yeah, so we've got a couple good emails on this front. We got a listener on McKinley wrote in saying, Gah! With Chicka Cherry Cola. Sorry.

McKinley wrote, with Cherry putting Daredevil and White Tiger on the same level in the premiere and all the talk about White Tiger picking up the slack with Daredevil being gone, this definitely sets up Matt feeling like he owes it to Hector and the capital city to put the mask back on. He exposed Hector's secret to win the case, but also put him in the crosshairs of dirty cops. And so the line from Chicka Cherry Cola in the first episode is,

when talking about retiring, says, am I Daredevil, White Tiger, they're the future, we're obsolete. So, and his colleague is like, fuck the fuck up. She's like, we're the thin blue line. I was like, okay. Anyway, so on, on McKinley's,

Put the mask back on question. Yes. Where are we with suit up watch? I'm going to read one more email and then I'm going to turn it back to you in the studio, a.k.a. the small room where perhaps the cameras are not on and the mics are not on.

Michael wrote, looking back at the previous Disney Plus Marvel TV shows, it seems like there's a pattern with everyone getting or teasing their costumes in the penultimate and showcasing them in the finale, with limited exceptions Loki, Moon Knight, and She-Hulk. WandaVision, Falcon, Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Secret Invasion, Fury gets his eyepatch and coat back, and Echo all follow this formula, so I'm guessing Daredevil will follow quote-unquote soon. Latitude!

So two thoughts. Are we going to have to wait till the penultimate episode to see Maddie back in the suit with the mask? And a friend of mine, his theory was that fight at the beginning that we get between Matt and Bullseye that was added to episode one. You can fix him. I can fix him. You can. Just you wait and see. But that fight we get in the first episode, was that put in there because otherwise... There's no suit. There's no suit until the finale. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think to... Among other things. Yeah, I'm trying to think back to the trailers. If we see... We get... We get a shot of, like, Matt. We get a shot of all the helmets, right? All the different color schemes, all the different masks. Yeah, I guess that made me think wrongly that we'd be just like...

He'd be like a different mask every episode. What color am I rocking today? You know? But yeah, maybe that's like the grand return. Unless he's going to wear pink. Yeah. Maybe that's why he needed to move to this shitty new apartment. More storage space. For his mask. For his mask that he's not going to wear. Yeah. If Heather finds them, will he try to convince her that they're just like role play sex stuff? He's like, can I intercede with a ball gag? Yeah, I am...

I think I'm now in the he doesn't he doesn't put the suit back on until the very end camp, which I mean, I guess the question for you is, does he put on some athleisure before then? Or are we just in suits and then we're in the suit?

If he brings back the... He'd be thrilled. The black... What if he wears the black athleisure to beat up Buck Cashman? Will you just retire? Conflict of interest. But that would just be like all so many of your passions. And then Dex shows up. Wow. And someone on screen says, Joanna can fix him. Could happen. Episode seven, maybe.

We have two more emails. I'm not, I cannot read this email from Psy in full, but I really wish I could. Psy wrote this in like iconic email. God! In the voice. I'm just going to read the start of it. You have to stop me. Okay. Like, like Kingpin or Daredevil might say, it's up to you to stop me. Our listener Psy, who's a,

Some of you heard it wrote in and says, may it please the court opposing counsel has skillfully made their case for why your honor should render a verdict of quote, wait and see when it comes to the first two episodes of daredevil born again, their logic is sound far via for me to suggest that the illustrious attorneys at Rubin and Robinson have engaged in questionable analysis of the program's writing plot congruency, aesthetic appeal and goofy ass bullseye fight. I shall not quibble with their arguments.

But is it not true that a television program can have value beyond these considerations? Can we not look to the broader position of the show and society to gauge at least some amount of its worth? And so Cy, who is a New York lawyer who, uh...

says he is blind, is blind, I don't know why I said it that way, talks about not only representation, but also, and I didn't know this, that when Daredevil first premiered on Netflix, there was this hue and cry about the accessibility question of like the narration, which we eventually took away.

advantage of when we got to Acolyte, but like, you know, has been very helpful for accessibility to TV shows. So like Daredevil as like, you know, watching Matt Murdock for better, for worse. And sometimes I says worse, like represent the blind community and in a show, but like a blind superhero is like important to him. Yeah, of course. Daredevil, the TV show, you know, change accessibility conversation around television, which is incredible. Yeah.

In conclusion, I write now, is Mr. Murdoch blind in any way that is recognized to actual blind people? No. Were there...

Does the series traffic and stereotypes of blind people, like literally making a whole superhero out of our heightened senses naturally, was actually glad that building exploded before Karen and Foggy could touch each other's faces to quote, know how blind people experience each other because watching that would have actually made me vomit. You bet. But for those concerns, I raised the yada yada something something exception to the rule of baseline humanity and internal logic, an exception which this court has noted is applicable in both comic book

litigation, as well as anything involving disabilities, because let's be real, it's rough out there and we take what we can get. P.S. I thought this was great. So I wrote, funny how Matt immediately knows immediately when a woman is suppressing her queen's accent from across the river, but has never once noticed himself slipping into an accent from across the ocean. If everyone else can't hear this as frequently as I can, then I guess we can all just wave our hands and say it's a blind thing.

But shots fire at Charlie Cox's British accent. Anyway, legendary email from Psy that is like five times as long as what I just read, but really good stuff. And then MJ was asking, what can we intuit to your BBY point about what role the blip might have played in all of this? Right. A.K.A. we prefer to call it the snap here in this room. Was Fisk snapped? No. No.

Because Echo lets us know he wasn't. Right. Yeah. Was Vanessa snapped? Probably not. Was Marcy snapped? And that's why Foggy moved on, you know, sort of thing. Like.

Did the snap have something to do with Fisk getting, you know, escaping justice the way that he did? You know, like, Marvel has moved away from like really, really, really dwelling on the implications of this world breaking event that they put inside of their movies. They're like, people didn't really dig when we spent half of Falcon Winter Soldier on that. All the Shang-Chi conversations about it, nobody cared. So like, you know.

Interesting. Can we yada yada snap away some rough patches between the Matt Murdock Fisk we knew and the ones we find now? I would be interested in Fisk and Vanessa, one of them having snapped and the other not. Yeah. Because that, yeah, if somebody's living five years without that constant, like what impact does that have? Boy, if...

If Marcy was gone and Foggy was just like time to get a hot new haircut and go hit on some ADAs, I mean, I guess Marcy would be back at that point. But, you know, Marcy and Foggy, they had their fun and that's what counts.

They're fun. I still will just never get over all of the paperwork being sprawled out because the sex was so good. And then Foggy's like, I solved the case. Seize the open folders. Great stuff. Actual lawyering from Foggy. Wonderful stuff. Actual investigation from Foggy. Not incompetent. So anyway, Matt Murdock, in conclusion, wait and see on this show as we are continuing to do. Matt Murdock, deeply incompetent. Is that the point? Yes. Let's find out. Yeah. Um,

bring back Karen Mallory's favorite character you know what if Frank is back and Karen comes back and Matt has to confront the fact that he did a terrible thing to Hector in this episode I'll be absolutely thrilled absolutely thrilled before we before we go any Easter eggs

That you would like to call out. I think we've talked about almost all of them, but there are a couple others that we have not highlighted today. Did you have a favorite from the ones we've already discussed or the ones we haven't? I think it has to be the frog sounds over the closing credits. That's really nice. Very like hammer in the cave over the closing credits. Totally. Yeah, totally. Two characters who had been with us for... Equal amounts of time. Equal amounts of time. Yeah.

Actually, if Hector hadn't been so compelling, it could have been outrageous, actually, to do the Tony treatment. Yeah. But we were so moved. I'm going to go with Officer Morales. Because McDuffie is reading one of the testimonials and then Matt is dropping folder after folder listing other officer names. One of them is Officer Morales. So is this Miles' dad? Is this Jefferson Morales? Yeah.

Could be. That's an exciting thing to think about. Wonderful stuff. Okay, that's it. We did it. We made another podcast. Was it recorded? I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. I don't know about your newfangled devices. Your Yankee recording devices. I feel like this is kind of a hybrid in a great way that I'm loving of your D&D Ring of Quest character and...

Some Righteous Gemstones adjacent accent work. That's great. I'm loving it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, too. Steve Ullman. Yes. John Richter. John. Arjuna Ramgopal. Arjuna. John the Antenoron. The best. They would never let us do what Matt did in the courtroom in this episode. And if we did, they wouldn't be like, Joe and Mel, no!

Don't! They'd wait to yell at us until after. In private. God damn it. I'd like to think so. The best team there is. And thank you, of course, to the Bad Babies for joining us yet again. We will see you at the top of next week for Yellow Jackets episodes five and six. It was a long time ago since we talked about episode four. My goodness. Episodes five and six. And then Joe will have a

Daredevil-y surprise. Yeah. Cooking something up. In the kitchen. In the kitchen. The kitchen of content. Yeah. They won't let us back into Hell's Kitchen, but they can't keep you out of the kitchen of content. Correct. You're going to feel that steam. Yeah. Just like Matt did. Heather's going to come in and say, I'm a podcaster who cooks. All right, we did it. Goodbye. Bye.