Daredevil: Born Again s2 episode 4

20:47Karen and Matt have done the dance with King Ping enough times to know that two federal marshals escorting a very important witness I know is not going to cut it I know Matt budget cuts come on I know

21:00Chris Hewitt:you personally escort if you want that guy to stay alive you personally escort him to custody and then what happens happens what happens happens yeah but also Buck you're absolutely right Buck was sent away to be suave and debonair somewhere else and we also got to see Sorry, just an Englishman called Buck. I know. It's never going to stop being funny. Crucially, the Buck stops him. I really want to know like hopefully we're going to talk to Dario's scarlet pain. Scarlet pain? Is that how you Stephanie said? Hopefully we're going to talk to him at the end of the season when all is said and done and no matter what other shit goes down between now and the final episode my first, third, and seventh questions will all be, why is there an Englishman called Buck?

21:50Chris Hewitt:Please walk me through that. Buchanan. It's definitely short for Buchanan. Do you think so? I mean, there is form for that in the MCU. Buchanan Cashman. Buchanan Cashman. Went to Eton. Did he go to Eton? Yes. All right. Because Buck fans were eating well this week, I'll tell you, because what? We got to see him kill a whole bunch of people. You know, because I've been wondering what would happen if Buck, you know, like, so Fisk sends him away, right? And I've been wondering what would happen if Buck had been in that room. Because it's fairly well established that Bullseye has supernatural superpowers of aiming.

22:30Chris Hewitt:Somehow he was bitten by a radioactive arrow or something like that. And he can just zoom in. like would Buck even though like he kills Mr. Charles' henchmen with two very very quick headshots and he dispatches the marshals next to Christoffe as well very very quickly like would he stand a chance against Bullseye? No. I don't think he would. I mean granted it's very impressive quick shots but he's got a freaking laser sight Bullseye don't need no laser sight he can just take up that was just like no Bullseye would destroy him. And that's not a euphemism that's a genuine thing that you can do he's literally your lobster it is a fight I'd quite like to see I think you know because he is I've written several pages of fan fiction about which you'd like to see it I just think it'd be quite cool like that they've clearly got maybe a similar it seems like a special forces-y background and it feels like that could be a that could be quite a cool face-off to me yeah I want to know more about him I want to know more about my boy Buck but I also enjoyed the sort of you know the very Matt thread running through this episode You've got Bullseye looking, or Dex, whatever, looking for some kind of forgiveness or some kind of rebalancing of the scales by killing bad people.

23:47That's his solution to having killed good people is to kill bad people and that that will somehow cancel itself out. Yes, Helen. And you've got Matt as the voice of a much more evolved, let's say, morality going, no, that's actually not how grace works. And that's not how, you know, forgiveness works. And it's definitely not, you don't get to talk about, you don't get to decide to kill more people because you already killed my mate. Which I like. I like when we get into the thorniness of Matt Murdock's, you know, religion, essentially. Yeah. He's finally back in church in this episode. Yeah.

24:23Chris Hewitt:Yeah. and Lee Church as well the church means so much to him and of course the gym means a lot to him as well am I pronouncing that right? Jim, I've never been to one I was at one this morning and I regret it already I think this is the first episode of all season where we never see Matt without a mask on most of the time it's dead double but he does switch into an ATV costume that's a very good point yeah we don't get to see Charlie Cox unencumbered so to speak yeah I like that scene where he goes in the diner disguised as the FETF guy and just as horribly obnoxious to people for a while. It must be a massive relief for him because he's so nice to everyone all the time.

25:02Chris Hewitt:But yeah, the Vanessa thing has thrown me, really thrown me, because I thought if she was going to die in the show, it would be a penultimate episode or a final episode. And so, is she dead? What the hell's going on? Oh, by the way, real quick before you answer that question, I've seen the episode twice and the second time I watched it, there's a wide shot when Bullseye comes in and Bullseye's doing his thing in the gym and Daredevil comes in to try and stop him but the what is that thing that hits her in the head what is that like a paperweight or something a glass memorabilia thing I thought it was a sort of trophy almost like a little mini trophy and there's a wide shot so after the kingpin has deflected it with his belt there's a wide shot of the ring and you can see Vanessa in the background and she does have she does have the thing sticking out of her head so if you are very observant on the first watch you will see what's about to go down just wanted to say that but is she dead?

26:07Helen? If it's not it's one of those big fake outs isn't it? I mean if she's not I mean because that's we're talking about her

26:14Chris Hewitt:as if she's dead yeah we are because it's a very big spiky thing presumably spiky sticking out of her temple which is one of those places in the body that you don't want to have a big spiky thing sticking out of. That's where they keep the brain. Correct. And optic nerve, right? And stuff like that behind the eyes. So it doesn't look good for her. She'll walk her off. She'll be fine. It is a comic book series, so there is every chance that she will actually be fine given that she's not Uncle Ben, but it doesn't look good for her in a human sense. The mayor has access to all the best doctors in the city as well.

26:44That is true. She'll be fine. That is true. Yeah, okay. Jimbo, do you think it affected the part of the brain known as Shatner's Bassoon. You know full well that I've seen the whole season as Azamon, so I will recuse myself from this part of the conversation. Have you? He wrote the review. Oh, I thought you'd maybe only seen a couple of episodes. No. Oh, you've seen it all? It's too late. She's seen everything. Is she dead? Don't tell me.

27:07Chris Hewitt:Don't tell me. I've forgotten you'd seen them all. Yeah. Sorry, I just turned to you and asked you. Yeah. Look me in the eyes. That was weirdly sexual. Okay. All right, I will not ask you anything about that going forward. But did you like that showdown, the sense of portentousness? Yes, and I like that, regardless of how this ultimately turns out, one way or the other, and I shall not say either way, it has consequences, just consequences. And I enjoy that shifting with it. No, I don't. And I mean, you know, I think that is something that we need in this series. Like you talk about body count, you talk about consequences, you talk about series.

27:46I think this series needs some of that. It needs the pieces on the board to be shuffled and moved around a little bit. Whether or not she's dead or whether or not it just motivates Fist to enter some kind of apoplectic rage, I think something like this was needed. He always needs just the flimsiest excuse for apoplectic rage. Oh, he's a very well-balanced man.

28:05Chris Hewitt:Even in the gym, when he's fighting in the ring against that guy, again, the flimsiest of pretexts. He's so close to just going off on one. it's not fair to be I mean I know that everything above 200 pounds is the same heavyweight class but the guy who's fighting is 225 pounds Fisk is 325 pounds significantly lighter than he would be in the comics but yes that's some weight never a fair fight at any point but this is because he's 98 % muscle this is true and presumably 2 % bone yes I'm not 100 % sure about their maps there but okay I guess I mean there's you know water and no no no he's all muscle no water questions um i don't think the outcome of the boxing match was ever in any doubt for any of us so that that they correctly didn't spend a huge amount of time on that and i enjoyed that occasionally people would go i mean you you know you could lose so i hope you've been training enough and uh and everyone who actually knows kingpin was like okay sure yeah but isn't he worried about revealing his true self to the public because he's in danger of losing it with that boxer.

29:18Chris Hewitt:He's literally about to deliver a killing vote to the back of his head when Vanessa walks in. I feel like his fear of doing that, I mean, not to draw any real life parallels, but... How could you? How could you? Well, I mean, this is fiction based on a comic book, so it's fine. But it does feel that now that he is in office, he is almost happy for the mask to slip quite a lot because he's untouchable and there are no consequences. so I think he doesn't care at this point because you know he could walk down the middle of Times Square and shoot someone in the head and no one would do a damn thing so he's relishing this fight that this is the perfect outlet for him to again release his juice up in season one of Born Again it was with Vanessa's lover for a while and this season it's this fight it's this fight I think the thing is like yes he could but you notice like he hasn't been completely unleashed like he yes he's been killing a whole bunch of people but he has been keeping it on the down low yeah I mean that's the way to do it Helen if you're going to do it you've got to keep it on the down low I'm worried that you instantly said that okay I think you need to switch therapist yeah I really think you should maybe get a human therapist and stop relying on Pazuzu but I think that this is a chance for him to just channel some like you're saying some of that aggression into a real fight and also I think I think he does relish showing people that he is physically strong.

30:41I don't think that is something, that is not something he has shown necessarily to the wider world. Obviously, the criminal underworld all know that and are fucking terrified of him, rightly. You know, the other sort of vigilantes, all these people know that about him. This is not something that he's necessarily showing the average voter. But the average voter is seeing this fight and they are seeing that he is a, you know, he is a force to be physically reckoned with. And that's an interesting thing for him to want to get across to people. And I think he would have just about held himself back from killing that guy anyway, but he...

31:14The fact that he clearly... It was close. But he could get away with it in the ring. That's the whole point, isn't it? He could maybe, but he knows it would be a hassle, right? It would be another thing that he has to negotiate and he'd have his team trying to talk to him about how he's now going to manage it. I don't even know at this point whether they would. I'm not saying that that would be something he couldn't do, but I think it would be like a hassle that's all I'm saying so I think he might have held himself back anyway but I think it's significant that he let it get that far it was interesting seeing the reactions of people to it Daniel was very much into it Bibi I think she may have gotten a glimpse of so this is what my uncle saw when Fisk was killing him you can see that she's the first one to stop cheering and to be taken aback when the violence really sort of goes up

32:08Chris Hewitt:I think he's definitely about to deliver the killing blow because the guy's got his back to him, he's going to hit him in the back of the head. That's not something you can spin, especially in the confines of a charity boxing match where everyone's meant to be on their best behavior, kind of. If you're just bludgeoning someone to death with a shot to the back of the head, that's dirty pool. Dirty pool, Wilson Fisk. That's boxing. Oh, yeah, sorry, I got off the wrong sport. There's a couple of, talking about people I think might be off the board or in danger of being off the board by the end of the season, and I've said it before, you touch a herring, but Cashman's head, I'll come for you.

32:42Chris Hewitt:I am increasingly worried about I, Daniel Blake. I have said on the show before that I'm convinced that Matthew Lillard is going to end this season a bloody pulp of a man. I really like that character. It reminds me a little bit of the dynamic between Stan Edgar and Homelander on The Boys, in that Stan Edgar is one of the few people, played by Giancarlo Esposito in that show, who can talk to Homelander in a certain way and not get an immediate laser eye to their head. Yeah. And Matthew Lillard, Mr. Charles, talks to Wilson. Why are you calling him Wilson? Why are you calling him Wilson? I don't know.

33:18Matthew Lillard, he talks to Fisk in a certain way and Fisk is getting more and more frustrated with him. You can see his patience is waning. But the fact that Fisk hasn't immediately snapped and already torn him in half already, I think, speaks to Mr. Charles. It's really interesting given that he is there at the behest of Allegra de Fontaine, which is...

33:39Chris Hewitt:Which I have to say I completely missed. We discussed the first episode, we did the first episode of Spoiler Special, and then for some reason I went back and I re-watched episode one after that, and I only just noticed that the Attorney General gets a call and he says, thank you, Miss de Fontaine. I was like, that's foul. So where does that place this in terms of timelines and whatnot? I guess she's still kind of powerful. If this is post-Thunderbolts, then she, because they were going to arrest her at the end of Thunderbolts and they decided, oh no, we'd rather be famous. So let's leave her.

34:14This is definitely post-Thunderbolts because this season of Daredevil directly leads into Brand New Day.

34:20Chris Hewitt:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course it does. Yeah. Of course it does. So that's interesting. But I missed that first time around. Yeah, me too. He's really going through a new villain era, is Matthew Lillard. He's also the bad guy in cross over on Amazon. It is, yes. Dadcore hit cross. Yeah, I watched the entire series. Did you? I loved Serious 1, I couldn't make it through Serious 2. I found it a bit stodgy. I find it less serial killery than season 1, so it's quite fun. But yeah, he's a, I think, underdeveloped figure here, but an interesting one to add to the mix. And to add, you know, just to remind you that there is a wider world outside the city borders.

35:04Because I think actually the weak scene for me in this was the chat between Vanessa and the governor. Because this idea that I can't support Fisk, but I can support Mrs. Fisk, that's a nice idea, but I don't feel like they fully justified it. Because I don't think they've established that character as being venal or corrupt enough to kind of go along with this objectively insane thing to have a curfew in New York and these wildly non-constitutional AVTF raids and things like that. So I was unsure of that little beat. I think they do a little bit in terms of showing how, maybe not fully correct, but she is complimenting.

35:51No, I get it's a compliment to Vanessa, but why?

35:55Chris Hewitt:She's been quite tough on Fisk throughout the show. Yeah. So yeah, that felt like an unusual softening of her position. But maybe they just needed to get that conversation done and early so Vanessa could get back to the... Yeah, and I think obviously that now leaves Fisk back in a difficult position. If Vanessa went up there to kind of make peace with the governor and get her on side or at least to step out of the way, that deal is now off the table because it was expressly, assuming Vanessa is dead, of course, because that was expressly based on her presence and her moderating influence. and if that's gone then so is the deal with the governor hmm okay well another thing to talk about by the way I agree completely about the Charles thing because I love the fact he can just talk to him but the power dynamic shifted again this week where they were like we can take you out but we don't know the apparatus that's behind Charles we know he works for the CIA so I imagine if you take me out he feels pretty bulletproof even that moment where Buck has him at gunpoint he's like well this is unfortunate but you're not going to do it but at the end he goes fuck whenever they leave it's a complication that he wasn't expecting he thinks he can just order the Kingpin around I'm not your employee yeah and I think he doesn't I think some of that was face like he wasn't he was worried I think he was but if he had seen what Kingpin did achieve Gallo last season he'd be really worried but very quick on the the curvy thing and New Yorkers reactions to it it does make you wonder A, what Frank is up to at this point in time, and obviously we'll get that answered at some point in One Last Kill, which will debut after the season ends.

37:36Chris Hewitt:But it is that thing, that classic thing when we talk about the MCU. Where is everyone else? Hawkeye is New York adjacent. Kate Bishop is New York adjacent. Where the hell are they? Why are they not teaming up with the vigilante task force that is opposing the anti-vigilante task force? Tony Dalton in this episode basically goes later dudes I'm out of here he does leave them with his big fat checking account so at least he does he does do that big fat checking account also a title of my sixth sex and

38:12Chris Hewitt:Spider-Man Spider-Man and Doctor Strange I know you can't have these characters in this show because there's too much going on and there's contracts I understand that but does Doctor Strange give a shit for example Spider-Man's in Queens Doctor Strange is in another dimension another dimension another dimension he's puzzled off with Charlize in his third eye I presume he's come back I think I can title my seven seconds honestly they could make an entire film or one shot like here is what these MCU heroes felt and went through in the void when that happened in Thunderbolts yeah they could do the entire thing and yeah where is the AVTF with Spider-Man is he having to like you know scurry around avoiding them or are they just like yeah no we're not touching that because people have forgotten Peter Parker but not Spider-Man but not Spider-Man it's a hell of a spell Doctor Strange cast isn't it people must forget Peter Parker but not Spider-Man we're going to have some conversations about that I think when the film comes out that's going to be confusing yes because they are going to address it of course alright anything else you want to talk about can I talk about my one big issue with this episode has to do with Angela who I like as a character and it's cool to see her being brought more into the vigilante fold that little chat that she has with Daredevil and this I did like but they have this SD card with this valuable you know, statements why don't they just upload it and why are they trusting this coffee cart guy with this extremely valuable and important piece of evidence it's not a coffee cart, it's a rep us Apologies.

39:56But yeah, that felt a little weird to me. Even trying to get it to BB, you have superpowers, you can sort of sneak in and give it... It felt quite weird. I mean, you could send it through the post, could you not? Like, it's an SD card, can you not copy it like 20 times and send it to a bunch of different places outside of the city? To do it in full view of Daniel, it felt unnecessarily dangerous. Does Wii Transfer not exist in the Marvel Universe?

40:23Chris Hewitt:Maybe they don't have Wi-Fi. Don't they have Dropbox? Are there no internet cafes? Where are the Starbucks? Come on, guys. What about the dark web? They can operate on the dark web. Yeah, that's a very, very good point. And I think also the show, certainly this season, I think is somewhat struggling with Karen a little bit. I don't know. They're just giving her a new wig every week and sending her out to talk to somebody else, I think. Now she's got Jack DeCaine's money. there's going to be a lot more wigs. A lot more wigs. So many. I've liked Karen this season. I like that she's gotten a little bit more into the action of things.

41:02This is the first, I believe, I love you that Matt has said to Karen in the entire Dead Devil Run, which also feels significant. We got that in this episode. But yeah, she feels like she has more of an influence on every aspect of Matt's life and that she's making her own independent choices as well. she's an influencer she's a content creator

41:24Chris Hewitt:she's she's working with SD cards all sorts of stuff alright let's start wrapping this bad boy up Jimbo anything you want to say about this this episode or indeed this season so far do not give anything away you absolute motherfucker I refuse to answer on the grounds my answer may incriminate me and then you'll all kill me but yeah it's a good episode with a lobster tail with a lobster tail a lobster tail to the head yes it is a good episode and there is more to come. There's four more to come. Yeah, that's right. Specifically four more to come. We are at the halfway point. I've said this online, but episode five, I think is the high point of the series.

42:02It's a phenomenal episode. So yeah, exciting.

42:07Chris Hewitt:I'm going to be on a fucking cruise ship that drops. Have you not bought the Wi-Fi package? Which I believe is a thing that people do. I think it's about a hundred quid. What? For Wi-Fi? Yeah. Okay, go on a day trip. go to a cafe download it get back on the ship watch it I like your thinking yeah I don't know how much the wifi is yet I think you find it out on board I bet you do but because you're on you know at sea you're on a boat at sea they can check the prices up maybe I won't sign up maybe I won't maybe I'll I'll go a whole week without checking email it would be good for you I think to just unplug and not watch anything so I recommend it yeah okay that's definitely something that's going to happen we shall see alright anything else you want to talk about before we wrap it up just looking at the names of the episodes in this season you've got northern stars shoot the moon scales and the sword which could be you know a reference to a couple of what's the word zodiac signs and then gloves off gloves off yeah I'm just saying it's not quite in keeping with the sort of celestial theme generally no there's no joint of thinking going on with these episodes titles.

43:20Chris Hewitt:Not the way I say Breaking Bad. Was it Breaking Bad's second season? All the titles of the episodes at the end of the season were rearranged to basically spell out a major plot development that happened in the season. Whoa! Something like 747 over Albuquerque because the plane goes down and that. And also, I think season two of Better Call Saul, the first letter of each episode name spells out Fring's back. Whoa! And at the end of that season who returned Sidewinder himself it's all connected on that note I think that is it for our Daredevil Born Again season 2 episode 4 spoiler special hope you guys enjoyed it thank you as ever for subscribing and supporting the podcast with your subscription and keep them peeled next week how are we going to do next week are we just going to do because if it's episode 5 you guys got to do it I'm going to be away so you'll figure out you'll find out a way but we might do episode five and then we might skip episode six and then we'll do episode six and seven when I'm back as a sort of double bill we might do we might do it that way just logistically I'm not sure that enough people are going to be around to be able to do five and six but we shall see how it goes keep them peeled and there'll be more supported specials coming your way as well for other things other exciting things anyway all that remains very quickly because I'm right out of space is to say goodbye to Helen toodaloo goodbye to Amon peace goodbye to James kill them yes James I will I will kill them all with strawberry milkshakes title of my eighth sex tape right all that remains now is for me to put this show onto SD card hand it to Amon who will smuggle it to someone else who will then upload it nothing can go wrong thank you so much for listening see you next time bye bye bang bang bang bang bang bang bang Kenobi!

45:19A-Bang! A-Bang! A-Bang!