Warning.
Today's episode canday spoilers for season one of Daredevil, which originally ed on Netflix but you can currently find on Disney Plus.
Hello.
My name is Jason Concepcion and I'm Rosy Night, and.
Welcome back the next.
Version of the podcast where we done deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture. Company from Myra Podcast, where we're bringing you three episodes every week Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, plus a news episode on weekend.
In today's episode, you've been asking for it ever since we first began an Xtra Vision many moons ago. In this long period of time that we're all living through, we are going back to twenty fifteen to the now canon Netflix Dead Evil series and we will be recapping it and talking about it and digging in in preparation for the upcoming sequel series on Disney Plus Dad Evil Born Again.
Let's dive in first some context on Daredevil. The character debuted in nineteen sixty four creation of Stan Lee and Bill Everett, appearing in It's his own solo title of just immediately Off Jump Daredevil Number one. And one thing that is immediately clear from reading back to you know the original Daredevil runs is how much this is an attempt to clone Spider Man.
Dude, it's so funny, Like they are like, what if he's like Spider Man?
But he's like serious, what if he's Spider Man?
They like something weird and bad happened to him, Like I do.
I love a street level hero.
But as we know, it is quite notorious in the comic book industry that kind of every ten years Marvel will try and remake Spider Man.
And the most successful version.
They've had of it is Kamala Khan, where they actually created a completely different, completely new street level Haroy that people fell for. But yes, that Devil's definitely in that space, and I think that is why there's a lot of crossover between the characters.
Yeah, that you find him and Spider Man fighting about.
But something important about that devil. He's Catholic, Okay, and that's gonna.
Come off for altholic.
He's very Irish Catholic. The show Daredevil the adaptation was released in twenty fifteen on Netflix, uh and it was helmed by Showner Or Stephens de Night, who gave us Spartacus. The Spartacus television show on Stars.
The League Gets Stars Network.
The beleaguered, very much beleaguered. Stars Network and Daredevil immediately made an impression on people because of its incredible action scenes, including the now iconic one shot Ish Hallway fight from episode three of season one. It's fantastic. I think it's what's so striking about it watching a bag is it's like you don't see superheroes get tired.
And I love that about Matt Murty.
Yah, he is fucking tied, like he's tired.
I'm tied halfway.
I'm halfway through this fight and I am exhaust something else.
I think that probably really spoke to people, and that interestingly that MCU had set people up to take in in a way they were maybe more open to after the kind of lead into the Avengers movies.
This is an incredibly slow bun show.
It sets up a lot of the which have now become memes, but a lot of the tropes of a prestige TV adaptation of a comic book or a book that you love. This man does not get his costume till the last episode, Like he doesn't get the dead of a costume till the last episode. We don't mean Wilson Fisk till the end of episode three properly where it's revealed that he is the villain. There is so much work and patience that is put into this show, and we will talk about how that works good and
bad as we get into it. But I do think that at the time there was nothing else like it. I so deeply remember the reactions by friends. It's still at the time when Netflix's binge model is seen as.
A positive thing.
It's also, you know, three years after the Avengers and suddenly we're getting to see like, how does a normal person deal with living in New York during the Chatari invasion?
And what I think is really.
Interesting is the MCU and the creators and Drew Goddard and Steven st.
Knight.
Their response was, well, it would obviously be really hard. Here are the tough, working class neighborhoods that have been destroyed. Which is really funny because now, almost ten years later, we all know thanks to many hilarious TikTok creators and stuff, that the way we all see it as like, oh Man, like Superman, smash my car again, back all my car insurance, Like there's a more comedic read that I think that
fans enjoy. But it was very different to see a show like this that features so many different comic book characters and it just plays it entirely serious and straight the whole way down.
Very straight, completely grounded, very very little superpowers in evidence, although of course Matt has heightened senses, but you forget about them a lot. This show is connected to the Wider MCU and was seen as in very interesting ways, and it was seen as being something like a farm system. In twenty thirteen, then CEO and now current CEO again Bob Eiger said that, you know, stuff works on Netflix.
Quote it's quite possible they could become feature films, which a Serrando's also echoed, So that was kind of seen as the model. Hey, if this hits there, maybe we bring them in to the wider MCU, which was then reaching of truly frothy boil.
Jeff Lobe, who was.
Kind of at the helm of all things Marvel Television live action television for a long time, said in twenty fourteen that quote, within the Marvel universe, there are thousands of heroes, but the Avengers are here to save the universe, and dared Devil is here just to save your neighborhood. It does take place in the Marvel cinematic universe. It's all connected, but that doesn't necessarily mean we could look up in the sky and see Iron Man. It's a different part of New York, but we have not that
we have not yet seen in the Marvel movies. Also, Jeff Lobe was also you know, running Agents of Shield around this time too, which was connected ish.
And at some point it seemed very connected, but then that was kind of pulling and.
Other times was like nah, yeah, yeah exactly. And then in twenty fifteen, Lobe talked about crossovers, whether we'd ever see crossovers from MCU to ABC tonight.
And he basically by that point, which I think is interesting, is over those two years, it's gone from yeah, this could be a thing that will happen to now kind of being like we need to earn it, we don't want.
To push it, you know.
And he talked about how Captain America doing the crossover in Thought two that kind of funny. Loki cameo Bruce Banner at the end of Iron Man three, and the audience needs to understand who the characters are and what the world is before you start co mingling him, is what he said, And it's funny because Jeff Loo, as much as I hate to give him any credit, he was obviously onto something because it took nine years.
It took nine years. Well, you know, love.
We'll get into this maybe in a different episode later, but with Jeff Lobe, the highs are really high and the lows are really correct.
On every level. I think about his own career level.
Whether it's comics or television, it's it's both.
The things he gave you, you know.
Some of the greatest Batman's stories you've ever seen.
And he also.
Gave you, you know, the Ultimates three, which is one of the worst things that anybody's ever seen. Anyway, let's get into Daredevil Season one the recap.
It opens in a post Battle.
Of New York World. New York is still recovering from the Chatari invasion, and this is the perfect time for organized crime gangs in New York to start making moves. You know, construction is needed, new investment is needed, New money is pouring in government money that.
Means lots to steal.
And there's really no one looking out for the little guy except for.
Matt Murdoch uh.
A blind lawyer by day crime fighter by night, powered by heightened senses, and also, as we as he mentions, and as many other characters mentioned throughout this season, an immensely powerful sense of catholic.
This man is so guilty at all times.
Yes, his Catholic guilt is so strong, and you know what, I just want to give him a hug and says, Okay, it's okay, Matt, You're doing all right.
Matt is the son of a former boxer who passed away, and he spends his days practicing law with his best friend Foggy, defending you know, the poorest inhabitants citizens of New York City and mostly his Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, and at night he cosplays basically as Batman.
And just kneels a show people on the streets, people in that And this is where immediately you feel like something is completely different from everything else you've seen in the MCU before and even still really to this day, Like the violence in this show is so brutal and so.
Realistic, and it's much more in that.
You know, there's no surprise that they have a world famous you know, corridor scene in this because it's very feels, very heavily influenced by movies like Old Boy, these kind of like revenge thrillers where you are always punching two
times great, Oh my god, I love that movie. But like there's so much anger in every punch that Matt packs that he is often going too far and he is often fighting too hard, and that is one of the things he has to struggle with is what does it really mean to be a vigilante who helps people or just to be someone who's out there taking out your anger and rage on people who are kind of trying to survive in the streets.
Put a pinion that we're going to talk more about these actions scenes because they are remarkable and continue to be they really do.
Pre season of Daredevil enter Karen Page.
She is kind of like a core brit drone working in the legal department who finds herself kind of unwinningly entangled in this corporate conspiracy involving this business called United Allied. She has uncovered some stuff Union excuse me, Union Allied, and she's uncovered some stuff kind of unwittingly that turns out to be evidence of massive, massive organized crime corruption.
She is almost framed for murdered, for murdered but then almost murdered herself because she has uncovered all but she's having a really bad time. But she's saved by Matt, both as Daredevil and as a lawyer and as an employer.
Matt and Foggy take her case, and they also give her a job and say, you know, well, we need some help at the at the law firm, and also Foggy quickly develops a crush on her, and this sets off a chain of events that quickly draws the attention of numerous organized crime groups throughout the city, including international
crime groups like the Yakuza and the Triads. And behind all of those groups, jostling for power in their own little neighborhoods and their own little turf battles, is Wilson Fisk, the King Pole. No one is even allowed to say this guy's fucking no name. You can't say his name, and in fact.
And how much of a hold he has on New York City really even until the final episode of the show, which I think is really interesting.
And in fact, we only access him over the early episodes through his chief Lieutenant James, who is like the guy who goes to talk to the gangs. The point person to keep Wilson insulated from everything. Because Wilson, on the surface is just a businessman. He's a philanthropist, he's an art lover, he's an avid cur he loves culinary guy. He loves this guy loves a bottle of wine and to be chopping it up in the kitchen. He loves that.
But what's he doing behind the scenes. He's running the ultimate gentrification scam, using organized crime the various groups as his kind of like personal real estate development firm in order to force inhabitats out of buildings that he intends
to buy and then flip from major major profits. His plan one to control the Hell's kitchen by bribing everybody, strong arming landlords, and killing people when necessary to use his crime syndicate, which includes multiple organized crime bosses including Madam Gow, mystical drug Crumpkin loves loves a hot cup of tea Nobu, high ranking yakuza warrior who fights like a dark soul's boss, and Leland Owsley, who is kind
of like his money guy, the finance guy. It's like he works for Wilson, but he's also got a mind of his own to wipe out and he uses these people to wipe out all of his competition and basically lock down his illegal control of the city, and then step three, through his relationship with the beguiling art world impresario Vanessa, to launder his public image as just like, Hey, I'm just like a guy who loves art and fine dining and look at my wonderful look at my wonderful
girlfriend Vanessa, who is on the up and up and is well respected in the art world. She would never be involved with anything criminal. Therefore, I am clean. Wilson fiske love me?
Yeah.
Now, Wilson.
Actually really loves Vanessa like it, is immediately intrigued by her when he meets her at the gallery.
And this is all going great.
His plan is all going great, except for the fact that there's this quote man in the mask who is running around at night beating up all of the organized crime henchmen that Goo and Nobu and Owsley and Wilson are using to force people out of their homes and beat up the common folks. It's annoying at first, but it starts to really cut into the profits over time,
and Wilson is getting increasingly aggravated. Matt, meanwhile, is you know, going through all of his various personal problems, giving his Catholic guilt. With every single episode, we get various flashbacks to how he came to be Daredevil, how he got his powers. We meet his mentor, Stick, the irascible blind mentor Stick, who is not a nice guy at all,
but definitely help Matt with some very important things. And as this is happening, Matt begins to really take a bite into Wilson's criminal organization, and Karen is providing important evidence to the muck racking muckraking reporter Ben Urick of Union Allied's vast criminal conspiracy and how it involves the police, city politicians, and more. Fisk is starting to get really annoyed. Now, he's just starting to get really aggravated by all of this.
He's sick of this. The final domino falls when there's a couple of things that happened. First, Leland Owsley and Madam gow feeling like, you know what, Wilson is getting too His attention is too much on Vanessa Jealous.
Jealous, stop paying us so much attention.
I got this any of your business.
Like treat this woman.
There's literally multiple liciversations about how they're like maybe to distracted.
It's interesting how much this mirrors like sticks advice to Matt also where it's like, listen, you can't have anybody in your life, you can't have any romantic entanglements.
Like it's like that speech from Heat.
You gotta be You got to be disconnected from everything in order to focus on what you need to do. And that's how Gal and leland Owsley feel the I feel like listen, Wilson's got like lovey dovey eyes and we can't get him to focus on business. So they take the extremely unwise path by trying to basically assassinate Vanessa, using poison to make it look like someone's trying to kill Fisk. Vanessa goes into the hospital, Fisk is enraged, he kills land Owsley. This draws the attention of the FEDS,
and now the heat is really on for Fisk. The Feds move in. Fisk is like looking for an escape plan. He has a shotgun marriage to Vanessa, Yeah, going on.
So many good things, and then he's like, I need to escape. But in the best.
Wilson Fisk like Vincent Dinofrio performance of your Lifetime, I love you and I say that as someone who knows hubs criminal intent. That's one of the best like procedural shows out. But you've done your time in many good shows. But you are Wilson Fisk, like the man you are in this l He's like, I'm Wilson.
Fisk, and I've got to escape this police fan.
So I'm gonna give like a three minute monologue where I'm just telling these guys a story about nothing to in my dulcet tones, and they're all listening to me.
But it's all a.
Ploy because like every corrupt cop in the whole city is coming to break him out. And that's when you really realize that, like Wilson Fisk has so many more people under his thumb and in his employ than we even know. He walks out after a firefight, just straight into the street like it's not even an issue. And if there wasn't a certain man fueled by Catholic guilt and horniness, Matt Murdoch, he would have probably been able
to escape. But of course they have to have that final showdown and it is like so good.
Yes, So the Union allied scheme is collapsed, the Feds are on his tail, and Matt Burdock is really mad because Kingpin killed ben Urine for revealing all this stuff, and so they have a big, big how do you do fight in the back alley as Wilson Fisk is trying to escape his pehouse and is a brutal, brutal fight with Matt finally like applying the couda grass by like doing a leaping like action Wilson.
And it's all red.
Yeah, he's got his He's fully Daredevil now in his Daredevil suit, and so the Kingpin is down. He gets put under arrest by a cop that Daredevil had helped out previously. He was about to arrest. Daredevil is like, hey, remember when I helped you out? Why don't you just forget like I was ever here? Just arrest Wilson Fisk and the cop is like fine.
I'm like you're not gonna live very long, my friend, like, don't risk you a loud guess guy like come on.
Meanwhile, Vanessa is at the helipad being like, where is my love? Where is Wilson? He never shows up, so she leaves. Later on, setting up season two, Wilson Fisk is in jail. Matt, Foggy and Karen have their new offices and they are calling their firm, Nelson and Murdoch. That is the speed recap of season one, and let's just talk about what we thought. First of all, we got to talk because we this is a show that
is I think it's trademark is its fight scenes. We talked about it, and to me, I think what makes this so unlike anything else in Marvel even now, is the fact that because Matt he has the heightened senses, but he's just a guy, a very very well trained guy, a peak athlete. You know, if I'm thinking back to my Marvel Handbook to the Marvel Universe, and you know in the in the Daredevil section, it would say under powers and skills like peak endurance and strength of a human.
Athlete.
So he's unlike other figures in the MCU who would punch a guy and the guy would go flying through a window and that would be it. Matt really has to put the work in to fight. He does, and you feel it. It's visceral when he.
I do think that the one thing that surprises me the most about how long it took them to bring Dad Evil to the MCU is that Charlie Cox is just one of those generationally great casting. In fact, all the casting in this show is fantastic, but when you see him, especially early on, it's very rare in the MCU and in these big superhero universes that we get to see a character in an early version of their suit or without a suit.
When you see him with.
That really cool man in the mask, like kind of black bandana around his eyes, very assic Ninja turtles look, and just like his black tight thermals and his boots, you're like, wow, this is so different to the kind of high military versions of the heroes that we've gotten, And it feels realistic that in a world where the Avengers are publicly heroes and exist, other people who don't have that tech, who don't have this backing of Tony Stark, would take this into their own hands.
And this show.
Feels like it really deals with what the reality inverted commas of that would be. And I think the fights are such a great part of that because so much of what we saw in the MCU, Like we joke about this all the time, the collateral damage is high, like the Avengers are killing so many people, but you never see what that collateral damage really is.
Even in the.
Age of Vulture where they deal I'm in Civil War where they deal with it with the Legos explosion and what happened there and everything.
It it does, we don't see the aftermath, whereas here.
You see the violence, you see the punches, you see the broken skin on Matt's hands after he's beaten, the shout of a henchman, and I think that it still is some of the best action we've had in any superhero TV show or movie. Yes, and also the impact is there, you feel the punches that really stood out
to me. I also think it's very interesting how they utilize comic book characters in this show, because we get very early on in the first three episodes, we get Rosario Dawson's character, who is called Claire Temple, and she's essentially like her reimagining of the Night Nurse character.
She's a very important part of the street level logistics being a superhero the Luke Cage.
She's a Luke Cage character hero for Higher Issue too.
She was created by Archie Goodwin and George Tusker, and she is a kind of composite of Claire Temple in the comics, where she's a doctor and then the Linda Carter hilarious nod there of course to the legend night nurse character. And I thought that was a really interesting way of dealing with the reality of how does Matt Murdock get up after a night of getting the crap kicked out of him and go to work as a lawyer?
And I love that rather than just being like a suspension of this belief, they were like, no, he'd need a nurse, he'd need someone who could fix them. And also talking of big connections to the defenders, I mean, Claire is a recurring character in these shows.
She is someone who needs.
The you know she's coming back, baby, You're gonna see her, And I thought that was an interest. It's interesting how early she comes in and how they kind of build in this relationship with Matt as a way to make you believe that he can go out and do this every night and still be walking.
Here are the several things that stood out to me on rewatch one. The action is good was as good as I remember. It's still it holds up and in fact holds I would say this season together, yeah, because two, I think this becomes much more evident in seasons two and three. But it's here as well this season, and the episodes are too there's too much fat. Yeah, it's
they're a little too long. There's a lot of stuff in here that either feels repetitive at times or just could be sharper and tighter, including the Union Allied investigation. I think they could have gone. I think they could have made that much more interesting. It feels at times like, oh God.
Here we go. I was gonna say, did that hook you?
Because I do think that for a show like they might have gone a bit to standard procedural drama like money laundering kind of they didn't necessarily hook you in. But what does hook you in is the characters and the conversation and and I think.
There were problems with it. Here are the here are the structural problems on a standard like kind of procedural that you would expect to see a character like Ben Urick in. It's the discovery of the facts that are that are the hook here. It's like, you know, Union Allied is bad because you're with Matt Murdoch and he's doing illegal shit at night and he's making it out.
He's like uncovering all these criminal figures people who are involved on the on the kind of like bleeding edge of the scam, and so I think they needed to really juice up Ben's investigation and make it feel more dangerous, like he's and or that he's really uncovering like like incredible stuff that is shocking in some way, because it just kind of felt like he and Karen are having
these conversations. Karen doesn't really want to talk to him, but she also is and she's scared, but she's helping, and then you're but you also feels like for a lot of those I'm just finding out stuff that I already knew, and I wish they had just made those a little tighter. There's and there's other things, a lot of like the organized crime, you know, Madam Gow and Nobu and the kind of like faceless Asian yakas a
triad gangs. It feels very like paint by numbers, And so there's a lot of stuff here that felt like we could have moved quicker through this.
Ben is also a good example of how this show does not treat people of color well, because Ben Urick is an iconic character in Dead Evil Law, and by the end of the show he's dead, you know, there was no he kind of continued to be an icotic character.
But they need to kill someone to kind of make the vengeance element, so they kill Elena, they kill Ben Uric, And I remember that was really controversial when that happened at the time, especially because I feel like, like you said, they don't necessarily make the most of him or kind of showcase his skill his impact.
I don't, yeah, I didn't love. This is a spoiler for our book club Born Again book Club episode, but there's a passage. There's a scene in Born Again in which Urick is flying he's getting really close to the truth, and the Kingpin sends an assassin to his house. But
she's seems like she's a home carriage. She's like a nurse, just like a very big nurse, and it is it was like a it's a scary scene, like it's really really terrifying, and Ben escapes by the skin of his teeth, And I thought we could have used more threat to bend through. It's like, really only at the end when the Kingkin shows up and kills him that you're like, oh, this was dangerous. But if Ben had been under increasing threat throughout.
It would have felt less just like kind of shortcut to bengeance and I'm glad you bought Born Again Again actually, because I do think I do think that one of the most interesting things going into a show named Dad ever Born Again is how much this season does seem to pull from Born Again. There's a lot of stuff like kind of Karen who you can't tell whether you can trust that?
Is she a criminal? Is she not?
That feels very Born Again, the ben Yurik stuff very born Again.
Yes, So it'll be interesting to see what Born Again actually is because there's so much of it that at least the comics story in this season. And then finally, the final thing that really stood out to me is like, actually,
how much Defender's connective to you? There is a lot like there's it like a lot, there's there's you know, when when we get to meet Stick, Matt's mentor both in his flashbacks in the early kind of training days, Matt as a young blind kid who's not in control of his senses, uh to Stick in the present day and the kind of mysterious circumstances of his rival, why is he in New York And you come to realize he's here to assassinate a child crazy?
Who is who is?
Who is a Black Sky one of these I guess black Sky figures who the Hand and the yakas of feel like could be an important leader for them in the future. And he's there to kill this person, which is crazy, absolutely, and that becomes a very important kind of plot point to the Defender's storyline all throughout that season and what the Hand is up to. So those are the things. And oh and one more thing. I think there's too many flashbacks.
That's it.
It's really you know, like Wilson fisk, I don't he's a bad guy. I don't need to know about his childhood as a traumatized young kid.
Yeah, well what stood out for you?
You know what?
I think that for me, I agree with you action. I think it's too long. We've talked about that as well, like it's a thirteen hour long show, and at the time there was lots of this talk about, oh, it's a thirteen hour movie. It is not, sir, I do so. I love Wilson Fisk, I agree there's too many flashbacks. I do feel like ironically the better or for worse, the stick stuff and the way that's presented in the stick episode is like, it feels very influential on how
shows like to do a flashback a bottle episode. Now, I like pretty much anything they do with Wilson Fisk because I think this is one of the better versions of making a villain feel emotionally kind of resonant as you get to learn more about him. And also I love the relationship with him and Vanessa so much. I think it's just completely deranged and so much fun to watch, and you do even though like on an ethical and moral level in real life, you wouldn't be supporting it.
When he's like gripping her hands as the Feds drag him away in episode thirteen and he's giving her the ring and he's like, I love you.
Vanessa, Let's get married, Like I will marry you. This is crazy.
I think that Vincent Donofrio makes or breaks the show as much as I do. I think the main trick you buy him, Karen Page, you need to buy him as Yeah, the Karen Page, Charlie Cox, Foggy Nelson at Murdoch all fantastic cast thing. They look like they're in the comics. Their chemistry together is so good, So that's great. But really for me, this is the Vincent Dinofrio show.
I love the kind of the way he shoots the words out of his mouth, like bull It's Vanessa Vanessa, Like I will listen to him talk in that voice all day.
Other things that really stood out to me.
I think that something I think is very funny and cool here that kind of happened earlier than a lot of other movies and TV shows doing this is the show is definitely in conversation with readers at least a little bit, because I love that when Foggy finds out about Matt's secret life, he is really mad at him.
Because he's like, are you even blind? He's like, have you just He's.
Like, I'm helping you around every day, but you can sense everything. And he's like I'm nodding and you know I'm nodding right, And Matt's like yeah. And I think that's really funny because one, they do it in a way that feels very real and like you would be really pissed off and they sell it.
But also yeah, wait, wait, so like you're you don't really know where you're.
Not, like come on bo.
Yeah, It's like a big conversation in the disability community about Matt Murdock in the comic book community.
So I think I thought that was really great.
I do think it's too long, Like, I know, people love this show, but I thirteen hours, I don't think. I think they could have done double what they did in the same thirteen hours, or they could have cut it down to nine hours and it would have been like the snappiest, most impactful show ever. But at the time, you know, this is very much in those early kind of at what we call prest these TV nowadays days. The opening for this, the credit sequence, is one of
the most influential credit sequences of all times. Shows are still trying to make a credit sequence like that, with the kind of blood and the wax going over the faces of the characters and Lady Justice. Yeah, I thought it was great. I do think I agree with pretty
much everything you said. But the main thing is just like the action, and also if you were there, if you're old like us, if you're watching this nine years ago, I still do remember the excitement of like a real street level team, you know, And I think the biggest thing that even though the show was long, I do think the finale sticks the landing it manages to wrap up the loose end, set up what you want from
a season two. I think that you get some really interesting stuff because Matt has chosen not to reveal who he is to Karen, which, if you've ever read a Spider Man story, is a terrible idea will always come back to bite you in the bar and is not healthy or good. But you still get the beginnings of some chemistry between them. This is before Dared Evil went fully into Matt being.
Like a Lathario.
This is kind of still a little bit of your innocent Matt. I think Stephen at de Night had spoken quite extensibly at the time about the violence being the adult part, and they wanted to kind of lure people in with that and get them comfortable with it before any sex. And there wasn't really a sexual, big sexual element to Dead Devil, but the rest of the Defenders Jessica Jones later seasons of Dead Devil definitely changed that.
I mean, Matt Murdoch has always been a character that people have crushes on, but I think Charlie Cox Matt Murdoch expanded that exponentially. Yeah, I think generally this is like I'm glad that at the time we knew we had it so good, because we haven't.
Really had it so good for a long time.
And at the time we knew we knew, we were like, we're eating and this is delicious, and it's gonna nourish us and serve us well.
And it's an interesting.
Part of what the MCU used to be when there was a little bit more separation between church and state, let's say, like TV and movies.
So yeah, I'm very interested in it.
But what I want to know is, like, for you from watching it, what do you feel like your main takeaways where like, Wow, the impact of this show, Like how have you seen it change things over the years.
I think the impact of the show is there is the level is the action and the level of violence. I think it's set a standard that you saw start to affect the MCU in like you know, Captain America, Winter Soldier, and in the kind of ex style of action and in some of Disney Plus's Marvel television offerings,
and just the way the fights are. I think that the main you know, think about the fans of this show from the Netflix era, their initial reaction to the announcement that Daredevil would coming to the MCU and that Born Again would be his first kind of like TV title on Disney Plus was will it be as hard hitting?
That's really the thing, and that's to me, more than anything, the influence that Daredevil has, And I think that when we talked about it before, I think street level is a big hole in Marvel stuff, like we've immediately transcended in the films to cosmic threats, multiversal threats, you know, fighting in and outside of the timeline, different versions.
Of branches of the tree of life. And it's.
Of that that we're ignoring a really rich tradition of like street level heroes, and I think Daredevil points the way. So it mays to be seen what the influence is, but I think one of the things that we can say is its influence is in the fact that they got it right with the casting. It was announced, for instance, that Foggy and Karen would both be in Born Again.
This is essentially a retcon of stuff that happened at the end of seasons two and three of Daredevil, So those characters are going to be around, and that to me is like a tacit emission that you know what, one it's really hard to have a Daredavil story without Karen and Froggy.
And two.
Netflix did it right.
Whatever the thing was too long, too many floppy plotlines are fine, but.
They got it right.
The core of it really really worked, and so we have to bring them back, including bringing back I think Vanessa. It was announced on it was reported, and I think it was Business Insider had that the actor who plays Vanessa said that in the canon, the fictional canon that's you know, kind of like ongoing right now, is that Vanessa took over the rackets when Wilson went. Yeah, I love that after season three, which I love that because.
She's such a brilliant actor. I think you're right. I think those are the main things.
I will also say, so, this show came out before I moved here, and then when I moved here, I did a lot of coverage in like twenty sixteen, like twenty seventeen onwards to for the CW.
Arrow Verse shows.
And obviously we don't necessarily think about those shows as having like hard hitting action because they were on broadcast TV.
They don't have the brutality.
But what I will say is, whenever I went to those sets, they had a full blown stunt team really putting together intricate, ongoing action shots important big superhero fights, and I definitely felt like without dead Level, that wouldn't necessarily.
Have become such a hallmark of what you need, Like you need.
To have somebody who's gonna make you go whoa, Like you can't just get away with the flash flash running fast around someone. You have to have a street level hero like Guardian or something that's gonna be there beating the stuffing out of people, and you have to have good stump work, and you have to have interesting fight scenes. So I think you're right. I think that's the biggest
ongoing impact. I also think that this is a series that established superhero storytelling as something that people who maybe didn't usually watch superhero stuff, who didn't watch Marvel, they wanted to watch it.
They saw it on Netflix, they wanted to be get.
Like fans of NCIS or like or like Navy Seals or any of those kind of like s for you, like CBS action y kind of procedurals, they might be attracted to a show like this. You're exactly right. Any final thoughts on Daredevil Season one as we head into our coverage of season two and three looking forward to Daredevil boarding.
In final thoughts, I hope that this encourages people to seek out more Dad level comics.
There's so many brilliant Dead level comics.
I'm a Annie Nasenti Jr.
J June JRJ Drummer. That's a point.
I'm a superstar of that run, the Typhoid Mary run. You can collect that.
There's never I'll go further. There's never been a bad Dart level true. I think I think fantastic. I think it punches above its weight. It is consistently one of the best things going in Marvel always. Maybe it's because it's so insulated from like the ongoing events in the wider Marvel six one six Cannon, but there are more great runs in Daredevil than maybe any other comment.
I think that's pretty fair.
I would say like it's up there with X Men, and honestly X Men is once you get past clamor becomes pretty spoty depending on what you like.
But the nineties get weird, you know.
I love Jila, also, I love Barrrison, but definitely I think Dad Devil has a lot more access storylines.
Maybe we'll have to get Jewels on here.
Actually because he did a great thing where he read every Dead Level comic to rank them all for Notice, which was really good.
I also would say if you want.
To see more action like Dead Level, there is not really more action like Dead Level in a whole series. But the pilot episode of Echo is the closest we have come back to it. It has Dead Level in it. There's a fantastic opening fight scene.
Check that out. Also, our discord.
Is going absolutely crazy, big big fans of your friendly neighborhood spider Man, which I think is the closest we've gotten in the MCU of Yeah, the kind of street level down and like who are your friends? How do they back you up? And what does it mean to be a hero in your community? Very different tones, and Dead Level makes an appearance, very different tone but super fun.
And Yeah, I.
Want the three things I want to continue from this show over our cast, chemistry, action.
And the way that this show just brings in so.
Many random, outrageous comment but characters that you never thought you were going to see. I love that stuff. Those are my three biggest things. What do you want to make sure that comes over for Dad? Evil Born again?
I think my final takeaways are great season, but that there's it could even be better, and that Born Again I think that there's real hope that it could actually be something truly great because the procedural elements are kind of the weak pointed day are like you never really get the Matt.
Murdoch in the courtroom like iconic moment.
Which would be great, right if you could tie together some of these strands that way. And so I think that by doubling down and really adding value in the procedural elements, the investigation elements, the courtroom stuff, give Foggy and Karen some real stuff to dig into.
I would love that.
If though, if that element of the show is elevated to the level or anywhere near of the action elements, the Dared Devil elements, I think you've got a show that's not just like really good, but potentially great. And so that's the thing that I come away with from this season is really good season of television, and it could have been like great and maybe Born Again.
Maybe it will be, Maybe it will be. I can't wait. I'm so excited for this show. I'm for book club.
I'm so stoked to see how many people are reading along and I think it's going to be a really interesting combo, especially leading into the show, which we're kind of now wondering how much is that just a title?
Is it really gonna pull elements? And from that it's going to be interesting to see.
Well. In the next few episodes of X ray Vision, we'll be recapping, of course, Daredevil seasons two and three originally on Netflix you can find them now on Disney Plus, and beginning our coverage of Born Again. That's it for this episode, Thanks for singing bye. X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Spcion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kurtman.
Our supervising producer is Abu Zafar.
Our producers are Common Laurent Dean Jonathan, and Bay wag.
Our theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman, and Heidi our discord moderator.