Hey, read today's episodes, can days spoilers for Daredevil seasons two and three plus the directors, because you actually need to know.
That information, all right? Red?
Hello, Am is Jason Excepcion.
A rosy night?
Yeah, and we'll come on X ray Vision the podcast when we dive Dee video verite, movies, comics and pop culture. Color you from iHeart Podcast where we're bringing you three episodes a week every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, plus news on the weekends.
Well, in today's episode, we are nothing if not completionists here, So we have not only watched That Devil season one and recapped it, which you can listen to now on a previous episode, but we are also recapped Being Dead over seasons two and three with a small intermission to cover the defenders, because believe it or not, you need it, you need it, you do need it, or otherwise you're gonna be asking questions.
So what happened?
Right like we're gonna be asking in this episode important questions. Is Matt a good lawyer or simply a great monologuer? How many men can speak in groud whispers? And keep our attention? Why does Karen Page do anything that she does, and what portion of the Born Again comic book that we covered in our book club does the Disney Plus series named after it actually have left to tell. Let's get into it, Okay. Daredevil season two headline, who's killing everybody?
The Punisher, he's in town and who's murdering and the Punisher is.
Laying absolute fucking waste to various organized crime groups in the city, Bikers, mafia, everybody is just get blown away. You get a crazy shot at one point. You have a crazy shot at one point where the camera like peers through the blown out bullet wound in a guy as like an FBI agent is looking into the bullet hole. It's and it's nuts. Matt of course, is like, this is a problem. I've got to figure out what is going on. And initially everybody else like.
This guy, like why doesn't he want.
To go to cool? And initially everybody is thinking this must be like a gang, like a Seal Team six gang or something. No, it's one guy. This comes to a head in the middle of the season where Matt and this guy, the Frank Castle, the Punisher, and they have this big conversation on a rooftop that is uh, basically the philosophical arc of this season, like what is a vigilante? Is it better to do it Matt's way where you're just using your fists? Is it better to do it Frank's way?
Where is there even really a difference?
Is there a difference between the two? And this all comes to a head with a wonderful nod from the comic books where Frank has Matt tied up and in chains. He wakes up, and you know, Matt wakes up on the rooftop. He's like, why didn't you take off my mask? Frank's like, I don't care who you are. And then they have this long philosophical debate about which path is better and is there even a difference between the two?
Come on, Red, what are you just gonna act like you're a kid at the playground beating criddles up with your fists. I'm putting them away for good. And then finally Frank gives Matt a choice. He's like, here's okay, here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna kill this guy unless you here's a gun, unless you shoot me crazy because Matt refuses to do it, but Frank shoots the guy anyway,
Matt's not able to save the guy. Debate debate over, we get some of the Frank Backstore, in which we discover that, uh, just like in the comics, his family was murdered in a botched gangland assassination and now Frank Castle is making sure that criminals pay the price.
I just want to say something, right, so, Matt Murdoch, sweet Catholic boy, Matt Murdock. Right, but look, we have seen this man definitely kill people before. Like he's breaking people's necks. He's given me they're getting severe head trauma like that.
Yeah, they'resspills who will like never speak to that family a gang because they're.
On like a fucking iron lung. I feel like it's that actually ironically makes this a way more interesting season for me. But even though the show isn't fully ready to grapple with it, if you've actually the seasons, it's the Batman thing, Like it's the book does it mean to kill someone? The truth is, if you've I wrote a two hundred I think it was twenty five hundred worth piece of ign asking and answering whether Batman really kills And this is very much in that space where
the devil doesn't. Matt doesn't like to think he kills people, but the reality is he does. It's just Punisher does it in a way that is more defined. He's like you are getting shot in the.
Head, Like, yeah, he's just blowing people away.
He's blowing people away. He's not just beating him up to get a rid of like Matt is a lot of what he does, just like Batman is a Catharsis, Whereas I think that Frank doesn't really get any Catharsis from killing these people. He just thinks it's what they deserve because his family died.
I would Punisher is the more honest, vigilante about what he is doing, correct, Whereas while Matt is delusional on several level, like in his personal life, in his career, in his career as a crime fighter, it's that Catholic guilt thing of like, you know, I'm doing the thing that satisfies me, but also I hate myself for doing the thing.
But also it's like it's the right thing to do.
So I feel like, well, Punisher is more honest. Obviously, I feel like Mad is the better one for society.
He's really compromised. Yes, obviously, as well, like we do have to put this into the context of the fact that, like when The Punisher was created as a Spider Man villain by the way, in you know, the seventies, created by Jerry Conway and John Remy Asenia and Russ Andrew, who many people often forget, but he was an amazing Spider Man villain and we were not living in a time where mass shootings were like an every day, every week occurrent.
That was also the period of the seventies where perception and the truth of it, you know, was like crime was a lot higher, much much higher than it is today, and movies like Charles Bronson's The Charles Bronson Vehicle Death, Witch and the Dirty Hairy series were extremely popular, and while The Punisher was introduced as basically a villain, quickly became popular because of that feeling, that anti hero feeling that was exactly culturally at that time.
You're so right, and it was actually I think Jerry Conway said that he was inspired by The Executioner, which was like a you know those thomb Pendleton where it's like those popular book series.
The Executioners. In biography, Yeah.
The first book is called War Against the Mafia, so I think you can understand. But those books sold millions
and millions of copies. So I think you bring up a great point, like, at that time, this idea of psychologically unhinged anti heroes who maybe had a background in the military or who had lost someone and were driven to you know, there's so many movies about that stuff post Death Wish, which set up this idea of like vengeance against you know, criminals being this righteous path the substitute movies where a guy just goes into like a
predominantly black and around school and just starts like breaking people's fingers and everyone's like, yeah, those kids are badly behaved. They deserved it. Death Wish is very much in line with that. So I think that that makes season two of Daredevil and The Punisher in general, and as people know who have listened to this podcast or who read Marvel Comics, that has been an ongoing conversation at Marvel Comics since really the twenty tens at least, if not before,
the idea of like what does the Punisher represent? And so I do think that the show was a little bit ironically, even though it's from twenty sixteen, I think it was like a little bit ahead of the conversation and wasn't as ready to have the wider conversation. So I'm hoping the new show will. But I do find I love a conversation about how.
To be a bit. I do think overall that the Matt Frank stuff is the most interesting stuff in this season for me. Oh, no question, And then I thought they could have really gone a lot farther with it. But this conversation on the rooftop, I think for me is the highlight of season two.
Oh, I agree, And it's the one that feels most like you're reading a comic. It takes directly from the comics. It looks beautiful. Yeah, I agree.
Meanwhile, someone else has arrived back in town. It is Matt's college girlfriend, Electronacchios. She's a boy. Does she smell great, just like she did back in the college days. We get the flashback of the college days where that's another Honestly, another highlight for me is like they nailed the chemistry, which is two rich girl, blue collar guy, both like
intense physical chemistry. They both shouldn't be with each other, and they and that is what makes them want to be with each other is like they both shouldn't be doing this, and it is messy, it is chaotic, and it is intensely physical.
Also, I love that she she turns up in Matt's apartment just thought to him and Karen have had like a romantic moment and they're like will they won't they? And then Electra's there and it's like won't they? Because Electra is here and she is a complex, holy imagined woman unlike Carenpage in this.
Series sadly, sadly said, will get more sadly. So, yeah, Elektra is back in town and she's got this kind of like issue with various Japanese shell companies.
Including a rock Song Corporation.
Including rocks On Corporation. She's Matt's help with this. Also, The Hand, the Assassin offshoot arm of the Yakuza Japanese mafia Association, is after Electra four reasons, which we will discover why. Because they're obsessed with Black Sky, as we saw from season one of Daredevil, a kind of prophesied super clan leader for the Hand and the Yakuza, and they believe that Electra is Black Stock and she's not like super interested in being this person. So that is
obviously a problem. Meanwhile, Frank Castle is still out there murdering, murdering, murdering, murdering. Things escalate. Elektra and Matt fight the Hand. She dies protecting Matt in an epic battle on the rooftop. Later,
there's gonna be a funeral and everything. Frank Castle shows up just when things look like it's gonna be they're gonna go really bad for Matt, and he shoots various hand assassins so Matt doesn't become a killer in a moment that actually like, I was surprised at how yeah I was.
I know that's the one thing they get you. This man is shooting like multiple.
I got your bat Castle. Then later goes off and finds the person responsible for killing a family, and he kills the guy who burns out his house. Matt tells Karen that he is Daredevil. He shows her the mask and everything. She is shocked, and then in kind of a stinger, we see that deep down in some tunnel somewhere under Manhattan, the Hand is all crowded around a coffin with some writing on it. They open the coffin and guess who's inside. Electra Oh oh, what could ever
happened there? I wonder if there's a famous story arc we could look. Let's talk about the Karen Page problem, which I think is very pressing in season two.
In season two, I think it is the most pressing because it feels to me it's the oneickest part of the season.
The Karen Page scenes are just throwaways. They should be better, but they're not.
She doesn't exist outside of a man, and that the problem is that was the same in season one, but she actually killed that man, ben Uric and Uric and then becomes benyurretta Benic basically single white females him and I hate that choice that they made. I think that what they were trying to do with season one and season two Karen Page is emulate the Karen Page from the Born Again Comics, who, as we talked about, opens the comics as basically an unreliable friend, somebody who will
sell Matt out, somebody who will sell people out. I think they wanted to have that duality and complexity. But Karen grows in that comic. I can't believe I once again here giving credit to Frank Miller, but like in this story, she doesn't really have that growth.
She has very static, she never has the full picture.
She never has agency, She's never making truly informed decisions, and it's I really want this to be rectified in the new season because I will. I think that that Deborah am Will as Karen Page is some of the best casting in the MCU. I think she does her best with what she yes. I think her the way that her and Matt have this kind of childlike first love chemistry is so accurate. She represents to Matt a different kind of life, an honest life. But she should
be more than just what she represents to men. And her relationship with Frank castleheads very confusing. Her relationship with Matt is Confusingly, it.
Felt like they were trying to set up almost like a romance or something of a protective and that never and then they were like, wait a second, this is crazy, but let's salvage some of it. Like it was just it didn't work. The Karen Paige stuff just didn't work in season two. And thus it feels like this is the season when we have said in our previous coverage that there's a lot of fat on the bone here and not enough meat. This is one of those things they could have made.
Yeah, they could have, and especially because the stuff that is good, it really sings and you just kind of wish. I think that after having such a like smash it first season, they probably went into this without necessarily getting a lot of notes. I know Disney probably does give you a lot of notes, or Netflix give you a lot of notes. So I'm not taking away the amount of work that was done on notes, because notes suck and are hard, but they do make the show better.
But I feel like in this they were given kind of do what you want, because it very much feels like there are bloated moments or there are choices that they make here where they could have been streamlining. Like them the Dead Devil and Electra stuff is so good, and that's such a prime part of the.
Character energy there.
It's so important to both of them, and also very interesting to bring back Stick and kind of have this reveal that they were almost like the two naughty children he was training to be murderers. Very interesting, complex stuff there. I do think that the Punisher casting is absolutely fantastic.
I know he'd get it, he's great, But I also think there is something left wanting in a version of Punisher that is a modern daverse the Punisher that kind of just presents him as a different option to dead evil without really having more of a commentary on the on the way he does it, like going around in a bulletproofess just shooting people up in America. That's a
very horrible thing to think about. It happens all the time, and you can't really be making the same movie you were making before with the eighties Punisher or Punisher war Zone or whatever version you were making, which, by the way, guys, there are many Punisher movies and you will find a favorite because there are some pretty yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it's season two.
It's it's it's good, but it's not great.
It's yes, that is that is absolutely the case. The good Punisher movie, by the way, is two thousand and four's The Punisher. Yes, Thomas Jane and John.
For I am actually good movie, actually good movie. And also the opening of that movie where they do like the dramatic like how his family was killed and they're like all wearing like white. It's so ridiculous and I love it. Super campy.
The big Russian in the in the apartment is like so good and really.
Yeah, and there are a lot of Punisher war Zone fans out there who loved that movie. Also one of the first superhero movies directed by a woman.
Listen Jim Lee drawing Punisher. I'm in. I was a big Punisher Warzone fan. Shots to my microchip heads back in the day.
Okay, oh, microchip is in the MCU baby. I think we got a microchip in this.
So yeah, very excited. Okay, So we go from season two of Daredevil two the Defenders. That's right, we got to talk about it.
Just what you wanted. You all wanted to hear this.
We have to talk about it a little bit. Okay.
You think I'm in a Channel's defender, Jason is a Defender's Defender.
I think some of it works. Okay, So anyway, we'll keep it very brief. Isn't dead shocker? She's been resurrected by the hand oh uh? You know want her for Black Sky the Black Sky roll. And also now that she's resurrected, she's kind of like mind wiped.
I feel like, can she be back Sky if they just mind wiped her? That was always annoying to me. I was like, are you completely the actual elect list but anyway, the Hand, they're a mess that you want to talk about, not fully fleshed out.
The Hand is not fully fleshed out. The Hand as a antagonist force doesn't work for me too, Anonymous, What do they care about? They're just like bad guys. It's also like a holdover from like eighties japan Japanophobia, and it just doesn't it doesn't work.
It's all hilarious because in the Ninja Tas as you guys know, the villains are called the Foot and they were a parody of the Hand, so the Hand immediately feels like a parody. Anyway, in a much much maligned Elektra movie, there is actually a really interesting version of the Hand with like supernatural kind of hand members and there's a guy who's come alive off his body. It's still not great, but it's definitely more interesting than just like that anonymous Ninjas. You can be killed?
Yes, okay, So Matt as Daredevil teams up with all your favorite street level heroes from the Flash MCU, including Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand in order to stop the Hand and Electra. The relationship is still complicated. The defenders have a big fight with the Hand in the hands like magic fortress built over a dragon skeleton, and at the end they defeat the Hand, but Matt
like dies maybe and the building collapses on him. And that is why in season three, the opening of season three of Daredevil, Matt is washing up out of a sewer. Because some of you who did not watch Defenders but did watch season three of Daredevil, or some of you who are like, let me do a Daredevil rewatch, You'll get to season three and Matt will wash up out of a sewer and you'll be like, what the fuck is this?
Why is and who is this? Who is this nun?
That's maxim that Matt. So yeah, so Matt, he washes up out of a sewer and he's tended to by a nun named Maggie, who is his mom. You know that from the comics and you know that from our previous Daredevil coverage and our Daredevil Born Again club. So Matt at the opening of season three of Daredevil is like angry, depressed, disillusioned, and he's done with the Daredevil costume. He's not doing this stuff anymore, but he still is
out going out into the streets. But he's wearing his early season one costume, which is just like the black shirt, Black Pill and the Little Black. He's basically dressed as a waiter or a bartender, but it's he's like he's like a kid's roaring of a ninja.
Yeah, but he also could be you know, if he needs to take that half and just like look like he's you know, serving kandapace, he could also do it.
That's right. Fisk meanwhile is behind bars, but he is making moves. He's cutting a deal. He cuts a deal with the government where he's providing information on former gang associates, dirty Teitians, dirty judges, including the Albanian mob who get really mad at him. So when he is being transported by the FBI to the beautiful penthouse that they are going to put him up in, you know that he is becoming such a huge snitch.
This is so good that, like, you know what snitches get in the Marvel universe.
A sick, beautiful, beautiful penhouse, gorgeous.
Viewty oh blah, we love it. I love Wilson Fists so much. I love Incindinofrio, I love how I just instantly believe all of his schemes are true, Like, this is the most unrealistic thing in the world. Obviously, we know rich people do get preferential treatment, but this is so comic Bookie, Oh yeah, it.
Does seem like I gotta say, it does seem like criminal. Rich people get away with everything. So they get away with everything.
And I love that this season and I think we both agree that season three is like a return to form after season two. But like, I love how it opens and you're really in that classic comic book setup for the Devil for Spider Man, one of those things that you love to see with the street level hero.
He is broken, he's nobody has his back, he's struggling, he's doing his best, he's he's out there, he's training, he's beating up the heavy bag, you know, and at the same time, his villain has more power than ever. It's such a good comic book set up, and it's so fun to watch with these two actors in specific, Charlie Cox and Vincent Deinofrio. I love you fantastic ten out of ten performances.
So Wilson is being transported to his beautiful penthouse when his convoy is ambushed by the Albanian mob and They almost get Wilson, but a hard charging FBI agent named Ben dex Poindexter, who has unently accurate aim, catches Fisk's eye, and Fisk quickly gets to work corrupting this guy, which is not hard because I mean he's already yeah he's a psychopath, but begins trying to corrupt him in order to turn him into his personal assassin, Bull's Eye. Matt
is in fully self destruct mode. He's refused, as we said, he's refusing to wear the suit. He's lost all faith in the in the system because he is seeing that Wilson is like succeeding, He's like doing all this stuff and playing the government like a fiddle. So he starts investigating Fisk and what Fisk is up to. This leads
him into a Riker's Island. He goes undercover into Rikers Island to go talk to some of the Albanian gang members who are a prison there, and this turns into what I believe to be one of the best action scenes in television or movie.
Good It's so good.
Oh he gets Basically, Fisk tries to assassinate Matt, knowing that Matt is jupiplant, right, He gets Mat. He like maneuvers Matt into the like the nurse's office, where he's then gonna have this fake nurse like inject him with stuff. And this turns into a eleven minute fake one shot like prison feels like one shot. It feels like a one shot. The editing is really really good.
This is such a good scene.
I oh my god.
I feel like it is forgotten in the annals of great MCU action scenes. I do think as well that though we've always talked and fans have always talked, and critics have always talked about how good the action wasn't these shows. I think that bringing this into the canon of the MCU is gonna hopefully make them reconsider the way that they shoot action because we often don't get this unbelievable You're gonna have the leg break. It does
feel like that. Also, Yeah, let Timo Tanto or Garrett Evans make a fucking Marvel movie please, because I love the raid. I love the Night Comes for us. We need that kind of stuff. But yeah, this sequence is so unreal. When I'm watching it for the pod, I'm feeling that same like goosebumps come up. Yes, you know when this begins because I know what's gonna happen, and it's so brilliantly done. And also I love the way that Matt It doesn't just show Matt's physical prowess, but
it shows his intelligence as a de lawyer. He's a deal maker, he knows how to talk to people. He comes and it shows that like he's a real blue collar guy like Fisk is Fisc they know he'll go back on it, but Matt can have a real conversation with these people, and yeah, ma'n, what what a sequence.
So it just I just think that this this season gets everything right in terms of that, Yeah, they're overdone stories, but the idea of like what makes a hero and also like these classic notions that it would take the MCU, you know, years to do in Spider Man and No Way Home and stuff, but like the notion of like, is is dead evil a bad guy? And can the hero turn people on dead evil? And that's what the kind of bulk of the rest of the show becomes about.
So Matt, in the middle of this prison riot, meets with you know, meets, he fights his way by like tooth and nail to the Albanian mob, shot collar and strikes this deal whereby they will help Man escape if Matt helps them get revenge on Wilson Fisk. So Matt manages to escape, and again, what is this is episode four I believe. If you're not gonna watch, if you're.
Not gonna rewatch, just go through and just watch this scene.
Yeah, if you're not gonna rewatch the whole thing in order to get ready for board again, just watch some of the actions scene season two, the Hallway fight, and I believe episode three with the gang with the Bikers, and and episode four of season three, the eleven minute prison escape is I think also.
Somebody will have probably done a super cap of Yeah, that's got to be that somewhere.
Meanwhile, Fisk outside has gives Poindexter Decks a fake Daredevil. Sooners like just go crazy, just go crazy, just do your thing.
He's like, just do it, man, Yeah, may everyone hate you, kill people?
Yeah, this do whatever you gotta do. New York quickly turns on Daredevil and now Matt has to fight this psycho version of himself.
Fisk was also like he did try and kill Matt after that, Like he drives Matt off the fucking bridge like an then he's like, oh, I hope that he dies in this submached taxi. He doesn't die, And then I love this.
In another Born Again, another Born Again reference by the way, and then and then I love.
The way that he's like, Okay, what worked for me before he's like snitching, I'm gonna tell the FBI that Matt Murdoch is like a fucking fixer. And it's like so good to see this absolute character assassination of Matt, who is already really his lowest. But that's what we love to see. We love to see the good boys get beaten down and then they're gonna fight their way back up. But yeah, I have to say, now we're
talking about Poindexter Dex bulls Eye. I just love this version of him so much, saying he's one of the absolute best editions played by Wilson beth Or. He's very
much scary real, he's so scary. He brings to life some of the scariest Bullseye comic stuff that is just so horrific and nightmare and this kind of Yeah, he was created by Marve Wolfman and John Remy a senior and was kind of always kind of scary, but the David Ahart era stuff where it's kind of like bulls Eye understands what fucks with Matt.
Yeah, he does, he knows, he knows the emotional pressure points, yes.
And also the physical ones, like in in Debt of five hundred. I think about this page a lot. He he sets off like little firecrackers fire and just like devastates Matt and he does suddenly can't tell anything that's going on. And there's also some really great Bullseye stuff in the comics where you really get to see that he is like a true psychopath, like he takes down a whole He'll sit with a whole family dinner and talk to the whole family kind of before he kills them.
He's a real Hannibal Lecter esque kind of nightmare serial killer. And I think that they really sold that here. But you know what else is crazy about this season that I always forget, but then when I was rewatching it absolutely happened to me again. I feel for Ben. I feel for this guy because he is being manipulated by Kingpin, who knows that he is a psychopath, but he doesn't say to him like, oh, go get therapy, like go
help your life. He's make that worse. He's like, I'm not gonna worp you to the point where you don't even know like who you are anymore, Like he starts to believe he is this dead Levil and oh man, this stuff is just this is like prime MCU, prime Netflix, Prestige Television, and yeah, just like what what what a performance. I'm so glad he's coming back in the New and Born again because I think it would have been an absolute miss to not have him come back.
So everything comes to ahead with Matt facing off against Wilson in a in their second round physical confrontation after season one, Matt beats the Kingpin, forces him to confess, and Fisk agrees, basically agrees to go back to jail, in part because I can't Vanessa. He can't. Vanessa is heavily implicated. A lot of Season three hinges on the fact that Matt knows that Vanessa was involved in this stuff, and then Wilson can't let her face any consequences at all.
That's why he's like, he's a wife guy. Yeah, he's a big time wife guy. That's why he's become such a massive snitch. And so finally faced with the possibility that Vanessa could go to jail as well. Fisk confesses to everything is like, I'll go to jail, and of course, as we know, every time it happens, he always does this, and as we know, Wilson stays behind bars for good.
This happen any problems never ap pis in any other MCU shows. Definitely not scheming ap playing. What's Vanessa up to? Oh, she's definitely not doing anything, Baddie the just you know, she's just a simple just a simple art dealer and philanthropist, you know, no connections to the mob. Nothing else is gonna happen. No, Obviously we're covering this for a reason that both coming out and I can't wait to see what they get up to.
So that is the end of the excellent season three of Daredevil, which first aired on Netflix. You can now find it on Disney Plus. Let's take a quick break here and go to our thoughts and predictions and we're back. Okay,
So we've talked previously. We talked on our season one recap, and we talked on our Boarding End book Club coverage about how much Daredevil board again really is in season one, two and three of Diardo well, and I think honestly, season three might have the most of references and scenes pulled directly from the comics.
Definitely, and also the notion of Fisk's plan in Born Again, which is this kind of to destroy that, to destroy his reputation, to destroy his standing with his friends, to make it so he feels like he has nobody. We really start season three in that space, and then from there on out it's about the battle between the two
of them. I think ironically, the one thing that we don't really get in season three that was so good about this is I man, when I was like first starting my journalism career and I was like I'd worked in the comic shop and I'd read these books for a long time, I would always be like just so mad at all these guys who wrote these books where the women don't have these great, you know, roles, or
they're kind of like written down. But it's funny because now, obviously we are living in a space where we have access to so many fantastic com by so many different people. That really changed that. And uh, it's kind of funny because looking back at it, I really was kind of surprised by how much I liked Born Again, and also by the fact that at the end Karen actually gets a happy ending. This isn't a book where a sex worker dies. This isn't a book where a drag addict dies,
you know. And I think I would have really actually liked to have seen more of that kind of walking off into the sunset, you know, a little bit more of that real hopefulness. And I think it's it's kind of funny that what was really taken from Born Again
was that darkness, you know. So I'm interested. I think that from what we've seen so far, and from the fact that we know spoilers if you haven't watched Echo or you know Hawkeye, or you haven't been keeping up with the news but or watched the trailers, so I muffs on if you want to go and completely blind. But we know that Wilson fit is going to be
the mayor. We know that Dead Evil and him are going to come to some kind of you know, pack to maybe work together and see what's happening in the city. So I think with all the characters that are returning, I don't think there's gonna actually be a lot of Born Again in Dead Evil. Born Again I think they went for the title because it makes sense they're reintroducing him into the MCU. But what is the kind of
what's the status quo gonna be? We do know that he will have a new love interest who is pulled from the comics, so I'm interested to see. I do hope the rumors about Electra coming back were true as well, because I think, why not just throw everyone in there. But I do think that it's gonna be one of
the longest seasons that Disney has done. I think it's gonna be very character focused, but the fact that they're bringing in Punisher, maybe Electra Vanessa's back, Bullseyes back, there's not gonna be a lot of time to be doing like very deep character explorations. I feel like this is going to be more of like a best of how do you reintroduce these characters into this world. I'm very
interested to see what they do with Punished. We also got the news recently that Punisher was going to have his own kind of Marvel special, which I think could really do a great job of recontextualizing him. I mean,
especially after how fantastic Werewolf by Night was. So Yeah, I'm interested to see how much Born Again is in there, But also when we already have so many great moments in these shows, I don't necessarily know that we need to hit those, and we definitely don't need, you know, Karen Page being a drug addict, unless they're going to do something really thoughtful with it and interesting and kind
of explore addiction. But again, I don't know if they have the space to do that when they're bringing back so many characters and basically reintroducing these heroes in a way that's going to canonize them but also tell us what definitely isn't canon from these other shows.
Yeah, I think that, you know, it's interesting. As we've talked about before, there's so much good Daredevil. Kingpin does become Mayor in the comics during the Trial Seel Run.
Which is widely seen as one of the great great friends of that evil, and so I.
Wonder if they don't combine some of like the Wade and Sewel runs and make it so. I agree with you that I think the trailer certainly suggests that Kingpin and Matt come to some sort of agreement where they're like, listen, we won't let's not attack each other because whatever there's some okay.
Lawful evil, lawful good coming together.
You know, there's something else out there, but of course they must come to a confrontation. I wonder if we see something like when Matt essentially becomes like there's a there's an arc in which Matt doesn't become the crime boss of New York, but he basically like beats all of the gangs into submission and he's like, Okay, you're going to take orders from me now like normal violence.
Wonder it's interesting almost like a reversal where Kingpin is keeping things lawful on a big scale and Matt is keeping things lawful on your more like underground crime scale. That would be very interesting to see.
And then I do wonder, and then I feel like it simply must go to a place where eventually, as Mayor Wilson Fisk is like, we've all out war on crime and the number one crime figure in New York is Dareduble and.
We know exactly that's definitely what it's got to be. And also, once again one of mine and Jason's favorite topics that we always return to, how do you set up world where mutants I hated and feared in the MCU where heroes are generally celebrated. Well, actually, the Netflix series is do a good job of maybe establishing a world where it's easy for people to turn on heroes.
We've seen the world turn on Spider Man in the MCU because of Mysterio, but this could be a much more definitive way of doing it, especially if it's a law. If he brings in legislation New York bands, you know, massed vigilantes York. Look at the Punisher, look at Dad Evil, look at Bullseye, who I'm definitely going to claim in this case is a mass vigilante rather than a serial killer.
Suddenly you have a situation where maybe people aren't as friendly towards those heroes, especially if you think about it in the context of the fact that the president of the MCU was just revealed as a hulk. You know, that could definitely be a space. I really like that call. I think I think you're on a good track with that. Okay, Jason, this is a hard question because there are so many Marvel TV series now, But where does this rank for you?
Jen if you put all three seasons together, where does this rank on your list of best MCU or Marvel inspired TV.
It might be the best. It might be. I think it's it might be the best, and I think it's certainly top three, even top two. Like you know, it tastes vary, of course, but I think in terms of it is of course very uneven. But I as all the Marvel TV stuff has been I don't think that there's a perfect in live action like X Men ninety
seven side pretty much. Yeah, I don't think that there's been a perfect Marvel TV series, but I think the highs are really really high, and I think the bar that it sets for action yeah, is something that stands on its own as a real achievement in television storytelling for Marvel. And if they can combine all those things Inborn Again, which the early reviews seem to suggest that they have.
Yes, they did have the two episode premiere recently in New York, of course, and so far the responses are that it's good. It manages to meld those things. Obviously, we know early responses are often skewed positive, but I did see a lot of cool people at that premiere, and I believe that they probably have that Simceles stuff that they love to us. So I'm feeling positive, I
would say I agree. I think for me, I do think Wondervision is still my top because I think it because it's so much, so much shorter.
I really feel like I don't think WandaVision is the one that, like, if you don't like Marvel, you can watch it exactly.
And also it's it's it's so unique, it's so interesting. But I do think that quality wise, if we're talking only live action, Dead Devil's got to be next, even with all of its issues. I think it's really funny because it doesn't in a way it feels like it was almost ten years ago, but it also feels like it definitely wasn't almost ten years ago, or it was. I think De Devil came out in twenty fourteen, so
it was eleven years ago. Maybe truly is yeah, but but at the same time, like it's so influential it's kind of hard to even sum it up. From the title sequence that kind of changed how Prestige TV was doing title sequences to the action to the fact that it may it was very much the Watchman of Superhero TV, where it was kind of this like Biff Bang Pal Now Superhero TV isn't for kids. It's prestige, it's violent, you know, So I'm really interested to see if they
can keep that up. So far, as you know, I'm an Echo fan, and I actually love what they've done with Wilson Fisk so far. I love the kind of acceleration of his super heroic powers, which we definitely do get touches of in the Netflix series in a way that I hadn't really remembered, Like he's often throwing people through doors and doing things that kind of hint to that.
I really like how they have built in the father daughter relationship with Echo, whether we're going to see her again, whether we're going to see Shee Hulk, even though I loved that relationship we had with Matt. I think I'll be fine if they don't come in because those shows still exist. But I love what they've done with Wilson Fisk. I feel like they understand how to balance and use
the MCU. Like in the MCU, it feels believable that Wilson Fisk could be shot in the head and still survive, right because the MCU is this superheroic blockbust that anything can happen. Well in the more grounded dead of a series that would seem a little bit harder to play. So I think they understand what the MCU kind of gives them storytelling wise, and I'm excited to see how the rest of the characters kind of fall into that. Also just feels crazy to me that we're so close
to this show coming out like this year. It's really a zooming past.
Daredevil Born Again premieeres March fourth on Disney Plus, and of course we will be covering it on Wednesday. Our recap of sevenths two o seven will will hit your ear holes. And then Thursday, We're Born Again as the new Dark Devil series debuts with two episodes episodes one and two March fourth, Disney Plus and come back on Saturday, where we're going to recap the week's news. That said, for this episode, thanks for let's.
Me Bye Red, Bye see you, Little Red, See you later.
Red x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
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