Worrying. Today's episode contains spoilers for the season finally of Daredevil, Born Again Dward. Hello my name, it's Jason Gepsion, and welcome back to x Ray Vision of the podcast where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics of pop culture, Company from My Heart podcast, where we're bringing you three massive episodes of week listeners.
In today's episode, Well we've made it here, guys.
It's been years of drama reshoots, recasting, killing people, bringing them back.
What's going on?
Well, it's the Daredevil finale, and my, oh.
My, it's gonna be an interesting conversation because.
This is a divisive one, not just in the discord, but also in the production team.
Let's get into it. First, we open one year ago flashback. Vanessa goes to visit Dex in the mental War. Des is heavily drugged.
Guys, can we give this matter break?
I never thought I never thought I'd feel bad for Dex. But this is definitely a scene where you're like, God, this guy's, this horrific serial killer is getting exploited by this by Vanessa Viz.
He's like, He's like, please, I don't want to fucking kill anyone.
I just want to stay in jail, like, I don't want to do it. I don't want to Yeah, I don't want to do it anymore.
And she's like, well, sorry, I've got your release. So she's like, listen, I'm getting your released and in return, I need you to kill two people, Ben Kofaro and his lawyer Foggy Nelson. They have information about my organization that cannot become public, and I need you to kill him. And Dex is like, ah, I'm not killing in here. I'm getting my medication. I don't want to do it, and she's like, no, you gotta fucking do it. You're doing it.
Yeah. I also I like the way that she tries to sell it to him, like she's like, I need you to kill a thief.
They're a bad person. You're doing something right. He just kills the whole family like chill out.
He can barely sign his name to the release forms, that's how like medicated he is. We flash forward to the present. Matt's waking up in the hospital after being shot, you know, by Ben Poindexter. The bullet crazy to save Willson Fisk's life. For some reason, Heather and Kirsten are there. They tell him that Fisk is fine, and Matt is immediately like the foggy case, what's going on? Like that? That's why, that's what's going on. I need to find
what are the documenting? Are there any documents looked over from that case? Like what do we know about that case? Fisk and Vinessa at home, still in their bloodstained getting real horny and like they are these two are freaks. I will say that, like they're horrendous people. But it's it's it is. There's something like touching about two people who find their person and certainly they are for each other.
Oh, it's very it's very match my is somebody gonna match my freak? These twos freaks match, They love each other. They love a little horny like are you gonna assassinate me?
Type situation? You know, but what can we say?
Yeah, you're gonna how are you gonna try and kill me? Today? And so then Fisk basically says, in not so many words that he knows that Vanessa I pulls I to try and kill him, and honestly you can tell like he it turns him on a little bit. And then he tells Vanessa, you know here's here's what's up this port deal. It's gonna be we were stealing millions before. Now we're gonna be stealing billions through the billion billions billions. We made the big time.
Baby.
Matt, then in the hospital, explains his Foggy theory to Kirsten with the you know m you know mc alviani's and the whiskey, and he was drinking it to celebrate the whole thing. She said, well, Foggy was going to file emotion to dismiss. And he's like, where's the motion, where's the documents? Where are they? And Heather and Kirsten are like, Matt, you've just been you've just been shot. Could you go to bed? Fleas.
My favorite part is like Heather is like so stressed at this point, she's in bed and the room massive bed, and she's like He's like, you know, fis She's like, why did you Guys Like.
Yeah, you get you're.
Telling me he saved him so he could be the one to catch him. He's such a little batman.
Same night, later the same night, everybody feel in their ballroom attire, and Fist calls a meeting of his whole political team. He is feeling in it. He is like in a flow stealing. He is like dirty cops, no more warrants, no more body cams, kill anybody you want on the snoot, We're doing no due process.
We're rich seizing.
It's something. It is really something when a comic book villain is written in such a way to seem insanely power mad, and then all of a sudden the real world rises to meet that standard.
I think, you know, we were talking about this in regards to the Pit and how it's even that show is really a response to COVID, but it still feels relevant because a lot of people still have COVID and there's still bad, you know, bad business in the medical industry. And Noah Wyley's mom was a nurse, so she was calling him every time he watched she watched dr and
being like this is wrong, so make it right. In the Pit and in this show, this show that has been in production for like four years, they did something where they told what I'm sure they.
Felt it was so crazy.
Yeah, crazy, But now you're watching it and you're like, Jesus, I know. Eric Adams just could wish that he was acting like Maphisk, like in public, like you know what's happening.
So nobody cams no due process. Fisk is like, I want the city sealed, cut the bridges, uh, martial law everywhere. Afterwards, Buck is like, hey, some bad news, Boss Murroc is gonna live, and Fisk is like, well, wouldn't it be great if he didn't? What a better story that would have been killed Matt Murdoch, like a rabble rousing lawyer for the dispossessed and the powerless killed by a masked vigilante. Let's make it happen.
Buck, He's like, He's also like come on, man, like just think about it. Isn't a dead hero better than alive vigilante?
And I was like, man, that's a fucking good line. Like wow.
Fisk then orders Sheila to snitch on the rest of the staff, and Sheila, I have to say, is has acted this entire series as if everything she's asked to do is like the worst thing, and she's just struggling with it so hard, and yet every time she folds.
And does it yeah, which I find is a very interesting position because she's basically like, I'm beat than this.
I would never do that, and then immediately goes and doesn't.
Yeah, so I think she is a realistic representation kind of that white Lotus conversation we were having, like absolute power corrupts absolutely, Like Sheila is gonna sell these people out to save her own skin.
So you know she's she's been told like, Okay, tell me who's not loyal in my organization and give me the names. Shila doesn't love it. Clearly you can tell by her face she doesn't love it. She leaves the office. Chief Gallo comes to her and is like, this is fucked up. This is crazy. We need to do something. You and I need to do something. I'm going to
Albany and I'm gonna I can't call Albany. I have to go there personally and tell the governor and the state government in person that is planning to do on this. There's no way I could like call anybody else or send an email or text or call the New York Times or anything. I have to I have to go tomorrow in person.
So is like, don't go.
Not great. It's yeah, the Capitol district, that's not great, but listen, not great. No shots to Albany. Uh.
I have.
I at some delicious pet's are in Albany. But I do feel like it's weird all the way to Albany.
He could have picked up a phone, but anyway, and She'll was like, I got your back. I'm gonna back you up. Uh Matt is you know it's been four hours since he was shot and he's lying in his hospital bed and power goes off across the whole city. And while that's happening, Matt hears through all the tumult and the craziness. He hears Buck Cashman entered the hospital like.
Was it because they were playing killing me softly slowly over his and friends with Joel was not a fan.
Of and we'll talk about like that.
We'll talk about that. And so Matt is like, uh, oh, Buck Cashman's here kill me. I could hear him. I can smell him. I know he's in the building. He sneaks away, he sneaks home to his apartment and guess who's at his apartment. Frank Castle is broken. He was coming back and they argue, and they bicker back and forth, as they often do. Is like, well, you know, what's what's going on? Matt? And he says, listen, I'm here to help you. I don't want to help you. I
don't like the way you do business. But you know what, Matt Murdoch, someone, some secret someone gave me a call and made me promise to help him. Reed to do it. Who is this person? Will find out soon. Frank then tell yeah, I wonder. Frank then tells Matt, listen, when the bad guys the Task Force get here and Buck Cashman maybe and whoever the Fiscus sending to kill you, I going to kill them, okay, And I don't want you to have it, just so, just so you know,
don't have a problem with it. Okay, By the way, why did you take a bullet for Fisk? And Man is like, I don't even know.
He's like at this point, I don't find know.
Like I think did I think he did it because he's just completely out of it, like obviously.
But also like he he killed Fisk.
And I do think this is a very interesting part of how they explore Matt here. I think somewhere inside him he just killed him because it's like, that's that's my job.
I'm dead devil.
I take a bullet if somebody's getting shot, like and I think it was almost like a muscle memory, but also because he can't exist without Wilson Fisk. Dead devil didn't exist when Fisk went straight, Yeah, devolhood was off the streets, you know. So he needs him alive to justify what he is doing.
I think he wants more than anything to expose Wilson Fisk in the eyes of the public, in the court of law, shine daylight on his operations, everybody look look at this guy, and not have him be killed and become like a martyr figure that other people were going to follow. I think that's what Mad is going for. So the task force arrives and it's a it's a it's a huge fight with Frank murder maybe cops left and right and left and right.
If I got punishing logo on the chest, he's gotten him.
With a guttnam. He's shooting him in the head. He's blowing them away with his shotgun.
Frank.
Matt is like, Frank, stop it, stop it, and Frank is just like no.
Matt says that.
But then he's also like hitting people in the head with Billy cops, like definitely causing some traumatic brain injuries.
More on that in a bit, because Okay, so the fight is over. They've they've killed like a dozen Task Force guys and you know, incapacitated, maybe half a dozen eight more. Matt uses one of the Punisher inscribed bullet casings to id the copy killed Hector, and Mac gets really mad and he hits him full force in the hand with the Bully Club Billy Club like full American history xx curb stump. Yeah, level of molosity. This guy is fucking dead.
Yeah, he's definitely dead or in a coma.
And also as well, like I think that something that was very enticing to me is that this is the hardest we have ever seen any Punisher story kind of deal with the real.
Life comics anywhere, not even in the comics.
No, in the comics, it's like the change the logo, like we want to re we don't want it to be appropriated, blah bah blah. Here Matt, Matt and Frank do exactly what Frank would really do if he was a real past and which is kill a ton of fucking cops because they have taken this thing that means something to him. And we get a great little kind of teaser of how Frank feels about it in la a scene.
So Frank is like, you know, Matt really wax this guy in the head. And there's that like aluminum baseball bat sound. The cops slumps. Frank is like, yeah, yeah, Red, get him, Red, don't stop now get him and then and then Matt's clearly not gonna keep going from I'll do it. And then Matt, this is three Stooges level funny. I laughed out loud. Matt is like, Frank, don't do don't kill We'll just stop killing cops. And Frank is like, oh, he'd be like this, Red, he just shoots a different guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. He goes like this, He's like you He's like, he's like, oh, you don't you don't want me to shoot this cop? How about that?
Don't just kill him? And then they are bickering out. Now that chemistry is so good.
Absolutely, it's like get a room, you two. So they're just now they're just bickering back and forth, arguing, and then Matt's like, wait, hold on, Frank, shut up. There's a grenade that's just been thrown in this part of somewhere head like you're So they dive out the window with incredible Matt clearly, you know, using his Billy club winch to to allow them to break their fall, and they survive. A car pulls up as as Matt's apartment explodes.
It's Karen. Karen is the one who called Frank. They go back to Frank's apartment or subterranean like dungeon whatever, These bumper under an apartment building, and I gotta say immediately there's chemistry between Frank and Karen hold On.
Yeah, so if you remember the Punisher series from Netflix, they were definitely trying to establ bish some kind of they romantic connection. But I don't know that the chemistry was as palpable as just in this tiny scene, like really taped up. Karen is the one who called Frank. They clearly talk to each other a lot. They know how they like each other's coffee. Like this is obviously a thing that not just us but Matt consents to. And honestly, he's love triangle, you know, mate is how.
You know Matt is smelling it. He's like hearing the elevator.
He's such a little creeper, Like, don't do that, Matthew. It's weird.
So yeah, Karen is definitely, like I can save Frank Castle, like I can reach him his inner child, Like I can save that little boy. Matt then tells Karen, hey, Vanessa is the one who killed Foggy. It was about the case. What's going on with that case? Where can we find the documents? And Karen is like, oh, I know where we put all the documents from all you know, our former you know, Murdoch and Sing and Matthew should have made she like, I know where all of that
that stuff is archived. Let's go get it.
And it's because she was just that, she was basically just a secretary. So she's like, I know where all the important don't keep us off.
That's the most important job in the lawyer's office. She can find that for you.
And she still can apparently, so she and as she's leaving the shares a little moment with Frank where she's like, I know, Frank, I know you want to do the right thing. Don't at like you don't want to do the right thing. You want to be a good guy.
Don't pretend like this mister tough guy. And Frank's making his like fucking instant coffee black with no no cream, and he's like just says nothing as she leaves, and then he's like to himself, be careful good, which is like okay, and that's basically like marry me Karen, like for Frank. Basically, then, uh, there's this really this series we've talked about it before is so silly in ways that I find really entertaining. I thinks like a come
feels exactly like a collar book. Everything we've just described is like silly in that way. And it continues. We get a great scene where Daniel and Buck go and shake down the city council with you know, young Gandalfini basically playing like our version of his dad was like, hey, yeah, he just do Yeah, yeah, hey, you're I'm talking about the real estate investments in Kip Bay. kIPS Bay fifteen million dollars is pretty good, you know, pretty I think you might want to cut the you might want to
cut the mayor in on that. You know what I'm saying, Let's get a you know, I'll have my people be in touch. Well, cut us in on that. You know what I'm saying, Okay, get.
Out of here.
Outside again, it's the powers out. So it's things are devolving into some looting and tops meanwhile, or just shooting the looters and then and then taking like their turtlenecks and like pulling the turtleneck like over the face, the nose, mouth and being like, hey, a mask vigile anthea. Yeah, Matt and Karen go to the storage facility and they're going down memory lane digging in these dusty crates. Karen finds the thing that foggy and fat and this is
this is like national treasure level. This is so funny and silly to be. It's the original like eighteen forties deed to the fun to the Port of red Hook, apparently the only copy in existence that no one knows about. It's impossible by any other means to find out the legal status of the Port of Red Hook, and.
Which is hilarious because you could definitely just google that without I have done it.
Without this piece of parchment, is impossible to unlock the mystery subably on. Yeah. So what this document says is the port is actually not under New York State or in you York City's jurisdiction. It's like free land. It's a free territory, and so whoever controls it like can make the laws. It's like true, it's sovereign territory. It's basically like what we discovered is Fisk plans to basically set up Madpor.
In New York City, exactly.
In Red Hook. That's gonna be like personal kingdom. And like the US Governor just be like, I don't know, get.
Legally, we can't do this.
This parchment, this parchment says and I'm sorry, guys, so hilarious.
I love this. I also love there's like something I don't know.
I mean, I love it because it is also a book.
But there's also.
Something about this notion of the ports and these ideas of like what comes in and out of them. Yeah, like living I live by the ports of la there's always some kind of.
Corruption and scandal.
And I just love that this like very what seems like a very niche plot is actually like really real if you live by a port. But obviously the parchment saying that you could just start madropor that not real. Guys, sorry to tell you that. But I love fisks plan. He's deranged. I love how he's bought Vanessa into it by basically being.
Like, hey, you already did the great work. Now let's just build on it.
Like behind every man is a strong, powerful, corrupt woman named Vanessa. So I love this and I love that little mini Madriport plan, Like why not if you can just plan?
Yeah, sure, love that for you guys.
Yeah, Frank is in his layer and he hears on the police scanner that the task force is heading to Red Hook like in force. So he's like, oh, time to kill some dirty cops. He gets geared up and he gets over there and he does his thing. He's like cutting guys throats, he's shooting guys. But in the end there's there's simply too many of them. The task forse is a lot bigger in just a couple of days than we ever than we expected. And they dog
pile him and then they don't kill him. They just take him prisoner.
Stupid plan, by the way, I get it. It's kill it, you can't kill him. And also as well, it's like casting body armor, because this is still some of the best casting in the whole of the MCU Ben Thalla as Punisher, So yeah, I thought that was really funny. I think, and this is something I'm sure Joe will touch on when when she joins us. But like I
do think, like there's something there where. When this happened, I was like, well, maybe the reason they don't kill him is because, like they fucking love the punisher like they want to they do I love and they have the body armor and everything. But I don't know whether that gets extrapolated enough for me to say that's definitely why they don't kill him.
But that was my thought in the moment as we watched it.
Uh Fisk listens to rat Sheila's recording of Gallow that she made a rat. What a little piece of vermin. She is, hor jodling, sniveling, boot licking rat.
She definitely not.
Think that she was going to go to the like wearing a wire aka recording on her phone. I thought she was just gonna actually go around and be like, hey, if you're not in the Fisk deal, go away. You might go somewhere. You might want to also go somewhere that's not in New York State. It'll probably be harder for them to find you. But no, she was just like, guess I better just just record this guy her.
Shockingly snitchy So Gallo is delivered to Red Hook by members of the Task Force, where apparently no laws are enforced and and Fisk can commit murder after murder here and nobody could do anything because it's like freaking Sois then crushes Gallow's head like a rotten pumpkin as the task Force looks on, and you could tell the task.
Force is on. It was cral practical, a like I was.
They took the level of violence once Frank came back in this episode. They're like, you're gonna get Gord out, but I did not expect a full prosthetic head, which he squashes like a pumpkin and then tears off his jaw, like it's probably the most violent and grotesque thing we have seen or will ever see in an MCU show. It's I don't think they had anything like that on that.
And the task Force is like, wow, we're fucking sick, motherfuckers, but that was crazy. That was disgusting, Dirty cop Powell. Then elsewhere on Red Hook are like, is they've got Frank tied to a chair and he goes down on one knees, like, Frank, we fucking idolize you. You're the best. We love the way you kill people without due process and like we just want.
To be thank you man.
Will you join the task Force and be like part of this. It would be like our utter dream if that was the case. In Frank's like, you guys are fucking clowns. You guys are losers. Yeah, and then the test or beats the shit out of him. Daredevil and Karen arrive. It has been maybe six or seven hours since Matt was shot in the shoulders. Had He's been in a in a huge Donnybrook fight in which like a dozen cops were killed, and now he's here on
the verge of Red Hook. He's looking they you know, they look at the scene and there's like, maybe I don't know, fifty sixty Task Force guys there, like it's crawling with task FORRSE guys. And Karen is like, you can't, Matt, look at you. You're a mess. You you need water, you need probably to eat something.
You need to sleep.
You need to sleep. You were shot six hours ago. Don't go in there. You can't take them on.
And Matt is like, don't do it, Matt.
Yeah. Matt is like, you know what, You're right, You're right. Heather goes to see Fisk brush shocking, and.
I'm so sick of Heather at this point, like to be mayfair.
Look either just dump Matt and gone, I'm Wilson Fisk.
But don't do this like in the middle, like Matt is telling you, look, you eat the Sure Matt's acting crazy, but.
Is he your boyfriend? Are you a right or no?
So Fiscus, Well there's other issues too, Listen, I get it. This is a huge career move from Heather, who doesn't you could argue doesn't necessarily know what fisc is up to, and true gravity Matt has never leveled with her at all. That But that said, like I feel like, ethically, you can't go to work for your patient.
Right exactly what I mean? I don't. I don't think she is a serious person. No ship she pretends. She pretends to be like, oh, I'm such a big therapist.
Oh I just I have to be therapizing everybody, Matt, why are you doing this?
Go to therapy. But then she's just like, yeah, I'll go to the ball of my marriage.
And by the way, I just saw my marriage counsel couple get shot and now I'm gonna be old of mental health.
Right mental health commission. So she signs on. Then again it's the same twenty four hour period. This is now the morning after the Black and White Ball, Fisk makes a speech on television where he says Commissioner Gallo has resigned. He fled, he fled from his duty. He couldn't handle it. Don't ask where he is, don't hopefully nobody ever looks for him. And then he announces his new anti crime edict where he says vigilantes are outlawed and the city's
under martial law. That's it, eight pm, don't be out after the city that never sleeps. Well, guess what.
I'm like, I'm like eight pm. Nobody in New York because he even left the house at.
Eight pm, Like you gonna be going, You'll go to dinner at like ten, Matt being in Europe.
Matt. Then you know, back to Matt and Karen. Matt makes again. Here's here's a piece of dialogue that made me laugh out loud. Matt serious like opening himself up, very vulnerable, like showing showing.
An impression, doing impression.
Karen.
I can't do it.
I can't do it. But he basically it was too fisky. But he basically admits to Karen, He's like, listen, you know what I remember when on the night that Foggy was killed. When I dropped Benjamin Poindexter on his head off a building, off a six story building, I have a big admission to make. I was trying to kill him, no ship, you dropped him off.
And by the way, like not just that you didn't use your little spiderweb Winch likes to stop him fing trying to kill him off.
I didn't realize.
And even Batman, if he throws someone off a roof, will usually like book him with a little less sue and lumps like you just let that man have full head first into the ground. He's a miracle. He's still alive. Dex has been going through. It's a miracle he didn't fucking shoot you. Yeah, and I don't think that Karen is probably surprised to hear this.
Karen, then, I think makes actually a good what I thought was like a really good speech in this series.
Yeah. I like this interaction between the two.
About how listen, you're still the good guy basically and the city needs you. And yes, you you cross the line when you tried to kill Benjamin Poindexter, but like you but the fact that you know the line is there and you try to respect. It is why the city needs you. And then we get a Radiohead music drop and we we kind of end with Fisk triumphant.
We watch him like strolling through his castle and Red Hook where he's got like all these people imprisoned in cages, including Jack's Swordsman Duquine and front Castle.
Jack.
He was such a good step He's the only vigilante that Wilsons still.
So he was like, and you know what else, I think this confirms something that we had kind of been. I think the show had specifically wanted us to be a little blurry on, which is like the basement that he was holding Vanessa's lover in, was this basement in Red Hook, like he's that's always It wasn't like under his office or whatever. This is his little prison basement
that he's been building. And I'm getting we are also probably to assume that there are more there's more vigilantes in there than we know.
Right, So he's got all these people in cages, which again like eerie parallels where and physical go down like under the to like blow where the cages are now, I think down to where like Adam's cage was. That's what I'm thinking yeah, and they have a sumptuous meal with champagne. They're back, baby.
They're gonna be fucking at Adam's change.
Before then, though, we're gonna be fucking in Adam's cage. And then we get a little stinger where listen. If there's one thing we know about Frank Castle in the comic books is this man escapes from prisons every day.
He's like the joker, like you, there's no point in putting him an Alkhama asylum. He's gonna get out.
Noble shit like. There's gotta be eight to ten instances in the comics notable instances of him, including the you Know when he was originally put in prison because I forget, the creative team of Spider Man just didn't thought he was a villain, didn't like him.
So it didn't make sense to have him in the.
His launch to the you Know comics continuity proper was started by him basically escaping.
From you yeah so and being in prison with you know and being in a Spider Man comic, which is something we will talk about very soon because where the fuck is Spider Man?
So Frank is like, hey, what what you officer? And I forget the name of the officer, and the guy's Patrucci.
Pucci. My name is where you from?
Way from? Officer Patrucci? Yeah, where we are you from? I'm from New Jersey? Oh yeah, yeah, I love you. I used to go down to the shore. I love Jersey. Hey here, let me ask you something, Patrucia. And then he like grabs his arm and fucking snaps it and clear He's like, let me thank you.
For your service. And I'm like, come on, bro, like I'm so dumb.
Let me reach in the snaps that man's arm right off, and then.
Frank is out.
Baby, you ain't keep it Frank in there. No, he's not gonna help anyone else cow either.
By the way, I think Frank is gonna be like, hey, Red, let me get distrained. I show up at your apartment to save you from the task Force, and you can't even come and break me out of Red Hook fucking hours after you got shot and fight cops.
Frank exactly is that Frank has a good point, because Babe, we know that Matt is not resting, like Matt is doing things to save your friend.
That's gonna be an issue next season. That is gonna be an argue. Let's take a quick break, we'll be back and talk more about this.
Episode, and we are back.
I I thought it was a very satisfying finale. Obviously an up and down season with a lot of disjointedness because of one would imagine the various disruptions to the production and the fact that they had to, like Frankenstein, a bunch of this stuff together. But listen, something about Matt and frank tearing through like corruption in a visceral way.
I found very cathartic in today's the Life and Times, despite the fact that I I and I will hardly admit that there were plot problems, emotional art problems, characters who were barely drawn as characters. I loved the little cameo of Detective cam aka the only detective in New York City at the at Josie's Bar, with the rest of the constituents looking at Matt like will you save us? But that said, like I found it, I found it satisfying. But I know that our super producer Joelle feels different.
Tell us Joel, because I too found it to be like a satisfying ending, but that this there's something very punchy and like comic bookie about the season that for me really watched. Will tell us your feelings on the finale.
Okay, I want to start by seeing I've been rocking with this show the whole time. I have been enjoying it. I am not just hey, you you've been.
No, no, no, you've been, you've been.
I thought I was having fun. Okay, it was like, man, to Jason's point, it's really comic, bookie, this is fun. To Rosy's point, love seeing the cops take it like straight in the face. It's great. I struggle with this ending because and maybe this is too much insider baseball, but we understood like okay, they were patching things together in the middle, but like this final episode was like this is all new because all stuff we had can
throw it. So I thought we were going to create into a great finale and there were so many great setups. I really have been enjoying the Wilson and Vanessa like back and forth, but the dinner didn't feel earned this episode. It's like, yes, you guys got away with some stuff. You had tried a lot.
Of things.
Throughout, but now you're you're feasting, but like, did you really win? Like things around your heels. It didn't real seem like you. I don't know, it felt quite unearned to me. And then I also just had, like I thought the fight scene, particularly the one in Daredevil's apartment with h punishuring him versus the cops on my television, and it's been calibrated by an a FI cinematographer, and I haven't had trouble seeing anything since the finale of
Game of Thrones. It is dark, man. It is like really hard to see in Super Muddy, which I didn't understand. I thought, not as well choreographed as we're used to seeing a like great Daredevil fight, even just a Marvel fight. Marvel has consistently delivered on really great fights, even when narrative suffers. So to have it here be so messy in a finale that you had already been like, we're reshooting, We're to spend all this money. I was confused as
to the choices. I'll also say, and then I'll let Aarin jump in with some positives. Is like every black woman in this show written terribly. Let's let's really fix that.
In part two, saynary characters in general very well. I really did disappear.
I didn't know what like.
So first of all, you have BB in the Mayor's office as we see her for two seconds. He's there where all this action has happened, and we don't get to see her like sleuthing and detectiving, Like why why why is she here?
What's going on with us? She should be like she's like on Nancy Drew, Like please let her be that in season two?
And who's the like bodyguard guy I like to call him Bowser Browser Buck is out here and I wish I understood, like what his agenda was. I was understood what Buck got out of any of this? Like is he.
I think?
I think lots of money. I think just gives everyone lots of money.
That's not what he does. He loves he loves being adjacent to power.
I don't think it needs but that's what I.
But I agree with you, we don't know much about him.
I think a lot of the setups in this show are so powerful. To your guys' point, when they put Punisher in a chair in front of a bunch of cops with his logo on their chest, I was filming about I'll here we go. He's about to get it to them he got laid in, and to be fair, he does that when pisani if you were in fire, which seems like a grade school comeback. I just think we've seen him deliver. How we know the power of
John Berenthal. We know the power of this character, and the camera is on him, So in my opinion, we should be learning more about him, or he should be having a discovery of like, oh my god, I'm implicit somewhat to how these cops are behaving. Oh my god, am I any better than these cops? I do what they're doing. It discuss me why are my actions to be different? But he doesn't get a chage a character.
He says things we've heard him say a bunch of times before, and because we can't see the cops faces, we're not sure what this hero worship has done being denied has done to them, you know what I mean? And so therefore there's nothing happens and then care he should be dextaposed against.
I think that you. I understand your point.
We talked about this, like yeah, if Mike too, but like I personally feel like I think the dismissiveness of Frank to them where he's basically like you idolizing me is fucking stupid because I'm a fucked up person and I'm broken, and also your bunch of fucking clowns. And I think that I loved the dismissive nature where he is basically just like you could never comprehend what drives me so and whatever drives you is bullshit and it
worked for me. But I do know like that with this episode did not have any like banger monologues, and this show has had those in the past.
Yeah, I acknowledge your take, and I don't think it's necessarily wrong, but why it But for me, why those things worked are won And again I said this before we went on, Mike, I do feel like Frank ripping out the throats of multiple dirty cops wearing his logo communicates, I think pretty strongly like any feelings he might have. And I also feel like we get so much of
the how do you feel about them? Using your logo so conversations between him and Matt, and that's really where Yeah, I'm I feel like Frank would entertain even touching upon a topic like that, having that kind of self reflection. He's not a self reflective guy and not one to ever explain his rage, but he kind of goes there with Matt and it it felt natural to me that he wouldn't go there with a bunch of cops who he clearly despises, seeing as how he just like killed a dozen of them.
I do.
I also do think that the time jump of it all, it puts us into a situation. And I've been thinking about this because of our Last of Us episode one, season two chat, which you guys will be able to hear when the show comes out. But I was thinking about like the nature of what we don't see, And I do think that when it is first introduced that the cops have taken on this punish a gang in the episode and Matt goes to see Frank and he shows him.
The bullet, it's clear that this.
Has been happening to Frank for a while, Like he's like, oh, fucking lose a fanboys, Like there's something we didn't see there where I think he has reckoned with this, and his reckoning is fuck them.
I'm gonna that's my point.
You have to guess though You're like, oh, well, if I put you into this, and I'm like, you, we should see that that should be inherent within the show. This is important to the character, defines them, it defines Yeah, this moment, and I think that was really my big point. Like I love the setups of loving, I love the end choices. I love when the villain wins is the end.
I love that Karen came back. I just think how like how much time we spent on things like Heather, Oh my god, Heather, I do I'm not gonna lie easy. I love this woman, and yet I don't understand her relationship to fis, like where does this loyalty come from?
When did that lock in? And why she's just looking at it. She's ambitious, She's like what sees I don't see multiple books. That's not I've never known an author. It's particularly a self help style author who didn't want to go doctor Oz.
Sadly that.
Tiny side moments of like after a session, like oh oh, we read your book and we loved it. We're gonna recommend it to a friend.
Bam. Okay.
I understand from the reaction on her face she's super excited about this information. There's a lack of information being delivered to the audience so that you have to guess and assume and that's not as fun for me. I don't love it.
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I totally feel that Again, I do, I feel like specifically for my I mean, this is something else we talked about before we've started recording the episode that I would love to dig into more at some point, which is kind of like what does it mean to be a Prestige TV show now? And like this is so different to what Prestige used to be
And I don't necessarily think this is Prestige TV. But for me, there's something about the pacing, the way that it kind of I will say trusts the audience with in the comments, because I do think you're right, Joel. I think some of it is, like you, they just didn't have time and so you're left to put pieces together.
But there's something about the pacing and the urgency and the kind of simplicity that does really remind me of the feeling of reading a comic book, the same way that very fairly in the discord, when I called out my feelings about Karen in the first kind of Netflix era, a lot of people were like, Hey, she doesn't really get that much more in the comics, like they're actually giving her a lot more to do here. So I think it's one of those interesting dichotomies. But for me, overall, it did work.
Aaron, how about you.
I mean, I thought that the last two episodes were really fun, and I thought this one Joey. I said this to Joelle earlier too. I feel like Joelle was disappointed in the things that she wanted and didn't get, whereas I was very excited and happy about the things I didn't expect and then did get.
And so, for instance, okay, what were the things you didn't I mean you and that you did get.
I didn't expect Matt to come home and have punish her in there and have them do like an old married couple bantering back and forth earth where he's like, you're gonna do the fight with your ass out and then he flicks them off. I mean, like just amazing back and forth between the two of them. And then I got shotgun, you know, like I loved all of that stuff between.
Them, and I think that that that chemistry is so vital.
Really, I will say, you do wish there was.
More of it again, which could have given them more time to have those conversations like Joel kind.
Of yeah, but I also, I mean in response to Joelle, no offense, but you're wrong, friend.
I didn't need.
It.
I don't need like after Frank was withholding with Karen, someone who he ostensibly loves, and we are really into that relationship.
There.
What makes me think that if he's like pinned up against the wall by fourteen different scummy cops who are wearing his logo, that he's gonna be like, you know what, guys, I gotta give you a piece of my mind because.
I wouldn't kill people, and he doesn't.
That's why he just fucking killed him, and he just when he's tied to it, yeah, then he's like, I'm not even giving you the time of day for that.
I love this so much because this is this is why.
We do this podcast, is because we love this stuff so deeply that it becomes this really fun thing while you get to critique, well didn't work, like talk about what works. And I think that's like why we love it.
I mean, there's a lot I will admit, like we're great, you know, I think I'm certainly like personally grading and on a curve for a variety of reasons that I've talked about all throughout, But I think one of the other things that I really like about that, and I find very promising about the execution of dared Evil Born Again, is that it suggests that, you know, Disney TV, Marvel, Level TV, the street level heroes are going to like go there in a way that the movies are not.
They're going to be more violent, they're going to take on, you know, different kinds of subject matter. They're going to take on more hard hitting kind of story topics, and they're gonna do it in a way where, you know, maybe it's because they're kind of under the radar and don't get the kind of attention that the movies get with all the conversation about like di and Woke and who should be cast in what and what does this carry?
You know, I think the fact that they're kind of below that conversation, if that's what allows them to have the freedom to just to you know, depict Wilson Fisk as basically like red Hook, Dictator Trump, Like okay, Like I'm for it, Like I hope that the rest of their street level stuff hits as hard as this, as imperfect as it clearly was.
Yeah, I agree, and I do think as well, we are living in an age where a lot of the radical nature and analogous name of superheroes has been lost, and I think that's why for me, even if it's something that's not necessarily intentional, like the way that The Suicide Squad felt like a film about prison labor, prisoner exploitation, and like a story about the harms and horrors of war and America's colonialism, and that might not have been and I spoke to him about it the intention of
what James Gum made, but to me, it spoke to me.
And I do think that on that level, the fact that this.
Show can make I mean, look, you know me, I'm a the Batman number one superstate, right, but this movie, I.
Think actually because I was correct ish.
You know, if we talk about predictions, I definitely was feeling like there was going to be some kind of good cop team, but.
Even then it was much more vague.
It was much more of like, well, Matt's gonna be honest about who he is to these people that he trusts, and let's see how that can impact the city going forward. And that to me, like at the end of Batman, which is such a great movie about corrupt cops and the danger of corruption in a city and how it can impact people. They have to literally have someone be like, not all cops are bad cops, and then they show
all these cops in like a heroic light. I think they were able to do something here that is much more morally ambiguous because Matt is also morally ambiguous, and that to me, I do think is going to be the resounding feeling of wow, Like they predicted this, it came out at the right time, and it feels like they're dealing with it in a way I haven't seen before.
Yeah, and it also made me think in an age when you know, if you disagree with a lot of the things that are going on currently, like in the world, you know, the media is corporate, It's completely lost to you. It's not a place where you can feel comfortable anymore, like communicating those ideas a lot of the times academias
under threat. It proves this is gonna sound like hokey, but to me it shows the importance of of culture and like pop culture, and how it can be a container for ideas that are super simple but actually like really important, like hey, corruption and untrammeled power is bad.
Yeah, you know this.
Conversation, and so I think that I think that, like it's crazy to be like this very very silly television feels important in that way, in the same kind of way that I think we'll be talking about and or.
But it does.
Even though it was like very silly with a lot of flaws, it feels like, Oh, here's like a thing that says, Hey, all the stuff that's going on that's bad, it is actually bad. That's bad.
Yeah, it's fucking bad.
And guess what you can fight against it if you want to, which I think is a good message. Okay, many your wrong friend reunion. Joel, tell us how much you hated killing us softly? Killing me softly?
Karen, tell me how much you loved radio had Killing Me such a beautiful song about love and the pain and the struggle.
It belongs in I don't know, maybe the last of us check that show out. Uh here for two seconds win an assassin that Matt has had hardly any time with.
Why is this solt? For what reason?
Killing is not softly? It's very deadly and in your face and not subtle. He's in a hallway ripping out a syringe, which actually from a comic book angle.
I really love.
It's so menacing and weird that I'm sure any nurse walking by be like, what are you doing?
But he didn't even need to bring that. He could have just he didn't need to bring the whole bulks. He could have just stolen a needle.
From the options. Very different.
And then he well, let me just wait. I just want to say one thing Jason just wants to say because as a person who does anybody remember the nineteen ninety eight Michael Keaton Kelly Preston classic Jack Frost, in which Michael Keaton the most. He plays the most successful blues musician in Colorado. He dies in a car accident and then his spirit inhabits a snowman.
Well, the horror movie, terrible.
Fucking piece of shit movie that is really funny to watch in retrospect. As one of the craziest. They use Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, which I think is one of the most beautiful and affecting and heartbreaking songs ever written, drops in the middle of Jack Frost, a movie about a haunted snowman, and I just think, like it happens.
What you was just saying what everyone knows. Why are you jamming it in here? Okay, Aaron? Aaron song worked for you? And why was it right?
They could have had that scene in the hospital set to dah Rude Sandstorm, and I would have forgiven the music supervisor for that Radiohead drop, which when it hits is so effective and incredible close to a season. The song that is about unease, and this song, I mean, like the lyric that's repeated is yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon yesterday. I woke up sucking elemon yesterday. Like this song is about feeling stuck and blocked, and we get like Matt's growth where he chooses to I'm
not going to just charge in to read. I'm not I'm going to try to regroup, collect some people, and I'm not going to do this alone.
Like the Defenders. Maybe maybe the Defenders.
I will say.
When Li's commissioner got into the car and was like, Luke been a while, I was like, I was like, come on, bra But yeah, the radio Head drop, I thought was an incredible way to close out the season, and I know it's a great way to lead into the next one, and I like, I said completely forgave them for what other other music choices they had throughout the episode, because that Radiohead song is amazing and is not the kind of thing you would expect to see
in like a Marvel television project. So again agree and I didn't expect it and therefore I loved it Mountain.
So okay, let's do so let's I just want to say we we were on a we were right roll with this episode. Punisher comes back correct, Karen comes back correct, Foggy that was more of a could it happen?
It didn't happen. Sorry, today I gotta say.
Someone I was like, oh my, that would have been crazy.
Fisk becoming like maya kingpin.
We called that right, Matt taking over the gangs and crime families wrong, but I do still think we could see that in season two and Matt creating kind of a good cop team. Is it going to become Dead Devil's Army?
I don't know. We also have this.
Was a big episode in the Discord, lots of live watching. So I'll start off with a friend, my close friend and friend of the poor Nikola Shukla spider Man India author.
We've had on here before.
How many times in this season? Did mere Fisk say this city?
He says it?
What are the guesses?
Times? He probably says it ten times in episodes, So I'm.
Gonna yeah, I think I'll say thirteen prices, right, rules, I just it was.
A lot, alright, yes, if anyone out there. Nine episodes in the season, so I'm gonna say he said eighteen times.
I think he did average twice to a game. Yeah, twice an episode. Okay, I think it was higher, but yes, I like that.
Okay. Abel will Ring, one of our.
Most loyal and regular Discord users, asked, is Kirsten an established comics character who is a good person? The answer is yes. In the comics she is a good person. She helps Foggy get Matt out of prison. She is a true ally. So no, don't be worried that just because she knew the motion was going to dismiss she was in the comics. If we're going on her personality there, she is not someone who's gonna keep that from Matt
or use it against Matt in some way. She probably has not got any connection with Fisk, and hopefully they will expand on her in season two, because I do think that there is a lot they can do there. Jason, can you do Daniel Blake Dead Evil versus Young Oz from Penguin?
I believe in him.
I don't know if I could do It's been too long since I've done Young Eyes. But let me try. Uh, let me see young Okay. Uh Hi, I'm Daniel, the deputy mayor for Communications. Who are you? I'm as I am. I I like the Maya. I think he's great, and I think everything he's doing is great. And my mom loves him. I love to see him, I love him, meet him perfect.
And that was from Playmaker thirty four. We appreciate that.
Okay, Mon Mouffman, really good question here. Is there even a remote chance that we see Spider next season?
I think I agree? Zero?
But yeah, Mon Moffman knew it was kind of more of a Sony logistical standpoint, and I don't think that's gonna happen.
Well, Okay, so I like this one too. From Joe's McK one.
This is bleak, but after this season, I wouldn't be shocked if we see something similar. Do you think that they just kept Frank so they could kind of hang him in front of the press and same with Jack.
Do you think coming out?
Yeah, yeah, John birth John Bernhal is his ascendant and the punisher is too important a character.
Do you think and has a hand in writing it too, so it will be.
Yea yeah yeah.
And do you do you think that we will see them basically execute or take a stand on someone like Jack? Seems like a perfect kind of They could kill him in season two and it would feel but we don't know.
I feel that Jack Jack's literally done, knowing we've never seen him in his He's never been in his costume.
It's like, why is.
He He just got in a tiff with Fixed and now he's in.
A cage literally. Okay. Final question from le bolu Bu's comment. I like this a lot. This is a good one. Who are some of the other people you would put?
Like?
Who are the other vigilantes in that cage? Is Let's say some which outrage character would you like them to reveal?
Joel go for Rhy.
He was done dirty and Craven.
He was done that.
I'm gonna go for three D Man because I'm obsessed with them.
I think he needs to I think they need to bring him in. I also think, look if.
Jack Dukaine, the swordsman who's literally just once had a little fight with a fencing night you know sword. Sorry to the people who know what that's called. I think it's called a foil. But like I think anyone could be in there, like fisk Is, Like I don't like this guy who puts on his glasses and he could see a scroll, Like that's dumb.
Put him in the box.
Yeah, okay, Well, coming up on x Ray Vision, we have an absolutely jam packed week coming up. Starting off this weekend, we're gonna have our spoiler free reaction to Ryan Coogler's Sinners, and on Tuesday, we'll be back with more Last of Us season two coverage, and then on Wednesday and or season two, the first three episodes, we'll be covering it. Plus we're helping you get ready for Marvel's next big blockbuster with our Thunderbolt book Club on Thursday.
That's it for this episode, Thanks for listening.
I just also I want to thank the entire x ray team. This group talked about Detective Kim more than the writer's room of Daredevil, So I just I want to.
Acknowledge yes for that, Yes, Detective Kim Justice, but Detective give her a Marvel preview and Madison Detective Kim Buddy not.
X Ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion and Rosie Night and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Our executive producers are Joe Alminique and Aaron Coleman.
Our supervising producer is Abusa.
Par All produces are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wack.
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme songs by Ern Copman.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi our discord moderator