Daredevil, Season 1, Episode 5: World on Fire
Another rather good
episode to follow from the heels of the last one, though honestly “World on
Fire” implies that something will, y’know, blow the fuck up and it certainly
does in this episode. Wilson Fisk executes the “break the city to rebuild it
into something new” absolutely far better than Malcolm Merlyn in Arrow’s first season ever did, and it’s
certainly far easier to develop the main villain’s motivations when you don’t
hide his identity for half the season for a not-too-surprising fake-out.
But enough comparisons
with Arrow. This episode’s actually
themed more on how the three titular ship pairings interact with each other,
while the main plot is about Vladimir seeking revenge for the death of his
brother… against Daredevil instead of Wilson Fisk, who framed the vigilante up.
It’s a shame that after the absolutely spectacular performance by Wesley duping
Vladimir there really isn’t much that they did with the deception. It plays out
more as a distraction done by Fisk to get Vladimir agitated and ready for war. It’s
not a bad thing per se because what we got was pretty great with Fisk
completely having Vladimir dance on his fingertips while getting himself the
bonus of Daredevil himself getting arrested by the police.
We get a couple of scenes
that will surely drive shippers wild. We’ve got Foggy’s scene with Karen, of
course, which is sweet and built up over the past five episodes with some hints
of Karen probably having some feelings towards Matt being thrown in. Upcoming
love triangle? The two take their plot arc through a relatively well-written “help
the little people stop the big company from taking away their homes” plot,
though sadly while Foggy seems absolutely confident he can destroy his
pencil-dressed ex in court it might be for naught because, well, shit blows up.
We’ve also got Murdock’s
scene with Claire, who has graduated to love interest with them kind of saying
it on-screen already and while it has the subtlety of a brick… might as well as
get it over with, yeah? I don’t think Murdock and Claire’s relationship was
developed as well as Karen and Foggy or Wilson and Vanessa, but I honestly don’t
particularly care much. Their scenes did show some rather nice insight into
what it is like to live in Daredevil’s world where everything looks like it’s “on
fire”, as well as Claire’s concerns that Daredevil is becoming closer and
closer to what he hates to fight.
Kingpin, again, steals the
show this episode… though not quite as much as the previous two. I do love his
scenes, from the apologetic-and-slightly-embarrassed way that he dodges the
question of why exactly he crushed
Anatoly’s head while confronted by his partners… he isn’t afraid to admit that
he killed Anatoly, but the reason – that the Russian interrupted his date –
well… we also get a fair bit of shrewdness from him, and I do like how he isn’t
just a boring “everyone follow me” leader and actually has to convince Gao,
Nobu and Leland to agree with him. Leland is a big ham, and I love him. Gao and
Nobu both seem to have some kind of history, and Nobu in particular seems to have
ties to a larger organization which is blindly obvious to be an adaptation of a
Marvel villain organization.
And then there is his date
with Vanessa, which played out spectacularly not only for Kingpin, but for
Vanessa herself. She isn’t just this woman who the Kingpin falls for, but she
is as shrewd, intelligent and ballsy as the Kingpin himself. And I do love how
Kingpin and Vanessa both challenge each other and aren’t exactly blinded by
love… plus, y’know, there’s the adorkable scene where Kingpin initially seems
to be disturbed by the idea of premarital sex only to reveal that he’s just
pissed he didn’t use the pickup line. And while Vanessa doesn’t really seem as
twisted as Kingpin is, he did make a really great speech about how he truly
wished from the bottom of his heart to reform the city… but it is impossible to
do it without burning parts of it – citing the child-napping Russians as a
factor he wants to stamp out. It does paint his goals in a far more sympathetic
light especially when he talks about how he will live with the guilt for the
rest of his life and all that… but he will keep Vanessa safe and will not lie
to her.
Absolutely love how
Kingpin isn’t afraid to just straight-up wear his weaknesses on his sleeve and
admit readily how Wesley was the one responsible for choosing the wine, just
like he did last episode. He also calls Wesley his friend which is touching.
I do like how this is
going and I honestly cannot believe a dinner date between two borderline-sociopaths
can be far more interesting than Daredevil running around trying to stop a
gigantic gang civil war.
And like Claire herself
pointed out, Daredevil truly is biting off more than he can chew. The little
scene showing the Russians arming themselves, with Anatoly sending off runners
to hunt down first Daredevil and then Fisk himself when he is informed of the
duplicity showcases just how outclassed Daredevil is. But, of course, Kingpin
himself outmaneuvers Anatoly. First by making the ‘let Madame Gao’s people do
their job as always’ throwaway line from the first meeting be actually crucial
when one of Gao’s runners suicide-bombs Anatoly’s main army. And then by having
Turk – a recurring character from the earlier episodes – actually feed the mal-information
that ‘Fisk and the vigilante is working together’ to Anatoly to get him to mass
his forces at several bases. (Turk is funny, by the way) And this shows that
Kingpin isn’t only strong because he has people following him or because he is
powerful enough physically to strongarm Russians and bash their heads in with
car doors… he’s a shrewd tactician on top of it all.
Love the little fake-out
that seemed to imply that the waiter at Kingpin’s restaurant was calling in the
location where Fisk is to Anatoly, and near the end Kingpin seemed to want to
draw Vanessa’s gun from his coat – an obvious usage of a Chekov’s Gun – but it’s
subverted to Kingpin paying the waiter for a good job.
Also the fact that Madame
Gao has blind people happy to blow themselves up to get the job done makes her
far more interesting than Leland, Wesley and Nobu in my books.
I also like the little
scene at the police station where the Russian gangster Piotr is just framed-executed
by the two policemen on Fisk’s payroll, and how despite Murdock being in the
same building he moved too slow to do anything.
The framing of Daredevil
killing Anatoly would play more into the cliffhanger where the police finds him
beating the ever-loving crap out of Vladimir and Sergei, the two remaining
leaders of the Russian mob. This certainly feels like a mid-season cliffhanger…
except, y’know, the entire series is out at the same time so it’s just the end
of the first act, where the heroes are all in trouble and the villain stands
absolutely victorious over everything. I’m pretty sure Kingpin won me over with
his awesome speeches too, though. All hail he who must not be named!
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