Daredevil S03E02 Review: Love Is A Prison

Daredevil, Season 3, Episode 2: Please

Definitely a great episode. It's an episode that starts off with Fisk's deal with Nadeem leading to the arrest of a group of Albanian gangsters, which seem to be the secondary villains of at least this leg of the season. It's... it's a bit interesting to see that Wilson Fisk is apparently quite willing to put himself in danger in order to bend over backwards for the FBI to get Vanessa's crimes repealed, but considering the buildup between Fisk and Vanessa's relationship in the first season, I kind of buy it. It's definitely an interesting way to bring the character to, and Vincent D'Onofrio is an amazing actor that delivers Fisk's... emotionally stunted personality very well. That scene in the weight room, where Kingpin gets shanked by some random Albanian stooge, and then Fisk beats the crap out of him before restraining himself from killing the other dude? Some really great acting in that scene.

Agent Nadeem, meanwhile, is seeing his special connection to Fisk as basically a one-way ticket to more promotion and money, and... and I kind of get that they needed to establish that he does need the money in episode one and isn't just greedy, but I'm not a huge fan of how this character has sort of really been shoehorned so much into the story. He does end up in a pretty interesting situation where Fisk seems to trust him for the moment, but he's clearly willing to milk Fisk for all he's worth.

The shanking incident leads to the FBI moving Fisk to a private house arrest kind of deal, something that rankles the other policemen and officers pretty heavily because, well, Fisk is a cop killer and he "should rot in prison". Nadeem's the only one that really treats Fisk with any sort of respect, but that's mostly because he is really intent on getting that promotion or whatever. This leads into a pretty fun, long speech from Fisk about how "love is a prison", which really shouldn't be this interesting. Again, chalk it up to D'Onofrio's amazing performance on how that pretty extended sequence ended up being a very captivating scene.

The convoy gets attacked by an Albanian gang, however, leading to a very well-shot, claustrophobic scene where Fisk is trapped in an upside-down vehicle with no means to defend himself... and as the Albanians mow down the FBI, one particularly awesome FBI agent ends up mowing down and killing practically everyone standing, even a bunch of guys that seem to be surrendering. Oh, and this guy seems to have some really insane aiming skills, so... Bullseye? I'm admittedly not familiar enough with the comic-book lore behind Bullseye, so I'm not sure if it's just coincidence or not, but the huge focus on this character does seem to imply that he's going to be a major player going forward.

Season three does also manage to work Karen and Foggy into the storyline relatively well, I think, showing them far, far more as their individual people with their motivations and the like. Daredevil tends to be better than its Netflix comrades at showing the secondary cast as actual people instead of just accessories to the main character. Karen's been deflecting from doing crime stories after her trauma in Defenders but the first story she ends up taking causes her to interview the daughter of the dude that Daredevil saved in the previous episode. It's definitely a huge coincidence, but it wouldn't be a superhero story without some contrived coincidences. This leads Karen to realizing that there's some black-hooded vigilante running around town, causing Karen to hold out hope while Foggy notes that if it was Matt, he'd have reached out to them. That's a pretty damning statement, and one that makes full sense. While Daredevil is in this whole ball of self-pity, his friends are truly hurting as well, what with Karen really traumatized and failing to move on from Matt's death. It is kind of a dick move on Daredevil's part, crisis of faith be damned, and I'm curious how the show will handle it.

Meanwhile, Foggy's big scene in this episode is just him spending time with his family, and basically thinking of moving out of the lawyer business and help run the butcher store with his brother. It's definitely a very interesting backstory for Foggy, really illustrating that Foggy does have a life outside of being Matt Murdock's sidekick, and illustrating just how much Matt's little death-game has affected Foggy and Karen. Interestingly, though, the only real detail we have about Karen outside of her job is the brief note by her to the lady she's interviewing that she was once the victim of some horrible rumours about how she's "killed her own brother", which is why she's so interested in telling the truth. Hmm.

Meanwhile, on the Daredevil self-pity train for this episode, Daredevil (because I don't think it's appropriate to refer to him as Matt at this point) is just wallowing in pity and loathing, leading to yet another fantastic argument sequence with Sister Maggie. There's this whole argument about calling, about how Daredevil is angry about destiny and God's will and whatnot, which is... delivered in a surprisingly tasteful manner. Fiction tends to have a way of really forcing one opinion or the other down your throat, but this really does end up feeling like a genuinely devout and religious person going through a crisis of faith without being disrespectful to the religion or to mock atheists.

We also get a surprisingly fun scene of Kid Matthew and Father Lantom, where Matthew, as a child was so gifted and smart in terms of theology that he's basically a lot more religious-versed than most of the nuns in the church, and thanks to Father Lantom's advice to "listen to God's whispers", Matt had taken it to realizing that while in church, he is quite literally able to hear all of the prayers that people are begging God to do, causing Matt to think, even from a young age, that God has given him this gift for a reason.

And then after he does some running around the laundry place to beat up the two thugs from the first episode, the episode ends up closing on Daredevil hearing the news of Wilson Fisk "being released from jail", which finally brings our two main characters in proximity with each other. Daredevil's story arc is kind of confused, but it's definitely intentional to show his mind-space at the moment. He's without a purpose at the beginning of the season now that so many of his loved ones are dead, and both his enemies -- Kingpin and the Hand -- are down, and in Daredevil's crisis of faith and purpose seem to be the driving forces of this particular storyline. It's not one that's fun to watch, but it's one that's definitely well-acted.