Daredevil S03E03 Review: Mind Fisk

Daredevil, Season 3, Episode 3: No Good Deed

Another pretty damn fantastic episode as Wilson Fisk gets moved into his house arrest in a hotel. That opening scene plays right after the whole convoy attack scene that closed the previous episode, and we really get to see Fisk at his most vulnerable, calling out at Donovan to "FIND VANESSA!" Vincent D'Onofrio's voice is fantastic at displaying someone who's clearly panicked out of his wits, but also maintaining a very, very cool tone. Fisk ignoring Donovan's pretty hilarious "my client does not imply that I can reach a federal fugitive" and roaring at Donovan to "FIND HER!" is pretty damn funny.

We do find out later that Vanessa is fine and well in Barcelona, and it just took some extra time for her people to reach out to Donovan. It's actually a very realistic logistics problem, but it doesn't make Wilson Fisk look any less vulnerable.

And then we cut away to the rest of New York (well, the parts of New York that Daredevil cares about, anyway) reacts to the news of Fisk's release. After sitting through an awkward and bizarrely extended dinner scene between Karen and Ellison's family (that scene is bizarrely awkward and adds nothing to the show), the two of them basically react in pretty much panic and indignation. Karen throws herself into her work throughout the episode, ending up managing to figure out some possible conspiracy connecting Fisk, Donovan, the hotel and even the attack on the store owners earlier in the season.  Foggy, meanwhile, wakes up from a huge, huge nightmare about "smiling Matt", revealing that despite his more stoic tone earlier in the season, he's suffering from some horrible PTSD, and ends up trying to get something changed, confronting Blake Tower only to have Tower deny any sort of action and leading to an argument between the two.

Agent Nadeem is indignant at being interviewed and questioned for his choices, and is pretty much angry at everyone questioning his decisions, while he himself is probably the most conflicted about his own choices, and while I still don't think Nadeem adds much into this already busy-show, that scene where he walks down the hallways of the hospital with sobbing families of the dead FBI agents is amazingly shot..

Meanwhile, Daredevil is... hallucinating! It's a fascinating way to get the two main actors to interact with each other while technically keeping Kingpin and Daredevil apart until the climax of the season, and it's pretty amazing! Hallucination-Fisk is very sharply contrasted to the actual, real-life Fisk who genuinely looks vulnerable and trying to assert control in his penthouse jail. Hallucination-Fisk behaves exactly like what a comic book villain would, taunting Daredevil and mocking him, condemning Daredevil for trying to kill himself, mocking him that this is "God's punishment", and that "God restored your healing to hear my name chanted by the crowds". Throughout the episode, this mocking, hallucinatory Voice of Fisk keeps taunting Daredevil from the self-assured bravado and confidence he has in the first season, and it's definitely an amazing solidifactino of all of Daredevil's self-loathing.

The visual cues used for Hallucination Fisk is pretty great, too, keeping him just out of focus in the background almost entirely.




This follows Daredevil as he infiltrates the hotel, with the Voice of Fisk taunting him throughout his journey, asking him what he plans to do, especially since Fisk is actually being "more valuable to the city than you'll ever be" by helping the FBI. Daredevil ends up pussying out from actually going up to Fisk's penthouse and confronting him, but he ends up attacking Donovan instead to find out what Fisk's "Game" is, which, of course, Donovan tells Daredevil about. We get this amazing sequence of the FBI (who assumes Daredevil is an Albanian assassin) trying to hunt down Daredevil in the parking lot and he goes full on Predator Mode on them, taking FBI agents out as he sneaks about the parking lot. I really, really wished they had kept the badass red Daredevil suit for this sequence because I really do think that the minimalist head-bandana look just ends up looking pretty cheap. I understand why they did it, and I understand it fits the tone of the show well. I just don't, y'know, like it.

Oh, and Donovan basically tells Kingpin that, yes, Daredevil is back.

Daredevil ends up managing to escape the hotel, because, y'know, he's Daredevil, and we get another amazing scene between him and Sister Maggie, who's probably turning fast into my favourite supporting actor in this series. "Be careful you don't become the monster" might not be the most interesting trope to follow in superhero shows, but it definitely plays well into Daredevil's crisis of faith here. This leads Daredevil to, ironically, completely embrace his Daredevil persona, completely shedding off "Matt Murdock" as he shows up next to Foggy in a bar, and basically goes through the most low-key reunion ever, much to Foggy's disappointment. And especially after seeing how much Karen and Foggy had suffered throughout the season, it's genuinely douchebaggy of Daredevil to do that to them. "There is something seriously wrong with you!" Foggy yells at Daredevil, and the next scene, showing that Daredevil's stolen Foggy's wallet... yeah, hiding your death from your best friends (who are actively suffering and falling apart because of  that) is one thing. Making use of your relationship to seemingly pickpocket their money and identity? That's a whole other can of worms.

Speaking of a can of worms, we get to build up this mysterious Benjamin Poindexter fellow, with Fisk, interestingly, thanking Dex for saving his life -- gratitude that Dex doesn't give a shit about, and Dex refuses to play along with Fisk's games of noting that "the public abhor you, who work in the system". It's interesting that Fisk's scene with Dex seems to combine both genuine gratitude and respect with attempts at manipulation.

We also get to see Dex's brief psych session, where his killing of the Albanians is taken into question, and we get to learn that Dex's talk about his girlfriend Julie is apparently just him handwaving how he's been stalking a girl from afar in his downtime, really building this dude up as someone that's far, far more sinister. This episode all but confirms that Dex is going to be our Bullseye (or if not Bullseye, a villain or antagonist of some renown) and it's definitely a very, very interesting choice to paint him as a pretty unique character -- a bloodthirsty soldier that was once on the side of law and clearly doesn't want anything to do with the likes of Fisk, but has some... vices. It's interesting.

There are some particularly m'eh parts of this episode, like Karen's bizarre blind date dinner nonsense, but all of the scenes in this episode work amazingly well. Sure, the focus of the episode is still Daredevil and Kingpin, but every other scene in this episode doesn't feel wasted, and as awfully convenient as the web-of-conspiracies that Karen discover is, even the episode's smaller scenes serve to build up this larger story. A pretty fantastic entry!