Daredevil S03E06 Review: Those Rejected By Society

Daredevil, Season 3, Episode 6: The Devil You Know

A relatively epic episode! It's pretty obvious where the story was going, but this middle point of Daredevil's third season is definitely well done. I've not been the most invested in the Karen/Foggy attempts to bring Fisk to justice storyline, but it all comes to a head in a particularly well-done bit where the three friends sort of work together in order to engineer a confession from the dude that shanked Fisk, Jasper Evans.

We get a pretty neat (if short) confession bit between Karen and Foggy before jumping straight into Daredevil recruiting Karen to help expose Evans. Karen initially (and rightfully) refuses to help out Matt, but a brief talk with Foggy -- who proposes that they do it under the condition that Matt Murdock (not Daredevil) turns himself in to the FBI to make life easier for all present if they can exonerate Matt's alleged crimes. We really do work through just how Foggy is always seeing the best in both his friends, Matt and Karen, no matter the amount of self-loathing may come from these two guys. Throw in a particularly fantastic bit with Karen and Sister Maggie, where Maggie confides in Karen about how Matt has some really heavy abandonment issues, and Karen is... I don't want to say "guilt-tripped" to help Matt since she's already leaning towards that, but her desire to help out is justified, I guess?

This episode isn't particularly subtle at comparing Benjamin Poindexter with Matt Murdock's life, and how the two of them could've easily swapped places if events had gone a bit differently. And the parallel isn't just the Daredevil-vs-Daredevil fight at the end either, but it's shown with how their support system happens. Both Dex and Matt are pretty fucked-up people, who tend to push those around them away, but where it's different is how Matt goes back to those same people, and he's got a pretty great support system in place with Karen, Foggy, Sister Maggie and Father Lantom. Yes, Matt may have a lot of abandonment issues and a fucked-up childhood (although Sister Maggie's story about Matt refusing to call for help after one nightmare where she didn't come is a bit too much) but he doesn't refuse help when it's given to him, and his friends, despite whatever they may think about Matt's assholishness for the past five seasons, are still his friends and family, and Matt/Daredevil is very much willing to compromise.

Contrast it to Dex, who, when faced with adversity and thrown under the bus by the FBI, has absolutely no one to turn to. The other FBI people just go "it ain't right" and continue with their day, and even Dex's only friend in the force, Agent Nadeem, can only offer empty promises. There is some great usage of... hallucinations? Flashbacks? Voices in Dex's mind? It's the condemning voices of Julie telling him to go away, and the voices from the psychiatrist to tell him that he needs structure and a moral compass, but ultimately the show makes a great usage of the "deafening silence as voices peter out" filming trick to show off just how utterly alone Dex is as he pushes everyone away.

This, ironically, makes him susceptible to Wilson Fisk's own devilish words. Nevermind the fact that anyone with a clear mind would see that Fisk has arranged for Dex's downfall (he's very obviously the dude that leaked the news of Dex's investigation to the media), but Fisk does manage to 'break'  Dex with nothing but brutal honesty. Fisk doesn't really deny his involvement in bringing Julie into the hotel, and he basically tells Dex that it's to illustrate how the two of them are the same. Fisk brings up how he himself has killed his own father at the age of twelve, and how society will never accept them. Only a select few -- like Fisk's own mother -- will be able to accept those who are... 'broken'. (It's definitely well-paralleled with Sister Maggie's own account of Matt's childhood, where little Matt likewise felt isolated from the world.)

And as Dex's life quite literally falls apart under him as the 'fictions' he built up refuses to really help him, we get a pretty sad moment as surrounded by nothing but voices from the past -- Julie's eerie suicide hotline and Fisk's own observations of how society will reject him -- Dex very nearly takes his own life until a dramatic phone call interrupts him. (Fisk definitely has installed some cameras there, huh?) Fisk basically tells Dex that there's a way out, that Fisk will accept Dex "without any shame". It's pretty intoxicating for Dex to be accepted for all of his warts, and, again, this is different from how the far more supportive Foggy and Karen are, who accept Matt's mission but demands some sort of compromise.

Of course, in the background, Karen and Daredevil manage to hunt down Jasper Evans, whose family is threatened by Fisk. It's equal parts scary and awesome to see Karen threaten Jasper that she's going to publish an article about Jasper talking either way. Really kind of a silly move to not just record his testimony right then and there, but I suppose there are some American-specific guidelines as to what sort of confessions are legal? Karen brings Jasper to the New York Bulletin, while Foggy makes a deal with Nadeem to listen to Jasper's testimony (at which point Nadeem finally realizes he's been duped) but, of course, Dex shows up.

And we get a genuinely awesome scene of Dex dressed up in the awesome-looking red Daredevil costume, which... yeah, I get why they're doing this, again, but the first-season bandana-on-his-head low-budget costume just looks horrifyingly bad next to this, yeah? The fight between Daredevil and Daredevil is definitely well-done, and I really do love just how Bullseye tends to have the advantage whenever the two fights have some sort of distance at each other, throwing objects at superhuman accuracy towards Daredevil, while Daredevil tended to have the advantage when they're up close with each other.

Of course, Bullseye manages to wound Daredevil and forces him to escape, the FBI show up too late (and blame the massacre on Daredevil), Jasper Evans gets shot in the head... and Dex apparently knows Karen? Huh, that's a bit surprising.

Overall, a predictable but very, very intense episode. There's a lot of well-done moments about parallels between Matt and Dex, and a lot of awesome moments for Karen and Foggy as well. I also do like a couple of the more low-key scenes, like that homage to the first season with Kingpin going through his daily routine and wearing his cuff-links and stuff. The highlight of this episode has to be Dex's story, though, detailing his descent into actual, flat-out villainy. It's definitely a neat moment to end the first half of the season on, and I'm definitely a big fan.