Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man S01E06 Review: MAN WITHOUT FEAR!

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Season 1, Episode 6: Duel With The Devil

I really, really like Netflix's Daredevil, as you guys can probably tell by my excitement throughout my coverage of the excellent Daredevil: Born Again. So I don't think it's a surprise that I really, really like this episode, which brings in Charlie Cox back as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen in a rather substantial voice-over guest star. 

Which is a really unexpected blip of joy in this otherwise rather slow episode. No fault to the voice actors, which give their lines and explore the emotions of their characters quite perfectly, but maybe I'm just not in the right target demographic to really care to suffer through the awkwardness of Peter trying to bring spoiled-rich innocently-insensitive Harry Osborn and prickly, jealous-that-her-BFF-is-being-stolen Nico Minoru together for a movie night. These scenes are, admittedly, quite important for the narrative to get us to really care for Nico and Harry beyond their abstract concepts as Peter's friends. It's just that... well, I just don't find it particularly interesting, and we've already had several sequences of the episode hinging around the anxiety of Peter mismanaging his time. Oh, this episode ends with Harry accidentally blurting out Peter's identity to Nico, thinking that she already knows. That's an honestly understandable fuck-up for these inexperienced superheroes. 

I do like, however, that this incident nicely fits into the Norman/Peter relationship. Norman keeps framing Peter's work with him as an equal partnership, but in this episode he puts his foot down and straight-up orders Spider-Man to investigate Oscorp because it's being burgled by someone mysterious. Well, he doesn't order so much as emotionally gaslight Peter into investigating like an asshole parent, but something that the episode doesn't actually point out is that this isn't too different from the tactics that Big Ben and the 110th did to Lonnie Lincoln last episode.

Unbeknownst to Peter, Norman is going around making deals about Spider-Man behind his back, meeting with Secretary Ross. As a reminder that this takes place during the Civil War storyline, Norman essentially promises a superhero that's under the control of people who are aligned with the U.S. government, treating Spider-Man as essentially an asset or an employee. 

Of course, instead of another villain of the week, Spider-Man instead finds... Daredevil, in all his glory with a black version of his Netflix costume. A much more experienced superhero, with the skills to dodge and parry everything Spider-Man can throw at him. Very cool sequence, and a nicely 'real' confrontation as in this universe, both Daredevil and Spider-Man are still relative unknowns. In typical superhero fashion, both Daredevil and Spider-Man realize that the other isn't exactly a villain, so Spider-Man lets Daredevil go... but not before Daredevil warns him that Norman Osborn isn't as nice as he makes himself out to be. 

In the gang wars storyline, Lonnie's old life is slowly getting destroyed. His popularity among the gangsters is increasing with his whole 'Tombstone' moniker, but the coach pulls him out of his team, and this has also torpedoed his grades and his relationship with Pearl. The Otto Octavius storyline also gets a nice little tie-in here, because his role as a supervillain tech broker has a brand-new customer... Mac Gargan of the Scorpions, who gets a Scorpion-themed powered armour as the cliffhanger. 

Looking back at this episode after having finished the season, this sequence is admittedly a huge bit of cameo-for-the-sake-of-a-cameo. Daredevil doesn't really show up in a relevant way for the rest of the season; and this meeting doesn't really feel like it's particularly pivotal in shaking up Peter's faith towards Norman -- it's just one among many. (And the Ross stuff also doesn't really come up, which is a bit of a disappointment. So in that regards this episode does feel a bit self-indulgent. But it's Daredevil, so I can't honestly say I'm particularly upset. A bit of a shame, because I really did like the storylines brought up by the events in this episode, but the season simply doesn't follow up on them properly. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Daredevil returns with a black version of his MCU/Netflix suit (a few months before Daredevil: Born Again released). Charlie Cox returns to reprise his role, making him the only live-action actor to do so. Some musical cues from the Netflix show also are used here.
• Eleanor Bishop, Kate Bishop's mother and a rich businesswoman, is mentioned as one of the guests of the charity ball. 
• In the comics, the Scorpion's traditional origin story involves a combination of genetic experimentation and a scorpion-themed armour. This version of the Scorpion seems to fully utilize just a power-suit, appropriately enough provided by Dr. Octopus who himself is known for his technological tentacles.