Daredevil 1x09 Review: Thou Shalt Not Kill

“Speak of the Devil”
Written by Christos Gage and Ruth Fletcher Gage
Directed by Nelson McCormick
 
The Story
Matt, Foggy, Karen, and Ben continue trying to find solid proof that Fisk is behind all the badness in Hell’s Kitchen, but he’s incredibly slippery in the legal realm. Matt meets Vanessa at her gallery to try getting more of a sense for Fisk, who then shows up there too. He spends a lot of time with Father Lantom as he wrestles with his decision to kill Fisk, since there seems to be no other way to stop him. Fisk has Mrs. Cardenas killed both because she’s an obstacle to his deal with Nobu and because he wants to draw out the man in the mask. Matt tracks down her killer, which leads him to a warehouse. Instead of finding Fisk there, he finds Nobu, who, it turns out, is a ridiculously skilled ninja armed with a horrific shoge hook. Matt barely manages to survive that fight, which ends with Nobu engulfed in flames, only for Fisk, Wesley, and some goons to show up. Fisk invites Matt to take his best shot at him, and then proceeds to pound Matt into a pulp. Matt barely manages to escape. Foggy is at his apartment when he drags himself back there, and now Foggy knows that Matt is the man in the mask.
 
Matt is slowly being driven to the point where he feels he has no choice but to kill Fisk. His legal options for pursuing him grow increasingly limited. He meets Vanessa, who makes him wonder if he shouldn’t kill Fisk, but then Fisk has Mrs. Cardenas killed and Karen starts wishing out loud for the man in the mask to kill Fisk, as Fisk is scapegoating the man in the mask for his own crimes. It’s pretty much what’s happening on the surface level in the episode, but it’s extremely compelling.
 
Things I Liked

• The title, especially in connection to Matt’s conversation with Father Lantom
• “I could say I’m Captian America, but it doesn’t put wings on my head.”
• Matt’s pleased little smile when Karen’s talking about how much the man in the mask kicks ass.
• DONDE ESTA LA BIBLIOTECA (did they seriously just make a Community reference in Daredevil?!)
• “There’s a wide gulf between inaction and murder.”
• Father Lantom, in general
• Huh, Nobu called Stick “the old fool.” Is he another former apprentice?
• Charlie Cox has really nice abs
• “What are we supposed to do against somebody that owns everything?”
• Foggy finding out Matt’s the man in the mask!

 
Things I Didn’t

• Mrs. Cardenas’s death

 
The Characters
So, is Matt trying to find a reason not to kill Fisk, or a reason to kill him? Does he have to kill him, or does he want to kill him? I don’t think Matt knows, and that’s why this is so agonizing. He was leaning away after meeting Vanessa, but then all the legal avenues to pursuing him kept slipping through his grasp, and he killed Mrs. Cardenas just to get to him. I think it was the moment Fisk admitted to that when Matt stopped thinking about why this was necessary and just snapped. Unfortunately, his temper is no match for Fisk’s. If Matt’s going to beat him, it can’t be because he’s fueled by rage.
 
Karen can be surprisingly vicious. I think she represents Matt’s increasing certainty that the only way forward is to kill Fisk.
 
I love how much Foggy cares about Mrs. Cardenas. It’s so sad watching him wondering if all his dreams are meaningless because he couldn’t even help Mrs. Cardenas. But he only hits bottom for a single night. Then he’s right back to being determined to do everything he can to help the city. Let’s see how his new discovery affects that resolution.
 
What the heck is Vanessa’s deal with liking bizarre plain paintings that look like regular, sort of rustic paint on a wall? I’m starting to think she just has super pretentious taste in art, and that’s honestly a bigger strike against her for me than dating a man she knows is the city’s biggest crime lord.
 
Fisk is constantly flexing his fingers and never seems able to stand still. You can just feel the barely contained rage under the surface. If this guy were to say “I’m always angry,” I’d believe it a lot more than I did from Bruce in The Avengers. Causing pain almost seems to be a cathartic experience for him, because he spends so much of his time suppressing his inner violence.
 
Overall Rating
5/5