Daredevil 1x11 Review: Take Me to Church

“The Path of the Righteous”
Written by Steven S. DeKnight and Douglas Petrie
Directed by Nick Gomez
 
The Story
Fisk waits anxiously in the hospital while the doctors work on saving Vanessa’s life. Her chances aren’t good. Leland’s being obnoxious. Fisk has Wesley call his mom back so he can stay with Vanessa, and Wesley finds out from Mama Fisk that Karen and Ben went to visit her. Matt gets visits from Karen (who doesn’t believe he was hit by a car and isn’t sorry for continuing the Fisk investigation without him and Foggy), then Claire (who hasn’t changed her mind about not planning on dating him even though she likes him and he likes her, and who thinks his vigilante thing can only end very badly for him). Then he visits Father Lantom again. He’s still not sure what his purpose is. Can it really be God’s plan that he has what feels like the devil in him? Father Lantom thinks the purpose of the devil might be to show people what happens if they give in to vice and evil. Matt beats the location of Fisk’s tailor/armorer out of the arms dealer guy, because he wants some armor of his own. Karen tries to talk to Matt and Foggy, but they’re in too much of a funk over their falling out, so she goes home. Where she is chloroformed and kidnapped by Wesley! He tries to strongarm her into burying the story about Fisk, but he foolishly leaves a loaded gun on the table between them, so when he gets briefly distracted by his phone ringing, she succeeds in grabbing the gun. And then she shoots him many times and flees. Holy crap!
 
Figured out another parallel. Matt hides his gear underneath his dad’s old boxing equipment, and Fisk always wore his dad’s cufflinks. And I have a lot of great symbolism analysis from this one, but I stuck it in the character analysis section. This episode is amazing.
 
Things I Liked

• Matt telling Karen the “car” that hit him was Japanese, not German. *snort*
• Marci is frickin hilarious
• Wesley coldly sending Leland off to placate Madame Gao because he’s getting annoying
• Sad Matt holding a balloon
• Matt getting really awkward when Claire points out how bad it sounded when he said she was the second woman who turned him down that day
• The friendship between Fisk and Wesley
• That you can see the moment when Matt figures it out, when he realizes that he can be a symbol
• That arms dealer guy is like a human version of Merl from Angel! Hah!
• Karen not putting up with being the carrier pigeon between Matt and Foggy, or with Matt and Foggy’s crap
• Wesley being annoyed when Karen’s too scared to give him a clear answer
• That you can see the exact moment Karen realized she could get out of this situation if she could only shoot Wesley. She realizes he’s the only one who knows she and Ben visited Fisk’s mom, and she glances down at the gun.

 
Things I Didn’t

• The somewhat pointless fight between Matt and Potter. I’m not sure what they could’ve done that would’ve been more effective, but why would someone who’s only working for Fisk because of coercion just attack one of his enemies like that? Maybe if they’d been having the first half of the conversation, up to the part about Betsy, while fighting, and then stopped fighting because Potter realized Matt wasn’t a threat to him and Betsy, that would’ve improved it.
• Wesley dying. He’s one of those villains you miss.

 
The Characters
Matt is so much like Angel. I love it. It’s particularly clear when he’s talking to Father Lantom, so anguished about how he feels like he has the devil in him. It’s like Angel and his demon! Can this power that feels so dark be used for good? Or is he just doomed? For Matt, the darkness comes from his blindness. For Angel, it’s the deadly sun allergy. They’re both kind of comfortable in the dark, but it seems like that literal darkness kind of festers and creates spiritual darkness in them when they let it. Having other people in their lives is what pushes the darkness back—even sometimes literally, like when Matt realized he needed to turn his lights on because a sighted person (Karen) was visiting his apartment. And even though Matt’s blindness doesn’t hinder him in moving around or having a career or functioning in general, he’s definitely groping in the dark in a spiritual sense. He’s so unsure if he’s doing the right thing or how his choices will play out. What Father Lantom tells him about the devil snapping at people’s heels gives him a moment of clarity he hasn’t had possibly all season. He can turn his own fears against his enemies. (Like Batman, only better and subtler! Again!)
 
Foggy is still on a bender trying to process everything that just happened with Matt. But he’s not outing him to Karen! I’m not sure if that’s enough to be optimistic about yet.
 
What the hell is Karen’s backstory?! Who has she shot before this? She’s so very calculating underneath her passionate, idealistic exterior. She realized she could get herself and Ben out of this extremely unpleasant corner by killing Wesley, which is why she was able to seize the opportunity to grab the gun when Wesley went for his phone. I don’t think she would’ve been able to react so quickly if she hadn’t already decided killing him was her best shot.
 
Bye, Wesley! You were a loyal lieutenant and friend, but your overprotectiveness was your downfall.
 
Fisk’s speech about faith is interesting. Matt has had so many conversations with Father Lantom, and Fisk talking to the unconscious Vanessa is almost like his own confessional booth scene. So if Vanessa is a problem for Fisk and how he runs his operation, it’s not because they have a romantic relationship, it’s because she’s becoming his religion. Further symbolized by how she’s almost always wearing white. (That's what this review title is referencing, incidentally.)
 
Every time Ben tells Karen he’s out, he’s actually working on the story by himself! He’s so much like Matt with the trying to protect people by keeping them at arm’s length, but never being quite careful enough himself.
 
Dangit, Claire. Self-control is kind of a drama-killer, isn’t it? Now we don’t get to see the doomed but amazing Matt/Claire romance, because Claire has enough self-control not to put herself through that particular emotional meat-grinder. *heavy sigh*
 
Overall Rating
5/5