Daredevil Recaps: “Speak of the Devil” and “Nelson v Murdock”
More foreshadowing! Ninja fights! Foggy feelings! More foreshadowing!
Did I mention foreshadowing?
“Speak of the Devil” returns us to our regularly-scheduled ninja fight already-in-progress.
Daredevil gets knocked down (as usual), and his opponent decides to get fancy and show how seriously he takes his Scorpion cosplay.
“I’m SO fancy.”
“GET OVER HERE!”
Post-credits, time backs up a little bit to revive the priest subplot from way back in the second (I think) episode, where the priest who took Murdock’s confession in the first episode tried to talk to him about that whole “I’m gonna go beat some dudes senseless for great justice, father. How many ‘Hail Mary’s is that?” conversation.
After the priest reveals he figured out Matt’s name,
“You didn’t make it terribly hard. Also, you’re that masked guy too probably, right?”
the two have a sit down for a bit of religious introspection over some coffee. The priest plays Alfred and regales Matt with a long story about some conflict that taught him an important lesson but doesn’t have as tidy a metaphor, probably because he doesn’t want to convince Matt to build a city-wide sonar out of everyone’s cell phones.
“And then I saw the devil. Literally. The end. Don’t do anything stupid.”
In the office, the good guy crew argues over the best course of action now that Fisk is out in the open, but they don’t get much of anywhere besides calling Daredevil “The Mask” a bunch
“Did someone forget to tell me I got a TV show?”
and Foggy calling Wesley “the suit,” which pretty much validates my silly naming scheme forever. *Flies off into the sunset.*
Then Ben foreshadows Daredevil and Fisk’s will they/won’t they (have to kill each other) relationship some more, and wow could we lay it on thicker? Is this Gotham? Chill out, everyone.
Fisk and Wesley discuss plans, and Nobu shows up to express his dissatisfaction with how long it’s taking Fisk to deliver him the city block I assume Mrs. C.’s apartment is on. Fisk blames everything on Scapegoat—sorry, Daredevil—and asks Nobu to take him out, which I’m guessing is how the whole ninja fight came about. Sigh.
Back at the law office, Mrs. C shows up, and Foggy demonstrates the depths of his knowledge of Spanish by asking here where the library is—probably so the team can fulfill their very clear Scooby Gang dreams.
Hey. Get your own base.
Matt tells Mrs. C. maybe she should just take Fisk’s money and move out of her apartment as he’s clearly coming to realize just how dangerous Fisk is, but Foggy has a bit less of an understanding of Fisk’s violent methods and says they’ll keep fighting for her. She likes Foggy’s opinion best, because in case you haven’t noticed, Mrs. C. kind of thinks he’s the greatest.
Matt goes to check up on Vanessa at the art gallery in an effort to learn something about Fisk, and she’s got him pegged from the second he walks through the door. With her BAMF-level powers of discerning, she calls him out on being Flirty Guystein and gives him some pointers on that front while practically diving into his soul with the art she recommends to him.
“‘World on Fire,’ was it? Will that be cash or credit?”
But Fisk shows up and interrupts them, and Matt greets him shortly before making the most obvious, awkward exit of all time.
“Captain Obvious, away! Er, bye.”
Matt goes to check in with the priest again, and are we all cool if I just skip recapping conversations about the internal struggle over killing Fisk from now on? I feel like it’ll save me about 50% in word count. We all have lives to get to outside of these recaps, Murdock.
ANYWAY. He gets back to the law office, and they have a short boding moment over finally getting themselves a real sign before a police officer shows up to have them identify Mrs. C.’s body, because SHE’S BEEN KILLED. Please excuse me while I destroy all objects within my personal vicinity. WHYYYYYYY?
Elsewhere, presumably in the near future, Matt is still fighting Scorpion, who is taking his sweet time killing him in between getting fancy and monologuing and then pulls off his signature move:
“Oh God no nothing to see here cut to someone else. MAKE IT STOP.”
Fisk spins Mrs. C.’s death on the news as a tragic occurrence which could’ve been avoided with his help as all three employees of Nelson and Murdock watch and drink, and for the first time in a while, it really looks like Matt is considering that whole “kill Fisk” thing. So, he goes out to release some aggression/get some information—by hitting people.
But it turns out Fisk got the hard read on him and had Mrs. C. killed knowing Matt would go out looking for info, and he set it up to lead him to an empty warehouse perfect for some mortal kombat. Scorpion is waiting there when Matt shows up, and… how long was he waiting there? What time is it by now? Is this all one day? What if Matt was busy and didn’t have time to go looking for days? Would he just chill there every night, waiting, bored? Why is it just him? Why not have backup ninjas just in case? I have so many questions.
Sorry. They have a conversation where it turns out Scorpion is part of the “war” Stick is involved in, and Matt tries to explain they don’t have to be enemies, and their goals don’t need to clash. Sadly, ninja derailing abilities are too strong for him.
“Actually, it’s about respect in—”
“Oh shut up!”
And hey! It turns out Matt somehow lives through that attempted fatality from earlier, and he manages to get the upper hand thanks to more grandstanding by Scorpion. Warning: ninjas are highly flammable.
“Witness the power of a true Super Saiyan!”
It turns out Fisk was there, too, and was kind of hoping Daredevil and Nobu, who turns out to be—or to have been?—the guy under the Scorpion outfit, would just kill each other, but he’s willing to finish the job after even more grandstanding. Oh, and it turns out Nobu was just sitting there for hours, waiting, and meditating while he waited for Daredevil to show up. How long would he have waited there before packing it in and coming back tomorrow? What are his estimated prime Daredevil hours?
Sorry. Matt says he’s going to kill Fisk, so I assume I’ve got about twenty minutes of morality conversation to sit through here, and I’ll just take a little na—ohnothey’refighting. I’m awake.
After a brutal beating by Fisk that Matt’s already likely near-fatal injuries aren’t helping, he manages to get away due to Fisk’s arrogance.
“Remember that time five minutes ago when I mentioned I maybe had character flaws?”
Foggy has gone to manual drunk dial Matt at his home again when he hears a crash inside and lets himself in to finally put together what’s going on when he inspects Matt’s broken body on the floor. I sense some justified hurt feelings over trust issues between friends coming.
“Not sure if want to punch Mask guy less or more now.”
Keep reading for the next episode!
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