#222 – Daredevil: Born Again (S2, Ep5) The Grand Design Was Never Filler

Welcome back to Marvel Maniac and MCU After Show. This is your host, Eric Cicada, aka Mr. Honest. Back with you to cover Daredevil Born Again, season two, episode five, titled the Grand Design. Now, a lot of people might call this a filler episode in terms of a superhero show, but it's not just that. It is a essential piece of storytelling that the rest of the show, maybe even series, will hinge upon. This was a great episode, and I love the performances given in this episode, especially by Vincent denof as Wilson Fisk. And you can even just throw us another award in. In Charlie Cox's hands, because these guys carry this show in the way that they're meant to. There's no mistake. They can really convey emotion without words even, or the way we see Fisk in this episode. Spoilers. We're gonna get right into it. Vanessa dies, and we don't know what's coming. And oh, my goodness, it's a shocker because they really let you think she made it. But that's the end of the episode. We start the episode with a little bit of hope and Fisk growing more vulnerable than we've ever, ever seen him. Denafrio taking the part just to a place we've never imagined a vulnerable, crying Wilson Fisk. You know, the fallout from this is gonna be insane. I'm gonna get my Jessica Joan complaint out of the way. She's still not in the show. There was no calling for her in this episode. That's okay. I'm sure when she shows up, it's going to be a grand return. And I just wish they didn't make it seem like she was going to be a part of the whole season. In the advertisements. Do you. Do you agree with me? Did you think that she was going to be in it more? I'm always. I'm always listening. Marvelmaniacpod Gmail.com I love your take. Let's chat about it. So I say don't overdo my notes. But I took notes the whole way because there's a lot of world building here and kind of going through flashbacks to learn about the current character's motivations. The episode opens up, and Fisk, he's beyond worried. You know, he tells Officer Powell, the leading task force member, you know, I never really clocked his name until now because I'm like, why don't I? Because he's in every episode being the face of this corrupt cop situation. The actor who plays him does a splendid job of being an. And he does a great job of being a part of the Fisk team. Unlike Daniel in this episode. Really walking on thin ice. And who shows up at the hospital? Bibi. She continues to play Daniel even at one of the worst places he could be working for Wilson. Physics very fragile right now. Daniel knows this and BB Apologizes to him even though she got confirmation that this is where they were. I know some part of BB even a small little bit, does actually care about Daniel, but she is not doing him any justice whatsoever. If she's the one most likely is the one who leaked the hospital Vanessa is at, Daniel could be in great trouble because of her. That puts Daniel in a corner because there's not a lot of people who could leak the information. Fist keeps a very tight inner circle. He put Daniel in a place where he trusts him. And the tragic part of it all is Daniel, like, kind of loves BB In a way. I don't know if he truly loves her or cares about her to the point where he's willing to help her out at the risk of getting caught by Fisk. It's all flashbacks and flash forwards. I'm usually not a fan of that in an episode, but they so seamlessly combine those, the elements of the flashback into the story of this episode. I actually thought it was kind of beautiful. They don't send Vanessa out without a reminder of the part she plays and has played in Wilson Fisk's life. She is in critical condition and her memory is recalling the rabbit in a snowstorm. So the origin of Fisk and Vanessa meeting each other is the flashback story of Fisk, all while this other thing's going on in the background that connects to the other flashback that Matt is having with Foggy about getting this guy out of prison because he's not safe. And I think it's kind of beautiful that the story circles around the same characters. Almost like they've been on this path to cross paths since the very beginning, even before we even knew. For those who haven't seen the original series, which I highly recommend, it's worth a binge. If you're liking these, these episodes, you're going to love the old series. It's not old. It's 10. Well, it's 10 years old. We're getting old, I can admit it, but I'd say it's worth a watch, especially because we're getting some of the flashbacks from it and it's drawing directly from that show's history, which you got to love, because when you connect those two shows together, you get one giant, beautiful picture and in this episode, it's just all white and painted in white called Rabbit in a Snowstorm. And. And that painting holds a significance and the sim symbolic path that Wilson Fisk walks throughout these series. This episode does a lot of jumping around from present day to past to one character to another. But at the same time, I think the show pulled it off really well. Bullseye is being saved by Matt. Matt, like I said, Matt always is trying to save his enemies. Bullseye wants to make it even between what happened to Foggy because of him and what happened with Vanessa. And Daredevil isn't having it. You know, he brings up Foggy and he gets mad. And in an ironic way, past Foggy and the revelation that Matt has about going out of your way for somebody, just anybody, is what they do. They, they protect people. You know, whether they're good or bad, they want to do right by them. And what Foggy does for his old neighbor in this episode is so valiant and heroic without him having to wear a super suit. I love super suit. So as we see Matt's suit is getting more and more diminished. The red is starting to come out of the black suit. I love that visual. I love that metaphor. Matt is slowly coming undone. And I think in the best way possible. You know, he's gonna maybe, I don't know if he's going to flex his rule of killing people. Highly doubt they'll break that moral code for him. However, I think he's going to even get more of a moral code. He's wearing the black in a time of confusion. And it's just interesting. I want to like think a little bit over the next week about what that really does mean for Matt. You know, they don't do things by accident. Visual storytelling is some of the most powerful storytelling. And, and that really awesome black suit that I love by the end of the show is likely going to be like full red with tiny black dashes on it to remind you of the character change Matt did go through in this episode. Cuz that flashback did end up leading Matt to going back and saving point Dexter. Bullseye, he was going to leave him to die. The task force are right on them. They go to the church. An miserable callback to a death in the church thanks to Bullseye himself. I mean, he. When he was a lose cannon. In season three of Daredevil, we hear Fist talk about bitcoin. And in this episode, he's trying to figure out more ways he can invest his money. The art show, putting his money into the art and that makes a lot of sense, cuz Fisk is actually in love with this rabbit and his snowstorm painting. And we see Vanessa talk to her boss behind the scenes and tries to convince her to put it out. Because the right man might. Might walk through the door and see himself in that painting. Even though it's very minimal. She goes against her boss's orders, but that leads to her meeting Wilson. And that could be portrayed and thought of in two different ways. One, this led her on the path to her very own demise, or this is how she met the love of her life. I don't think Vanessa regrets meeting Fisk. We get to see how much she's kind of become a part of the operation in season one of Born Again, where she's just as dirty as he is. There's. There's no question about it. So she becomes a bit corrupt through Fisk. Depends on which way you're looking at it though. Because some might see Vanessa as an innocent character being taken into a world of crime. But I think everybody's accountable for their own actions. And Vanessa is a very smart woman. I think that's why Fisk loves her. She's very, very smart. And let me just say back to Matt and Foggy. How good is it just to see these two characters back together on screen being lawyers? This episode reminded me in the very best way of the original series. We had a lot of time of them actually doing groundwork as lawyers. I mean, of course there's plenty of Daredevil action in the other series, but this is a true homage and callback to that series in a way and a reminder of who Foggy is as, as a person and how that impacts Matt to this very day. Like I said, I kind of repeating myself, but it's, it's connecting to. Matt saves people. It doesn't matter what kind of people. All people deserve to be saved. And man, Matt is. That's what the superhero does, I guess, you know. And that's what makes Matt Daredevil and kind of helps what to define what Daredevil actually is. Wesley being back also opens up a little bit more in that flashback to Buck. And Buck is the guy who's hired to kill the. The guy that was mean to Foggy as a kid. He was the guy sent to kill him, this criminal. But he gets out just in time. Foggy gives him Mats and his lawyer fund basically their. Their future so they can open up a building and have that law firm, you know, at the end of that episode for them. Then we get to hear them come up with Nelson and Murdoch because Matt at the end of the day is really proud of his partner, his avocado at law, and he. He comes up with the name Nelson Murdoch. So things coming full circle, stories connecting in the past. We get to know pretty much the Wesley of this series was discovered by Wilson from Wesley himself. When Foggy brings Ray that money for him to start a new life, a scene without Matt with another character who he never met before. It gives me ideas that Foggy might be alive somewhere. I'm. I know I said it. I know that it shouldn't be possible, but just hear me out. They wouldn't have put him in a scene by himself via flashback. They would have had all his scenes be with Matt, in my opinion, if he wasn't going to come back somewhere down the line. I don't know what enables Foggy to stay in hiding for so long if this fact is true, and I'm sure it will be explained. But every series needs a really good big twist. And trust me, I don't know. Spoilers on this. I don't get them ahead of time. I watched the episode as it airs, just like you. I just got a feeling, them bringing Foggy into the fray like this, in this flashback, you know, one, it could just be like what I said, showing where Matt gets his honor from and his morals. It's all tied back to Foggy and he sort of essentially is a part of Matt now. But that being said, it doesn't mean they can't make some giant epic twist where he comes back and the reason is good enough. But I don't know, I. I'm like 5050 on it still. But I mean, one can only hope. Bullseye trying to teach Matt lessons this episode. He's pretty much accepted his death. We are who we are. Pretty ironic line coming from him, you know, even though he's trying to turn a new leaf in his own way, get revenge, make things right in his twisted up way. There's something so likable about Point Dexter, Bullseye, you know, and the fact that him and Matt are together this whole episode is kind of cool because we didn't really get to see these characters interact much, especially in this series. In particular, the way Buck takes Daniel out to the forest and Daniel's just perspective of this whole thing. I. I had wondered when Daniel was in the car alone when Buck went in to get the tools, you know, the shovel and the. I don't know what it was. Was it a nail gun? Something that he could have killed Daniel with. Clearly. I thought maybe he was going to make a call to BB and say, did you tell somebody? Why are you ratting me out? And there's some recording device, you know, but in all reality, he does probably know that, Buck. He's smart enough to know that Daniel had some part in this. And the body they're about to bury, I thought was BB's at first, and I don't think it was. Well, I'm sure we'll find out if it was in the next episode, but I don't think they would have done that. But we don't know, you know, because we could. They were covered up. And this is that dark moment, that rabbit hole that Daniel's falling down into because he's not a bad kid. He. He has good intentions. He respects Fisk for his power. But now he's going to be bearing a body. I just wonder what kind of effect that's going to have on him and how that's going to transform his character going forward. The son of Tony Soprano is a great freaking actor. And again, this whole episode could have been boring because it was a flashback story episode, which some shows don't do well at. And this show does so well at because of the acting chops on everybody in the cast. Cast. It's phenomenal. So in the end, we didn't lose Daniel today, but we do see him lose a piece of himself if he actually has to help put this body in the ground. You know, that's not something you forget very easily. I'd imagine Matt is going to abandon Bullseye and he has this memory of him and Foggy, you know, the whole story that we kind of saw in the flashback, it leads him to go back and save Bullseye and bring him back to the compound, which I don't know if it's behind Josie's anymore. I think they got discovered there. However, he brings Bullseye home. I mean, Karen is there. She's in danger around him. Right. You know, should we really trust Bullseye? I don't know. Punisher was kind of like taking his position last season, but now to have Bullseye in the same sort of storyline directly in the same scenes with our heroes, makes me wonder if we're going to be getting an anti hero type of story. I seen people on X talking about how Bullseye should actually get his own show or own special feature like the Punisher is getting. By the way, that's going to be awesome. The trailer drop for the Punisher special, if you're excited for it. I am too. And I noticed that it's going to be one week after the finale at around the same night as Daredevil ends. So we might not do an after after show for this series. And if that's not true, we'll make the last episode a little extra special and reflect on the series as a whole. But there's still three full episodes after this one. And after what happened at the end, which we're about to talk about, it's gonna be a bumpy ride, to say the least. So my note, it wasn't a disappointment. It's Vanessa lives and it's just not what I thought would happen. I literally wrote that down. You know, I was writing in real time. I made a pact with myself not to write too much. But there's a lot of heart and character beats in this episode. Oh, my goodness. I've never seen or heard Wilson Fisk so vulnerable. When she wakes up, he's crying. And I've never felt so much for a super villain or a bad guy or an antagonist in Marvel since Thanos. Thanos very similar to Wilson Fisk on that street level where he's a bad guy doing things that he considers right. I'd say Fisk is a bit more corrupt than Thanos because Thanos is kind of trying to balance the whole universe in a twisted way. Ironically, in a bigger way, he's harming everyone. But in terms of the mindset, Fisk wants to get ahead in the criminal world. That's all he knows. Thanos wants to save the universe from being coming extinct because it's overpopulation. So it's interesting to compare those two characters. I always got to bring up Thanos in an episode, so it's very subtle. And Vanessa and Fisk relive their meeting together, and she does refer to it as. As the grand design. The fact that they meant met their origin story. That's her words. Maybe one of the most beautiful things that she could have said to Fisk. I think it's very special that Fisk and Vanessa did have a few moments together before we lost her. Really didn't think they'd go down that route. That was a surprise. So I feel so much, so much for Fisk and geez, I'll say one more time, Vincent, and offer his action chops carry and the pineapple juice thing, it was just a little moment of bliss that Vanessa was able to have. And Fisk, ironically, didn't let the doctors come and see her and look at her until they Got the pineapple juice. And that's probably a long time. I don't. I don't want to blame Fisk for her dying, but maybe they would have been able to do something when she woke up to prevent that from happening. I don't know if Fisk will think about that. I don't know if that'll be a plot point. I kind of. I kind of highly doubt that it will, but it is something to keep in mind. He starts to show signs of memory loss. She's forgetting things. She's coming in and out of kind of consciousness as he's talking and crying and to her. And, you know, they get to spend some moments together, but she dies. And it happens very quickly. Something happens, something goes wrong. I think Wilson was blessed to get to spend any more time with her. But this man is torn apart right now. We are leaving Wilson Fisk on the love of his life's deathbed. There is going to be a lot of recompense. There's going to be a lot of revenge. I don't know how far Wilson will go to get Daredevil, to get Bullseye, to make them pay, to torture them. Remember what he did to the guy who just was flirting and trying to date his wife last season? This. These are the guys that are responsible for the death of his wife. Very tragic moment when she dies. We see Fisk go through so much emotionally in this episode. So I'm so excited to see what he becomes from this, where his character goes, maybe, just maybe, he comes undone and kind of falls off the. The kingpin level for an episode or two until the end. I don't know how he's gonna take this. This is the biggest loss we've ever seen him take, and we've seen him lose everything in the other series, but he got to keep Vanessa. That's what probably kept him sane. Last thing I wrote was pure cinema because it was a good episode, honestly. And we're gonna be moving forward into the finale episodes, the final arc. This is like the Act 2 finale, if you ask me, of the second season. So both these last episodes we do are going to be exact result of this and not a lot of what we've seen from the trailers, except. Jessica Jones. Hello. Come on. Jessica. Jessica. First season of that Jessica Jones show is iconic. Go watch it. If you haven't. Honestly, it's worth it. Well, I want to go and take some time to look at R. Marvel Studios on Reddit, see what the fans and people are thinking about this episode. Our little tradition. It was a tradition I kind of forgot about for a long time. But I think it's really fun to see what the fans are saying. Until I get my email flooded from you guys marvelmaniacpod Gmail.com don't hesitate. Send me your thoughts. There's a good chance you'll be hearing them on the show. Okay, so the first comment is from Valor Pizzeris. It's Matt mentioning a nurse. A gift of Rosario Dar Dawson as Claire Temple. A very decent sized role and she played a pretty big part in bringing the Defenders together because she kind of showed up in most of their shows as a big part, went on to be Ahsoka and a big actress. And maybe we'll be getting her in the last few episodes as a call back. He might be the one. She might actually be the one that he calls to help out Bullseye, which I still can't believe he's going to be doing so very, very good catch, Mr. Valar Pizza. I think that's what your name is. I'm not going to look further into this. Delete and Rewind says the Netflix esque flashbacks are really great. I couldn't agree more. I think I'm honoring that show if they already do it by picking it up and taking it from where they left it in the first place. But the fact that we are connecting the dots and going behind even more things that happened in the timeline of that first series, in the first season even, that's top tier right there. And that is the definition of homage. Floppy Shell Taco says Kingpin Crash Out's going to be legendary. Oh my goodness. I'm just thinking about the police chief and the head scene last, last season at the end. I mean that was him celebrating pretty much. I mean, what is he gonna do to Bullseye if he gets his hands on him? I think there will be a moment where Bullseye seems safe, scot free. They're gonna do the same thing for him that Foggy did for his criminal friend and got him out. Maybe Matt will try and get Bullseye out of the city and somewhere else. And before that can happen, Fisk will brutally take Bullseye out. That's my little theory right now. It's just what I'm thinking. I'm sure everyone's gears are grinding and moving up there. This is one of those episodes that makes you think nice and hard about the possibilities of where the show can take it from here. Because there are so, so many. Floppy Shell Taco. Another. Another top comment from him. Lmao@dex just wanting a cool death scene. Yeah, I mean Matt's not going to let him go that easy. You know, we, we have very different ideals ideologies from these characters. In this episode we have a third top comment from Floppy Shell Taco. And I got to say, your name is growing on me. The entire series is a long slow burn leading to Daniel's inevitable death from his own stupidity. For God's sake, that Daniel storyline is going somewhere. I mean, it already did this episode. But him and Fisk in a room together knowing that Fisk was looking bad because of his leaks, Daniel's leaks. It's not going to be pretty. I don't know if he will make it out of this series. I really hope he does because I love the character, love the actor, but I also love a good I got you scene. And that would send BB into an emotional, I don't know, like tornado if you ask me. I think, like I said, she cares about him a little and he dies because of her. I mean, it'll probably make her work harder to out Fisk and put, you know, put him account as accountable to all the horrible things that he's done and hold him to that. But we'll see. I. I'm. I'm looking out for Daniel right here. Valar Pizza. We got like two guys in here really laying down how they feel in multiple comments. And I gotta say, they're saying some pretty smart stuff. So Valor Pizza Pizzeris again says. Oh man, when Vanessa woke up. We have never heard fist voice like that. Even in the entirety of the Netflix series. Tanao really locked that into lock that scene in. I couldn't. I could not agree more. That was maybe some of the best acting I've seen in the mcu. I'm not even going to lie. Okay, that's where we're going to leave it for today. It's been a long episode over what you would call what you would normally call it. Say it. Let's just say it will be a filler episode in any other series. This is like way bigger than that. And I had a great time watching this one. I hope you did too. What are your thoughts? Marvelmaniacpod Gmail.com? i also want you to join our Discord server. It's in the notes. Become a part of our community. Let's talk about this together. Don't be shy. Even if you're one of the first few in there. You know, we have a few people in in there now. The more the merrier you are welcome. Bring a friend. And I also want to strongly advise you to rate the show. I. I see the listeners. I. I'm gonna say it. I know you're out there. I know you're listening. And thank you so much for just giving me a chance and letting me be a small part of what we love about the MCU and enjoying with me what we love about these shows and these series and our heroes and watching them grow, change and fight. Oh, the glorious fights. We have yet to see a hallway scene this season, if I'm not correct. Okay. Thank you for listening. I've been Eric Cicada, your host, AKA Mr. Honest. And until next time, Avengers disassemble.