#186 – Daredevil S1E1 — Into the Ring

Welcome back to Marvel Maniac and MCU after show. I'm your host, Mr. Honest, aka Eric. And today Maniacs we step into Hell's Kitchen with the very first episode of the very first season of Netflix's at the time, Netflix's show Daredevil now streaming fully on Disney plus. This is season one, episode one, into the Ring. And yes, this is the beginning of the Defender saga are Netflix era. And what makes it special is how different it feels from everything else in the mcu. It's not about cosmic battles or saving the entire universe. It's really more about one man trying to make a difference on the streets of New York City, specifically Hell's Kitchen. And the story kicks off right here in a raw and grounded way. I want to thank you for being here first and I want to say I'm very excited that we're almost rounding 200 episodes of Marvel Maniac and MCU after show. It may be a surprise to some of you that we're going into Daredevil. Are you thinking, what is he doing? Is he really going for this long running series like every episode? Yes, we are going into Daredevil because Daredevil is so relevant in the mcu. Possibly debatably. Daredevil, Born Again, might have been the most popular MCU show this year. And it was one of the best maybe, if not the best that I covered. And the fact that this story has baked in elements from the MCU from the very beginning when we watched this as it came out back In I think 2015 or maybe 2014, I don't have the exact date. It was meant to feel like a part of the mcu. You wanted to imagine that this was another section of the world that we don't know about as movie viewers. And we're going to get to see some ground level stuff. And there are plenty of things in this episode that do nod to the Battle of New York. This is really all about the fallout of the Battle of New York without speaking about it so much, but just often enough, it's pretty cool if you ask me. So just before we get super into the episode, I want to say this is an announcement. We are going to keep Friday episodes variety. So like we're going through the X Men movies right now. We may cover Eyes of Wakanda, that new animated chef with four episodes. I haven't even thought about covering that yet. I forgot about it. And we have the X Men. We have anything that comes out, like Marvel Zombies. Friday will be our variety hour. But the bigger announcement here is since we're entering the Netflix era and we're going to be covering certain seasons of certain shows, AKA we're we're going to cover everything but Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Not because those don't stand on their own in their own unique way. I know Iron Fist is highly critiqued, but the first season is pretty great. I just am confirmed 100 sure that Jessica Jones will be returning to Daredevil Born Again. Daredevil obviously will be in it. And more importantly, the Punisher will most likely be in Daredevil Born Again season two. And he has a movie coming out on Disney plus, a mini movie, a special presentation. And to top that off, the Punisher has a big role in the next Spider man movie, Brand New Day. We don't know much about it, but we know he's playing a part in it. And to me, that brings this Netflix era, at least most of it, right to our door. We're not going to skip it. We're not going to combine episodes. What we're going to do is we're adding one episode a week. Mondays will now be going forward, another day of a Netflix episode. So Monday and Wednesday we will have our, let's say, Daredevils, and then we'll move into Daredevil Season two, Punisher one and two Jessica Jones, and then into Defenders, into Daredevil Season three, into the end of Jessica Jones. It's a lot, right? Right. Don't get overwhelmed. We're taking it one, one step at a time. And honestly, it's worth it to take a look at these shows because there's some great character work and it'll really make that payoff for when those other series come back around. So the reason we're making two episodes a week is because the seasons are long and we want to not rush through the show, but at least get it done a little bit quicker than one episode a week, which could take us nearly a year. And that's why Friday will be continued. Variety if you aren't interested in Daredevil or any of the Netflix era stuff, that's okay. We still will be here every Friday covering a variety of things, topics, movies, predictions, all sorts of stuff. So if you're about that, our Friday episode, which I'll just remind you, some podcasts, only have one episode a week. We're doing three. It's ambitious, but I don't think many people are doing it. And if you're in for the ride, well. Well, you're. We're going to have a Great time going over these. And if you're not, that's completely okay. I want you to feel beyond welcome here. You're not going to feel missing, like you're missing out on anything when you come to the Friday episodes. I might be overcompensating a bit, but I really value any of you who take the time to listen to the show. And I'm doing the Netflix era because I want to do it justice. I want to go all in on the MCU and I want to tell the whole story from my point of view. So. So covering these shows is essential to me. And we'll come back and do Luke Cage and Iron Fist. If they do show up, we'll get to meet them in the Defenders anyway, when we cover that. And there's a lot of good episodes and really fun story lines we're about to dive into. It's a little bit darker, but it's fun. And we, in my opinion, this is the directions we want to go in. I. I want to be covering this, and I'm very excited to do so. Not to linger in the plan too much, but just to keep you in the loop and let you know, I'll also be giving something like this on Friday. Case somebody didn't want to listen to this because they're like, oh, no, Daredevil. I don't like that. Well, that's okay. Fridays is your day, and Saturday morning minisodes, if you become a Patreon member, you'll become. It'll be put on our Wall of Heroes in our about section of our podcast for one, like Michael Finney, our longtime listener and supporter of the show. Salute to you, Michael. And yeah, it's gonna be really fun. I got some really fun minisode ideas. You'll also get access to the 15 plus episodes of minisodes that we've done since the Patreon really started kicking off again. So without further ado, let's get in to Daredevil Season 1, Episode 1, into the Ring. Thoughts, questions, concerns? You can visit me and email [email protected]. what do you think of us going into this Netflix era? Are you excited? Is it overwhelming to you? If so, are you happy with the idea of the Friday episodes being variety? I don't want the people who don't want to listen to Daredevil to feel fomo. I just want people to understand that, and that's very, very important to me. I. I know I've done probably an overdone intro on this episode. For that, but it's housekeeping and it's. I mean, going forward, it's the plan for the foreseeable future. I don't know how long this is exactly gonna take, but it's about the ride for me. So that extra episode a week is just so we're not lingering one Netflix episode at a time when a lot of you could just probably easily binge it over a weekend. So this is the beginning of what they call the Defender saga. And what makes it special is how different it feels from everything else in the mcu. It has its own tone. It's not about the cosmic battles, like we said. But this is where the story starts for Matt Murdock. The episode begins with a flashback. A boy named Matt Murdock pushes a man out of the way of an oncoming truck. This happens off camera. We see his dad's perspective running to a down and out mat. In saving him, Matt gets hit with chemicals that spill from the crash into his eyes. The tragedy is that he loses his sight, but at the same time, his other senses began to heighten in extraordinary ways. Flash forward to the present Hell's Kitchen, New York. The city is still reeling from the incident in quotes, AKA the Battle of New York. When the Avengers fought off the Chitauri, it left the city damaged. And in the and in the aftermath, organized crime has thrived. Criminals are profiting from rebuilding con contracts to taking advantage of all the chaos that comes with a city being attacked by an alien army. This is where Matt Murdoch and his best friend Foggy Nelson step in. They've just opened their own law firm. Nelson and Murdoch, ready to represent the people who can't afford flashy lawyers. Their first client. Big deal. This is Karen Page. She's a big character going forward in the series. Sorry for the spoiler on that, but they kind of give her main character energy. Energy. In this first episode, I'll be honest, she is accused of murdering a coworker after being set up. And she has no one else to turn to. When you first meet Karen, we actually do see her in the aftermath, bloody, with the knife in her hand, sitting over the body of the guy who was murdered, apparently by her. Us as an audience does not don't really see how she can be innocent, like she looks very guilty. But as the show unravels, we learn more and more about what she uncovered to get her into that position. Redeeming her character, but also setting up a very complicated alibi for her and proving that it wasn't her. It's going to prove to be tough. She has no one else to turn to. And Foggy Nelson got a tip from an officer. He bribes a police officer by giving him cigars for his mom. And that is kind of funny. Foggy Nelson is a very great character. And if you've seen Daredevil Born Again, you do know a little bit about him. But I won't spoil it. We have covered Born Again if you're interested. If you go back probably like three, three months, whenever it was airing, we were covering it. What a show. We won't probably go through the whole series again. But before the next season of Daredevil Born Again, we'll do a recap of all of this. So, tldr, if you don't want to listen to this, I think you should. It's time for me to start selling this to you and said you don't have to listen. It's good that you're here. It's. This is. This is honestly the beginning of. Aside from Agents of SHIELD TV that I considered and most fans considered at the time, part of the mcu and the fact that they validated that through Born Again and bringing Fisk and, you know, bringing characters over, that's how it got so exciting for us fans of this show. Matt is not just a lawyer, as we come to learn by night. He puts on a black mask and takes justice into his own hands. In this very first episode, he rescues Karen from being assassinated and uncovers that she's got a target on her back because she stumbled onto something much bigger. A conspiracy involving powerful people making money off of the Battle of New York's fallout. There is a big boss looming in the background, someone we know from. From infamous Marvel Television comics. And he's a classic character. I won't even say his name. They don't allow him to say it in this episode. We're going to build up to him. But there is a man pulling the strings on all of these. Union Allied, for example, the corrupt money funneling thing that Karen is trying to expose. Slash, not get killed because everyone knows she knows she's a total target by this crime syndicate. So this isn't just the Marvel we're used to. The show is darker and grittier and it's just more grounded. By the end of this episode, Karen is safe. Nelson and Murdoch has its first case closed. And Matt Murdoch has stepped into the ring as Daredevil. I'll be honest, if the case got close for Karen, I might have missed that, though I have that written down. But I might be wrong about that. I don't think they. I don't think they completely clear cleared her yet. But from our perspective, the case is closed because we know the truth. And in that, the way we figure out the truth is we hear Matt's perspective of him listening to people's heartbeats. He we can tell when they're. They have a steady heartbeat, when they're telling the truth and when they have a speedy heartbeat that they're lying. And Cara lies to Matt about one thing in this episode and that is that she did keep the information that she found the corruption of Union Union Union Allied and it's its partners and the money going in and out of that account. She uncovered something big and Matt knows she's lying and she put it on a USB drive. That's when Daredevil comes to save her. We get lots of Daredevil kicking ass in this episode. I'll be honest, the thing I remember most I'll be honest, the thing I remember most about watching this on Netflix was wanting and waiting and longing to see Daredevil in his actual Daredevil suit. Not knowing that looking back nostalgically, the thing, the suit he wears the kind of underdog, beginner superhero starter suit. It really is badass and like knowing he gets a suit later. I'll be honest, if you've listened to the Born Again, I already remember. I, I was obsessed about him, this man being in a suit, his super suit. And it takes him some time in that series to get in there too, due to what happens. And we will be talking about all the events that lead up to that. The streets feel alive in this show and not in like a fun Spider man neighborhood type way, but in a menacing, threatening kind of way. The smart connection here is to the Avengers. The show doesn't name drop the team directly, but it talks about the incident and we know that that's the battle of New York. And instead of showing us the heroes, it shows us what happened after, how criminals took advantage of the destruction. That's what makes this series so unique. It's Marvel, but it's from the ground up. It's the everyday people's perspective. And it is refreshing to see the MCU from a different kind of level. And it is really special to rewatch the show knowing it's canonized, knowing that this 100% happened in the MCU during that time period. It's slightly nostalgic at this point. It's been 10 years since this show's come out. This That's a big deal. And I think that's why it's just so worth going into. This show is iconic, especially this first season. Iconic. Matt Murdock is introduced with all his contradictions. First impression, he is a lawyer sworn to uphold the law, but he's also a vigilante who breaks it every night. He's a man of faith wrestling with the Catholic guilt. And yet he's also a fighter driven by rage, similar to his dad, who was a fighter. We learn more about him in this series, this season. And we get the opening with Matt talking in a confession with his priest, who also does become a pretty big character as well. A lot of setting up in this one. They do a good job at setting things up in a very entertaining way because we do get some great fight scenes, too, in this episode. And the Daredevil fight scenes, some of them are. Are praised as some of the best now in the mcu. Foggy Nelson, Matt's best friend, is instantly lovable. He's loyal, funny, and he brings some warmth into the darker corners of the show. And then there's Karen Page. In her very first appearance. She's already strong, resourceful, and important. Even though she's a victim here, the writing makes it clear she won't be sidelined for me. What's. Characters that stood out more, aside from obviously, Matt and Daredevil. As Daredevil, I'm more. Well, I feel like I know Matt more. I understand him a lot better. My last rewatch of the show was in the podcast off period over a year ago. I, I watched most of the Netflix series, and, man, this is a great season of tv. If you haven't seen it yet, I seriously recommend you follow along with us because you're, you're, you're going to, you're going to thank me later in that sense. But I think Foggy and Karen, more or less seeing them, um, be introduced, since they're such big characters, they go through their own arcs and we, we see those arcs throughout the whole series. It's just good to see where they start from and how innocent the relationship is before things can technically get a little bit more complicated and life starts to happen. Now, let's talk about a little bit about the action of violence. I was saying a bit ago how it's full of it. Daredevil changes the game. When it comes to Marvel action, there are no CGI armies here. The fights are raw, close, and painful. You hear the punches, you feel the bruises. And Matt isn't invincible. He gets Hit and he struggles and he bleeds. And that's what makes the action land so much harder, in my opinion. It feels human. The first episode doesn't give us a hallway fight yet. Which is the most iconic fight in the mcu. The first hallway Daredevil fight, or maybe one of them, but that's coming. It already sets the tone though, for what Daredevil be battles will feel like. So we do see the Battle of New York. Captain America taking down aliens. Like Tony Stark going into a wormhole with a nuclear bomb was going to destroy the whole city. Oh my goodness. We've seen it from a cosmic level, but similar to all these other characters. You know, Iron man started off with a cave, in a cave with a box of scraps. Daredevil starts off at his law office and loft being blind, but also having the the courage and fearlessness to become a vigilante and protect people with his given powers. He loses his sight, but all of his other senses are heightened. Let's lay out some of the themes and foundations aside from this great character work that the show does in its first episode alone. @ its core, Daredevil is about justice. But the show immediately asked what what happens when the justice system doesn't work? Matt Murdoch is both a lawyer and a vigilante, which means he's living in a constant contradiction. He believes in law and order, but he also knows that law alone can't protect people. That duality, saint and sinner, lawyer and outlaw, justice and vengeance, is the foundation of this character. Into the ring. This episode makes sure we know that from the start. I have to say, before there was Deadpool and Wolverine came Daredevil. That was the first kind of more dark, grittier, underbelly type show that we got. Show and or movie. It's not R rated, but it later could be. Technically. I mean, it is a very PG13, but like it has heavier tones and heavier themes than anything in the MCU we had definitely seen up to this point. Just like other heroes, Daredevil's balancing justice and vengeance, Spider man is balancing responsibility and Captain America and Iron Man's clash over the Sokovia Accords. You know, there's similar beats and takes. Where does Matt fit into this bigger moral debate? He's right at the bottom level of all this. Seeing the effects leaking down to the streets of Hell's Kitchen in New York City. And to have that first hand ground level story being told for the first time. Aside from agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. which some debate is probably just a multiverse show at time the same point. Do you want us to cover agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. marvelmaniacpod Gmail.com I need 20 emails requesting it. That is a huge undertaking. But we are not stopping this podcast. We're going to keep going. So when we're done with all the Daredevil stuff, we could go into agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. if we wanted. But I just Something tells me that the fans don't really want that, so I don't know if you have feedback on that, I'd love to Hear it again. Marvelmaniacpod Gmail.com this episode's definitely running longer because of the explanation and kind of game plan I gave you guys at the beginning of the episode. I'm going to do my best to keep these daredevil episodes 12 to 15 minutes when they go over. It's just naturally me being very into what I'm saying and I usually don't cut too much of that because it's organic and if it takes a little bit more time to tell the story in the right way of the from the podcast perspective, I think it's worth it as long as it's not lazy and whatnot. So closing this up into the Ring is a strong pilot. It tells us who Matt is and it sets up the tone for the whole series. This connects to the MCU in a meaningful way and it drops us right into the fight for Hell's Kitchen. It's not flashy, but it's powerful and it makes a statement. Daredevil isn't about saving the world, it's about saving the person right in front of you. And that was Daredevil Season 1, Episode 1, into the Ring. The Defender Saga, aka our Netflix era, has begun and already we see how the fallout of the Avengers reaches all the way down into the alleyways of Hell's Kitchen. This is our final week with two episodes a week starting Monday. This upcoming Monday, we start with two Daredevils a week. Monday Wednesday for Daredevil Friday for our Variety Day this week we will be covering X Men First Class this upcoming Friday and I'm very excited to cover that Debataly. Me and Mike Michael Finney were talking and saying maybe that might be the best X Men movie in existence. So that's going to be fun. Stay tuned. There's so much more fun to come. All your thoughts, questions, comments, concerns are very much welcome. Marvelmaniacpod Gmail.com if you're enjoying this journey, please make sure to check out our Patreon with our minisodes. That's patreon.com marvelmaniac they're shorter, more personal dives into Marvel moments that mean a lot to me in the community. So get to our link tree in our bio. It has every single social that I'm on and it also has the Patreon in there in the bio link tree and that is made up. We've made an interweb of the honest verse, the MCU Mr. Honest podcast web of social media. It's there. I'd love for you to follow me on all platforms so you can know when the next episodes are coming out and what we're planning going ahead. So thanks for listening to our longest episode in some time. And until next time, Avengers Disassemble.