ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - Daredevil: Born Again - How a Hero becomes a Villain

Episode Date: March 16, 2025

Daredevil: Born Again episode 3 shows Matt Murdock breaking a seal of confidentiality and upending a case...and we think this is all pat of a pattern that will show him slipping to the dark side later In the season. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm a really good lawyer. So that was a fucking lie. Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie. And Daredevil Born Again Episode 3 just showed us very clearly that Matt Murdoch has become a bad lawyer. But even worse, I think this show is telling us how he is slowly falling from Grace and he's going to be a villain in season 2. So this is a special screen crush video because later, I'm going to be joined by two special guests to help me explain all this, attorney Mike Mazzella and philosopher Nicholas Mischo. But first, I want to explain how Matt Murdoch is slid.

slowly falling to the dark side. Quick reminder that you can now listen to Screencrush on all your favorite podcast platforms and check out our merch store for new designs like the No Fear Hallway Fight Tribute, Nelson and Murdoch shirts, the Fisk shirt and yard sign, the Rabbit and a Snowstorm shirt poster and fridge magnet, and many more. Links for those are below. Now, the title of this show is Daredevil Born Again, which is also the name of one of the greatest Daredevil comic runs by Frank Miller and

David Mazuchelli. In that run, Kingpin discovers Matt's secret identity and ruins his life. He destroys his home, has him disbarred, Matt is homeless, and driven to the point of insanity. At one point, he becomes delusional and decides to murder the Kingpin until he finally returns to his faith and has nursed back to help by his nun mother, Maggie. Now, the beats of that story were mostly adapted in Daredevil Season 3, with Kingpin framing Matt and Matt staying out of the suit for most of the season, just like in Miller's original story. But I think this season is actually showing us Matt's deeper moral decline. The moral decline is not because he's homeless and jobless, Matt's decline is actually happening because he is financially successful.

And I think this means that by the end of the season, Matt will finally lose control in public and try to murder the mayor. Whoa, really? Yeah, let me explain. So, in the original series, Matt always balanced out his nightlife as a vigilantee with his career as a lawyer, often using his powers as Daredevil to help him win in the courtroom. He knew this was illegal and unethical,

but he always had a strong moral center and he always felt like he was working for the greater good. And this is how episode three starts. Matt had just used his powers to beat up some crooked cops, which helped him to secure his witness for the trial. But after the witness collapses on the stand, Matt Murdoch has to call a pretty unethical audible. Are you the vigilante known as the white title?

Say what? Now, as we'll discuss with Mike later on, this is not an ethical thing for Matt to do. And I'm going to ask Mike if this would be grounds for Matt Murdoch to be disbarred. Now, you can argue that he has Hector's best interested in heart. but Hector is his client. He's his customer. Like Hector says, You should have asked me first. Matt, of all people, knows what it means for a vigilante to be outed.

Matt puts on the mask to protect his career and the people he loves. So, unmasking the White Tiger without his consent shows a shocking lack of empathy. I think that Matt has completely lost his moral compass, and this will lead him to the brink of becoming a villain. And in season two, we might even see a villain daredevil character being hunted down by the likes of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. Oh, hey there. I have a delivery for Rihanna-Ray. It's a COD. You got to pay me now. Oh, that's me and here you go.

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He loved beating people up, but he hated that he loved beating people up. After Foggy discovers his nightlife activities, he becomes a strong voice of moral reason in Matt's life. You tried to kill him, Matt. You told me yourself. How was that any different than the way he solves his problem? And Foggy continues to be this voice of moral clarity in season two. Electra is not the problem, Matt. You are. And literally, the moment Foggy dies, Matt has no interest in moral restraint. He does the unthinkable and just tries to kill Bullseye.

This event causes Matt to stop being Daredevil. He probably feels that he can't be trusted to beat people up without crossing that line. But here's the thing. Matt is still that guy. who pushed a man off the roof. Just because he doesn't wear a mask anymore, doesn't mean that he has suddenly become a better person. Matt has lost his moral center. Not only does he not have foggy, but he says in episode one that he doesn't even attend mass anymore. And for Matt, he always used to return to the church to balance out his vigilante life.

I'm not seeking penance for what I've done for him. I'm asking forgiveness for what I'm about to do. But remember, Matt actually has two careers that are very powerful and can be used for good or evil. As a vigilante, he has the power to save a life or to take it. But as a lawyer, he wields immeasurable power in the real world. Lawyers run the earth. They can defend the downtrodden or giant multinational corporations like Roxon. Early in his career, Matt convinced Foggy to leave Laman and Zach to start their own firm, a firm that would help the poor of Hell's Kitchen.

But after Foggy dies, Matt ends that practice and starts a new firm with high-end clients. He lives in a fancy high-rise apartment, paying for a view that he can't even see. Now, I think this is all an example of how Matt is now willing to bury himself in a new life, where the law now serves him and not the other way around. Matt always walked this line as Daredevil, right? He always went out there every night to beat up criminals, because if he stood by, the guilt was overbearing. But then, he feels guilty for beating people up,

he goes to confession, and the cycle starts all over. But this cycle of guilt is actually what kept Daredevil in check. Superheroes always need some kind of check on their power. If Superman didn't have the right upbringing, he would have become Homelander. If Spider-Man didn't have the guilt from Uncle Ben's death, he would have become Hulk Hogan, or worse, an influencer. Endorse baby powder. I made a mistake. And if Daredevil didn't have this constant need to atone for his sins, he would become the Punisher.

So even though Matt is no longer putting on the mask of beating people up, I think he is coming unraveled, and there is a greater chance than ever that he will lose control and become public enemy, number one. Now, I am joined by, frankly, two of the smartest nerds that I know. We have an actual comedian lawyer attorney, Mike Mazzela, and Nicholas Mischo. Now, Nicholas, as a philosopher, he's appeared here before, and these guys have two very different takes on, well, different approaches, I guess, to how Matt Murdoch may or may not be a good lawyer or a good person based on what he does. But first, Mike, I want to hear from you.

I've already been talking about the legal angle of this, but I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Can you talk about the actual legal what Matt does in this episode and whether or not it should get him disbarred, basically. Yeah, so I don't know if this raises to the level of grounds for disbarment, but Matt certainly stepped on some toes in this episode, did some things that he should not have done. One of the requirements for a lawyer,

it's a what's called a canon of legal ethics, is that when you appear in court, you appear before a judge any time, you need to show candor before the tribunal, which essentially means lawyers cannot lie to judges. you're not allowed to. So even if your client tells you something and you know that it's a lie, you're not allowed to then go and present that to the judge or to put somebody on the stand and have them say it. That would be what's called suborning perjury. Now, Matt didn't do that

here, but what he did do is he essentially misled the court. He led the judge to believe that the fact that Hector was the White Tiger was something that would completely tank his case, that it would unfairly prejudice the jury against his client. And so by all means, he wanted to keep this information out of the trial and played upon the judge's emotions in order to get him to agree with that, this calling to a higher standard of justice and that, you know, we should really truly be protecting the interests of this criminal defendant here. And that's why the fact that he is the white tiger is irrelevant and should be kept out

of the trial. And then you'll see in the middle of this trial, after Matt goes ahead and opens the door and brings that information in, they do have a brief meeting in the judge's chambers where the judge says to him, you know, you misled me here. You told me that this was staying out. And then Matt says, this is actually a super crucial piece of information. It's essential and it needs to be said, and the jury needs to know it in order to come to their determination. On paper, the law in a criminal trial like this is supposed to be purely 100% only about the facts of the case and about what happened on that night. And all other external facts are not supposed to come in because they could improperly influence what the jury face. You'll see both sides try to do this at different

points to paint not only their clients, but also the witnesses that they call as good people or as somebody that is upstanding. You saw this when Officer Powell was called to the stand. The DA asked him, you're a pretty experienced detective. Why were you working on New Year's Eve? And he says, well, I volunteered. And that's designed to make the jury think, wow, look at this guy. He's such a hardworking, upstanding cop that he even chose to go and work on New Year's Eve, right? So the thing that Matt did here is that he essentially went to the judge and said, Your Honor, we need to make this a pure case that's about nothing other than justice and what is right or wrong under the law. And then just totally did an about face and decided, nope, I'm going to bring in all of

this information about my client being this vigilante known as the white tiger. And a big problem with that is that what a lot of people might not realize is that when you go into a trial, you essentially in the lead up to the trial have to preview for the other side, the arguments that you're going to be making, particularly in a case like this one where Hector is being charged with murder and he's presenting what's called an affirmative defense, right? So they're not just getting up there and presenting a normal defense, which would be, you got the wrong guy. He didn't do it. It was somebody else. They're presenting an affirmative defense, which essentially says, yes, my client did this,

but he was either justified under the law or he had a valid excuse under the law, which would make it so that either he shouldn't have been charged in the first place or the jury should acquit him. And if you're going to assert an affirmative defense, you have to preview that for the other side so that they can do their background research or perhaps even talk to your witnesses ahead of time in order to know what they plan to say once they take the stand. So Matt, prior to the trial, says under no circumstances should anything about the white tiger come in. The prosecution doesn't really bring it up in the trial because they're not allowed to. The judge told them, you know, this information is barred from the trial.

The jury should not hear this. But then once Matt opens the door on it, not only was he prepared to talk about it, he apparently had about a dozen witnesses lined up and ready to take the same. Well, I'll say this. I got the impression from the, and I went to ask you about this, from the episode, because they use those BB reports throughout the episode. And for me, those indicated a passage of time where I thought maybe after he unveiled him as the White Tiger

that would the court have given him then time together witnesses based on that outing that are then relevant? Or do you think that they were researching that just in case? Like how much of this was actually off the cuff? So, I mean, the episode itself does appear to all take place in one day, which is super unrealistic for a criminal trial, particularly one of this magnitude. right this is all over the news it's a super publicized trial of the century right in the comics

it's called trial the century so very unrealistic for this all to happen in one day but that's the way that they present it what would realistically happen is if the judge is not going to order a mistrial he would probably take a recess of a day or a couple days to allow the prosecution to get caught up and to reassess what their strategy is then going to be in response to this right so you have Matt calling all of these character witnesses who are getting up there and saying, Hector as the White Tiger saved my life, well, maybe the prosecution, if they had known that was going to happen, might have tried to find some other citizens who maybe had some bad experiences with the White Tiger, or maybe he didn't save them, or maybe he actually

harmed them or mistook them for a criminal when they really weren't and beat them up. You know, the prosecution has to have the opportunity to show the other side of the story, and by kind of, you know, pulling the rug out from underneath them and suddenly surreptitiously announcing that Hector is the white tiger, the prosecution wasn't prepared to put on any evidence to counter all of the character evidence that Matt put on. So, yeah, realistically, if something like this were to happen, more likely than not a mistrial would be declared, but we see the judge in this episode say that he's not going to do that because, again, because of the high-profile nature of this case, everybody, already knows now. You've tainted the jury pool. So even if we were going to announce a mistrial, impanel a whole new jury, well, those jury members are probably watching the first part of this trial. And now they know all of that information that they're not supposed to know. All right. So, Nicholas, I want to take this over to you for a second. Matt, Mike, I got a couple

other, Matt Murdoch. Mike Murdoch, I got a couple other questions for you on the legal end. But I want to shift this over real quick to the morality of what Matt does. And we could talk about in this trial or just in general. There's this great moment in season one where he's explaining to Foggy why he did this, right? And there was a girl, a little, he could hear the screams of a little girl whose father was abusing her. And he called child services. He did try to do everything in accordance with the law, but nothing happened because the mom wouldn't believe it and the social services wouldn't do anything. So Matt showed up and beat the guy until he, you know, breathe through a tube. And then he left her alone after that. So where, where does this fall? And this is

what makes Matt Murdoch so interesting. If Peter Parker was outed as Spider-Man, I think that it would just make him more famous, like more of a celebrated photographer. If Matt Murdoch was outed as a vigilante, he'd be disbarred pretty quick. But do you think Nicholas that his moral justification oversees his ethic, ethical? So that's a great question. So I will begin with a caveat before the hate mail starts to roll in. I love Matt. I love Daredevil. There's a lot to criticize here, right? He is wonderfully unethical, and I think in Born Again, this is very purposeful, right? They're pushing it farther. Right, they have him engage in attempted murder, right? So this is kind of a new position for him to be in. And I think that the whole fact that it is born

again, that's part of what's being pushed on. In other words, Daredevil's taking on a new kind of persona as someone who's potentially even more violent and even willing to do more harm or cross that line that he hasn't been willing to cross before. So to get into the weeds briefly, the reason why vigilantes are not allowed legally is different from morally, right? We have a social contract, basically. So there's something called social contract theory, which is this idea that we kind of have all agreed to follow certain rules for the best interests of ourselves so that society can continue to roll on forward. He is in clear violation of this social contract. Now, we could argue that that becomes dicier in a world where there's

already all these superheroes and we've had the Secovia Accords argument and so on and so forth. So maybe he's not in the clearest violation of that. And there's other moral philosophers who would argue, nah, he's probably fine. Utilitarians, they tend to go with, well, whatever brings about the best interest in the long run. So if Matt's, doing more good than harm in the end? Great. But my favorite, one of my favorite philosophers is a guy named Emmanuel Kant. And he was very, very tough on holding the rules in terms of things like if murder's wrong, it's wrong universally. Now, he does have certain kinds of leeway for murderers themselves. That being said, what I find most interesting about Kant is the issue

of consistency. And I think that's where morality really is, if you talk with a lot of lot of philosophers today, they're going to be less about one specific ethical system and more about the ability for someone to articulate, I'm consistent with my own moral values. The actions that I take make sense with the things that I say that I believe and those actions also don't conflict with each other, right? They're not contradictory actions. So Matt, if I were to put him on a trial of ethics, I would look specifically at his Catholicism. and that's really interesting to me and that's where I think the show is particularly

interesting is he doing a good job of following the rules of being a Catholic and I think he would be one of the first people to say probably not a great example of this sorry go ahead just to step no just to step in for a second I want to support what you're saying

the first seasons definitely you know put his Catholicism front and center the first scene where he speaks is he asks forgiveness for what he's about to do and I was talking to a staff member of ours who's Catholic. And he pointed out that even wearing the mask is a lot like walking around in a confession booth and wearing your sins on your flesh. So 100%, please continue. Oh, I love that idea. And part of what I was going to say as well is in attempting murder,

one of the fascinating things about Catholicism is you might as well have committed the murder in a certain. Right. Your attempt to do it leaves you in as much of a position of committing, right, mortal sin as if you had succeeded, right? There isn't a kind of more right eye causes you to sin, cast it out. Right. So the problem really for Matt, I think, is a fascinating one that leads to a fascinating problem of his own inconsistency with himself. And this is why I think when he talks with Fisk, Fisk holds him to that account because he's starting to see himself in Matt, i.e. you enjoyed being up there on that rooftop, right? Matt is no longer able to distance himself. So there's a couple of great things about this, and I'll just mention one briefly.

The book of Daniel has a reference to a prophecy with a broken horn, and I cannot believe that they did that by accident, right? That we see Matt's daredevil horn broken. The prophecy is then about a fallen empire. A lot of people can easily make the connection. connection, okay, well, Matt is now fallen in an attempt to kill someone. He is fallen from grace. And is he doing the work that he needs to do to get back into grace, i.e. penance, right? Like the penitent man, he is not seeming to engage in actions. Like, I would make the same argument about Fisk. Fis is saying, I'm changed. But what has he done to go somehow fix the errors, the harms that he's already done? What penance has he engaged in? And Matt, similar,

doesn't seem to be particularly penitent. In fact, I think he is a wonderful allegory now for Lucifer himself, both the fallen angel, right? So the person who's supposed to be the beautiful light bringer, Lucifer literally means bright light bringer. And but also, and this is interesting, in the Hebrew tradition, Lucifer and Satan are not the same entity. The devil or Satan in what we think of them, they're all kind of bound. together, but Satan is actually the prosecutor on the trial of humanity. That it isn't just this evil entity. It's this entity that's supposed to be showing to God, to Yahweh, how bad we really are. So the fact that Matt is a lawyer, I think, connects nicely to this. I think the fact

that Fisk is now kind of potentially a changed man and a good person, I think that places Matt in the position of being the fallen. And the question is, is he going to try to get back into grace? or is he going to dive even more deeply, how fascinating would it be to see him become someone who himself is on trial and is someone who himself has to make justification for his actions? Now, let me take that, Mike. That was, like I said at the top, you guys are the two smartest people I know, two smartest nerds at least. Let's take that.

Because I was thinking, I know a couple of scientists, but you guys are like, you know, moral and legal scientists. So, Mike, let's take what Nicholas just said there. and everything that he mentioned about Matt Fall from Grace, Matt left, oh my God, the name of their old firm. I can't remember, it just slipped my mind, right? Lammon and Zach. He left Lamin and Zach, like in the first three seasons.

He left that firm because they wanted to do good, and they did Nelson, Murdoch, and Page, and Foggy was the heart and soul of it, he's gone, and then immediately he starts, well, not immediately, but he starts this, like, upscale firm when in previous seasons he had told Karen things, like I don't like fancy places, and now he's living a fancy life. Now he's decided to use these legal skills, specifically, it seems to me for himself, until this

case comes along, where it's the kind of case that he would have taken with Foggy, that he would have insisted they perform, right? So as far as, like, his motivations as a lawyer, do you feel like he was performing a sort of penance before for his, like, moral crimes as Daredevil? And maybe we're starting to see that come back. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing about Daredevil is I feel like he's constantly, even when he's active in the cowl and everything and out on the streets, constantly struggling with a feeling of guilt of, am I doing the right thing? Is this what God wants me to do? And I think that you're right. Foggy was kind of his moral center that kept him grounded. And it's funny that, you know, the second that we see Foggy die, that moral center has a lapse. and he pushes decks off the building. I think that we're talking about like justice and morality and Catholicism. I was raised Catholic.

My last name is Mazzella. You probably could have guessed that. A lot of Catholic morality and morality that we see Daredevil presenting is this idea of like restorative justice, right? There are different theories of justice under the law and one that you see. Wilson Fisk carry out at the end of this episode is what we would call retributive justice, right? So you have restorative justice, which would be, let's say someone vandalizes your car. The punishment is they have to pay you restitution so that you can have it repaired so that you have your car back to how it was before. Retributive justice would be you smashed up my car. I get to smash up your car in return.

And we saw Matt talk about different theories of justice in the first episode when he's at the sentencing hearing for Dex. says to the court, you know, I want true justice. True justice would be to have foggy back. I can't have that. So the next best thing that I want is for you to punish him to the furthest extent that the law allows in New York State, which would be Elwap, life without the possibility of parole. But I bet that if the death penalty were on the table, that Matt probably would have pushed for it there too. That's a big deviation from where he was in season two. And, you know, like I remember the moment when he agreed with Frank that they would try to kill somebody, he did the sign of the cross on his chest, either asking for permission or penance, but that's a huge, and it goes back to what Nicholas

just said, like, he has fallen from grace. Please keep going. Yeah, and so I think that, you know, over the years, his philosophies have changed. I think that he was more down to do the down-in-the-muck, pro bono, very low-pay cases when he was Daredevil, because he saw it. his way to give back and still color within the lines of the justice system. So he was basically attacking the crime problem from both ends, saying, I'm going to help to make sure that good people don't go to prison during the day, and then at night, the bad people that somehow have slipped through the cracks of the justice system, I'm going to either help to take them down to prove their guilt to the police and provide that evidence to them, or I'm going to

carry out a little bit of retributive justice and beat them up and give them some physical pain to go along with the bad deeds that they have committed. And I think that now that he's no longer actively being Daredevil, that he doesn't feel that same guilt and shame and the need to repent by taking on a large number of pro bono or low bono cases. And I think that... And he can use the law for profit instead of like to balance his soul. Right, because he no longer has to feel bad about his nightlife, right?

But I think the really interesting. thing when we talk about this and like why he took on Hector, he didn't know that Hector was the white tiger when he took on his case. He just saw a guy that was getting railroaded and decided, you know, I'm going to do the right thing here. I've got a bunch of big money corporate clients now patting my pockets. And maybe he hasn't done a pro bono case in a long time and thought, you know, yeah, here's a good one. Maybe I'll do this. Or maybe the one year anniversary of Foggy's death maybe brought more of those emotions. Well, I think seeing Camden's, Aaron and the horn was probably a big motivator for him too. I mean, just even just having a reminder of that night and seeing her face again. Nicholas, to bring this back around, right? One thing, you know, we've talked about Matt falling. There's all these visuals in the first episode, Matt on the ground. There's hell, looks like fire and smoke and the kingpins up in heaven looking down. They're not subtle. There's also been a lot of camera shots in this where they've been presented upside down. Fisk is first shown inverted, which is usually an indicator that like the world's been inverted. And I think when, when

When Matt fell from grace, it allowed, like, the devil to rise. And obviously, the show is drawing different parallels with the real world, which we don't have to go into. But as far as, like, what we see in this trial, do you think that Matt, that the real struggle of this season is, unlike in the Born Again comic, which was adapted in Daredevil season three, you know, we saw Matt stripped down, basically driven insane by the kingpin, driven to the point of murder, I think what we're seeing happen now is almost worse, where Matt has become more of a callous person who's forgotten where he's from, doesn't go back to the kitchen anymore. The kitchen's changed. And he's really lost his moral center. And I don't know if the old Matt would have even done, I mean, he wanted to win a case.

He probably would have outed the White Tiger. But I think that that's what we're seeing here. Do you think that we're actually seeing like the slow dissolve of Matt Murdoch like so much nail in a can of Coke? Yeah. So I think, yes. So what happens is there's a bit of psychology in here as well, in addition to the Catholicism aspect of like in punishing oneself one. comes to merit punishment. So the problem that I see for Matt is, is he, to evidence what you were saying earlier, Mike, he does believe in retribution, right? He says so. He says so to Fisk, right? That he believes in grace, but he also believes in retribution. And this is an old biblical concept, right? The idea of divine retribution. So I think part of what happens, I mean, what I want to add to it is,

is that foggy's death, it's not just foggy, right? It's also Karen not being dead, but completely leaving, right, and isolating Matt. So what does, what does he have? So he is lost, right? He's unmoored. He's untethered from his moral centers, but I think he's also punishing himself. I think it's not just a matter of, oh, I'm not daredevil anymore so I can go ahead and go do these things. I think that there is an idea that to be God's voice, right, to be the person metting out this retribution, you have to be somehow worthy. I think he feels guilty for Foggy's death. We see him checking in constantly, and he just cannot do enough to help. And if he is in, I think, as someone who is also raised Catholic, if he is following kind of

that tradition, the tendency to feel very guilty about things that are outside of one's power is a common concept with Catholicism. What more could I have done? How were my thoughts not in the right place? How was my heart not in the right place? And he has to be asking himself, how were his actions as Daredevil, perhaps either A, partially to cause for Foggy's death, or insufficient to prevent it. Could he have gotten there faster, should he have done something better? So I think, in fact, that there's also something to be said about him not participating as Daredevil for that extended period of time is also a form of punishment for him. The question is, is if he's kind of self-tormenting, if he's self-punishing, if he's not engaging from his perspective in the

idea of who is it that gets to decide if I'm forgiven. It's not Matt, right? It has to be divine. That's the nature of grace in the first place. So the problem is he's taking a lot of it on himself and in engaging in the behaviors that he's engaging, coming to a lack of humility. Like if the act of punishment shouldn't be one that he gets to decide by himself. It has to be one through the divine. And so I think we do see him falling and falling more. And I think think that's going to drive interest because how fascinating is it to see him become the person who needs saving in the end? Mike, do you think that what we're seeing from Matt in this trial is an indicator of the old Matt Murdoch in court or the new Matt Murdoch in court?

Hmm. I think that it is an indication that he has less regard for not the rules writ large, but less regard for his own standing within that community. We see the prosecutor tell him afterwards, I have something like 500 prosecutors under my control, and any courtroom that you step into from now on, even if it's traffic court, they're going to be all over you. He's thinking less about the repercussions for himself, for his partners, and for his clients.

Another thing that is a big issue that is raised by him, introducing or making public knowledge that Hector is the white tiger is that, you know, Hector didn't approve of that. He gave Matt his permission to disclose it to the judge, but only for the express and limited purpose of making that suppression argument in order to keep that evidence out of the public light. And by revealing it, I mean, obviously now Hector is no longer with us, but if he were, he could possibly be charged retroactive. for some of his other vigilante antics. And we see Matt's law partner ask him in that moment,

please don't do this. And Matt just pushes ahead and does it anyways. And it places his loved ones in danger too, and it's hypocritical of Matt as well. I think he's more headstrong and more, not like a loose cannon, but more brash, taking more risks. I also think that we're starting to see him crack a little bit.

At the end of episode two, after he beats up those cops, he lets out a really guttural scream as if he is furious with himself, with the system, with everything that's happening, and the fact that he, no matter what he does, he can't seem to get away from this life of vigilanteism. And I think that, you know, that affects your psyche. That affects your professional performance. And I think we definitely saw it negatively affect him in court in this episode. They are setting us up to think the whole time that something was going to happen to Nikki Torres so that he wouldn't be able to take the stand. And then he does take the stand. And he

says the exact opposite of what Matt thought he was going to say. At that point, Matt is panicking. He's spiraling. I don't think the prosecution's case was all that strong to begin with and that he didn't even necessarily need to put on that strong of a defense. But for the purposes of the drama of the show, we needed to get to that point where he was able to call Hector to the stand. And But I think that he's spiraling. He's kind of out of control. Things aren't making sense for him anymore. Wilson Fisk is the mayor.

You know, all the rules are out the window at this point. So there's most of the shots in this episode are handheld. They're very much like President Lake Court reporting. There's one shot, though, or a couple of shots that are stationary, where it's from above, and when the courtroom is empty, and Matt approaches the court like he's in church. They deliberately frame it, the benches. I mean, there's a couple of good Catholic boys.

how did you guys take that especially you mike i mean a lawyer catholic i you know you practically are daredevil um how how do you guys interpret that moment that marriage of the law and the divine and the structures that matt murdoch chooses to follow well very very briefly because i think mike probably should be as the daredevil of the day the final thought on this for me a lot of what's happening here is always going to be viewed through the question of pride in other words if we're looking at it for morality from the perspective of Matt's own Catholicism, there's always the question of pride. And how does this particular shot, how does this framing and how to his actions?

Like when Mike's talking about him spiraling, a lot of this is about how he sees himself and how he's seen. And the reason why I mention this is because of the seven deadly sins, pride is the worst. It's the anchor sin. It's the one that can result in all of the rest. It's the one that caused Lucifer to fall to go back to what you were saying earlier. the most dangerous, right? And so I think in viewing that, for me, looking at it, it becomes a question of how is he understanding himself as potentially either a divine and therefore, but undeserving of it, or engaging in a form of punishment for himself that he's not allowed

to do because he has to look to the divine for the right to engage in punishment. So that's what I'm looking for and thinking about as I see it. For Matt, the courtroom is kind of like his temple, right, outside of church, just in the same way that perhaps the boxing ring was the temple for his father, right? It is a place where he can put his faith in the predictability of outcomes or how things are going to go. In Catholicism, as in the law, it's, you know, things are relatively black and white, right? This is good, this is bad. You do this. You get this, right? Especially in Catholicism, too. They don't really mince too many details. It's like you could do some horrible, horrible things, but as long as you truly forgive and repent and ask for forgiveness

from the Lord and go to communion and, you know, go into the confessional booth and do what you need to do, that you will be forgiven and you will still get into heaven. And that's how it's supposed to work under the law too. Ideally, it's like if you meet these requirements or if you can prove these elements, then that's an affirmative defense and you get to walk or that's a conviction and you're going to jail. And that's how it's supposed to work. But that's not really how it works in practice. There are all of these external influences and factors that can negatively or in a biased way influence the outcome of a trial. And I think that Matt is having a crisis of faith right now, not only with, you know, with his religion and his morality, but also with

his faith in the justice system, which, you know, I mean, wouldn't be anything new to him that the justice system has problems. But I think that it's one of the last places that he feels he can go to and things are going to go normally. They're going to go according to how he expects them to go. Things are going to play out in a way that they are supposed to. And that that gives him a lot of peace and semblance in his life that otherwise has been abnormally chaotic and crazy and really sat. He's had a lot of loss and a lot of unexpected challenges in his life and that the courtroom is an area where he has some element of control. And he used to get that from being out on the street and Hell's Kitchen at night. He knew that he could go hand to hand with any mugger

on the street and so he was in control there and now that he doesn't have that anymore the courtroom is the place where he feels like he has control and he knows what is going to happen or at the very least the place where he knows that he can go and be told what to do you know be and receive guidance from a higher authority and i think that's what's really fascinating about this character I just love their devil so much like this dumb red-headed loser just cannot

ever win in life and that's what makes him a compelling character on the page and I think the show both the original and this one so far have really captured that this is a guy who desperately wants

to do good but is always searching for someone to tell him how to how to be good and we do have to wrap it up there I wish we didn't but guys this was an amazing conversation I learned a lot

and I hope I can have you both on some time to just geek out about this guy. I love having you on. Thanks so much. And we'll have everybody's social links down below. And, you know, Nicholas has his own channel. You can follow Mike on Instagram, but truly great stuff. Thank you guys so much. God, those are two people who are way smarter than I am.

Like I said earlier, I do think that Matt's moral unraveling is going to come back to him in this show. I think he'll grow so frustrated at the Kingpin's success that he's going to attack him in broad daylight. And he could even be outed and arrested like he wasn't the famous Brian Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker runs from the comics. But what I love most about this season is how subtle all of this is. We always think of Matt Murdoch as this really grounded moral man. But the series so far is showing us how, without some kind of moral check on his power, Matt Murdoch is destined to fall from grace. And even though, like Mike said, what he did in court is not technically enough to get him disbarred, he is showing us that he can't be trusted with the powers of the law. So this guy

needs to be brought low before he's worthy to wear either of his suits again. Now, I think in season two, this could all lead into a situation where Matt Murdoch could become a vigilante and maybe at this point, Mayor Fisk has to deputize other vigilantes in the city. We've already had subtle hints that Luke Cage and Jessica Jones are going to return in this show, and there's rumors that they're shooting scenes for season two. So how cool would it be if Mayor Fisk cracked down on vigilantes, registered them as police officers, and then sent Matt's best friends from the comics to arrest him in the show? But that's just what I think. Do you guys think that Matt Murdoch is a bad lawyer or becoming a villain? Let me your thoughts on our free to join Discord server,

the comments below or at me, Mike, or Nicholas on our social media accounts linked below. And if it's your first time here, please subscribe and smash that bell for alerts. For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie.