ScreenCrush: The Podcast! - How Daredevil Born Again Episode 7 Wasted a Great Character

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Daredevil: Born Again episode 7 dropped with a major shift in tone from the rest of the series. From Muses’s arc, to Wilson and Matt's solo storylines, and the absolute waste of a great villain.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. You think he said my name. Who? Daredevil. Hey, welcome back Screen Crush. I'm Ryan Erie. And let's talk about Daredevil episode 7.

I'll be honest. I didn't like it. I still think this show is heads and shoulders above a lot of Marvel Disney Plus shows, but this one episode exposed flaws that we've been seizing all season long. Later, I'm going to talk to Colton Ogburn and Cameron Caskey to get their thoughts, but first, here's my take. And by the way, before I get started, remember you can listen to Screencrush and all of your favorite podcast platforms. Please subscribe. Now, later in the video, we are going to talk about all the behind-the-scenes drama that might have made this episode suffer.

Well, all season long, I've had some relatively minor complaints about this show. For instance, there's not a strong supporting cast because the only point-of-view characters are Wilson, Fisk, and Matt Murdoch. On the one hand, though, this lets us dive deeper into their stories. It makes them compelling character dramas, but it also makes them feel like they are cut off from the rest of the world. Now, because we don't see anybody else living in ordinary life, we have to be told things about the city through street interviews. Bro, look how crazy that is.

Like, where do you learn that? Kind of looks like a swordsman. This is classic telling instead of showing. I mean, instead of someone telling us the swordsmen save them, wouldn't you rather see the swordsmen save an actual character on the show? Or instead of seeing the white tiger on the news, maybe we actually get to see him fight some crooks. Maybe Matt sees him and he realizes, oh, I don't have to be Daredevil because this guy can handle it.

Don't get me wrong. I love this in-depth character study. And I thought the episode where Hector died was incredible and made me wish that he was an actual character throughout the rest of the show. I mean, I love also that we had a whole episode that was basically Matt wrestling with his guilt over Hector's death, which also gave us some great interplay between him and Frank. How about old foggy? He got life. But because we don't have any attachment to someone, apart from the main.

character, the show doesn't really feel like it has stakes. I mean, we know all the supporting characters could die, but we don't really care because we don't know them that well. Hector was the one person who we formed an attachment to through his brilliant monologue in the cell, but that was because he was about to die and they needed us to form a connection with them. See, I think this show would have worked really well over like a longer 22 episode season, where multiple characters have like room to breathe. But streaming series are so short that we are conditioned to think that Every chapter has to be hyper-important. I mean, that's why I liked episode 5 so much.

It was a good standalone hour of television that belongs in a longer season of TV. And this brings me to the death of Mews, the first thing in this show that I really, really did not like. Now, just so you know, Mews is a great villain in the comics. He's terrifying. He's mysterious. He's scary. Just like in the show, his murder spree forces Daredevil into action, even though Fisk has declared war against masked vigilantes. But, unlike on the show, Mews' arc lasts for a long time. take several issues to show you how gruesome his crimes are, how formidable of a fighter he is.

He blinds Daredevil's apprentice, blind spot. He is a formidable, ruthless opponent. And his power to avoid sensory detection make him a perfect foil for Daredevil. In the show, we had to speed run through all that good stuff. We saw his murals, we saw him in the tunnels. And last episode, the city learned there was a serial killer. And then one episode later, both Daredevil and the cops find him easily and then he's killed. I mean, this sucked. Mues' crimes should have been the driving force behind the entire season. Now, like I was saying, Mews should have been killing people publicly since like episode two.

On Wilson Fiske's first day in office, a serial killing street artist should have started littering the streets with bodies. This would have challenged the Kingpin's fledgling rule of the city, and the murals would have been a personal embarrassment for him like they were in the comics. But instead, we really got one big mural, and that was it. In the comics, Mews paints an enormous mural of Daredevil outside, side of Fisk's window just to annoy him. You really are the most devious bastard in New York City. And then there was this weird thing in this episode where Fisk keeps looking out the window.

When you look out this window, what do you see? Fear. Yet again, this is somebody telling us how people are feeling. The city is afraid. Cut to people on the street saying, I am afraid. I mean, guys, there is a precedence for this kind of story in New York City. The son of Sam paralyzed New York in the 70s. People were afraid to leave their home at night. But again, we don't see any of that in the show because they don't have any supporting characters to tell us how ordinary people feel about things. Imagine for a moment that Hector was an actual character in the show. We would have seen the white tiger hunting for muse. And then

after white tiger is killed, this would have made Matt feel like, okay, well now I have to step up and find muse. I wish this season would have been like the Wire Season 5. That season revolved around a serial killer plot and we saw that story like stop the city in its tracks. For several episodes, we saw the press and the police get more and more wrapped up into this fear of a madman loose on the streets. And in the case of this show, that public fear would have been manipulated by the kingpin to work to his advantage. I mean, we do see him do that in one episode, but this is the kind of story that would have really benefited from more time and tension. I mean, instead of us wondering, well, who is muse? We're given one creepy suspect who coincidentally has a connection to the hero's girlfriend.

Like, this is the kind of narrative shortcut storytelling that we see in superhero movies. where, for instance, every Spider-Man villain happens to have a personal connection to Peter Parker. But, in a TV show, you can broaden the scope and tell many stories to see how they can all interconnect. Like, for instance, those BB on the street interviews. Imagine if we had a serial killer on the loose. The fears of the public would have been reflected in the interviews. All of a sudden, maybe it seems like a good idea for the Punisher or the swordsmen to be protecting the people at night. After all, the police aren't protecting us from muse.

But instead, we are constantly told the city sucks. We're told things are bad. when really things don't seem bad at all in this version of New York. The streets look clean, the people seem well-fed and friendly. Like, in a bit, I want to talk about just how lame muse's death was. But first, my friends are here! But now I am joined by Colton Ogburn, the guy who's trapped in our television and doesn't know it, so please don't tell him and my little brother, Cameron Caskey.

So, guys, you've heard my thoughts on this episode and on the show so far. Cam, we haven't got to talk to you much about Daredevil Born Again. What are your thoughts on the season so far in episode seven in particular? I think it's been a great season. Episode 7 was definitely pretty uneven, and it felt kind of patched together a little bit. I think all the pieces are really great. The characters, the performances, a lot of the things they're doing with the story. But episode 7 did not feel much like one cohesive episode, and it felt like different parts of the story were moving at paces that did not complement each other very well.

And we'll talk about this at greater length, but I do think that the muse storyline under-delivered. Yeah, like I was saying earlier, that to me, I thought the episode was fine, but Mews in the comics is so cool. And have you read that run, the Mews run by Charles Solt? I picked it up. It was kind of terrifying. He's terrifying in the comics, you're right. He's somebody you read in the comics, and you say, I can't imagine how terrifying they'd be able to make this on screen. And yet on the show, you know, we get to see the murals from Mews, and we get these brief clips of Mews just kind of walking around.

a little bit. But then he sort of ends up as like a one-off Dexter villain is what I would compare him to, sort of somebody who'd be in one episode of like a late season of Dexter. And I'm sort of like, you have a serial killer, which is kind of one of the most proven types of character you can do on a TV show like this to have a story that unfolds over several episodes and builds up and builds up. And the whole muse thing, it felt like the show thought that just because they showed us a couple flashes of Mews for four episodes straight, that meant it was building up. But, you know, building up requires setting up the character and the motivations and

different things like that. And Mews just kind of, as soon as he steps into the light, is just off the map. We're making him, I don't know, frightening or scary in any way whatsoever, other than just like you said, a villain in the week for Daredevil to beat up. Colton, what are your thoughts on the episode seven and, you know, on Mews? Is he just like a minor boss before we get to the key? Kingpin, what were your thoughts on how they handle that? I mean, even just my thoughts on the series overall, I think it's fine.

I mean, it's not bad. It's good. I don't think it's holding up perfectly to the original series. To your point about there being no supporting cast, I just, I don't care about these other characters, and I hate that. I feel like I want to give these other characters a chance, but I really just find myself missing foggy and missing Karen. And as far as-

Hold on, that's kind of my point, though, is that in the original series, they gave time to Karen and Foggy, but in this series, we're not given time to Cherry or that, but that's the problem is that we, yeah, I agree. Of course, you don't care about them. Why would you? You know, they're NPCs in Matt's life. Yeah, no, exactly. You just don't care about the characters, exactly. As far as Muse goes, I have a blood thing. I don't like blood. So when, when, I don't enjoy it at all. Yeah, they did set him up to be. terrifying he's terrifying in the comics but i think that whole therapy session i i don't know he just kind of came off kind of goofy like he was doing like a a joker impression i i don't know i didn't dig it i didn't hate the episode i thought it was fine i think we are seeing we know this show had a huge change mid-production and i think the bulk of that change was at the beginning and we'll be at the end. And I think a lot of the stuff we're going to be seeing in the middle is them trying to make what they shot before work into the news story. And so I think that's how you explain

some of the dragging and the tone shifts and the pacing. It's a little messy. And I'm at least hopeful that season two, they'll have a clear vision before starting it. Well, this is mostly what I wanted to ask you to because, you know, you're both, you know, Ken worked in the industry. Colton, you know, you've studied the BTS of Daredevil. You know, you made a great video back in episode one. You were like, hey, the scene saved the show. Like, Foggy was originally not in it. And his death at the start, the Daredevil action scene was part of the reshoots and the

reworking that they did, where originally Daredevil didn't appear at all for the first four episodes. They didn't, the tone was too comedic. Where do you guys feel like this storyline would have originally sat? I kind of get the feeling it wouldn't have been the whole season. Would it have been quicker? It feels very disjointed to your point, Colton. Cam, what do you think?

What are we looking at behind the scenes? Do you think cause this kind of abrupt shift? I don't know. It's definitely interesting with Mews. There's certain things you see and you can tell that they are carryovers from the first version of the show. You know, I love Michael Gandalfini's shit-eating little character with his stupid grin and his ass-kissing for Fisk.

I think he's so funny. And if there was a tone that was a little too comedic, I think a character like that is a great example of what that show looked like, this sort of thing where there's almost this idiocracy mayoral run from Wilson Fisk where almost bumblingly evil Fisk is running for mayor. The muse stuff, it leads me to the question, how much of the F bombs and gory violence and stuff is from the new version, right? because the Punisher scene was obviously a later edition. John Berthal said that he initially turned down, returning as the Punisher, because he said that they weren't doing the character justice, or at least that it wasn't what he envisioned for it.

And Punisher brings up Foggy in their great scene together. And that's sort of a reminder that this is a scene that's getting spliced in after they had already made something, because other stretches of the show don't feel like the version of the show that was inspired by Foggy's death, right? Like, in this episode, I don't really feel Foggy missing, whereas Punisher comes in to remind us that Foggy's death is a big motivator here. So this is a really interesting show to watch, kind of to both of your points, about just through the perspective of which, like, the scene that I'm watching, which version of the show is this from? Well, Colton, look, back to building what Cam was saying, right?

And we're talking about scenes of the show they're spliced in, spliced out, not in. One thing that seems like they always had, I'm guessing, is that they stuck to these two main characters. And I think in this episode, we see the problem with that, where we don't really know anything about Heather, other than she's a psychiatrist. She's going to write a book, and she wants to use Matt for that book. So she seems kind of opportunistic, you know. If we would have had, I don't know, just if we knew anything about her. And the guy who plays muse, I think that is best, but he very much plays this guy like he's a psycho. a movie psychopath and he that's not what like you don't need to play him that way there's just

nothing to him at all and everything in this show is something we're told i i've talked before about the bb on the streets interviews about how we're told this we're told that but colton everything about the serial killer we're also told in two scenes did that seem abrupt to you it's very abrupt and that probably ties into the the production issues there's there's probably a lot of stuff where where they were like, we've just got to write in a bunch of exposition to make this make sense. I did really quick want to say, I'm feeling a little conflicted on, I feel like there was a muse story that was probably a little bit more developed for the original concept. And again, the new version of the show was more violent, it's more bloody, it's more gory.

You would think that's where all of that would come in. And so I would be interested to know to what level this character, like, had a role in the show prior to the tone shift and now. But yeah, to your overall point, I just don't care. I don't care about Muse. I don't care about the psychiatrist character. I just, I'm finding myself not caring. I care about Matt and about Wilson Fisk. I know we've already gotten two and a half season.

of that with Daredevil, the Netflix show. But that's the story that I want to see and that I wish they would focus on. I'm not seeing a reason to have this other big villain. If you want Kingpin to be this, you know, I'm going to clean up the streets type guy, then just have there be a lot of rampant crime in the city or something and do that. You don't have to set up this big character like he's going to be this important thing and then you just have him killed off. Also, I wanted to ask you guys, I thought it was kind of silly when the police just barge into the office and they're like, news is dead.

They didn't check the house or nothing. It was all too silly and abrupt. And you know, you're talking about crime in the city, right? And this is where those BB interviews are so annoying for me because, boy, I don't know, it's hard in the streets, man. Evil versus evil, good versus good. No one of the first scenes in the original show was Daredevil stopping human traffickers at the dock, right? You saw real people, real suffering. you felt how much of a bad state the city was in.

And here you've got post-blip, you've got all these different problems that should be there and present, but because they're staying so focused on Matt's journey and on Wilson's journey, we're constantly told things. And for me, the most egregious part was we're told about the serial killer

and we're not seeing the victims. You know, we're glorifying what he's doing, but we're not actually seeing the suffering on the ground level except through like clunky dialogue. Can I just say, like, It's not like we're grasping for something that isn't there. Like, while we're all talking about the stuff we want to be seeing on this show, the show is giving us that stuff.

It's just not consistent. So, you know, when we're talking about that character drama that we want out of Matt and Fisk that would make the show the best version of itself, it's there. It's not like they don't have that stuff to give us. Like, we do get those great moments with Matt and Fisk. All the character is still there. It's just this other shit we have to work through. to get to those moments.

And, you know, it's just every, a lot of the parts that I don't love are a mixed bag because some of them are complicated. Like, for example, I really liked the BB on the street interviews in the first two episodes because I thought they colored in the city really well. Now kind of like you, I'm a little sick of them. I'm pretty sure there was only one in this episode, and it felt very out of place and weird and confusing. Maybe I'm wrong.

But I love, I love, I love B.B. Because she was actually in it. Right. I love B.B. and Michael Gandalfini. I think that that dynamic is... Yeah, there's some characters in the show then. That's kind of my point. Like, all these Disney Plus shows, they seem to focus on just these people. But to go back to the original structure of the show, if we're going to guess, right, we heard it was more lighthearted,

we heard Daredevil didn't appear for the first few episodes. So we can guess that it was a lot of the same kind of thing. Matt had quit being Daredevil. Maybe we just never found out why, because Bullseye wasn't in it. It does seem like then, I feel like the Hector stuff would have still been in it and still would have driven him forward. But do you feel like I just don't think they ever intended Mews to be teased throughout the entire season for some reason? But they were always building up toward the task force. I mean, Mews is basically fridged in this episode to make the task force more important. So if that's what their focus is, how do you guys feel about the future of the show and the rest of the season? We have two episodes left and season two if we're doing

like if we're just setting up this Wilson task force versus Daredevil and the vigilantes? Well, I'm hopeful that, and like I was just saying, I think in this reshuffling of the show, the bulk of it was probably at the beginning and will be in the end. I'm hopeful that John Bernthal, the Punisher, will have a big role to play in it. I personally would have rather seen a story where crime is rampant in the city, Punisher has reemerged, he's killing bad guys. Matt is conflicted with him doing all this killing, but at the same time, he knows that crime is what is, you know, giving Wilson Fiske so much power.

Then we could have seen, you know, this task force like idolizing Punisher and then Punisher, you know, thinking there are a bunch of dorks. That's what I would have liked to see in for the story. I'm really not seeing a reason to bring in a character like Muse. And I'm hoping for the finale that that's what we focus on. I'm loving the, I won't get too deep into this, but that line where Fisk says you're the thin, dark line for the city safety, that. I'll just say, you can see what they're doing, and I'm loving that.

And I am curious if that was more of a pre-show change or if they really just went full bore on it after the reshifting. So, you know, I think what I'm really coming to is I'd like to talk to a showrunner and get some answers. Yeah, maybe we can have them on. That'd be great. I mean, maybe after I complained about this episode, they won't come on. But, Cam, what do you think? having worked at like a production company before where there was a you know where there were a couple big movies being made and I saw certain rumors get out and I saw certain things on the leak websites and stuff and I would see that some of it was right and some of it came completely out of nowhere certain things would leak and get around where I'd be like oh how did they figure that out and then other things I'd be like who could have possibly made this up all this is to say when I see leaks I sort of you know, I kind of take them as a coin flip and I say this could very well be true. This could

very well be complete nonsense or often certain things get leaked that are true at the time, but they end up changing, right? So a lot of leaks we see about superhero movies. Exactly. They were things that got floated. So when I see that Spider-Man 4 was going to be a movie with Fisk as the bad guy that was more street level and featured more of a defenders-esque story before they maybe moved to a more multiversal thing. I think there's a possibility that back when Fisk was popping back up on Hawkeye and Echo before they knew exactly what was going on with Daredevil, that was the plan. To make Fisk the bad guy for Spider-Man 4, I think it makes sense, I think it fits the grounded

narrative idea. And also, he was so popular into the Spider-Verse. And if I were a Spider-Man exec, I'd be like, how can I make a movie like that again? So I think maybe Daredevil Season 2 is that idea they had for Spider-Man 4, which was Fisk's anti-vigilante task force. But instead of it being Spider-Man versus Fisk, it's going to be Charlie Cox and presumably all the Netflix heroes. And poor Finn Jones, our dear Loris Tyrell, night of the flowers. He was Loris Tyrell, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Our dear Loris Tyrell from Game of Thrones are sweet, queer swordsmen who had to be Iron Fist and deserved better and probably could have done such a great job. He's going to come back. He's going to say, hello world,

I'm Iron Fist. Don't watch my Netflix show, but watch me now. And I'm going to have a couple minutes of screen time to fight some of the King Finn's goons. So I'm excited for season two because I do think the best stuff in this show is the stuff that they went in and added afterwards when they sort of said, you know what? We are going to be as daredevil as we possibly can.

And the show, like I said before, contains all the pieces that we want to see. It's just, this is the result of a season that was put together in two different ways. And I didn't get to talk about this in the last talk back. But by the way, seeing Tony Dalton's gorgeous smile under that mustache

when he came back as the story, swordsman. I mean, that made my heart full. Yeah, and one thing I didn't talk about in our Easter video was, and they didn't really touch on it there, was his connection to the kingpin, because the kingpin was, you know, extorting Eleanor, his fiance, and he didn't know about it. So there's a reason he has a grudge against him. But I think this kind of supports what I've been saying, which is if he's going to be in the show, he's got a reason to be in the show. He could completely be a foil for Fisk. If he's the swordsman, he could hopefully by the end of the season work with Daredevil, and they are setting up these vigilantes and maybe Angela is the White Tiger.

But I want to talk to you guys about what I think all of this reshuffling means for season two. First, I want to thank Colton and Cameron for coming on. But now let's talk about Daredevil Season 2 and what this absolute mess of an episode means for what's to come. Now, like we just said, this whole season was kind of a mishmash. They overhauled scripts in the middle of filming, so it's a bit of a Frankenstein's monster. Fine, but Mew's death still squandered a lot of great storytelling opportunities.

And I'm not saying that because I'm a Mews super fan. This guy had the ability to create real tension for the city and our characters for this entire season. I mean, think about it. We never even see him commit a murder. We see him carrying people down the tracks and then cutting away after these women ask for an autograph. Wait, what happened? You know, they could have done a story where maybe some people like really dig muse. They like his art.

They think serial killers are interesting and cool. Maybe the youth start to dress up in muse masks and form gangs. Like a serial killer can drive a city into a frenzy, but this show just skipped all of that. Now, as for what this means for season two, I am optimistic. I think a more focused direction from the start is going to benefit them in the long run. And I don't think the Mayor Fisk storyline is going to stop at the finale. I think they are just getting started. I am hoping that the scope of this show expands beyond our two main characters,

and we really make this city feel like a very real lived in place. Because right now, there is no one on this show that I am actually worried about. I'm having fun watching Wilson manipulate people and watching Daredevil kick ass, but I don't feel like the people or the city are in danger. And that's going to get real boring, real fast. But guys, that's just my thoughts. Let me know yours down in the comments below or in our free-to-join Discord server. Or if it's your first time here, please subscribe, smash that bell for alerts.

For Screen Crush, I'm Ryan Erie. Thank you.