Daredevil - 'Speak of the Devil' and 'Nelson vs. Murdock'

"Vigilantes can't grab me if I'm on fire."

In the wake of Fisk's move into the light, he paints the Devil of Hell's Kitchen (Devil Chef?) as a coward and a thug while becoming a hero to the public. Murdock tries to learn more about him by visiting Vanessa's art gallery, running into Fisk himself, while Ben, Karen and Foggy look into his background. Under pressure from Yakuza boss Nobu, Fisk maintains his momentum by having nice old lady Elena, Nelson and Murdock's client in a tenancy dispute, murdered by a junkie in order to lure the Devil into a direct clash. Barely surviving a brutal fight with Nobu, Murdock has his arse soundly handed to him by Fisk. He crawls back to his apartment, only to be found, barely conscious, by a concerned Nelson.

'Speak of the Devil' is the start of Murdock's dark night of the soul. In the wake of Stick's visit and Fisk's shift in tactics he confesses to his priest that he is on the verge of taking desperate action, weighing the sin of murder against that of inaction. Elena's death pushes him over the edge, and only defeat holds him back from the plunge. Aptly enough, this is accompanied by one of his most bloody and punishing battles, brutally cut by Nobu and then beaten down mercilessly by Fisk.

I think that this may be where I start to love this show.

Unsurprisingly, Murdock spends most of 'Nelson vs. Murdock' immobile, as the appalled Nelson grills him over the betrayal of their friendship and the years of lies. "You're not really blind, are you?" he accuses, and it's actually more or less true. "Blah, blah, blah, world on fire." The bulk of the episode is the angry confrontation between the partners, flashing back to their college days, and touching on Murdock's start as a vigilante, when the proper channels failed to protect the child he could hear being abused.

Elsewhere, Fisk hosts a benefit, but the champagne is poisoned (perhaps a message from Madame Gao not to treat her like Nobu or the Russians) and Karen takes Ben, on the verge of quitting to look after his ailing wife, to a nursing home where they meet Fisk's mother and learn that he killed his father. The heart of the episode, however, is just Foggy and Matt in a trashed apartment, with Foggy's heart breaking at all the things his best friend, the man who persuaded him to quit the cushy number with the ruthless law firm, has kept from him over the years.

'Nelson vs. Murdock' also looks at Murdock's motives, and whether vigilantism is something he has to do, or just an excuse for him to hit people. The series is not shying away from the limitations of Murdock's approach to crimefighting; the fact that basically all he can do, particularly at this stage in his career, is beat on people. Foggy is also angry that Matt won't let him tell Karen the truth, is in fact making him a liar, and a part of the lie. It's not quite deep, but it's heavy stuff that a lot of superhero product skips.

I also love that the Devil Cave is just the bottom of a box with his Dad's boxing memorabilia on top.