Daredevil, episode five

Jessica Jones is starting soon and I wanted to have my commentary for this entire series done before that one started. It's probably not going to happen, but Netflix's big advantage is that I can wait as long as I want before writing anything about Jessica Jones. Or maybe I'll start talking about that series immediately. We'll see.

In the meantime, I remember next to nothing about Daredevil's fifth episode. Onward.

Matt, showing more shock and concern when a mobster is shot by the police than when a blind Chinese man is shot in the middle of one of his vigilante scuffles; #so heroic

• For the record, I think Clare's post-kidnapping injuries would show more swelling than this opening is letting on. I guess the Beauty is Never Tarnished trope is in full effect here, and in a show that I distinctly remember bragging about gritty darkness. Marvel's commitment to "realism" for its Netflix properties must not be so strong that they'd risk showing Rosario Dawson in anything less than her full glory. 
• I missed the FSoG reference the first time I watched this.
• "Taste copper in the air". How has Matt not gone insane from sensory overload? Nevermind. Superhero. 
• While I like the "world on fire" concept, I didn't like the effect they used for it.
• Wait, that was the first time Clare and Matt kissed? I have not been paying as much attention as I thought. Or maybe too much attention because I could've sworn they got together like . . . episodes ago.

• I'm glad that Clare's the one who noticed the Vladimir thing, though plotwise, I feel like it would've made more sense for Matt to be the one who noticed it.
• Wesley speaks Russian, right? He made a sad-face when the remaining Russian brother cried and talked over his brother's corpse even though said brother wasn't looking at him. Genuine empathy? Method acting? Careful maintenance of a facade in case anyone else was looking at him? Probably the last.
• Either the opening scene took longer today, or I'm getting ramblier. 
• Another thing I missed last time: Fisk sending his car to be washed of the Russian's skull and brains in front of the other mobsters. And Gao laughing about it.
• So Fisk shows the mobsters the bloody car door (I assume as a kind of intimidation tactic), then tries to butter them up. It's a standard manipulation technique, but Fisk looks so awkward that I wonder if it wasn't primarily (or maybe entirely) Wesley's idea.
• Leland has a "stun gun" rather than a real gun?
• Does Matt even once consider that there might be collateral damage? Or did he not hear the singing Chinese man (not possible if he can "hear" a hairline fracture)? Or did he assume the man was guilty of something? Or did the director just want a gratuitous shot of blood and assumed that viewers wouldn't care about the singing Chinese man? If so, he or she was mistaken.
• I guess I didn't just forget the scene where Matt acknowledged that he contributed to a man's death.
• Foggy's annoyed sigh at Matt's sweet compliment of Karen's voice, duly noted.
• I'm serious. Does Matt not even pretend to care about the "dead Chinese illegal"?
• Jesus Christ, Marcy's heels are killing me. Look at what made me cry this weekend IRL.
• At least Clare is doing what any rational woman would do: running in Matt's opposite direction.
• I like the word "sidle" too, Vanessa.
• "Wesley is more than my assistant." I will admit I expected something more . . . more than "he's my friend" after that. I mean, why wouldn't Fisk be honest about being friends with his staff?
• "They remind me of my father." That's certainly more significant now.
• Vanessa knows slightly more about gun safety than the criminals. At least she didn't point it directly at a person (that she could see) or herself. Still, she didn't point it at the floor.
• This face-touching request from Karen is weird. Not sure I get the purpose of the scene. To make Foggy jealous because, clearly, Karen has some interest in Matt? Set up for an undoubtedly awkward love triangle next season? 
• Why are these dudes passing guns to each other? 
• If Vanessa had decided to walk away from Fisk, would he have warned her about the explosions? Is this something she asked him? It'd be a sensible question for a woman about to start a relationship with a mobster.

On the plus side, this episode engaged me from start to finish, though that might've been because I got to break whenever I needed for assorted chores, meaning the pacing didn't have much time to lose me. Regardless, the plot developments were carried out smoothly. The ones who weren't so smooth felt like bumps due to quirky character traits rather then writerly clumsiness. For example, is Vanessa staying with Fisk because she doesn't grasp how dangerous a decision it is? Perhaps. But I think there's something about her character causing her to be attracted to Fisk's power. I'd go as far as argue that maybe she has plans to use him.

The episode's biggest fumble was the Chinese singer's death. I don't think that the brief shot of blood spatter on the car window was worth the blow to Matt's character arc. It left me feeling like Matt is as sociopathic as Fisk. Worst of all, I don't think this was an intentional juxtaposition for characterization purposes.  I just think that the writers/directors assumed the viewers would think nothing of the Chinese man's death. It was just part of the scenery, no different than the car of the weird greenish lighting in the alley.

I can't help but wonder why the writers/directors assumed as much. Did they think that the audience already knew that the Chinese singer was one of Gao's runners and thus associated him with the show's criminal antagonists? Did they assume that the audience would forget that Matt doesn't have that knowledge yet and should, for all intents and purposes, consider that the Chinese singer might be some kind of hostage? Why did they spare that second where the man sounded shocked and scared right before he died? Did they intend to elicit sympathy from the audience? 

Consider this: instead of an anonymous Chinese man singing in Mandarin or Cantonese, the scene has an anonymous white woman or girl humming a lullaby. She's shot in the cross fire. Would the show have let its hero get away with zero reaction following that death?

I would bet good money that it wouldn't have.

Anyway, crappy death downgrades this to four stars.