DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN 1×07 & 1×08 “Art for Art’s Sake” & “Isle of Joy”

Ben and Samantha talk about the two almost final episodes of Born Again. And Ben is relieved because he doesn't have to do bad impressions of his co-hosts' voices . . .

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Daredevil Born Again season one episodes
seven and eight,
Art for Art's sake,
and Isle Of Joy.
Welcome to level seven,
a podcast about Marvel's Agents of S. H.

(00:21):
I. E. L. D. And the Marvel Cinematic
Universe.
It's a magical place.

(01:10):
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of
Welcome to Level seven. I'm Ben,
Ben Avery, and I'm here with agent Samantha.
How you doing? I'm good. How are you?
I am good, and we are ready to
talk about some Daredevil
born again.
And,
these are the

(01:31):
the seventh and eighth. So eighth is the
penultimate episode,
for the season because next episode
is the season finale,
which
Yay. Yeah. Yay. But also a little bit
oh.
Yeah. Man.
So, let's talk about that actually for a
moment here. So as far as, like, what
to expect from the podcast next week, we

(01:53):
will be definitely be talking about
that episode. I'm not sure how soon it
will be that we're able to record about
it. But then right after that will be,
the release of Thunderbolts,
which is, I believe May 2. Oh, that
is coming up fast. Yeah. Yeah. It's coming
up pretty quick. And the other thing with
that is I won't be recording about Thunderbolts

(02:14):
alone in my car.
It's Oh. It's a little bit bigger than
that. Right? So,
I'll we we will be trying to set
up a time, hopefully, where we can get
maybe Stewart in as well to be able
to talk with us
about that, if we can work around his
work schedule and if he can work the
movie into his his schedule too.

(02:34):
I'm planning to see that movie that weekend.
That Saturday, most likely.
So
I would also say, though,
listeners,
send us your thoughts. And not only send
us your thoughts, like, you can email them
to us, definitely. [e-mail].
It's not a professional podcasting address, but it's

(02:55):
Gmail. It's free, and it's good.
I think it's good.
Yeah. Yeah. It works. It it does the
job, and Yeah. That's that's what matters. But,
also, you could send us, like, a voice
recording. You know? Not too long. Not, like,
twelve
minutes, forty minutes, or whatever.
But send us a voice recording, and we'll
we'll we'll use those. You know? Like, we'd

(03:16):
love to hear what you have to say
about Thunderbolts.
I am fairly certain reasonably certain
that
we will, at the earliest, be recording about
it on Sunday
after it comes out. That's at the earliest.
And so
definitely, you know, send us an email with
your thoughts, but you could also send us
a voice recording. We no longer have the

(03:37):
voice mail number.
It wasn't getting used, and Google took it
away.
So
and it wasn't too bad either, I mean,
because it wasn't being used.
But, yeah, we'd love to hear from you
that way as well. So
let us know what you think about Thunderbolts.
And and if you miss our recording, that's
fine too because we can use it,

(03:58):
after that. So the other thing that is
coming up is, I have been rewatching not
rewatching.
I have been watching for the first time
Daredevil season three. We've talked about it a
little bit. Those episodes
are about ten minutes long. If you want
to hear them now,
join us on Patreon.
Just a dollar
a month, and you get access to everything

(04:20):
that's there.
But they'll also go to the main feed.
I'm not sure if I'll do one this
week or if I'll do one next week,
but I'll be compiling four or five of
those together into one single episode that'll go
out in the main feed. So you're not
missing out on anything.
It's just going to the Patreon feed first.
So,
but Daredevil season three

(04:42):
has been amazing.
Mhmm.
And the other interesting thing, and I mentioned
this in one of those episodes, but in
Daredevil season three, there is an episode where
it is basically Bullseye's origin story.
And you get to see him,
what makes him tick. And it was fascinating
to watch that episode

(05:04):
and then watch these episodes,
especially episode eight.
And it's like, oh, I'm I'm watching things
out of order, but it's actually
informing. One is informing the other, and it's
kinda nice to be able to do that.
So, I don't know if anything about that
is gonna come up in this conversation,
but just throwing it out there that it

(05:25):
was kind of a serendipitous
little thing.
Yeah.
So how far along are you in Daredevil
season three?
Let's see
here.
Episode seven.
Episode seven. Okay. Episode seven. 13. So Or
I'm sorry. No. 10. Episode seven of 10.

(05:45):
Okay. No. There's 13 episodes. You're right. There's
13? What do I I checked and
because I wasn't sure, and I wanted to
see. So episode seven is that, like, direct
middle point.
Okay.
Because
I on the whiteboard, I have 10 episodes
written down
Uh-huh. Somehow, but

(06:06):
that's okay.
Not a big deal. It doesn't affect much
for us just because of the way we're
recording it anyway. But Yeah. I'm just trying
to remember where you are
in the story line.
Let's see here. If I I'm trying to
remember

(06:27):
because I think episode six was the episode
where we got all the backstory stuff on
on Poindexter.
And then oh, and that's when the, the
the newspaper office was attacked. And
Oh.
And Daredevil confronted Poindexter
or they they fought each other in the
office.
And then the next episode is all the

(06:47):
stuff. It was called Aftermath
and is all the stuff that happens in
the wake of that, which, man, the one
scene
because all the people who were in the
office died except for Karen.
And it gets technically foggy. But, there's that
one scene where they're in the police office
or the FBI office, and she looks and
sees all of these phones and evidence bags,

(07:07):
and they're just buzzing and ringing and buzzing
and ringing, and messages are showing up saying,
are you safe? Are you okay? I saw
the news. Did you make your train?
And, wow, what a great Wow. Great scene.
I
mean,
season three of Daredevil,
from what I remember and I remember season
one, especially, was really, really good, but season

(07:29):
three is blowing
everything away. It is just a fantastic season
of television so far. There's six more episodes
they could ruin it with. So They don't.
See. It's okay. They don't. We'll see.
I can tell you I will spoil that
much. They don't spoil they don't ruin it?
They don't ruin it. Okay. Alright. Okay. That's
fair. That's fair. I'm I'm I'm happy to

(07:50):
have you spoil that much for me. So
Okay. Yeah.
And for the devil, you know, there's a
moment where Dex as Daredevil approaches Karen in
that in the newspaper office, and he says,
hello, Karen. And it's really creepy.
And if you go back to episode one
of Born Again, he does the same thing.

(08:11):
See, that's the thing. I think right after
I'm done with season three,
I need to just jump right in to
watch that episode one of this season
just to see what I missed Yeah. Because
of that.
So but speaking of episode one of Born
Again,
here's an interesting little detail.
I did not realize this until today when

(08:33):
I was getting ready for the episode. But
episode one
and episode eight
are the two episodes
so far that we've seen
that are entirely new material.
Every other episode had both new material
and old material
that they wove together
from the first round of of filming that

(08:56):
they did. But episode one and episode eight
that we're gonna talk about today is completely
new by the new show runners, the new
crew,
the new the new behind the scenes team,
behind the camera team.
Okay.
I found fascinating.
Just fascinating. Which means a lot of the
muse stuff
was intended for that

(09:17):
for that first round when they were doing
the the series a little bit differently. So
the muse stuff, Art for Art's sake, is
episode seven. Episode eight is
Isle of Joy?
Yeah. Yeah.
So Isle of Joy, completely new material.
There is nothing in that episode that is

(09:37):
from the original round of filming that they
did.
Okay.
Alright. Yeah. I because it is a total
waste. If you don't use what they used
before, it is a total waste.
And that's not good for any studio's bottom
line.
It's not good for the bottom line. But

(09:58):
if it is good to get rid of
it, then
Yeah. Get rid of it. You know? I
think that,
they made the right decision to try to
bring back as many of the original show
runners as as possible.
And I I wanna talk about this more
in the after credit because Vincent D'Onofrio made,

(10:21):
an appearance and did an interview on happy,
sad, confused, and he talked a lot about
this whole season.
Yeah. And that'll be post credit with with
us. So stick around after the credits. It'll
be better than last last episode's post credit.
It will be very hard not to be
better than last episode's post credit.

(10:42):
Let's talk about art for art's sake. And
I really you know,
it's nice that you have this guy out
there
who
just people are doing art for his sake,
and it's nice that you're just art for
art's sake. That's good. That's good. Art should
be honored that people are just doing art
for his sake. So.
Unless you're using someone else's blood in your

(11:03):
paint.
Still, wouldn't you feel slightly honored?
Like, glorified, but also a little bit honored.
My reaction was the same as Fisk. You
didn't talk about this last in the last
ep
podcast episode, but,
there's a really great moment where Fisk has

(11:24):
this very visceral reaction to hearing that there
was blood in that paint.
Just this, like,
you know,
and I think that's
what we all were doing. But at the
same time, I was really glad that
Fisk had that reaction more than,
oh, how how artistic, you know, or or
something even creepier.

(11:45):
Yeah.
And then he goes and creates the, the
vigilante task force,
which And that's his real reaction right there.
I know. And it well, it's like
okay. So
here's
somebody who's really sick, who is killing people,
and the police have been basically ignoring him.

(12:05):
And your response is to go after the
vigilantes that were trying to stop this guy?
Right. Like, that doesn't it's a little bit
of cognitive dissonance
except little bit?
Yeah. Except they both wear masks. Right? Like,
the bad guys and the good guys, they
all they all wear masks.
I mean, even Ms. Marvel wears a mask,
but fortunately, she's in New Jersey. She doesn't

(12:26):
have to worry about the
the the task force.
Yeah.
And if she's still a minor, it's illegal
for her to cross state lines without her
parents' permission anyways. So
here's the thing though.
I find this fascinating, and I can't remember
if I talked about it last episode, but
I have a feeling I didn't because I
it was something

(12:47):
that it wasn't until I was watching one
of the episodes for for Daredevil season three
where I thought about this. It was the
one where they bring in all the stuff
to his his,
solitary confinement in the hotel, and they're bringing
all those paintings.
I had forgotten how important art is
to Fisk.
Mhmm. And so that makes for a very
interesting dynamic that they don't really play up

(13:08):
on very much except for
Fisk's reaction, like you were talking about, but
also he's, like, staring at the artwork of
himself.
There's some of the graffiti that that Muse
did is of of Fisk, But art is
so very important to him, and it's
it's something he made sure that he had
brought to him. There there, of course, is,

(13:29):
what is it, rabbit in a snowstorm or
whatever it is that's the important the most
important one to him. But
it makes for an interesting dynamic of these
two villains. One appreciates art, and the other
one creates art.
And
I do wish they could have played up
on that more. It's possible that they did
when they originally were were doing all this

(13:50):
stuff together.
But
There's a lot I wanna talk about
about Rabbit and the Snowstorm,
but
it's spoiler for Daredevil season three, so I
can't talk about it
with you yet. Not yet. Not yet.
We're getting there.
We're getting there.

(14:11):
So alright. So Arts for Art's sake, now
that we've gotten past the stupid dad joke,
Fisk is told that Angela escaped Muse because
Daredevil helped her, and he's not happy, which
makes sense.
By the way,
do you know why
rabbits and snowstorms

(14:33):
aren't sad?
Because they're hoppy.
There. We worked in two two dad jokes
in in in just, like, three minutes here.
Congratulations on making a lot. I I I
don't know if I should feel proud or
not, but,
yeah. Well, in my house,

(14:54):
dad jokes are thoroughly appreciated.
Okay. Alright. Hopefully, they're Can I appreciate it
for our listeners too? But Can I go
on a slight tangent? Yeah.
So last year after we found out that
we were gonna have a baby,
my husband started,
like, saying dad jokes all the time.
All the time.
It was starting to get on my nerves

(15:14):
a little bit.
So I got him a t shirt that
says,
when does a joke become a dad joke
when it becomes a parent?
And after that, he stopped.
He felt called out.
Actually, he laughed. He really likes that shirt.

(15:35):
Yeah. It just happens.
It just happens.
Mhmm. Just all of a sudden. It does.
So sticking with with Fisk, Fisk lectures Cashman
on how Daredevil made things bad for business.
Cashman reminds Fisk, you can't just use your
task force for personal revenge. And Fisk says,

(15:56):
basically,
yeah. Sure. I can if it helps the
city or something. Right? Am I right?
And
that's that's his thinking.
He's seeing this as just the perfect opportunity
to take out Daredevil,
but he's also shocked that Daredevil is back
because Angela revealed to people that it was
Daredevil who took care of Muse.

(16:16):
Now the other thing that's happening is they're
gonna spread the narrative
that the task force is going out for
the people's help. They're they're helping the people
because they're going after the bad guy, but
they're also going after the vigilantes.
And so,
sticking with Fisk
and Vanessa, Vanessa meets up with Luca
who confronts her about how things are better

(16:37):
without Fisk, and she says,
hey. Maybe you and I, we can ally
ourselves for mutual benefit
or something. Right? Am I right?
And he says yes.
And then, toward the end of the episode,
we get this moment where Vanessa texts Luca
and says
where Wilson is, and he's alone.

(16:58):
And so Luca goes to Fisk because Fisk
is alone, and he's going to kill Fisk.
But Fisk has Luca killed because Fisk was
not alone.
And
and now Luca is dead, and Vanessa helped
Fisk to do this.
And this
is another moment where we see Fisk is
kinda stepping back into

(17:20):
the whole,
you know, who he really was. Him. It
really is. Yeah. Yeah.
So,
Fisk,
I
oh, gosh. I don't have the time to
go back and rewatch, but now I'm thinking
I should have kept a head count of
who at that council in the first episode
is still alive.

(17:40):
Oh,
yeah.
Yeah. Because Yep. With that whole incident with
the truck, some people died,
and now Luca's dead.
That guy from the bank robbery,
as far as I know, is out in
the wind.
Yeah. Yeah. So the other thing going on

(18:01):
with Fisk is after everything goes down with
Daredevil and Muse,
Fisk basically wants to push the narrative
that the task force took care of Muse,
even though everyone knows it was Daredevil.
And,
Daniel
Daniel Blake
talks to Bebe Urich

(18:22):
and says, hey,
Bebe,
come on now. Let's let's let's print some
lies together.
It'll be good for both of us.
And
he wants her to push that narrative as
well, and that actually works out well for
Daniel
because they do that.
Who, as the season goes on,

(18:44):
has a
ticking clock on how much longer he's gonna
live. I tell you. I can just hear
it. I don't know if I agree.
I think the ticking tock is ticking time
clock
tock tick tock.
I think that that is actually, like, when
is he gonna be a supervillain?
Like, he

(19:05):
I just feel like he's heading in that
direction.
But, man,
the stuff that he says to Fisk, I'll
do anything for you.
I'll do anything. I'll I'll give up my
life for you. I'll I'll work overtime. I'll
do whatever you ask me to do. I'll
do anything. I'll do anything.
Like,
that's pretty extreme.
He's too much of a browniezer.

(19:25):
And then with BB, he's made mistakes.
Yeah. Definitely.
Yeah. And he
he makes plans, and he doesn't talk to
Fisk about them first.
He's he's too much of a liability to
Fisk.
But Fisk is giving him power.
Yeah.

(19:45):
In episode eight, yeah, he does he's promoted
to
Deputy mayor. Deputy mayor of education. Which
I used to teach a class at my
church, and I learned that or somebody advised
me that when you have a kid who

(20:06):
is
causing a lot of distractions,
to give them
a job.
It is a very appropriate strategy to help
get them on your side and also give
them something to do
so that they're
they because a lot of times, kids with
distract who are who are distractions

(20:28):
need a little bit of distraction.
And
yeah. But I I don't know. I don't
know. I don't I don't see him
dying soon.
But, I mean, really, there's only one more
episode in the season, so
you'll have to be soon relatively speaking
if it's not next episode because

(20:48):
not relatively speaking, we're looking at another year
or whatever between
between seasons.
So
Yeah. So we'll see.
We'll see. I just I can see that
he's gonna do something
to upset Fisk, and
he's not gonna be around much longer. That's
just my prediction.

(21:09):
Well, I used to think that just because
he was causing so much trouble, but then
you had that whole forgiveness episode
where
Fisk is like, I've learned forgiveness.
I'm gonna forgive.
And
and then does.
It basically does. So This episode, Fisk partakes

(21:32):
in the death of
Luca.
Yeah.
Yeah. This is I mean, we'll see in
the next episode where they're getting ready for
the ball. He doesn't fit into his suits
anymore.
You know? So there's there's that physical representation
of what's going on,
for him

(21:53):
mentally, psychologically.
But
And D'Onofrio putting on that Fisk
undersuit again
to make him look bulkier.
We'll see.
We'll see. But when he put on when
he put on his coat as they were
getting ready for the ball, all I could
think of was,
Chris Farley and Tommy Boy.

(22:14):
Fat guy in a little
coat.
Fat guy in a little
cone.
One of the greatest comedies,
at least of the nineties,
if not of all time.
I think there's a case to be made
in the top 50 of all time.
Yeah. That And maybe in top 10 of

(22:35):
of the nineties. But Yeah.
Oh, man.
Anyway
so let's talk about Matt and Heather
sitting in a tree.
So
for the past
couple episodes, specifically
this one and Isle Of Joy,

(22:56):
every time they have a scene together,
I think of Genie from the movie Aladdin
right before Aladdin flies up and goes on
his date with Jasmine and they sing A
Whole New World. I think of what Genie
says, which is tell her the truth.
And
Well, here's the thing. Let's let's start with

(23:18):
our first scene together. Matt's in the shower.
Got bruises.
Right? I mean, he's wounded. This guy is
wounded
from his fights.
And Heather joins him in the shower. I
mean, they have an intimate relationship.
He's not gonna be able to hide this.
And if she doesn't figure out what's really
going on, she's wondering, and she is, wondering

(23:38):
if this is self harm kind of a
stuff.
I fell. I fell. I bumped into something.
I fell.
That's not gonna last as an excuse when
he starts having, like,
claw marks from
cat villain person or he starts, you know,
getting burn marks from Electro Guy. I mean,

(23:59):
that's
his
if he wants to keep the lie, he
has to
pull back on the emotional and physical intimacy
with her.
Yeah. And I understand what's going through his
head. I know it. What's going through his
head is he's thinking,
Foggy died because of me, because of my

(24:21):
secret,
and I don't want her to die because
of me.
Well, Matt,
you're putting the suit back on.
Yep.
She's wondering.
Tell her the truth.
Problem is, in the course of these two
episodes,
she is does not have a very

(24:43):
high opinion
of vigilante
superheroes.
Yeah. Well, especially after,
Muse attacked her. Yeah. But even before then,
I mean, she's like, can you get me
an interview with Punisher? Can you get me
an I mean, you worked with Daredevil. Right?
You you could get me an interview with

(25:04):
some of these guys or whatever.
And
and she's talking about how, you know, these
are these are all my theories about why
they put on the mask. You know? And
is it is it, arrested development or is
it this or that or the other thing?
And
none of it sounds very good,
but as soon as he reveals it to
her, he's gonna have some explaining to do.

(25:26):
You know? There's
there's gonna be some stuff that he's gonna
have to work through with her,
and
it's not gonna be easy even if it
ends up being a positive thing.
Anything I mean, any kind of thing like
this where you have lied or you have
hidden the truth, when the truth comes out,
whether it's in a positive way or a
negative way, it's not

(25:47):
an easy conversation to have necessarily.
And
the longer you wait, buddy
Yeah. The longer it takes. And I'm also
thinking about that episode where Foggy found out,
which was also a really great episode.
It's great acting. But Yeah.
Like, how many fingers am I only holding
up?

(26:08):
One.
And it was not his index finger. I'm
just gonna
Yeah.
If you can't remember.
So when Mac goes into the office,
Cherry confronts him about being Daredevil.
Cherry's mad, and Cherry's not gonna help him
find where Muse is now

(26:29):
because
he he can't do this. You know? You're
not supposed to do this anymore.
And so
then Matt visits Angela to maybe get some
more info, and she doesn't think anything she
remembers is not gonna do any good.
The police aren't gonna do anything about this.
She knows that they aren't.
Meanwhile, the police are doing some things about
it. They're in the lair,

(26:50):
and it's disturbing.
And
so they,
they find all the the artwork and stuff,
and it's
it's a villainous
lair in a subway. It's gonna be disturbing.
Not just villainous. It's also this guy has

(27:11):
some real issues. He needs to be
not just locked up, but in a psychiatric
unit. He needs therapy.
And you know what he should really do?
He should go and see his therapist. Lots
and lots of lithium. He he he should
go and see his therapist is what he
should do.
Should have Turns out
he's a patient of Heather's,

(27:31):
which we did see him earlier
approach
at the book signing, I believe. Yes.
Yeah.
So from the Lair investigation,
the police are able to narrow down the
suspects to Bastian Cooper, who is an artist
and
a martial artist. So my pun from last
episode was lampshaded in this episode.

(27:53):
He's an expert in Taekwondo,
and Fisk is like,
don't send anybody.
I'm sending my people in.
Daredevil realizes that Muse is after Heather because
he's doing his own investigation of one of
the artwork drawings,
and it
he feels it, and it feels and this

(28:14):
was
probably the worst moment in this in this
episode
because he they showed him feeling her face
when they were kissing.
Mhmm. And and feeling her face not just,
like, because he's holding her, you know, by
the by the head or whatever, like like
like you do sometimes with a passionate kiss
or whatever. But, like, the way a blind
person will touch someone's face to see them,

(28:35):
you know, and to and to feel the
curves and and to get to know, you
know, who they are and the
the what their face looks like.
He then touches a drawing
that
and I'm fine with that. But from the
drawing alone,
then we get a flashback
to earlier in the episode when you touched

(28:56):
her face. We didn't need that.
I I know actually, technically, I think we
did need that because it's so ridiculous that
we they needed to spell it out for
us that this is what they are doing.
But
it was just silly.
Like, for him to say, oh, this is
the exact same
as Heather's face, that just felt silly to

(29:17):
me. Well, there are points on the face
that,
AI uses to recognize
face shapes
so it can do things like unlock your
phone.
I don't know if a blind person could
actually look at a painting of somebody and
be able to tell you who it is

(29:39):
because it's two dimensional.
That's that's yeah. It just Yeah. Seemed
to me. It seemed like
a does it work in the context of
a fantasy superhero show? Sure. It does.
But is it a little bit of a
stretch for me? It was. It was. I
I thought that, you know, ink on paper

(29:59):
was much of a was a bit of
a stretch for Matt.
More like reading words and stuff? Yeah. Because
running his fingers over it? Yeah. Because ink
usually absorbs into paper.
This, I could the paint on a canvas
or paper,
I might be able to believe a little
bit more because paint usually rests on top.

(30:21):
And especially if, like, an oil or,
an acrylic, it will be it will have
texture on top of the paper, but ink
usually absorbs in a little bit. So when
he's reading handwriting,
he's reading the indentation of the pen
on the paper.
And when he's reading a newspaper,
that is something I don't know. Not not

(30:43):
every book is going to be like this,
but
newspaper, if you run your finger over it,
it's it doesn't it there is
some texture. Now the idea is, of course,
that he is such a superhuman
with the sense of touch that he's able
to,
not just
recognize bumps, but also recognize, like, the shape

(31:05):
of the letters as he's going along and
touching it. But
yeah. So him feeling the painting,
I get that. That's fine. It was just
making the
connection between
two unrelated things
and and and connecting them together. A two
d representation of a woman's face,

(31:25):
the actual face of his girlfriend,
and realizing they're the same person. That just
felt like a little bit of a stretch.
Did it ruin it? No. What what ruined
it for me was actually the flashback.
I would've I think it would've been fine
without it, but the flashback felt a little
heavy handed.
I feel like they needed to do the

(31:45):
flash back to make sure we made the
connection because I don't know if I would
have made that connection
unless he had said something out loud
and said,
this face feels just like,
wait just a minute. You know?
There's no good way for them to do
it. There's no good way for them to
do it. I feel like they would have
been better off if they just said something
like,

(32:06):
Bastian Cooper. Yeah. Well, where is he? And
he overheard the cops talking about or the
task force even talking about,
they know who he is, and they know
where he is.
Oh, I would have preferred that.
That's that's the only fix I can think
of. But It would have been better.
So And he has that super hearing. That

(32:27):
that makes sense. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But they
wanted to be clever. It didn't work.
But it does get us to some good
stuff, which is
Muse goes to see his therapist,
and they have a nice conversation
until it turns homicidal,
and that is not nice anymore.

(32:49):
Fortunately, Daredevil comes crashing through the window like
a superhero
savior. He is there to save the day.
Classic superhero stuff. We get a superhero battle.
Should have told her. He should have told
her before this moment.
Yeah.
He almost reveals he almost reveals it, but

(33:11):
she's already lost some blood.
She's lost blood,
and
what ends up happening is the fight is
won
not by Matt, but by Heather. She shoots
Muse with his gun,
but then she's out.
And while she's laying on the ground, going
unconscious
from loss of blood, he says, Heather, stay

(33:32):
with me. Don't you die on me. Don't
you go. Don't you die on me. But
he says her name, Heather.
And that is a little bit of a
clue, but she doesn't have time to pick
up on that because she's unconscious now.
And he gets out of there. The task
force comes. Fisk says,
take the credit.
They take the credit, and

(33:54):
then that's that's the episode.
So this the the one other thing I
would say about this episode is like so
many superhero shows and and comics and and
just
this kind
of hero show in general
where you have a primary
hero, but also soap operas too, I guess.

(34:15):
It relies on
coincidence.
It relies on coincidence. And one big coincidence
is
Fisk and Vanessa
were seeing Heather,
and
Bastian Cooper
was seeing Heather,
and
Matt is dating Heather.
And so you have these three spokes

(34:37):
on the
hub of the wheel. Heather's the hub of
the wheel.
And
it's a little bit of a coincidence. People
who are long time listeners to the show
know I'm not a big fan of coincidence.
You get one good coincidence.
And for me, Fisk and Vanessa seeing Heather,
that's your one good coincidence

(34:58):
that really works well.
But then
throwing Bastian Cooper into the situation
who also is seeing her
as a therapist.
Mhmm.
Now there are things you can do to
massage the coincidence out of it. She's an
expert in
identity and things like that, and she's, you

(35:18):
know,
preparing. I mean, she's so much an expert.
She's preparing to talk about secret identities and
vigilantes.
But
yeah. It it it's one of those things
where I'm just, oh, okay. Alright. I gotta
go with it.
But the other thing that coincidences do is
they bring us to things like a fight
in the therapy office

(35:40):
because
Daredevil is saving
his girlfriend
from a homicidal maniac.
Yeah.
I was expect well
well, then you couldn't
what I thought would be
make more sense is if
Fisk

(36:00):
Fisk had asked Heather to,
somehow talk
to Bastian,
but then
they would have to capture,
Muse, and he would have to be in
custody, and then he would not have this
fight. Yeah. Yeah.
So
alright. That is art for art's sake. Next,

(36:21):
we have Isle Of Joy.
I have one more note for art for
art's sake.
Taekwondo, in case anyone is wondering,
I
I I know very little of it.
I do know the biggest difference between, say,
jujitsu or aikido
and taeKwonDo
is the foot stance.

(36:42):
With, jiu jitsu and,
aikido,
you're attacking from the front,
or from your front, whereas,
with taekwondo, you're attacking from the side. And
taekwondo is
Korean,
jiu jitsu, and aikido, they're Japanese.
There

(37:04):
you go. And,
whatever it is,
they had to do something.
Yeah. So that
the artist could be a martial artist. They
they had to do something so he could
stand up
against,
Daredevil.
And at least,
at the very least,

(37:25):
have him be able to put up a
a little bit of a fight with Daredevil.
Oh, something else.
I think
oh, gosh. The second episode from the last
episode that you talked about
and this episode
would have made so much more sense as
a two parter.
Oh my gosh.

(37:47):
I can't help but agree with you. I
I wonder if there is something to do
with
the bank heist episode where they just felt
like it wasn't strong enough to stand on
its own. Oh, no. It was strong enough
to stand on its own. A %.
But I wonder if that's the reason is
they were saying, well,
we need to pair this up with something.

(38:09):
Because you are if if if the second
episode
from that when they did two episodes at
the same time, if that was the one
that they were worried about, you are a
% right. They should have waited a week
and paired it up with this episode.
It makes sense.
I think it's a clerical error.

(38:29):
I think somebody at Disney
knew that there had to be a two
parter somewhere in there, and they were told,
oh,
five and six.
But instead, they should have been told six
and seven.
Or maybe
in the reediting from the original,
set of episodes that were worked into
the new writing and directing,

(38:51):
maybe some episodes were moved around,
and maybe the bank heist movie came in
later?
I don't know. Possible? I I don't know.
I think it's it's largely a clerical error
if you ask me. In the grand scheme
of things, for most people,
they didn't mind. Like, I was talking to
someone at work, and and he was, like

(39:13):
he loved both episodes that were aired that
aired at the same time. He liked them
both.
They're both strong episodes.
And, also, anyone who's not watching in real
time every week, they're not even gonna know.
It's not gonna matter at all because they're
just watching episode after episode,
one at a time, two at a time,
and it's on on their own schedule.

(39:37):
But you are right.
You are a %
right.
I and I didn't even think about that,
but, yeah,
makes it would make so much sense.
So much sense. Okay.
Isle of joy.
Isle of joy. Joy.
I wondered why they call this episode Isle
of Joy, and,

(39:57):
it turns out there there's a novel called
Isle of Joy by
Don Winslow. It was released in 1996,
and it is a crime novel set in
Manhattan.
And
I would need to read through through the
whole thing to understand why they referenced this
book.
Is it possible that both of those titles

(40:19):
are just referencing
Manhattan?
I'm pretty sure it is. As the as
Isle Of Joy? Okay. Well, not just Manhattan,
but also the corruption within, that's pretty clear
I can see from the synopsis.
Interesting. Yeah.
Alright.
So Poindexter gets transferred to Genpop
where he could easily get killed,

(40:40):
sort of. But but he has to wear,
like, this muffler
thing Yeah. On his hands.
Yeah.
Meanwhile,
Fisk shows Vanessa his cage for Adam,
and he says, I kept my promise.
I didn't kill him.
I keep him in a cage. I taunt
him by eating dinner in front of him.

(41:02):
I beat him up every once in a
while, but I promise.
I kept my promise not to kill him.
And then Vanessa's all, I didn't make a
promise, and she shoots him.
I actually love that scene opposite of the
scene with Heather and Matt.
Oh, totally.

(41:22):
Yeah. They were cut together.
And there's a bunch of cutting together that's
happened with
Heather and Matt and
and Fisk and Vanessa.
And as as a style thing, it's a
great flourish.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because,
Matt and,
Wilson are having these parallel arcs,

(41:45):
but these two scenes specifically
are
opposites of each other.
Wilson and Vanessa are have become closer in
this scene through death,
where
Heather and Matt are
I mean, the blocking of the scenes, will
Wilson and Vanessa are together.

(42:05):
Heather and Matt in in his apartment,
oh, they're on opposite sides of this giant
room
except for when Buck stops by to invite
Heather to the the ball.
Yeah. And the the the staging changes
where
Matt steps in between them.
Yeah. And you have this kind of weird

(42:25):
weird blocking,
but, I mean, it it fits the apartment.
I mean, that's that's the part of it.
But you have the guy outside the door
with the invitation,
Matt's in between, and then and then Heather
is is on the other side of Matt.
And, I mean, this is one of those
things where they the physical blocking and this
is

(42:46):
television, film,
stage, whatever.
When the physical blocking
is a part of the storytelling
and the emotional
and reveals the emotional state of things,
Because then,
yeah, it's clear what Matt's trying to do.

(43:06):
He's trying to protect her from Fisk.
Maybe also protect himself from Fisk too Yeah.
A little bit. But And and there's more
I wanna talk about with the lighting because
they're in, like, this blue heavenly lighting
overlooking the city, heaven.
But they're having this really terrible argument, whereas
you see Wilson and Vanessa,
they're in a basement.

(43:28):
A dungeon, no less. Like In a dungeon.
Yeah.
And the lighting is a little I wouldn't
say red,
but it's more amber,
and it's very enclosed. And
you could say it's sort sort of a
hell.
And
but I've noticed that for much of the
season, it's actually been the opposite for Wilson

(43:49):
and Matt,
Matt.
Wilson
is usually
lit well with a blue light, and Matt
is lit with a reddish light.
So
there's sort of
a switching of where they are in this
scene, but
that's

(44:10):
a very deep technical
Yeah. Yeah.
Observation. But I I saw the scene, and
I was like, I love this scene so
much, these two scenes put together, and there's
all these parallels and contrasts.
And yeah.
So their fight is about
Fisk,

(44:31):
and he actually kinda figures out
that Fisk and Vanessa, or at least Fisk
has been seeing Heather.
But,
As a patient. Yeah. Yes. And she can't
reveal that.
Like, it's it's patient
therapist
privilege, you know, and so she can't reveal
that. But the other thing is
she's mentioning things like Daredevil and Muse are

(44:52):
cut from the same mold.
Like, they're the same.
Of course, she doesn't know who she's talking
to. Like, this is literally Daredevil that she's
talking to. But Okay. I got my pointer
in my hand. I got the I got
the whiteboard.
Tell her the truth.
Yeah.

(45:14):
So it just
it's it's a great,
dynamic that we have going on here.
It's a it's a great dynamic.
Alright. So from there,
from the,
argument,
Matt leaves. He's unhappy, but he agrees maybe
he'll go. He'll go to the the ball.

(45:36):
If if you're gonna make me fine. Whatever.
Yeah. And then
stomps out, slams the door, basically,
goes to the office.
Oh gosh. And then the office wife gives
him an you know, tears him a new
one.
Yeah. Are you hurt? What's going on? You
know? And and so that's that's a whole

(45:57):
thing.
She's not wrong to be upset that he's
thirty five minutes late.
Well, that is true. Yeah. That is true.
So,
but in the in the midst of that,
she reveals to Matt that Poyn Dexter is
in gen pop, in general population in the
prison,
and that he also wants to see Matt.

(46:18):
So Matt goes.
He wants to find out what's going on,
but he also wants to find out, wait
a minute. Who hired you
to get foggy?
You know?
Because
he doesn't choose to go right away. He
goes to Josie's first. And when he goes
to Josie's,
Josie says, Ah, he was gonna drink this
bottle here,
and it was gonna be great. It was

(46:39):
gonna be wonderful.
And
he realizes, wait just a minute.
Hold on.
That's his victory
drink.
That's what he would drink if it was
a victory.
And he realizes that he knew
he was going to win the case that
they were hiding the guy in episode one.

(47:02):
And that's when he realizes
that
Foggy was targeted and was being silenced by
someone.
I'd like to know more about that case.
What was going on? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So
now he wants to find out who hired
Poindexter to kill Fogie.
Doesn't he slams Poindexter's face into the table

(47:24):
when the conversation doesn't get him what he
wants, and now it's time for the ball.
Oh,
O'Melveny's.
Did you know that this is a reference?
To?
To O'Melveny and Myers LLP.
They were the
law firm that represented,
I think, Marvel Studios in when they made

(47:45):
the agreement with Disney
to Interesting. Work together.
Okay.
Some people would say, why are we celebrating
that? But
yeah. Yeah.
Alright. So
Melvaney's is a win.
And it absolutely sounds like a great whiskey
or Scotch. I don't remember what kind of

(48:06):
drink it was. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like a
good one. So I I wouldn't know. So
Well, I mean, it sounds a great name
for it. Yes. Yes. Yes.
So
because Matt smashed Poindexter's
face into the table,
he has to go to the doctor.
Because he has to go to the doctor,

(48:26):
he gets some stitches,
but, also,
he has a loose tooth. There's a broken
tooth, and he's able to work it out
inside his mouth. And as they are getting
ready to let him get up from the
chair and start unshackling
him, he spits the tooth with precision
bull's eye accuracy

(48:48):
into the guard's
eye,
and then he escapes.
And
everyone's going to the ball now. Everyone is.
Even Matt. Matt comes to the ball. He's
late,
but he comes.
Meanwhile, at the ball, Fisk is doing The
Godfather one on ones
during the ball. He's bringing people in. He's

(49:08):
talking to people about money,
and the swordsman comes back.
Yes.
The swordsman is back, and
I
I love that they brought him in. But
not only do I love that they brought
him in, I love that they
are using
his work
as a vigilante.

(49:30):
Fisk is like, hey. You could be next.
You know?
My task force could come after you.
And
it that that I found that fascinating.
That is Then blackmailing the swordsman?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other interesting thing
that happens here is BB goes and talks
to the chief of police

(49:52):
or the captain,
whatever he is. But the commissioner. Commissioner. That's
what I'm looking for. He goes and talks
to she goes and talks to the commissioner
and says
and he's like, yeah. You're just gonna, you
know, print what they want you to print,
blah blah blah. And she says, hey.
I print what they want me to print
so it can get me where I need
to go because I know

(50:14):
that my uncle
was killed
by these people.
And she says, and I am not only
printing things
under my own name.
Get me some information, and that information is
gonna get out.
That's kinda nice. Little
little

(50:35):
wheeling and dealing there. She knows what's going
on. She knows the score, and she is
not just so she's basically
a superhero with a secret identity as well.
Yeah. Yeah.
I guess so.
Unfortunately,
we also get to see what the task
force does with one of the people that
Fisk is not happy with.

(50:57):
I I had to look away for that
scene.
And and commissioner comes in on them. He
says, hey. Don't you do that. Because if
you do that, I'm gonna I'm gonna write
you up, and you'll get a detention
for Saturday school or something.
And the guy's like, oh, no. You're not.
And then he just goes ahead in front
of the commissioner and just

(51:17):
dumps the guy's hand into a bat of
boiling
oil.
Ew. Gross. It hurts. It's unfortunate.
And commissioner's like, oh, shoot. This is not
good. No. I'm
I'm I'm in over my head here. This
isn't good. And then that officer threatens the
commissioner. He's like, no. You're not gonna do

(51:38):
anything to me. Yep. Nothing. Yep. Because they
have
complete control. They have complete authority here because
Fisk has given it to them. They
they could do whatever they want.
They can do whatever they want, however they
wanna do it.
So,
then it's dancing time.

(51:59):
Matt is gonna go confront Fisk.
And as he goes to confront Fisk, he's
ready, but just before he gets a chance
to and Fisk is ready for him too.
But just before he gets a chance to,
it's time for the first dance.
So Fisk and Vanessa start dancing.
Matt and Heather start dancing.
And this is where we have, again, some

(52:21):
really skillful storytelling is happening here. Yeah.
The other thing is Matt is wearing black.
He's wearing a black tie tuxedo.
Fisk is all in white.
Karen
not Karen. Vanessa is all in red.
Yes.
I'm glad Heather is that. And Heather is

(52:42):
all white.
Which That's on purpose. All that's on purpose.
Oh, it's it's on purpose more than you
know.
It's related back to Daredevil season three finale.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. So keep an eye out for that.
Alright. I'm not gonna spoil it for you,
but

(53:03):
there's a very specific scene that that red
dress is pointing to,
and you'll catch it in the finale. I
and I I will find that
out soon soon enough. But
as they're dancing,
Matt realizes
through superpower hearing,
it was Vanessa.
It was Vanessa

(53:26):
who made the hit.
It was Vanessa all along.
And I even killed the little dog too.
It was her. The whole time, she was
the one who hired Poindexter to kill Foggy.
And so before

(53:47):
she's able to reveal this to Fisk,
Matt cuts in.
And now Matt is dancing with Vanessa,
and Heather is dancing with Fisk. And Heather
and Fisk are both all in white.
And
Matt in his tuxedo is dancing with Vanessa
and confronting her,
but Poindexter has arrived. He is there.

(54:08):
He has a gun. Matt realizes this, and
so Matt is able to jump in front
of the bullet.
But is he trying to save
Heather?
Is he trying to save Fisk?
No. He's he's,
taking in something that Poindexter
said at the at the prison, which was
that's what good men do. They defend their

(54:30):
worst enemies.
And he does.
And then
Fisk, like a chicken, runs off and leaves
Matt bleeding on the dance floor.
And now Heather is leaning over Matt.
Don't you die on me. Yeah. Don't you
don't you dare. Oh, I I missed that.
There's a parallel there.

(54:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when he wakes up
from that coma that I know I know
he's gonna go into, he better tell her
the truth.
When he wakes up, he's gonna say,
I heard her say my name. She know
who I was.
And Heather would be like, yeah. I knew
who you were because you're
we're dating. You know?

(55:13):
So that is our episode.
To be fair, I mean, back in the
fight with Muse in the previous episode,
I mean, her name was on the office
door, I guess.
But he came in through the window.
Maybe she had a little plaque on her
desk?
Also, I mean, how else would he know
to go into that one particular place? Yes.

(55:35):
He's going into the place
for where the therapist
resides, the psychologist resides,
and does her business.
And
so, I mean, he he clearly I mean,
there are ways he could have known her
name. But,
anyway
yeah. So another strong episode and leading up

(55:55):
to, hopefully, what will be a strong episode
with our next next episode, episode nine. I'm
looking forward to it.
Alright. Well, I think it is time for
us to check and see if you have
any other notes.
That's it. We're we're
through all of them, I think. Alright. Check
and see if you have any last words,

(56:16):
final words for our
Uh-huh. Before we shut this episode down.
Oh, there is one note.
It's just something that's popped up throughout the
entire
season so far. There's just a lot of
analogies about animals and jungles and zoo. I
mean, the song in
that they've
that was,
sung on that, when they were doing that

(56:36):
dance,
even references,
the Bronx Zoo.
So there it's just a lot of, I'm
an animal.
There are animals. That's a different kind of
animal.
This prison is a jungle, you know, that
kind of thing,

(56:56):
which I'm sure is gonna somehow tie into
Heather's next book on superheroes.
Yeah. We'll we'll see if she gets to
write that book. Yeah. We'll see. Or if
she still wants to when she finds out
because Bat told her the truth.
Let's hope so. Maybe.
Maybe.
K.
Alright.

(57:16):
Well, any final words?
I would like to thank our Patreon patrons.
Blessed Cheesemaker, Jeffrey, Andrew, Tazzle, and Edwin, thank
you all so very much.
I would I would echo that. Thank you
very much.
And I just wanna leave you with some
words of advice,

(57:37):
a blessing,
a blessing on you.
May you always remember to forget the things
that make you sad,
but never forget
to remember the things
that make you glad.
Thanks for listening to Welcome to Level seven.
You've heard from us, and we would love
to hear from you. You can email us

(57:58):
at [e-mail]
and send us a written message. Or if
you wanna hear your voice on the podcast,
you can send a voice recording. Or you
can connect with us by liking our Facebook
page, facebook.com/welcometolevelseven.
The seven is spelled out. Or you can
leave a message directly on our website, welcometolevel7.com.
The seven is spelled out. I'd also like
to invite you to join our Patreon page

(58:19):
where you can get early access to uncut
cut episodes and support the making of this
podcast. Just go to patreon.com/welcometolevelseven.
The seven is spelled out. And if you
have, thank you. We appreciate it so much.
Until next time, thanks for listening and Godspeed.

(58:54):
The other choice for quote at the end
here was to make a mention of,
the Daredevil season three episodes that I've been
doing, which are supposed to be only ten
minutes long.
And then I would have referred the ten
minutes as fashionable.
Thirty five is just not cool,
but I chose not to do that.
Hey. Let's talk about what Vincent D'Onofrio was

(59:15):
talking about at the, Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Is that right?
Yeah. Happy Sad Confused,
it's a really great podcast about,
actors and behind the scenes and,
and and,
behind the scenes of, movies and television and
so forth. I think he's also interviewed some
people who were doing theater in New York.

(59:37):
I'm not sure.
Certainly people in who have acted on stage
in the past.
Anyways,
so Vincent
did this interview with him. I think he
call he well, I know he called in
from actually the set of Born Again season

(59:59):
two. So he may have been in partial
Fisk costume,
And they even mentioned at the end of
the episode, well, I gotta get back to
work.
So he was like and he's he was
literally there on set
getting ready to continue filming,
and I thought that was exciting.

(01:00:20):
Also, the timing of when
they end
they recorded this episode
is interesting too
because it was that day
that
Marvel made the announcement of the cast for
doomsday.
And,
the host, I think his name's Josh.

(01:00:42):
I forget. I can't remember his name right
now.
I should have written it down. I am
so sorry.
But he
he says that,
he has, like, one eye on the screen.
He's watching all the name changes,
and,
Vincent,
says something about, oh,
I might be in there and or or

(01:01:03):
was it Josh?
Maybe it's
Josh.
Anyways, they mentioned that
Fisk might, or, well, Vincent D'Onofrio
may come up in this announcement, and Vincent
says, well, if it does, that'd be news
to me.
Because it's well known that Feige keeps a

(01:01:24):
lot of information,
plays a lot of information to the chest,
and he has made announcements for,
Daredevil,
and,
Charlie and
Vincent,
this was specifically for the Daredevil season two
announcement, not the Born Again season,
the original run on Netflix.

(01:01:46):
Okay.
And,
they were all on a panel, and Feige
announces that there's gonna be a season two.
And Charlie and Vincent looked at each other
like,
what? We did that now. Did you know?
No. No. I didn't know.
So he was saying that he would not
be surprised if later that there would be

(01:02:08):
an announcement. On the other hand,
D'Onofrio is with his contract with Marvel, it's
only it's limited to only
the the series and not the movies.
So there's a good chance that he can't
be in those movies, but
you never know.
It'd be cool. But

(01:02:30):
the thing is I've recently saw some things
where they've talked about that, for some reason,
Kingpin himself can't appear in movies.
And so I don't know why that is.
I don't understand
that.
I mean, Daredevil
appeared in a movie.
Yeah. But Kingpin cannot, which is odd. Well,
Kingpin, technically speaking, is a Spider Man

(01:02:53):
villain.
Oh,
okay.
And so I think it's like, you know,
Sony,
they have license to all the Spider Man
characters.
And so any Spider Man character that
the MCU wants to use,
they have to work with Sony. Now Sony,
they make a movie

(01:03:13):
like Spider Man Far From Home or whatever.
They can use the Spider Man villains.
But for the MCU
made by Disney,
they have to, like, get permission from from
Sony to use those characters.
Okay. So I think that that's what it
comes down to. However,
that license that Sony has

(01:03:36):
for that Spider Man IP
is only for movies.
And so
Disney could do the Spider Man cartoon shows.
And Spidey and his amazing friends and and
the different shows that they've been doing for
the last few years, Disney is able to
do TV
as much as they want.
And so that's why

(01:03:56):
Kingpin can appear in Into the Spider Verse,
but not in
maybe Doomsday, let's say. Yeah. So But,
yeah, there would be some I forgot. Yeah.
He would be technically a Sony character, would
he? So And so if if he has

(01:04:17):
a contract with Disney, the contract with Disney
would not be for any of the movies.
Now if we could see an MCU Spider
Man movie with
Kingpin in it, but Sony would have to
do their own contract
with Vincent D'Onofrio
Yeah. To bring him in for movies. So
And but Spider Man four is on the

(01:04:37):
board.
It is. It's true.
Yeah. It's true.
Spider Man four,
what what's the title of that one again?
Brand New Day, I think?
Yeah. Yeah. Which Brand New Day
well, I don't wanna get into it right
now. Let me double check on this.
Brand New Day is a comic book title

(01:04:58):
that Spider Man had,
for a a storyline.
Yeah. Brand new day. It's gonna be released
in 2026.
So they'll definitely be playing up on the
whole nobody remembers he Spider Man thing. Yeah.
So, I mean, we could see Vincent D'Onofrio's
face on a billboard or something.

(01:05:20):
In that, we could. Yeah. Maybe. Honestly
I mean but but Sony would have to
license his likeness. I mean, Sony has to
take care of those contracts
for the film stuff.
Alright.
Well, that's the end of this episode. Listen
up, everyone. Thank you so much for spending
time with us. You've made it to the

(01:05:41):
end of another episode, and we will talk
about Daredevil
Born Again
season one, episode
nine, next episode,
probably.
Although for Patreon patrons, it won't be because,
I'm releasing those those short episodes there. So
but,
again, thank you for listening.
Have a great day and a pleasant tomorrow,

(01:06:03):
and Godspeed.