Well, we all knew there was no way Jasper Evans’s testimony was going to be what brings Fisk back down, but I didn’t think we’d get such a great Daredevil vs. Bullseye fight in the first half of the season. It seems like a pretty big jump for Dex to go from where he was mentally a couple days prior to where he is during this fight, but I guess that speaks to the fragility of the person he has been trying to be his entire life. Kingpin was the first person to tell him to be himself, and that combined with the betrayal of the FBI was all he needed to release his demons.

The unfortunately timely scene of Dex brutally murdering the newspaper employees was extremely tough to watch and completely destroyed any semblance of sympathy the audience had built towards Dex in the prior episodes. The fight itself, though, was tremendous, as Dex’s abilities are cleverly shown through the use of a variety of office supplies instead of just grounding the character into a talented marksman, and we even see him use the same ricocheting baseball throw that we saw him use to murder his coach in the previous episode.

As great as the last half of this episode was, it really bothered me that Jasper was still in the city. Not only should it be a no-brainer for anyone, let alone a mastermind like Fisk, to force Jasper out of the country after his staged attack, but why would the guy even want to stay there? He escapes prison while he’s supposed to be serving a life sentence and stays in New York thinking nobody will ever notice?

Bullseye plotlines aside, we also see Karen getting a little more ruthless in her pursuit of Fisk. After confronting Jasper in the drug den and being told that he cannot testify because Fisk will kill his son, she responds by saying that she is going to write the story anyway, whether or not he is the one to corroborate. Matt seemed to be pretty taken aback by this as well. It will be interesting to see how  this develops after what Karen went through at the end of the episode, especially as it pertains to her boss.

We also see Matt starting to revert back to his Murdock identity, as pointed out sarcastically by Sister Maggie. I was a little lukewarm on her early performance, but Joanne Whalley’s portrayal of the character has really grown on me. It’s only a matter of time until her inevitable reveal and Matt’s subsequent reaction to it, which I have to imagine would be a major plot point for the latter half of the season.

VERDICT

4 projectile monitors out of 5

The whole fight was top notch stuff, but I can’t get over the fact that it absolutely made no sense for Jasper to have been there to begin with and the fact that Bullseye’s character seemed to snap a little too quickly. Otherwise, the plot seems to be moving pretty well, and I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for critics to leave off at this point during their screeners.

 ONE-SHOTS

  • What the hell did Matt do with Foggy’s wallet, and why did Foggy not care about that? His wallet was loaded with cash!
  • My heart skipped a beat when Foggy decided to take on Dex. It was great to see Foggy get in on the action, but there is no reason why Dex shouldn’t have killed him.
  • I feel like Matt should have taken Bullseye out a little quicker in the fight considering the fact that he can effortlessly take down hordes of ninjas, and Dex is basically just a crazy ex-soldier, but I’ll chalk that up to the suit and the fact that Matt is still nowhere near 100%