‘Marvel’s Daredevil’ season 1, episode 8 review: A deeper look at Wilson Fisk’s childhood
With Stick back in the picture, we wonder if Matt is going to be able to keep his head in the game and focus on what he does best: cleaning up the city. “Marvel’s Daredevil” has given Matt a lot of different aspects to deal with: He has the different mobs, Fisk on his tail and now Stick and his secret mission to get Matt ready to be a warrior. What’s going to happen this time?
We got a deeper look into Fisk’s life as a child, his mom and dad and how he grew up. His father, Bill Fisk, was running for counselor, but at the same time they were drowning in debt. Wilson looked up to how passionate his father was about the city, but his mother gets worried when she learns that Bill took a loan out from mobsters to fund his campaign. When a teenaged bully starts knocking down his father’s signs, and punches Wilson, his father takes him to go face the bully and beats him up, forcing Wilson to do the same – learning violence from his father. When he loses the election, Bill begins beating his wife, blaming her for the loss, and Wilson kills his father with a hammer. Afterwards, he watches as his mother cuts the body up into pieces with a saw and dispose of him. Once he was gone his mother sent Wilson to live on a farm with relatives.
When detective Blake wakes up, Fisk wants him “taken care of”, but outside of convincing Blake’s partner, Hoffman, to kill him, they don’t have a lot of options. After talking Hoffman into doing the deed (and Matt finding out that Blake is conscious), it’s a race to see who gets to him first. Hoffman empties a poison into Blake’s IV, and afterwards, Daredevil uses Blake’s last few seconds alive to tell him information about Fisk.
Karen and Foggy tell Matt everything about them trying to bust Union Allied, Ben, Karen getting attacked and Foggy beating them up with a bat. Matt tells them that they have to start doing everything above the board. He doesn’t want anyone hurt or them jeopardizing their law practice by doing illegal stuff (which is obviously ironic coming from him). Daredevil meets Ben and tells him about Fisk, Hoffman trying to kill Blake, and all of the connections to Fisk Blake gave up before he died, saying that if Ben writes a piece on Fisk that they can bring him into the light and force his hand.
Nobu is extremely upset that the Black Sky has been destroyed, Leland is unsettled that the man in black is running the show and now Gao is paying Fisk a visit to tell him to get his house in order or she will begin dealing with Nobu and Leland directly. Afterwards, Wilson is so lost and angry, but when Vanessa shows that she’ll be there for him no matter what, he tells her about the murder of his father and the cover up from his mother. He is struggling with the idea that he is like his father, even though he feels that his violence comes with a reason where as his father’s was cruelty for no reason. For the first time, Vanessa stays the night and as they grow closer, she helps him change what he wears, his routine, his father’s cuff links and encourages him to speak out publicly to the press, saying that he is going to aid the city in helping capture the man in the mask. It blows up Matt and Ben’s plan to bring him out of the shadows and into the public since he has not only done it himself, but looks like a hero for doing it.
This show is incredibly violent and not for the faint of heart. There are a lot of superhero shows out there right now that have some violence, but still manage not to cross that line into things that cannot be unseen, but “Daredevil” is not one of those shows. That being said this show works with this level of extreme violence, especially when you have a villain born to a father like his. We’ve said it before, but Fisk is easily the best villain in the superhero landscape right now. Episode grade: A-
What did you think of this episode of “Marvel’s Daredevil” and did you find it interesting to learn more about how Fisk grew up? Leave us a comment and tell us what you want to see moving forward.