“Some people are so rich and powerful the system simply can’t handle them,” Matt says by way of explaining why he feels he has to kill Fisk rather than risk him beating additional charges if he’s simply re-arrested. “They actually are above the law.” Foggy, ever the idealist, doesn’t buy it, arguing that this is what the rich and powerful want you to believe in order to drive you to despair and preventing you from using the system to take them down.
I think it’s pretty clear that the opposite is true, and that the rich and powerful promulgate the fiction that the law applies equally to everyone; if this is the case, well, if they break the law and nothing happens, they must not have done anything wrong to begin with, right? The system works!
Daredevil operates with a compelling tension on this point. I have a hard time believing a corporate-owned superhero property will ever really challenge the validity of the entire system; like all the Marvel/Netflix shows, Daredevil has enough heroic cops and feds to demonstrate that several times over. In the case of this conversation, too, it seems we’re meant to see system supporter Foggy as the voice of reason.
But Daredevil relies on the military and law enforcement for its villains, which is also like all the other Marvel/Netflix shows. Dex the crazed soldier turned FBI agent; Frank Castle the berserk black-ops veteran, his commanding officer who became a druglord, and his best friend turned nemesis who started a mercenary company when his tour ended; that guy from Jessica Jones who was a soldier turned cop who got super-strength and roid rage from experimental pills; the prison that used its inmates as guinea pigs in Luke Cage; and on and on and on. In many cases they’re augmented by entire FBI offices, police precincts, or military units that are thoroughly corrupted or downright sadistic. The whole system’s out of order, as the saying goes. Daredevil is like an extended experiment in how far the fantasy of The Last Honest Warrior setting it all to rights can be taken.
I reviewed the antepenultimate episode of Daredevil for Decider. I like the word “antepenultimate.”
Tags: daredevil, decider, reviews, TV, TV reviews