Spoiler warning for Seasons 1 and 2 of Daredevil: Born Again Disclaimer: I realize that this is capeshit and I probably shouldn’t take it so seriously, but fuck it, it’s on my mind, and what better place to dump my ramblings than here? You’re sitting here reading this, so it isn’t like you’re doing anything better anyway, right?

I think more than most capeslop, Daredevil gets under my skin. All capeslop is ostensibly about justice, but as most people here are probably already aware, mostly defines ‘justice’ as the status quo. In my opinion, Daredevil is particularly egregious in this way given that his alter ego is a blind lawyer, that tends to represent clients who are deliberately written to be exploited and impoverished people. The general beats of Daredevil make vague gestures at notions of justice, injustice, corruption, and systemic oppression, but then seems to mock these things through the overall actions of its protagonist. Murdock repeatedly, over and over again, gets up-close-and-dirty with systemic injustice in every story arc, and every time his conclusion of the failure of the court system, and the constant proof of an unjust system, his answer is to fall back on it. This reaches levels of boggling absurdity to me when, through the process of escalation during the plot of Born Again, The Kingpin becomes Mayor, takes over the court system, makes the DA his lackey, and forms his own police paramilitary jackboot fash squad - and yet, Daredevil fights him in the kangaroo court and wins? Motherfuckers, I’m trying to enjoy your show - does the Kingpin control the court or doesn’t he? Are his fascist black shirts there to force the outcomes he desires, or aren’t they? The show itself seems to flip-flop on how it feels about all of these various things depending upon what it needs to happen at the moment. Except for one thing that is consistent through the entire thing: if you aren’t a super hero, and you aren’t a cop, then you’re scum to be trod upon. Even at the climax, when the Kingpin is being toppled, and the city is cosplaying as Daredevil and gathering at the courthouse to protest him, the crowd of people is held at bay by the blackshirts (because they come completely unarmed, and are only permitted to do the lib thing of standing there and shouting) and they have to wait until the “good cops” arrive to grant them power, and only once permitted by the police to enter the building do the city’s people enter. Even from that point, the people are totally powerless as The Kingpin proceeds to massacre an entire hallway of people. Despite how enraged the people were upon entering the building and storming the hallway, at first meeting with the Kingpin the whole corridor of people turn into pissbabies and start cowering for their lives, the writers don’t have anybody start to even fight for their own life until only the last few of them are left trapped. In the writer’s mind, these people never had any real spark or drive to fight for a better life or a better future, they were just there to, what, shout loudly at The Kingpin, and do nothing else? I wouldn’t even be mad about this scene killing all of these people if they were at least portrayed to have some agency for themselves, but they’re shown to be feckless and just ragdolls for Fisk. In the following scene where Daredevil meets the mob in the courthouse lobby, this dynamic becomes inverted, the mob manages to bring The Kingpin down to his knees, but here Daredevil and Jessica Jones fight the mob off of him and rescue The Kingpin, shouting “We’re better than this!”. There are numerous scenes like this throughout Daredevil that make me pull my hair out, I have to ask, “What exactly is Justice to you?”. The story makes it obvious that the kangaroo court installed by Fisk is unjust. The story also shows many moments of injustice in the “real” court prior to The Kingpin taking office. Therefore, we can conclude that justice isn’t found in the legal system, plainly, there would be no need for Daredevil’s existence to begin with if it were. The story sure seems to be trying to suggest that the impetus for all of this action, the basis, the foundation for everything, is that the injustice present harms the lives of everyone in the city, right? Therefore, would it not seem logical that when the people who have been harmed show up en masse to confront the cause of their pain, that there probably isn’t an expression much closer to real justice than that? Yet, Daredevil seems to think that either A) there is a platonic ideal of a court or justice that everybody should be wedded to, which for some reason would prefer that The Kingpin live? For what? Another trial? Hasn’t the whole show been repeated proof after proof that the courts always fail to stop him? or B) Daredevil is actually the true bearer of Justice. Ironically, I don’t think that the writers intend for conclusion B to be the actual takeaway, but given how much evidence the run of the show gives about how ineffective the courts are at putting away serious bad-doers, I wouldn’t blame anybody for coming away from the show with that belief of Daredevil. Also, Daredevil rescues The Kingpin’s life 4 or 5 times, at least 3 times from Bulleye, which merely dovetails in with the point I’ve just finished making. I can’t comprehend why Daredevil does this from any angle, again, Daredevil observes up close on repeated occasion that the courts will not deliver justice upon Fisk - and that is the only reason I could comprehend why Daredevil may want him to live. Aside from that, why doesn’t Daredevil see this as Fisk’s just desserts? His hens coming to roost? Daredevil also saves Bullseye’s life, which is also incomprehensible for so many of the same reasons. Also, the writers giving Bullseye something of a redemption arc is a crime unto itself. Really, I think a strong argument could actually be made that Daredevil is the real antagonist of the show, given how the people who he saves most are the most awful people in the story. Sorry - I’ve gone on a tangent but I want to come back to the scene with the mob in the courthouse lobby. Daredevil and Jessica Jones fight off the mob, Fisk’s life is once again saved, which is to say that the people who are least important to the writers are the average person. To the writers, their lives and problems are only present for as long as they are useful to narrative. Their demands upon Fisk are immaterial. Brutality is implied to be upon them by Fisk’s jackboots, but never portrayed. Daredevil also generally has little to say about this, and overall spends… zero? time speaking to any average person (I may be exaggerating this, but I’m struggling to recall any scenes where he actually just talks to an average Sally on the street who isn’t an ex-cop, or somehow otherwise attached to his being Daredevil). The people are a vapor with immaterial being until their presence is needed in order to be ragdolled by Fisk, and told “No, no, this isn’t how we get Justice” by Daredevil. Oh, and they have all the mob wearing red, which is probably intended to simply invoke Daredevil, but you might see why I can confuse it to be allegory for communism.

Anyway, thanks for reading my rambling if you did. Share your opinions with me if you have any. I could maybe structure this into a proper critique or something, but I’d probably have to rewatch the show again in order to properly organize and develop thoughts, and I cannot be asked to watch this shit a second time.