Daredevil: Born Again Episode 7
"Art for Art's Sake"
Writers: Jill Blankenship
Directors: David Boyd
Cast: Charlie Cox, Vincent D'Onofrio, Margarita Levieva, Zabryna Guevara, Nikki M. James, Genneya Walton, Arty Froushan, Clark Johnson, Michael Gandolfini, Kamar de los Reyes, Ayelet Zurer
I remember exactly when Daredevil became more than just a superhero TV show: Season 1, Episode 11. I was eleven episodes into my binge and then — bam — Karen Page shot and killed Wilson Fisk's righthand man, Wesley. Yeah, it wasn't a Matt Murdock moment. It was when our female lead, kidnapped and damsel-ed, turned Wesley's split-second distraction into a fatal mistake. We knew how this scene was supposed to go, how it would have played out in any other show. Daredevil saves Karen, or Karen spends an episode or two tied to a chair until she's saved by either Daredevil or herself. In no world does Karen Page grab the gun and, through her teeth, say, "Do you think this is the first time I've shot someone?" and then put seven bullets into his chest. But — in a character defining moment — she did, completely upending where we thought the show was heading, injecting an immediate sense of danger into the series — and setting up another, even more intense one-on-one between Karen and Fisk in Season 3. But that's a moment worth a whole other post.