'Daredevil: Born Again' Recap S1 E8: Oh, What A Night
What's black and white and red all over? Wilson Fisk's gala at the end of Daredevil: Born Again season 1 episode 8, "Isle of Joy," even before and after the return of a classic Daredevil villain and things got bloody. In the penultimate episode of the Disney+ series, Matt Murdock reconnected with his roots and learned some shocking information about the tragedy that kicked off this series. The episode opens with a series of power dynamic shifts. First Bullseye, a.k.a. Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter and the villain from both the original Daredevil series and the Born Again pilot who killed Foggy Nelson, gets transferred from protected custody to the general prison population. Fisk shows his wife the cell where he's keeping her former lover, Adam, and Vanessa kills him herself in a show of loyalty. Then, Heather gets invited to a "black and white" gala hosted by the mayor. She outs herself as his therapist to Matt, who's far from thrilled to learn that his nemesis has ingrained himself in his personal life. At Fisk's office, young whippersnapper Daniel Blake gets appointed to Deputy Mayor of Communications. A criminal who got elected on his "unconventional" approach to politics appointing someone totally unqualified to a high-powered position? What will they think of next? The table is set for a lot to go down. What does Matt learn at Josie's Bar?An annoying rich and entitled client, played by Broadway actor Andrew Call, causes Matt to act out about how off everything has been. He's not able to do the kind of work he really wants to do. The mayor and the whole city (including his own girlfriend) seem to hate vigilantes. (Heather's so deep in her attempt to intellectualize masked figures that she theorizes Daredevil and Muse are equally as immature and self-serving. That may be true in a way, but yikes!) "We're not serving justice," Matt says to Kirsten. "We're babysitting chaos." He angrily ditches work and goes back to Hell's Kitchen to visit his favorite bartender at his old dive. There, he gets more than just a friendly voice and an excuse to drown his frustrations. Josie requests that they finish the round of O'Melveny's that Foggy was drinking before he was murdered. This stops Matt dead in his tracks. He and Foggy only touched that whiskey when they won a case. Foggy must have been confident about a win and celebrating early. This suggests that he was silenced.What happens with Matt and Bullseye?Matt goes to Rikers, where Bullseye requested to speak to him after his transfer. He's in danger. Matt doesn't care so much about that, but uses the opportunity to interrogate him again about Foggy's death. Was it really just a revenge kill, or a random hit? Or was he hired to take Foggy down before a court date? Matt thinks Fisk did it, not just because he always thinks Fisk did it but because by moving him to gen pop, the mayor clearly wants him dead. But Bullseye, despite wanting to go back to solitary, does not talk.Photo by Giovanni Rufino. © 2025 MARVEL.In what looks like a rage, Matt knocks one of the villain's teeth out. This is all Bullseye needs to kill the dentist and some guards and break out of jail all by himself. He spits the tooth out of his mouth like a bullet. Very resourceful guy, that Dex. Daredevil knows that Bullseye can make a deadly weapon out of anything. Do we think Matt did that intentionally? Signs point to yes. Just before smashing Dex's head on the table, he tells Matt that he can only show him who hired him from out of prison. He even thanks Matt for doing it. Who's mingling at the black and white party?The party is an excuse for several storylines to converge. BB Urich shuns Daniel Blake after he basically forced her to spin a story in Fisk's favor in the previous episode. The task force violently assaults a journalist who wasn't hand-picked by the mayor. Fisk makes a grand entrance in his Marvel comics character's signature white suit. He tries again to woo Jack Duquesne a.k.a. "Swordsman" to his side. Matt arrives as Heather's plus-one and Fisk uses his adversary's super hearing skills to his advantage. He threatens him from across the dance floor. Giovanni RufinoThen, Matt hears something that was not for his ears. Buck Cashman informs the mayor that Bullseye has escaped from prison and is likely heading right to them. Vanessa starts to confess something to her husband. He stops her, but Matt has already put the pieces together. Vanessa is the one who took out the hit on Foggy. Again, did Matt intentionally free his best friend's killer so that he would lead him to his employer? Reckless but effective, if so.Giovanni RufinoWhen Bullseye arrives, he takes a shot at Wilson Fisk. But Matt does something reckless and almost out of character: he jumps in front of the Kingpin and takes a bullet for the guy. Well, maybe not so out of character. Even though Matt may have turned a blind eye (no pun intended) to whoever Dex killed at the prison, he still tries to keep even his enemies alive if possible. Matt starts to bleed out in front of everyone, and may have exposed his super senses at least to Heather. I genuinely have no idea what’s going to happen next!What was going on with BB and the police commissioner?There is one tiny bit of hope for the people of Matt Murdock's beloved New York. Good people are still trying to do good things under the radar. The police commissioner may have failed in his attempt to stop the AVTF from following his orders. But another journalist, BB, makes a deal with him. She assures him that she's more than a spin doctor and Fisk's personal "minister of propaganda," in his words. That's the public persona she uses as a cover to do more dangerous reporting under a different byline. She's a vigilante too, in her own way! BB gives the commissioner her alt email address and he promises to send her the information she needs to expose corruption in the task force. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship and a coalition of anti-Fisk individuals that Matt needs to have faith in his city again.More 'Daredevil' Recaps'Daredevil: Born Again' Recap, Episodes 5 and 6'Daredevil Born Again' Recap S1 E7
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