Photo: Disney+/Everett Collection
Muse, we hardly knew ye. It’s a little unfortunate to lose such a promising, creepy new villain so quickly — like White Tiger, this is another character built for at least several episodes, but forced into a supporting role in the overarching Daredevil-versus-Kingpin war — but I suppose when you have an endless database of Marvel villains to choose from, it’s hard to justify spending too much time on any one monster.
“Episode 7” is also a big episode for Heather, who has existed on the sidelines for much of this season. There’s something about the character that still isn’t totally clicking for me, maybe because her career as a therapist makes up most of her personality. She’s a great match for Matt on paper, and they do have good chemistry, as showcased in that shower-sex scene and their conversation afterward. (There’s actually barely any sex in the original series, even when Elektra enters the picture, so this was appreciated.) But maybe due to Matt’s continued secretiveness, there’s still a distance there. Their scenes together don’t quite carry the same level of intimacy and mutual understanding as his old dynamics with Claire or Elektra. Remember Claire?
Matt is still figuring out whether he’s Daredevil for real again or not, but it seems like the right course of action based on his feelings of living a fake life when he’s Matt full-time. But not everyone approves of this regression, especially Cherry, who refuses to help Matt out in tracking down Muse. Heather, too, correctly diagnoses Matt as tamping down his trauma, which, duh.
The NYPD recovers Muse’s face sketches from his murder basement, which Matt eventually accesses, leading him to realize Muse is going after his girlfriend. His real name is Bastian Cooper, and he’s a young man Heather has been treating, though he hasn’t appeared since her book signing back in “Episode 2.” In their sessions in this episode, he opens up about the pressure he faced from his parents as a kid; he hated competing in Tae Kwon Do and always preferred art. (We also find out separately from Detective Angie Kim that Bastian most likely killed his live-in coach, a backstory that recalls Dex in season three.) Apparently, meeting Heather unlocked something in him, and now his creative juices are really flowing. You could say she’s his newest muse (ugh).
Bastian doesn’t make much of an effort to hide his double identity from his therapist; he starts drawing with his own nosebleed while delivering a deranged monologue about how the city is seeing him for who he really is now, how we must embrace who we are to be free. He won’t let Heather leave when she makes a run for it, of course, but he feels a kinship with her, or more accurately a creepy obsession. She knows who he really is, and that’s a powerful connection. In a way, there’s more honesty between these two than in her actual relationship! You have to laugh at the irony of hearing Heather claim that anyone wearing a mask is a coward.
Will getting saved by Daredevil shift her thinking on that? Heather is seconds from getting bled out and choked to death on a sheet when he bursts in for a sequel to last week’s fight, though Heather is the one who actually shoots and kills Muse in the end … which technically means her body count is already higher than her vigilante boyfriend, right? How’s that for irony? When the episode ends, she’s pretty upset about what she did, even if Matt insists she didn’t have a choice.
Of course, Fisk and his task force get all the credit for what went down, an easy win after his nemesis Daredevil does the hard work. Their battle is officially back on, from the moment Fisk murmurs “he’s back” to himself upon hearing the news of Daredevil rescuing Angela. To most people, a teenage girl getting rescued from a blood-draining serial killer would be a good thing, but Fisk is built different. We know that he doesn’t get over grudges very easily, and he still blames Daredevil for taking down his empire.
I’ve felt some impatience with the speed of Fisk’s storyline this season, though it’s possible I just miss the old shadowy businessman version of the character. “Episode 7” introduces some new potential threats to him, though, and it’s a welcome surprise. First, his loyal right-hand man, Buck, actually dares to suggest it might be good for the city if Daredevil takes Muse down. He even warns Fisk about abuse of power after hearing his musings (sorry) about using his mayoral resources to get whatever he wants.
The bigger news, though, is that Vanessa initially seems surprisingly close to flipping on her husband in the most serious way. She’s totally receptive to Luca’s idea to unseat Fisk and take power herself, not in the political arena but at the head of an empire. She goes so far as to tip Luca off when Fisk is alone, presumably setting him up to successfully kill Fisk. When he shows up, though, Luca proves himself to be as ineffectual and expendable as he always seemed: Buck immediately guns him down before he can leave a dent. This was all part of the plan, though Vanessa’s resentment and skepticism were very real, and they may not go away anytime soon.
Would Vanessa kill Fisk? She has always been his Achilles’ heel, really, but historically that has come from his deep love for her. Now that love is fading to something dark and distrustful on both ends and Vanessa is becoming a real threat, someone with the power to slit his throat in their own bed if she needed to. With two episodes left in the season, there’s a lot of people who want Matt dead and a lot of people who want Fisk dead. Bring on the mess.
• Nice beat with Kirsten expressing some frustration at Cherry’s privileged position in the Matt Murdock information flow. I do like Kirsten, probably more than Heather, so it’d be nice to see her better integrated in the main action.
• Bitter about the Mayor Garbage debacle, Daniel pressures BB to lie about who took out Muse to serve the mayor’s agenda. He’s becoming quite the slimy little Fisk lackey, isn’t he?
• Fisk learns about Muse being Heather’s patient, which adds a nice bit of texture to his reactions to the showdown.
