Remembrance of things past…

The murder of Foggy Nelson hangs heavy over both the show and the cast. A recent interview revealed an early iteration of Born Again had both Karen and Foggy murdered by corrupt cops, and the loss of Foggy alone feels like the catalyst for the show’s descent further into darkness. It’s no surprise than that he’s one of the things that brings it, and the world’s most Catholic superhero, back out into the light.

Elden Henson lights up this flashback heavy episode as everyone’s favourite MCU lawyer who isn’t tall, green and fabulous. The A plot has Matt and Foggy handed a slam-dunk case during their younger days, and Foggy cracking it wide open because he’s a good lawyer and pays attention, regardless of who his client is. In this case it’s a childhood neighbour of Foggy’s and, also, a bully. Foggy wants to save him, Matt wants this minor level drug dealer to go through the system.  Their client Ray (Nathan Wallace doing incredible work in a tiny role) is a minor Kingpin henchman and knows he’s a dead man the moment he’s inside.

Ranged against all this are plots for everyone else. Vanessa Fisk (Ayelet Zurer) hovers on the edge of death and remembers how she and Fisk met. We get a brief welcome return for Wesley (played brilliantly by Toby Leonard Moore), Fisk’s original right-hand man who Karen straight up murdered (albeit in self-defence) and Buck and Daniel take an increasingly disturbing road trip. All of them get moments of piece or growth, even if that growth is calculated like Buck and Vanessa. Everyone wants to be good. Everyone tries. Everyone fails. Everyone steps on someone else to get where they need to be and kindness, for almost everyone here, is tainted.

Everyone but Foggy.

As Matt abandons Bullseye in the present we see, in a flashback, why the firm is called Nelson & Murdock, not Murdock & Nelson. That Foggy was good to his bones, a man who never sidestepped what was done to him but never stopped moving. I cried twice during this episode: once when Foggy goes the extra mile in the past and once when Matt’s hand appears in front of Bullseye in the present. Living the example of his best friend by helping his horrifically broken killer. Doing the right thing, because that’s what Foggy would do and what he believed everyone else was capable of. No wonder he’s left such a mark, on everyone including his murderer, in passing. No wonder this is by far the best episode of the season so far.

Verdict: Relentlessly ambitious and kind, this is a flat-out brilliant hour of television. Honestly, if you see nothing else this season, see this one. Hell, see this one first and then jump into the rest of it. You’ll be amazed how events line up and echo. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart