To celebrate the launch of Marvel’s Daredevil and the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, we are reviewing all thirteen episodes of the first season of Marvel and Netflix’s Daredevil. Check back daily for the latest review.
With The Path of the Righteous, the first season of Daredevil properly enters its end game.
After a lot of soul-searching and contemplating, Matt Murdock is spurred back to action – albeit in a somewhat limited capacity. Matt spends most of the hour searching out Melvin Potter to help design a new costume. This is perhaps the most obvious indication that the end of the season is fast approaching; Matt is beginning to transition away from the costume inspired by Frank Miller and John Romita Jr.’s The Man Without Fear and more towards something approaching his iconic comic book outfit.

At the same time, Wilson Fisk finds himself desperately losing ground. Vanessa Marianna is in a coma, poisoned during an event hosted and organised by Fisk. Karen Page and Ben Urich have found Marlene Vistain, and begun piecing together a past that Fisk worked very hard to bury. On top of that, The Path of the Righteous ends with Fisk suffering a fairly dramatic personal loss, when Karen Page repeatedly shoots James Wesley. It seems fair to suggest that the ground is shrinking from under him.
However, it is interesting that The Path of the Righteous sidelines Matt and Fisk so thoroughly. Fisk spends the entire episode in a hospital, while Matt is running errands that feel disconnected from the immediate threat. As such, The Path of the Righteous allows for some focus on the supporting cast and the wider ensemble. The biggest dramatic beat of the episode is carried by two supporting players, as Karen Page and James Wesley square off against one another.

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: comic books, Costume, daredevil, frank miller, gladiator, james wesley, melvin potter, the path of the righteous | Leave a comment »