Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Greetings. And welcome to House of R. Uh-huh. A Ringerverse podcast. That's right. On the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Mallory Rubin. Joining me today, she knows that nothing is certain. Where the mind meets the soul, it's Vanessa. Joanna Robinson! Am I your Vanessa? You are. You're the great love of my life, and I would be shattered and lost without you.
You would just crumple like an unbaked flan if I were not around? Exactly. And if you wanted pineapple juice, I would get it for you, whether or not it made your lips tingle.
Can I just say, pineapple juice is so good. Divine, apparently. Even if it made my lips tingle. You'd want it anyway. I'd want it anyway. If it makes Vanessa's throat close or her lips blow up the way that like a mango peel makes my lips explode, then maybe not. But a mere tingle. Sounds kind of nice. In change for pineapple juice? Who doesn't like a little tingle? Added bonus.
In case you can't tell.
Speaking of dangles. From the repeated mentions of Vanessa, we are here for a Daredevil Born Again season two mid-season check-in. We are going to hand out some awards, go through some superlatives because we're five episodes somehow into this season of television. The last couple of things have picked up. There's a lot to celebrate. She can fix him. Her boy Dex is really taking center stage.
Some flashbacks that we'll talk about after we get past our spoiler warning. We will explain it all right after this. This episode of House of R is presented to you by Target. Calling all trainers!
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before the collection evolves with a second drop on June 6th. Explore now at Target.com.
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Chapter 2: What are the key themes introduced in the mid-season check-in?
And then... Email us. Please. Hobbitsanddragons at gmail.com. The inbox is always open. It's always open.
Especially if you have some Benjamin Poindexter thoughts and feelings. Yeah, send us your banana milkshake thoughts. They're disgusting. Delicious. Revolting. And wonderful. Terrible. You want whip?
Doesn't everybody?
We'll see.
You got to make the whip cream by hand though. If you're a diner that is touting the quality of your milkshakes. Now I love whip cream out of a canister as much as anybody, but that was a bit of a shock. I didn't look at the canister.
Was it like a ready whip canister? Because sometimes at a diner they have like, yeah, yeah. Let's hope it's that. It's their original whip, but it's in like a thing that they keep We'll have to go back and check the tape. That would be acceptable for sure.
Okay, spoiler warning. Mid-season mark of Daredevil Born Again. So if it's happened in... Today we're going to focus in our awards on episodes 2, 3, 4, and 5. That's what's eligible for selection. I think, I suspect, we will be very heavy on episodes 4 and 5. Correct. Is the prediction. But anything from the season to date could, in theory, come up. Mm-hmm.
Anything from season one could, in theory, come up. If it happened in Netflix's Daredevil, it could, in theory, come up. If it's ever happened in Marvel, it could, in theory, come up. But we will be talking in some detail about episodes... Two through five. We are talking about Shoot the Moon, The Scales and the Sword, Gloves Off, and The Grand Design.
Only a few episodes left of season two of Born Again.
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Chapter 3: How are the characters and storylines evaluated?
It's been a minute. That's wild. Last but not least, we just wanted to mention, so Disney did a company-wide, pretty aggressive layoff. I think over 1,000 jobs they cut. And Marvel was hit pretty hard. Like a number of editors at Marvel Comics, since Marvel Comics are now under the auspices of Disney, so Marvel Comics got hit by this.
But Marvel Studios, they gutted the visual development department, the vis-dev department, which is really sad because it was a very unique element of the Marvel movie-making process, if you don't know what the visual development department was. It was this team of wonderful artists who would come up with the look and design and concept of the Marvel movies.
There have been a back and forth in the internet of like, are they being replaced by AI? I do not think it has anything to do with AI. I think it just has to do with... I mean, it might slightly impact it, but I think it has more to do with the fact that they're dramatically reducing the Marvel slate.
You know, Marvel is no longer printing money like they used to, though perhaps with Avengers Doomsday they will. Early reports are that it is quite good, et cetera, et cetera. So this is like a luxury of the Marvel Studios system was the visual development department where they had these artists who could come and like cook up ideas of
costumes in advance and mashups between characters in advance and stuff like that. And if you ever, you know, looked at a Marvel production book, like a making of a movie, they would just have these incredible pieces of artwork in there. So it's like a really sad moment for Marvel Studios. They're still having, they're going to have a skeleton crew in the VisDev department.
They're still going to use contractors, but they're not like no longer this sort of robust full-time artistic creative department inside of the studio, which is just like a... They've been there since... Some of those people have been there since Iron Man, and that's just like a real devastating development, I think, for the studio.
It's quite sad, and obviously the visual aspects of all films... I mean, film is a visual medium, but... Comic book movies and comic book storytelling, it's as inextricable of a strand of DNA as any of the other things that draw people to these manifestations and renderings bringing to life the characters, the relationships, the worlds that
We care about so deeply and are attached to so deeply and to simultaneously forge this connected, united experience across phases and sagas and time and inside of that introduce in tandem with what is this character's franchise or what genre are we playing and where are we in time? Where are we in the multiverse? Specificity to be able to achieve that balance.
That was one of the hallmarks of what made the Infinity Saga so undeniable. So for so many reasons, that was so centered in the Marvel machine. And for that to be diminished... is very upsetting and also obviously concerning in terms of the quality of what we'll be able to get.
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Chapter 4: What midseason awards are given and why?
I don't know. But like some of the various ideas that we've heard about Blade over the years all sound like we could get like a really cool, distinctively different looking films. Yeah, for sure. So there's an excitement in that.
You know, in talking about, like, Spider Noir or something like that or Spider-Verse, like, how creative and inventive can we get with the visual style of Marvel if we're not trying to make everything look quite as cohesive? There's opportunity there.
No question.
Yeah, absolutely. That's all I have to say about, you know, I just want to pour one out for the VisDev department because they were just, like, a very cool, unusual element inside of the movie-making machine, so... Yeah.
We'll see if we get more news out of CinemaCon. Maybe we'll talk about a Doomsday trailer in a couple days if we get one. I don't think we'll get to see it if they show it in Vegas. So we'll only get descriptions of it. Then they'll release it later on the internet. Though I don't know. If you've got a countdown clock running on your YouTube channel in perpetuity, you've got to put stuff up.
I feel like they're going to hit it for Comic-Con. I mean, that's in months. It's July. That's in months. I still think they blew it. They should have done one a week, you know? You give us four in a row, one a week. Why not?
One for every chair that they lined up in the cast.
They have enough characters in the movie to have done it. No question. Okay. Daredevil. What are your overall thoughts at the mid-season point? We last talked about this after the premiere. How have you found the season in the subsequent weeks?
So I thought, Episodes two and three were fine, but I thought four and five were really good. I don't think it's just because I really like Bullseye as a character. So shout out to our guy Arjuna who watched the screeners. We did not watch in advance, but Arjuna did when we got all the screeners from Marvel. And he was like, Joanna, it's really a Bullseye season.
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Chapter 5: What themes emerge about Matt Murdock's character development?
mean that they could just use the core of the character to explain why this was basically absent entirely from a full season of the show. But when Matt goes back then, he can say in a way that feels true, I have to tap back into this.
I have to rediscover this. Do you think with Dex, there's also, this is related to Matt, even though I just started with the name Dex. Do you think with Dex, there's this living reminder of this thing that he, this personal code that he broke in intending to kill him.
But do you think it's also inside of this concept of the grand design, do you think it's also like God saved him and in that way also saved me from having committed this murder? if I don't count all the other murders that I've definitely committed. All of them.
Some legions.
And like also the people who didn't die but are forever, forever imperiled by what Matt did to them.
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Chapter 6: How do the characters grapple with moral dilemmas?
But this one I definitely meant to do. And he didn't, and miraculously he didn't die. Yeah. And did God do that for me to save me from myself?
I mean, the thing that he says when he—so this is the prayer to St. Lucia right before the portion of it that we just heard in the clip. By the light of the faith that God bestowed upon you, increase and preserve this light in my soul so that I may avoid evil. So whether or not he is thinking of it exactly that way or he is saying, I know that I have this in me, right? Yeah.
But I also know that I have that capacity in me and like help me get back there. And that going into this building and sitting in those pews and seeking counsel or maybe outside on the bench, like the person he did that with before isn't here anymore. But the place that unlocks that introspection inside of him is.
Let's not dwell on who. Let's not spend too long thinking about who killed him. Could have been anyone. Could have been anyone. Did you see the tweet that it was someone, I forget if you sent it to me, so maybe you did, but it was like someone wrote, I can fix him over Dex. And then someone quote tweeted him and was like, no, I can fuck him. I can't fix him. I'm a sicko, not a therapist. No.
I have not seen that.
Was it from one of your burners? I'm not that brilliant. Yes, you are. I thought that was artwork. I dare you. Religion, core part of the Matt Murdock experience.
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Chapter 7: What are the key courtroom moments that stand out this season?
the court of law, also a core part of the Matt Murdock experience. Matt is not practicing law this season, but it is still, at some points, a legal drama. So our next category is best use of a courtroom setting. Anything in these stretch of episodes that actually worked for you in this respect?
I would say it's a dream of a future. Yes, tell me. And it's because... The actress playing Chief Justice Waters is Deidre Lovejoy, who played Rhonda on The Wire. And so I was like, I don't think you cast that actress for one scene, one episode. So it makes me hopeful that we are going to come back to the courtroom. And are we coming back to the courtroom this season?
Chapter 8: How do the hosts feel about the wigs and their significance in the show?
Because, you know, kingpins, like, keep them alive. You know, if you find... Daredevil and Bullseye, keep them alive. Now, my initial instinct was keep them alive so that I can personally, you know, nutcracker their heads. I think that was what it was. Put them in a cage, eat dinner in front of them, whatever the case may be, you know.
But, or is it like, is there some version of this where it's like, I can make a public embarrassment of them or something like that? So, like, is Dex going back to court? Is is Matt going back to court as, like, as the, you know, person on trial. So mostly it's just sort of, like, my hope for the future use of courtroom. Because, I mean... Having the swordsman in this season was great.
Explaining why Karen and Matt now have unlimited funds, also great.
Yes, that was helpful.
Very well done. Yes. Him in a tuxedo in the courtroom, very, very good. You know, all good stuff. But that... But, like, they didn't put him on the... You know, like, he didn't, like, get to do his thing in the courtroom. And so it's just sort of like... I'm like, I hope... I'm hopeful for more.
Yes.
Rather than what we've seen so far.
I did like when Kirsten said, don't be a dick, Hochberg, while approaching the bench. That was pretty funny. Yeah, I agree. I think I did want to say in this category that I liked, even though it was very brief, I was confused by the pace with which we moved through the swordsman trial, given how fully it had been propped up as these vigilante trials. Yeah.
This thing that was going to be like a kind of central bead of, and, you know, just obviously we get the rescue and the springing of the... Can I just say... Yes, please. We have... Quick use of the key card to open all the cells.
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