"Speak of the Devil" begins with one of the season's better fight sequences which will be quickly interrupted by flashbacks and later returned to near the end of the episode. Maneuvered into place by the Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio), Nobu (Peter Shinkoda) sets a trap for Daredevil (Charlie Cox) not realizing that Fisk plans on taking out both thorns in his side in one fell swoop. The episode is also notable for the only time Matt Murdock (unmasked, as himself) and Wilson Fisk share a conversation which will lead Matt to the dark realization that the would-be Kingpin of crime needs to die.
Most of the episode, in the prolonged flashbacks leading up to the fight, focuses on Matt Murdock's inner struggle on how to handle Fisk now that he's positioned himself as the city's new hero while painting Daredevil as the scourge of the city. Realizing neither a legal nor journalistic attack at this point can knock the Kingpin off his new throne, Daredevil struggles with the concept of murdering the man before he can do any more damage to the Hell's Kitchen while the unsuspecting city cheers him on.
Despite spending all the time and effort struggling with whether or not to kill Fisk the episode takes the decision out of Matt Murdock's hands as the Kingpin jumps in to finish the vigilante and after he defeats Nobu (by killing him in a murder, albeit in self-defense, that Matt shows no remorse for nor will show any guilt for over the season's remaining episodes). Given that the entire episode was about the choice of what kind of man Matt Murdock truly is the choice to take it completely out of his hands rings a bit hollow, whereas as any other choice would offer far more for the show to explore. Either a failed or successful attempt on Fisk's life would offer tons of new guilt (the show's favorite emotion) for the protagonist to deal with while an attempt that ended in Matt unable to go through with the killing would help define the hero by drawing the one line he will never cross.
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