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wetalkinboutbooks · 5 years

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Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Summary: Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville—derailing the War Between the States and changing America forever. In this new nation, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Reeducation Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.

But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems. (Taken from Goodreads)

Our Ratings:

→ Geena: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

→ Kae: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: This is one of the first suggestions we got and HOO BOY IT WAS A GOOD ONE. The perfect mix of action, comedy, murder, and beating up racists.... exactly what we need in a book.

~Spoiler-full discussion below~

The Good:

→ Jane

Geena: I don’t think I’ve read a book where the protagonist just has so much raw power like… at the risk of sounding like I’m from 2012.. But like… my mind was totally blown. We meet Jane during a training exercise at Miss Preston’s zombie slaughtering school where we learn about all the nasty details that lead to the school’s creation. SO ESSENTIALLY, following the civil war (which ended prematurely bc u kno…. zombies) slavery is “abolished” and instead the whites decided it’d be better to set up schools to train black and native people to kill zombies for them 🙄 AND that’s where we meet Jane, in the middle of a training exercise. We also learn that she’s the daughter of one of the more wealthy white women in the area which was very scandalous given the u kno.. R a c i s m… and that even her mother’s status couldn’t keep her from being sent to the school. Jane also recounts moments from her childhood such as almost being killed when she was born… and she does it so nonchalantly that I fucking died dude.

Kae: Nobody: …..

Jane: Yeah my momma tried to drown me. She doesn’t think I remember but I do… ANYWAY.

Geena: LMAOOOOOOO YEA I FUCKING LOST IT LIKE DO YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN LIKE SHE IS SO RAW… BUT YEA, also Justina Ireland does this cool thing where she has excerpts from the letters Jane sends her mother which outline events that are VERY different from what actually happens in the chapter, and fuck I loved that sm. Jane is I think one of the girls that can read at the school and she’s got a liking for the science behind the biology of zombies but she gets in trouble cONSTANTLY because she’s too cool for Miss Preston’s school… ok jk no she gets into trouble because she always manages to piss off that one racist ass bitch, Miss Anderson. In the first few chapters we learn that Jane is smart, strong, and a total babe even though she doesn’t think so :(.

I loved how Jane was written to be slightly hot-headed but not like bullheaded, like she would get angry real quick but she’d know when to act on her urges to beat the shit out of people. And I guess this stems from her childhood like…. SHE MURDERS HER DAD IN COLD BLOOD BC HE TRIED TO CHOKE THE LIFE OUTTA HER and also to preserve her mom’s secret which was that she was a white-passing black woman. And bc her dad was a racist white man Jane knew that wouldn’t bode well for anyone…. She did all this when she was like eight so like…. WILD (It’s what he deserved tho) but yea ever since then Jane’s been playing the game like a pro. She’s a pro zombie slayer that doesn’t take shit from ANYONE even when it lands her in trouble, and she cares a lot for the people around her even though she might pretend that she’s only out to get back to her mom. AND I LOVE HER for everything she does, but FUCK SHE WENT THROUGH SO MUCH SHIT IN THIS BOOK THAT IT HURT TO READ. ALSO WE FIND OUT THAT SHE’S BI…. WE STAN A BISEXUAL BADASS

→ Katherine

Kae: Geena summed up, Jane very well! Jane is smart (and could read so her teachers were pissed), strong, and just an all around badass. I really love her. She deserves the world.

Well, moving on to Katherine. Katherine is another student at Miss. Prestons school and she and Jane don’t get along well. Kate, as Jane calls her, which Katherine HATES, because she likes to be called by her full name. She is white passing with very light skin and blue eyes. She has blonde, loose curly hair and is described as absolutely gorgeous. Jane is a little jealous of her and hates admitting it. But she’s like “She’s gorgeous, it is what it is… But she’s from Virgina so ugh.” Katherine is right up to par with Jane’s zombie slaying skills and is the top of her class. Katherine is dainty, bougie, and a total rule follower. She’s into fashion and trying to find a good job protecting white folks from zombies when she graduates Miss. Prestons. She thinks of Jane as a little unruly and wild. But she tries her damndest to be respectful to Jane, even if they can’t stand each other.

So, moving forward a bit. Kate is kind of nosey so she’s always catching Jane doing some shit she isn’t supposed to be doing… like having books smuggled to her by a boy named Red Jack. She also overhears Jane and Jack discussing how his sister went missing and he needs help to find her. So, she self invites and tags along later that night. In the mean time, Jane and Kate have a lecture they need to attend to. When they get there, they realize that there is going to be a demonstration of proof that a “Shambler Cure” actually works. Shamblers are zombies. So this professor has a cage of three zombies and has some poor, black man risk himself and get bit. He has supposedly already been injected with the cure. Jane was like “this shit fake… He boutta die.” And Jane tries to interrupt, but she is quickly hushed. The antidote or cure or whatever DOESN’T work and the dude turns into a zombie. Jane shoots him down, then the other zombies get loose and now everyone is in a panic. Jane and Katherine take them down and save the day. A few weeks later, that are invited to the mayors house to “protect” it. (They really were only asked just so they could show up and be seen…) Someone turns into a Shambler, Jane takes them down, then that’s settled. So now they’ve saved the day TWICE.

Red Jack has somehow SNUCK IN to the damn mayors house, so him and Jane do some snooping. They get caught. Then by default, Katherine gets in trouble. Well, Katherine gets in trouble because she is too pretty and none of the white women want her around because they think their husbands or whoever will start to be like👀 and the women get jealous. Katherine was out of a job before it even started because she’s just too damn gorgeous. So Kate, Jane, and Red Jack get sent off to the WILD WILD WEST BAYBEEE. But it actually sucks. Let’s talk about Red Jack before we get into that though.

Geena: NGL KATE’S THE TYPE OF GIRL I WOULD’VE ABSOLUTELY HATED TOO IF I WAS JANE BUT!!!!! I love how we get to see the friendship develop between the two as they both learn about each other’s past and that maybe they CAN be friends. Also, Kate is ace and wants to travel the world which I RESPECT… but oh yea I was gonna say Jane and Kate are the true enemies to best friends trope. ALSO HER BACKSTORY IS SAD BRUH LIKE everyone looking down on her bc she’s from virginia smh……… okay but seriously the fact that Kate was constantly trying so hard to compensate for the fact that she came from a brothel that she became Miss Perfect (OR AT LEAST that’s what we learn from Jane’s perspective and as @zemenipearls pointed out Jane isn’t a reliable narrator so Kate’s backstory is kinda shady at this point but that’s what we think it is)

→ Red Jack

Kae: Let’s talk about Red Jack! Jackson Keats, aka Red Jack is Jane's ex boyfriend. He got the name “Red Jack” because he’s a redbone. He’s described with light brown skin and blue eyes. He also has a gold tooth and short curly hair with hints of auburn. He’s smart and can scheme his ass off and is known for taking big risks. He also smuggles Jane books when she ask and send letters out to her mother for her. It’s also noted that he cannot read. He deals in dirty business, mostly scamming people out of money. But the kid has to make a living! I like him. Jack has a little sister named Lilly who is white passing. So he sent her with a nice white family who would let her blend in with them so she could avoid being sent off to a school like Miss. Prestons. Jack and Jane, despite them being exes, are decent friends I think. Jane hates to admit it, but she still likes Jack (even though he gets on her nerves).

At a certain point, Jack’s little sister, along with the family she is staying with, completely disappear. Their house in still in tact, but they aren’t there. He’s worried because his sister would’ve sent word if she knew they were leaving. But he hadn’t heard a thing from her, and went to Jane. So Jane, Jack, and Kate end up at the Spencers’ house to look for clues. They can’t find anything, but they DO overhear Miss. Anderson and two other men say that they needed to clean the house out and remove all of their belongings.

Later, when we get to the mayor’s dinner party that was previously mentioned, Jack and Jane run into each other and go snooping around the governor's office. There, Miss. Anderson is waiting for them and they are CAUGHT. She drags them to the Mayor’s basement where he is ready to send them off to a town called, Summerland, that is way out west. It’s a town where he is trying to uphold white supremecy and slavery.There, he will make sure that anyone who is black, is treated as if they are still slaves. A man named Mr. Redfern, a Native man, escorts them out West. They are given dulled down weapons to protect the town from Shamblers, and well, this is just no good. When Jack and the crew arrive in Summerland, he punches the shit out of Redfern and tries to make a run for it. He is then tackled, jailed, and that’s the last we see of him… for a while.

Geena: holy shit Kae litcherally outlined everything about Red Jack PERFECTLY. He’s how you would say a rascal… a cute rascal (Jane would agree).

Kae: Lmao Jane’s got taste. I gotta give her that. BAD BOYZ are my thing lowkey

Geena: oKAY but SEE RED JACK IS A BAD BOI WITH A GOOD HEART. I mean yeh he and Jane had a “messy breakup” but they were still friends and he smuggled out letters for her mom and brought her books, and she helped him around with his ~business~ however shady it was. But I also liked how he was an idiot, I mean in the sense that UNLIKE JANE who knows how to control her anger and use it in the future, Jack just pops off like how Kae mentioned him decking Mr. Redfern. Jane thought about it but also thought ahead and realized she wouldn’t get far doing that. Red Jack tho… Boy thought he could outrun like 3 grown men 😭 AND WHEN THE READER AND JANE WERE LED TO BELIEVE THAT HE’D DIED?? BRO??? I WAS LIKE…. HOW U GONNA MAKE THIS CHARACTER A CHARMING LIL SHIT AND THEN KILL HIM ALMOST RIGHT AWAY…. BUT then when he came back I WAS THROWN.

Time to project BUT I love characters like Red Jack you know they’re shady and like to play everything off as a joke but when they get serious… they get serious. And I wonder what role he’s going to play in the second book, because all he cares about in his life is his family aka Lily right… Would he accompany Kate and Jane to save her momma when it would mean leaving Lily with people he probably can’t fully trust? Also, how did Jane and Red Jack even meet? I think it’d be cool to see where he came from, and what happened to the rest of his family and that’s another reason why I can’t wait till book 2!

The Bad:

→ Miss. Preston and Miss Anderson

Geena: Man, we don’t even meet Miss Preston that long in the book like she has a few scenes here and there but god she is the fucking worst! Who runs a school and houses young black women and gives them a refined education with training with specialized weapons.. Only to ship them to a town where slavery is making a comeback?? And pretending like you care about them?? Disgusting… We all assume that Miss Preston is innocent and is busy running her school until the dinner that Kae has mentioned above where we find out that she’s in cahoots with the Mayor and has been supplying him girls from her school for as long as he has needed them… how “white allies” be sometimes… I really hope… from the bottom of my heart that she was devoured by a shambler bc it’s the only fate that she deserves you know… And then we have the hoe ass Miss Anderson who didn’t even try to hide her contempt of Jane and doted on Katherine → This we realize later into the book is solely because of how white-passing Katherine was and because Miss Anderson is a big ol’ racist who uses slurs like it’s nobody's business.

Now, I realize that Ireland was trying to outline the different types of racists you come across in life. There’s those that pretend to be your friend and support you up front but behind your back they won’t hesitate to fuck you over (aka Miss Preston), like Miss Preston does help out Jane initially when she’s unfairly tested by Miss Anderson, but Preston also is the one to support sending Jane to Summerland so like….. and also we have your standard brand of racist aka Miss Anderson that doesn’t even try to hide how antiblack and dehumanizing she is because she straight up doesn’t care and knows that Jane or anybody else can do shit about it.

→ Mr. Redfern

Kae: Okay, so now we’ve got Mr. Redfern. Mr. Redfern is a tall, handsome, Native American man who is always scowling at Jane. He doesn’t like her and she isn’t sure why… That is, until our girl asks him. He thinks she is wasting her talents when she sneaks out and kills shamblers in the night.

Geena: OKAY WAIT WAIT WAIT THIS BRINGS UP THE QUESTION.. HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN SPYING ON HER

Kae: OHHHH SHIT YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHAT THE FUCK. YOOO. HE HAD TO HAVE BEEN WATCHING HER FOR MONTHS.

Geena: I FEEL LIKE…. THERE’S SOMETHING WE’RE MISSING BUT IDK WHAT

Kae: THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR BEING A SPEED READER. I BE MISSIN’ SHIT. Whew. Okay, so as you can see, we’ve just come to a sudden realization! Mr. Redfern is a sneaky son of a gun.

But uhh, he mentions that he was taken from his tribe and sent off to one of the “Indian Shambler Schools” where he was given a new identity, etc. This is also basically what happened to Native Children back in those days, in order to erase their heritage and their entire selves. This was how they forced people to assimilate. They were sent to Indian Industrial Schools.

Mr. Redfern is in cahoots with the Mayor (by force) and is the one to basically help kidnap Jackson, Jane, and Katherine. He stuffs them on a train for a week and at the end of their trip, they are out west. We don’t see him again after this. But later, we find out that he made Jackson a deal and sent him to a town not too far from Summerland to do “business”. Thus, when Jack returns to Summerland to steal ammunition for said town, he runs into Jane and Katherine and tells them Red Jack helped him out.

ALTHOUGHHHH, REDFERN HELPED JACKSON, I DON’T LIKE HIM. HE WAS UNNECESSARILY MEAN TO JANE AND KIDNAPPED THE CREW AND THAT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Geena: Yess Mr. Redfern, the man we thought would be an ally but turned out to be the opposite. Once again this mimics history I suppose because there were instances of indigenous people aiding the whites when it came to slavery and I suppose Ireland was trying to write that but she also makes it writes that while he is helping them he doesn’t seem too proud of it. But the matter of the fact is, he’s still helping enforce the white man’s rules. Though I do hope with the turn of the second book Mr. Redfern leaves that shit behind and decides to fully switch sides, aka let the whites to their own dirty work and help the people with a real cause.

ALSO, I keep talking about the second book but I really hope we meet more indigenous characters that aren’t Mr. Redfern you know, but those that aren’t under the thumb of a white person :( ALTHOUGH, I love how Ireland has the excerpt at the end where it mentions the residential schools in-depth and she encourages readers to research more of it which leads me to believe that we’ll be hearing more of them coming the next book as well.

Kae: Just one more small part. I was like, completely convinced that those looks Redfern were shooting at Jane was because he thought she was cute. That is until Jane was like “alright, he CLEARLY doesn’t like me” and I was like oh… I totally misread those signals and I’m an idiot. BUT WHATEVER IT’s FINE. I do, however, think he will turn around. I don’t think he’s like, inherently bad. He’s just forced to do bad shit. Everyone is trying to survive in this world and I’m NOT giving him an excuse, but like, I get it. Ya feel me?

Geena: oKAY BUT KAE I TOO THOUGHT HE WAS INTO HER SO THAT MAKES US BOTH BOOBOO THE FOOL. AND YEA, it comes down to survival in a world where you’re not even considered human BUT that doesn’t excuse any actions.

Kae: .jpg “we irritating” meme

Geena: Is it even our review if we don’t have at least one (1) meme reference

The Ugly:

→ Every single white person (minus Mr. Gideon)

Geena: So I really enjoyed this book but Justina Ireland didn’t pull any punches when it came down to the true and dark details of the time period she was writing. She captures the essence of white folks, even during an apocalypse they find the time to push their white supremacy and tread on the backs of the black and indigenous people. I was grinding my teeth for a majority of the book, the way people would talk down to all the black characters and simply refer to them as though they weren’t human.

Mayor Carr, the Sheriff, and the Priest are the faces of white supremacy that think it’s in their destiny to put down bipoc and use them as slaves (though they won’t call it that) and fuck dude… Mayor Carr is like Miss Preston, pretends to be an ally and is using the people he pretends to support as fodder for his white supremacist wasteland. Even Jane mentions that he’s no better than other white men but people pretend he’s the best politician they have.

The Sheriff doesn’t even disguise his racism, he’s your typical ‘slavery wasn’t that bad’ assfuck and the way he treats Katherine bc he has an ugly crush on her thinking she’s white is disgusting bc you know if he knew that she’s simply white-passing he’d probably murder her in cold blood… and when he finds out, the exact thing Jane was afraid would happen to her mother almost happens to Katherine (she almost dies at the hand of the Sheriff’s fugly ass)....and fuck Katherine handled it so well even though she was very much uncomfortable the whole time. And the way Jane murdered him?? With no remorse… I fucking loved that, IDK if Justina Ireland was trying to go for a Jane is unhinged vibe (bc that’s how Katherine reacted to it) but I was like fuck yea girl shoot him a few times more for good measure.

The Priest is the biggest shit of them all like I cannot even begin to…… Every time I think of his wrinkly ass my blood pressure rises three levels because holy fuck. He preaches that he’s a holy man and that he’s only carrying out the orders of God and so on, and it’s DIGOSTENG the way he uses the bible as a weapon to put down the black and indigenous folk around Summerland. He blames them for how they look and says it’s their duty to “serve their white superiors” as redemption so that they may get a place in heaven 🙄🙄🙄🙄 This reminds me of what Kae had mentioned before about the story of Nate Turner who knew how to read so the plantation owners would make him read a fucked-up version of the bible to the others and like….. White people really took a faith founded by a brown man and turned it into a weapon for their white supremacy it’s disgusting. But what was really sad was that there are still people to this day like the Priest that have pretty hefty roles in churches and so on… spewing their racist rhetoric and god I can’t even fucking deal, every time he and Jane interacted I just wanted her to snap his neck in half and call it a day…. Like what was his old ass gonna do? Fart?

Kae: Sweet! So Geena pretty much covered everything. The Sheriff is a whole ass bitch and he has a bunch of lackeys doing his dirty work while he parades around Summerland and berates anyone who is of colour. Basically, he has black people shipped out to the West so they can sacrifice themselves to defend Summerlands inhabitants with faulty weaponry and experiments. When Jane brings up that she needs better weapons so she can do her job, she’s slapped for it and told to deal with it. The black people and everyone else who is considered of low status, are treated horribly. They’re all shoved in a hot attic with thin, dirty blankets to sleep on the floor. They are locked in their rooms at night and forbidden to leave until it is time for them to work again. They all also barely have enough to eat, so essentially, they are starving. Jane and her new companions are overworked, underfed, and are only able to bathe once a week. It’s truly barbaric. The Sheriff wants to make sure they know they are “below” white people and were only created to serve them. It’s disgusting and I wanted to kill the man myself. It was infuriating reading how horrible they were treated and all of the slurs they were called. Slurs I forgot even existed.

The Sheriff catches Jane one night after she had snuck out, and beats her in front of the whole town. He ties her to a pole, strips her shirt off, and whips her. I actually had to skip that part because I couldn’t bare to read it. It was too much and I just couldn’t do it. I’ve seen enough of it. Jane, even though she is inches away from death, is saved by Katherine speaking out against it. Since the Sheriff has a crush on her, he stops, and allows Jane to join her in the safe part of Summerland to be her servant. I usually don’t like reading books about my people being so poorly treated, but Jane shot his ass point blank when she had the opportunity and I reveled in that. I love to see us fight back!

As for the Priest, he is the Sheriff’s father so he helps influence the bullshit that goes on in town. It is also heavily implied that underestimating the Priest is not the best decision. He apparently beat someone to death so that’s fuckin wild, considering how much of an old racist fuck he is. ANYWAY, he gives sermons every night on how “the Negro” was meant to serve and how they are to “stay in their place” and I cringed through the whole thing. It was horrible. Almost no one in the town likes the Sheriff or the Priest. The whore’s, the “slaves”, and Mr. Gideon (the Mayor's son), were all forced to be in Summerland and they hate it and the two bastards in charge. This drives them to conduct a plan to kill them both so they can escape. The plan was to have Katherine pretend to be white, have the Sherif fall in love with her, then Jane takes him out of the picture. But things didn’t go as planned so it took a few extra steps of danger BUT they made it and scarcely avoided a big zombie horde, and made it out.

Geena: OH YEA MR. GIDEON….. He’s supposed to be this scientist guy with a limp which we find out he does on purpose, and he KNOWS that Katherine is white-passing but he doesn’t say shit bc unlike the rest of the white men there he isn’t racist and he’s trying to figure out a way out of the town… Also, this man-made an electricity grid run off of zombies and that was so fucking funny to me for no reason other than it reminded me of a scene from a sitcom when Jane walked in on the contraption. ALSO, JANE MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE A THING FOR MR. GIDEON AND IT MAY OR MAY NOT BE RECIPROCATED? LIKE It’s funny reading Jane’s attraction to him like “he’s nerdy lookin… but in a cute way” but am I here for it?? Undecided...

Conclusion

Kae: So in conclusion, this book was really good. I enjoyed reading this AU of a zombfied civil war. It was interesting to see how things played out. I thought the world-building was pretty cool and I like how the South was called “The lost states” because they’d been lost to zombies. They also LOST THE WAR LMAOOO BITCHASSES. Anywaaaaay, I think Jane is such a strong, beautifully written character. She’s hotheaded, but she isn’t impulsive. She’s brave and she knows when to strike. She is smart, cunning, and a joy to be around. If she were real, I’d absolutely be her friend. She’s my kind of person. She keeps it real and I like that. Katherine is kind of complex and I can’t wait to find out more about her. She hides behind this proper, boujie demeanor, but I think a lot of it is a facade. I like how though Katherine is white-passing, she NEVER forgets or dismisses that she is black. She knows who she is and she hated pretending to be white. As for Jackson! He's impulsive, suave motherfucker and I hope we see more of him too! I think he’s going to have a bigger role to play in the next book and I’m ready to see what it’ll be. I can’t wait to find out what is in store for these characters because they are all beautifully written and their friendships are puuuure baybeeee.

Geena: GIRL YOU SUMMED UP ALL THE CHARACTERS REALLY WELL!!! You got everything that I loved about Jane, she’d be my idol irl… and Katherine is a really complex character and I’m excited to see how her story unfolds in the next book. SPEAKING OF WHICH…. THE COVER FOR THAT DROPPED AND O MY GOD…….. KATE AND JANE LOOK LIKE ABSOLUTE BABES and I cAN’T WAIT TO SEE THEM FUCK SHIT UP!

#Dread Nation #Justina Ireland #book review #booklr #dread nation review #wetalkinboutbooks #bookish #bookblr #book blogger #book blogging #books #reading

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screechthemighty · 7 years

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justice in “rabbit in a snowstorm”

Told you this would be delayed. There will probably be a lot of assorted thoughts for this one, but fortunately I do have a central thought about how the case Matt works this episode ends up revealing a lot of his world view. Check out the ground rules if you haven’t already and let’s begin!

The Healey case starts with Matt, once again, jumping to the worst possible conclusion: that Wesley is up to something. Granted, Wesley is a snake in an Armani suit, but up until he calls out their hiring of Karen, he’s polite and calm. There’s nothing to suspect that he’s anything sketchy if you’re not Matt or an audience member. It could be that Matt automatically distrusts corporations—possibly a holdover from his days working at L&Z—and there is more canon proof to suggest that he’s inherently a bit distrustful of people with money (see 2.05 and the underlying thematic element of Elektra leading to Matt’s distaste for fancy things). But he seems to jump beyond even just “this guy is a skuzzy corporate dude” in his determination to figure out what Wesley’s game is. This could just be me reading into it because I know that there’s more to it than that; if that is the case, then that means it’s enough for Matt that Wesley is a skuzzy corporate dude doing something potentially even a little bit shady. For Matt, no crime is too big or too small. He’s going to stop it, no matter what. (This is also interesting in light of him asking Father Lantom if the fact that he can’t do anything about any crimes confessed to him “seems fair.” Matt is incapable of inaction if he knows something is wrong, and this is just another example of that urge in action.)

The next really noticeable detail about the case is the way Matt completely steamrollers over Foggy while trying to achieve his goals. This is something Matt does a lot with a lot of people, and I think there are two reasons for it. First, Matt is the kind of guy who gets hyperfocused on the desired outcome, to the point where he blinds himself to other obligations, other people’s input, and so on. It’s not a malice thing; he just doesn’t know how not to focus hardcore. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it until it’s pointed out to him. (Side note, but his lack of subtlety when he does it is hysterical to me. Like, Matt, you’re supposed to be asking this guy about the murder, not about Wesley. You’re just cluing them in to the fact that you know something is up.)

Second, I think that Matt has an instinctive need to push his wants and opinions as hard as he can—again, not out of malice, but due to the influence of one PARTICULAR PERSON that we’ll get to in a few episodes. The tl;dr of it is that Matt has, in the past, had his thoughts and worldview steamrollerd over so repeatedly and viciously that I think it trained him to be just as aggressive back, least he be washed away by outside forces. And again, I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it. His sense of conflict resolution has been that fucked.

Matt talks a lot about the confines of the law in this episode. The first time it comes up is when he’s talking to Healey, and talks about how they’ll work out the case “honestly and morally and within the confines of the law.” This time it comes up, you could read it as him justifying what he’s doing to himself. Healey is their best inroad to figuring out what’s up with Wesley, so he has to play ball if he wants answers. But even though he’s mostly chill about it, this is the guy who said he only wants to represent the innocent. Representing someone that is so obviously guilty is killing him inside. Saying this is probably his way of justifying what he’s doing to himself—of telling himself that he’s worth it. The fact that he’s so visibly frustrated when Healey says he wants the trial as soon as possible could tie into that. Doing it Healey’s way makes being “honest” and “moral” a lot harder, so the justification starts wearing thin. It also gives Matt less time to investigate, which is insult to injury in something like this.

There’s a lot going on in his closing arguments. Besides it just being a good speech (honestly, I could listen to him give closing arguments for a whole episode, like, I wouldn’t even care), he reveals a thing or two about his headspace. First, there’s the mention of morality being what ties us to humanity. Given that he’s definitely not lying when he says he’s been dwelling on questions of morality lately (between him sitting outside church and him having to face Claire’s “I don’t think you enjoy this” moment), I think this is one of the moments he’s been dwelling on: the place rules have in society, and what happens when you stop following them. What he might become if he keeps going down this path. That’s really an overarching plot of this season: how far do you go? When does it stop being justifiable? Sorry to say, Matt, but you’re going to be questioning this a lot.

There’s also the fact that he stresses that facts are the only thing that matter in the courtroom, not morality. Is this what he told himself to justify taking the case? That because he wasn’t arguing against the known facts, he was sticking to the sanctity of the law and therefore not doing anything wrong? Or is this something he’s known for a long time? I could easily see this realization as being part of the reason why he put the mask on. It certainly meshes with the flashbacks to his time as a legal intern and the lead up to his first act as Daredevil.

On a final, unrelated to the trial note, I think this is the episode where Matt starts to exhibit signs of The Sadness Beard. It’s a thing in the first season (not so much the second, which is a bummer) where Matt’s beard waxes and wanes in thickness depending on the current events and his mood. It can be hard to spot, since Matt almost always sports a five o’clock shadow (on a production level, probably so they can clean shave him for the flashback scenes), but it’s there. I think this is the episode where it starts appearing, and it’d make sense. The signs of his self-doubt start poking up here, in small but important ways (see the assorted thoughts section). It’s also possible that he’s been too tired to shave since he fairly recently fractured a few ribs and then went on to fight 7-8 Russians. I’ll be tracking his beard growth as I watch (which is a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever type).

Assorted Thoughts:

It’s interesting that Matt sits outside of Church but never goes in, and becomes skittish when confronted about why he’s hear. I think he’s starting to want help—especially since he was faced with the question of whether or not he enjoys hurting people—but also that Matt is the sort of person who needs to ask for help on his own terms. He can’t really be nudged or coaxed into it. This relates back to the thing I talked about RE: Matt kind of steamrolling back Foggy in his quest for Justice, and again, we’ll get to that when we get to Stick.

“I wasn’t paying attention, it’s my fault.” While Matt is definitely deflecting the truth as to how he got a black eye, this only feels like a half-lie. I wonder if he does this a lot—not actually specify what happened, but say that he was “careless”, which he probably thinks he was to end up that beat up.

Just World On Fire Things: Matt’s little head twitches during the meeting with Wesley. I think this is him trying to adjust his reading on Wesley, and I love it. Also, the detail with Wesley’s watch breaks my heart because it’s reductionist in a big way. Matt wouldn’t just know it’s Wesley by the sound of his watch—he’d know by his cologne, his shampoo, the fabric of his suit, a thousand details that the viewer can’t experience. Without narration, we can’t even really know that’s how Matt perceives the world. I know that the show writers can only do so much when they’re presenting the perspective of a blind man to a sighted audience, but it bugs me because it leads to the idea that Matt can “basically see”—AKA the worst criticism of Daredevil ever and I’ll fight anyone who says it in my presence. Matt Murdock is Fucking Blind 2kForever.

More World on Fire things: the moment when Matt hears the one juror’s racing heartbeat. I find that bit interesting because it raises the question of whether Matt’s senses are so fine-tuned that he can pick up the one racing heartbeat in the room without having to hear it, or whether he was already checking out their heartbeats before he noticed. I’m inclined to think the latter, mostly because it makes sense for Matt and the way he perceives the world. Think about it: if Matt could see, he’d probably be glancing their way to check the mood of the jury after Foggy’s opening statement. He can’t check their faces, but he can check their heartbeats. It’s how he tells what’s going on with anything. This is a bit of a call forward, but I feel like Foggy criticizing Matt for listening to heartbeats because it’s invasive is a unfair, because it’s the only way Matt knows what people are feeling or if they’re screwing him over. In his line of work, he has to know these things. (Zero judgment towards Foggy for reacting that way, there was a lot going on, but we’ll get to that when we get to Nelson v. Murdock.)

Matt’s comment about the check Wesley gives them is interesting to me. He states that maybe Foggy would care about how sketch the situation feels if he couldn’t see the zeroes on the check, and I have to ask how much of Matt’s perception of the world differs from yours or mine because he can’t see. He doesn’t have the visual cues that a lot of us use and judge people on. Granted, Matt has other cues that he uses and judges people on, but do they lead him to draw different conclusions than the rest of us about a person? Or the same conclusion, but for different reasons?

Also, Matt really DOES lead with his face. There is not a point in the conversation with Wesley that he looks anything but distrustful. It’s interesting that he can cover up a lot of things with charm, but not his negative emotions.

The saga of Matt’s sunglasses continues in this episode: he has them off as he and Foggy research, but puts them on the second Karen comes to the door and doesn’t take them off again after that. Karen is still a new person in Matt’s life, for whatever tenuous connections they have aren’t enough for him to feel glasses-less around her. Foggy, meanwhile, has known Matt for a long time; he knows Foggy isn’t uncomfortable with his lack of sunglasses or anything like that. He’s comfortable around Foggy.

On a finale note, there’s Matt’s reaction to the guy stabbing himself in the face. On the one hand, it’s a totally justifiable reaction to a guy stabbing himself in the face with a spike. On the other hand, the way he freezes up brings to mind other moments in the show. It’s Matt’s reaction to any unexpected event. When something happens that he doesn’t see coming, he flounders and freezes, regardless of context. Again, in this case it’s how pretty much anyone would react, but it does also fit a wider pattern. I’ll look for more of this as time goes on.

#daredevil #matt murdock #screech cries about matt murdock

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