The She-Hulk Episode 8 Moment That Called Back Daredevil's Most Epic Scene From The Series
The penultimate episode of "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" finally delivered the dose of Daredevil many Marvel Cinematic Universe fans have long been hungering for. Charlie Cox finally returns as the devil of Hell's Kitchen, who leaves the gritty streets of Manhattan behind to defend a new client on the sunny shores of California. It's the first opportunity fans get to spend some actual time with the character following his extremely brief cameo in "Spider-Man: No Way Home."
Cox slips easily back into the role of Matthew Murdock, lawyer by day and crime-buster by night. Though he features a new costume design with gold accents and seems to have loosened up a little, personality-wise, this is unmistakably the Daredevil fans fell in love with back when he first appeared in his own Netflix show, down to the theme song.
Netflix's "Daredevil" set itself apart from the get-go; it wasn't going to be like other superhero media where physical damage is immaterial, where our hero can fall from a roof or take a roundhouse kick to the jaw without breaking a sweat. Instead, "Daredevil" allowed its protagonist to take damage, making Matt feel more vulnerable and human. Another pleasant surprise resulting from that choice is that the fight scenes felt more intense. Sustaining injuries meant that Matt often struggled visibly toward the end of a fight, limping and straining to keep himself upright as he battled his foes.
Now, with his Disney+ debut, "She-Hulk" paid homage to the most memorable fight scene from Daredevil's Netflix series.
It's not Daredevil if there isn't a hallway fight
While "She-Hulk" Episode 8 doesn't address how much of the Netflix "Daredevil" series remains canonical within the MCU, it does pay homage to that show's signature hallway fight scenes. Though not nearly as brutal as the original scene it references wherein Daredevil fights his way through a hall of baddies in Season 1 of "Daredevil," it does make sense that an MCU show would stray far from that level of darkness and brutality. And besides, he's got She-Hulk as a backup.
Jen and Matt are forced to team up in order to stop a minor villain, Leapfrog (Brandon Stanley), who kidnaps their tailor, Luke Jacobson (Griffin Matthews). They track Leapfrog to his not-so-secret lair, where he has the seamster hostage. Jen wants to bust inside She-Hulk style, but Matt insists on stealth. He enters the building to find — what else? — a hallway full of goons (or maybe henchmen? Matt insists there's a difference). Daredevil easily picks off the first few men, but then backup arrives. However, before they can attack, She-Hulk busts in through the ceiling, crushing them. Speaking to Marvel, "She-Hulk" writer Jessica Gao said, "It was just natural for this show, being so meta, that we would acknowledge and tease the classic Daredevil hallway fight. But then, of course, we would have to undercut it with our girl, She-Hulk."
Unlike the hallway fights on Netflix's "Daredevil," Matt suffers no injuries during this fight. His power levels have been adjusted to match the MCU's tone. Regardless, "She-Hulk" has excelled at nodding to what has come before it over the course of MCU history, and the addition of a new hallway fight to Daredevil's repertoire is sure to thrill fans of the celebrated Netflix show.
The original hallway fight was a tour de force for Daredevil
The original hallway fight "She-Hulk" is referencing was a crucial aspect of the "Daredevil" Netflix series. As the first of the "Defenders" shows to land on Netflix, no one knew quite what to expect when its first season dropped in 2015. However, the series quickly won the praise of critics and fans, boasting a 99% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, One review from IndieWire noted, "All of [the fight scenes] stack up as some of the best-realized fight scenes I've seen in a television context."
The pièce de resistance among the fight scenes on "Daredevil" comes with the hallway battle in Episode 2, and it's a visceral thrill. With his super hearing, Daredevil hears a kidnapped child locked in a basement and decides to rescue him. We don't actually see Matt take out the first roomful of goons, as the camera pans across to an adjacent hallway. That door breaks open and Daredevil stumbles through, swarmed by thugs. The entire action scene is shot in one, continuous take, the camera's refusal to cut away heightening the brutality of the fight. By the time Matt takes out the last of the child traffickers, he can barely pick himself off the floor.
Explaining the fight scene to /Film, "Daredevil" actor Charlie Cox noted, "We dedicated our whole day to it. The first half of the day was just the camera movements. And then we got into, it was as you know it's one take, so we had to get everything right ... If one punch doesn't land, it no longer works. It ceases to work as a scene. So I think we did it 12 times. I think three of them we made it all the way through to the end. And one of them was the one in the show."