This has always been one of my favourite Daredevil episodes. Matt finds himself cornered by police in an abandoned warehouse with Vladimir, one of Fisk's lieutenants, who is mortally injured. It's a race against time for Matt to not only find out what Vladimir knows about Fisk before he dies, but to find an escape before the S.W.A.T. team charges in. Add in a rookie police officer who forces Matt's hand into taking him hostage and some impromptu 'surgery', and this episode becomes wall-to-wall conflict and tension.
That's all well and good, but none of it would mean much if it wasn't for the change that happens in the episode, specifically the change in the character of Vladimir.
Superhero stories present a very specific type of problem--the hero in question rarely changes much. They're usually 'good guys' at the start and 'good guys' by the end. Sometimes their first stories--their origin stories--feature their one big character change, like Peter Parker learning the responsibilities that come with his power in Spider-Man, but after that things get tricky.
Change is the source of catharsis is so many stories--so how do you achieve that on a smaller scale when your main character's goal and motivation isn't changing, like, say, in an episode of Daredevil? Well, you create change in the characters around the protagonist. Vladimir starts the episode wanting to kill Matt--and makes a few decent stabs at doing so throughout the episode--but by the end, Vladimir is holding a machine gun pointed at 'The Man In The Mask', but chooses instead to buy Matt time to escape with his own life. The magic of the episode is having such a massive change feel organic and natural.
Again and again, Matt has to convince Vladimir that not only is he (Matt) not responsible for Vladimir's brother's death (something Fisk pinned on him), but also that Fisk is behind the recent bombing of his headquarters, and that Vladimir can trust Matt to get revenge on Fisk for him. Watching Matt force this change through his own actions is what makes the episode hard to pull away from. It's a great example of how to write an emotional change arc in a larger story where avenues for change are limited.
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