Thoughts on Matt's 'This all feels fake' line from the last DDBA episode and why it was a genius move
I've had a night to think and process the episode last night, and the more I think about it, the more I think that line was the absolute best way to go.
Obviously, spoilers ahead.
Let's set aside 'is the show good or bad' for a moment since everyone's vibing with it differently (we know where I stand, I'm happy and having a grand old time, but that's not important). Let's instead think about where Scardapane and the new writers found themselves when they were hired on to do the rewrites and reshooting.
Imagine being a cook. A good one. And someone comes to you, with an absolute dumpster fire of a cake. 'Hey man, we got the potluck in a few hours. It's really important there's a cake since it's someone's birthday. If you fix this, I'll let you bake the next one.'
Except the cake is a mess. Parts of it are burned, the flavor's all wrong, it's unfinished, and you have no idea why it's shaped the way it is.
You don't have the time or all the ingredients needed to entirely make a new cake. Your only option is to save what you can and cut off what you can't, and then build from there.
That's essentially where they were, writing-wise. The OG writers had created an absolute mess, something that didn't feel like Matt at all, something that had no respect for all of the lore and character building that came before. And it's definitely not the Netflix vibe show that Feige had asked for (which was why that team was fired, shocker). But reshooting the entire season would have thrown off the larger schedule, it would have required contract changes, and it'd be expensive as hell. That meant they had to use at least some of the footage that had already been shot, and build onto it rather than sweeping it away. But what do you do when the new footage you want to shoot has a very different vibe than the old footage? Especially when those two energies are very, very different?
Answer: you acknowledge it.
There's a technique in writing known as lampshade hanging, when instead of ignoring something that's implausible or weird, you point it out instead and move on, while also sometimes using it to advance the narrative. It's one of my favorite tropes! I love to use it, and I love to see it used.
Even better? They made it feel weird, which is something multiple people have brought up as a theory, this idea that it's intentional, and I agree with them. Even some of the teaser trailers before DDBA came out even played off of that feeling, Matt's voice hoarse and dark as a monologue while beneath his voice you get an eerily soundtracked montage of him going through his new 'normal' life day after day after day in a way that makes it clear this new life doesn't fit, and it never will.
I've been fascinated by how they've played it over this first season, both the writers and Charlie himself, using these jarring tonal differences to leave you intentionally unsettled. Sometimes it's done with music, like that early scene where Matt's getting ready for his day, clearly repressing and disassociating his way through life, all while more upbeat music is playing, or the slight alteration to our OG Daredevil theme. Sometimes it's a subtle pattern, these little ticks and tells from Charlie's portrayal - Matt always wearing his glasses even in softer scenes because he doesn't feel safe with these new people around him that are supposedly his friends, hell, even in his own apartment when he's entirely alone because it's not a home like his last place was.
And then there are moments like last night, when Matt literally came out and said it: this all feels fake sometimes. It's not my home. This isn't my life.
We know he doesn't belong there. And they managed to change the original story so that Matt? Matt knows that, too. He's known the entire time.
It weaves a thread through all the original footage, the tonal differences, and Matt's behavior. It's a thread that not only amounts to the new writers saying to us, the audience, 'trust us, we know,' but it's also one that reinforces this idea that Matt is literally just fucking faking it in the hopes that it will keep him away from Daredevil, in the hopes that he can be the man he thinks Foggy would have wanted. He's trying so hard to live that perfect, happy, wonderful life while repressing all of his trauma and depression and it's left him in this bizarre otherworld that he doesn't recognize. He's not himself. It grates on him every day.
And it makes that creeping darkness, that gritty reality, that dirt on his hands and the blood on his lips and his visceral screams all the more thrilling when it edges in, because that? That is the real Matt, his true self, the Devil tearing its way out of the prison he's trapped it in just long enough to bare its teeth and snap and bite before he forces it back into its cell.
And god does it feel real compared to the moments where Matt is just pretending this is all fine, all bright, all good.
I fucking love that they went in that direction. It's the best thing they could have done when locked into reusing the old footage which was different in tone than the Netflix vibe they want to bring back. It was always going to be jarring mashing both of them together. So they ran with it.
Like I said, I'm already really happy with DDBA. Some eps nailed it for me better than others (Ep 6 is just an absolute blast), but even when it gets a little rough, there's this sense of Scardapane and the new writers giving us a wink going, 'yup, we know. Just hang in there until we're not bound by old footage and we can take you on a fucking ride.'
They want what we want. And they're going to take us there. That line solidified it for me. I'm so fucking pumped for Season 2 when the chains are off and they're free to come out swinging.
Anyway thanks for coming to my rambling ted talk.
