Review of Daredevil Born Again episode “Straight to Hell”

Review of Daredevil Born Again episode 9, “Straight to Hell.”  

Chapters

• 0:00 Episode Introduction and Setup
• 8:50 Reactions to the Season Finale
• 18:30 Flashbacks and Fisk's Betrayal
• 28:50 The Blackout and Martial Law
• 39:10 The Safer Streets Initiative
• 50:30 Murdock, Punisher, and Home Defense
• 1:01:25 Red Hook and Freeport Legal Analysis
• 1:08:20 Final Confrontation and Season Wrap-up

Transcript

Joshua Gilliland: 0:05

hello everyone. My name is joshua gilliland, one of the co-founding attorneys of the legal geeks. We are here to finish off daredevil born again, which had nine episodes not eight, to my surprise and we're going uh, we had a little break because of going to Star Wars Celebration in Tokyo. We'll have a special episode on our adventures there, but for now, let's finish off Daredevil. With me for this adventure is Gabby Martin and retired judge Matthew Sherino. Gabby, how are you this evening?

Gabby Martin: 0:39

Doing good, doing good. I didn't know if I was the biggest fan of the season finale. I liked the overall season but I did have some gripes with how they ended it. But I'm curious what your guys thoughts are.

Joshua Gilliland: 0:54

I have feelings to your honor, your thoughts.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 0:58

Yeah, I was hoping for a bit of a stronger conclusion for this the season was good and I see it for what it was. Is is kind of a stronger conclusion for this the season was good and I see it for what it was, is kind of a setup for the next season, which is only good if there is one, and so as long as there is a next season, I will accept this one as doing a pretty good job of setting it up and bringing it to Disney and kind of setting the tone for the show from where it left. Netflix.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:30

I thought it was an excellent season. I also had some issues with the ending. I don't mind cliffhangers. I'm completely fine with a cliffhanger ending, because that's life. Life doesn't always have a nice, fun resolution. After an adventure, you can go well, now we have a new fight. That part doesn't always have a nice, fun resolution. After an adventure, you can go well, now we have a new fight. That part doesn't bother me. What bothered me was the punisher. Smarter than to walk in a trap. He would have had anti-think weapons. He would have leveled the building and killed all of them, and that would have been it. He would not walk in with an ax and a handgun to fight people with extreme prejudice. He would have been a brutal slaughter from short of a drone strike.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 2:15

So he was always a very good planner and and, and you know, executioner of those plans and that was very simplistic for Frank Castle.

Joshua Gilliland: 2:26

Yeah, he, I'm just going to walk in. It's like, what are you trying to discover, dude? Like you know, that's those are the bad guys. Like what's with that?

Gabby Martin: 2:38

Yeah, and there didn't even seem to be, like I was waiting for that kind of as we talked about, that kind of big almost comeuppance moment right where he kind of got to confront these quote unquote fanboys head on Right. And I think for me, you know, jon Bernthal is such a phenomenal actor and can deliver lines really incredibly, like the his first entrance I think it's episode three, right in the season that you know he has the confrontation with Matt and that was really strong and I was hoping for an equally strong kind of confrontation with these police officers and it just, I think the intercutting with Kingpin doesn't allow it, give it its moment to shine and it's really kind of truncated and I didn't really understand the reference to Captain America as the kind of like person they should be idling, but it was just odd and it didn't give it that kind of weight that I think it was setting up to have.

Joshua Gilliland: 3:47

Yeah, it's, it was a little lackluster because he would have killed all of them and you have to work really hard for me to root for the Punisher and they succeeded. So so that was something, but it was just. He's smarter than this. Now. I remember reading, you know, punish award journal when I was young and where everything was a calculated attack and they just dropped the ball on that. So that was the part that really took me out of it. Uh, because he's smarter than this, like matt realizing that we're gonna have to step back and come up with a new plan. Fine, but I have a hunch that if New York went dark and there was rioting and problems, new York State would not ignore that situation, nor the federal government. We have seen what happens when New York is under attack.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 4:47

I've done two blackouts in New York, oh wow. So I'm well experienced with New York in the dark.

Joshua Gilliland: 4:57

Yeah, the rest of us noticed Help was there. The governor wouldn't be like.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 5:04

One did not go very well and they learned their lessons. And then the second one was handled a lot differently, uh, but, but there was a lot of rioting, um, during the uh, the late 70s, with the, the blackout, the, the year the yankees won the uh world series, so 78, I guess, uh, the summer of, and it was the summer of Son of Sam. It was a several-day blackout and there was a lot of damage done to certain parts of New York City. There was a change in leadership for the second blackout and it was handled a lot more closer to martial law and it was less rioting or the rioting ended much sooner yeah, uh, I'm sorry you went through two of those.

Joshua Gilliland: 5:56

Uh, yeah, I I don't remember. Remember in the 1989 earthquake, any writing that took place in the bay area. Now that was right at the beginning of the 89 world series and with the a's versus the giants, it was our battle of the bay. Uh, so again, a lot of people were getting ready to watch the ball game. There was chaos from, you know, bridge collapses and and other horrible things that took place, but I don't remember any rioting compared to say, you know, hurricane, katrina, you know like, again, natural disaster, blackout and things get ugly. But how people handle that, I mean I look at history from the 1906 earthquake and martial law was declared and San Francisco in 1906 did not mess around Anywho. On to the rest of the episode with those historical real life comparisons. So we start with this one year flashback with bullseye in prison and vanessa visiting him and there's a reference to dare does daredevil.

Joshua Gilliland: 7:13

Season three with the fbi agent ray nadim. For those who don't recall, nadim was blackmailed by Wilson Fisk. Nadine had testified before a grand jury about the Kingpin blackmailing of FBI agents into protecting the crime lord because Kingpin was staying at a hotel for his incarceration. The grand jury is also compromised. Nadine returned home, waited to be executed by Fisks and his operatives and before being shot by Bullseye, nadine recorded a confession and said it was his dying declaration. And I will highlight that's not how dying declarations work. Dying declaration is you've been shot, you had a major medical incident, you have impending death and you say aliens are real.

Joshua Gilliland: 8:13

I worked on ufos at area 51 and then the person expires because they're bleeding out. It's that kind of thing, not. I have my iphone and I'm recording what could be a TikTok video, hoping that gets into evidence. Sure, it might be a party admission at that point, because it's really bad for FBI agents to say, yes, we protected the crime lord from further prosecution and turned into his personal hit squad. We don't like that as a society. But again, it's not how dying declarations work. That trauma brought back memories of season three and it's just like that's not how the law works. But the fact that they referenced that as the acquittal I found fascinating. Your Honor, what were your thoughts to this acquittal? And then this document getting signed for Bullseye to get out of prison to be Vanessa's henchman caught the caption, the signature.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 9:29

I mean there's really no kind of civil conditional release that you know two people could sign. That would then get someone else out of jail. The only people that can release someone out of jail is the government. So I best I can guess it was some kind of conditional release where he was going to be released to some kind of work program or program run by the Kingpin so, but he wouldn't be a necessary signatory to to that. So I couldn't figure out what in real life that that would actually be, what in real life that that would actually be. But it worked as a mechanism to release Bullseye so that he can continue to kind of do some work for Kingpin.

Joshua Gilliland: 10:16

Yeah, it was just weird. I mean, Gabby, did you have any reactions to this?

Gabby Martin: 10:22

Yeah, my biggest issue was that he's clearly, you know, medicated and I'm pretty sure you know Vanessa leans over and kind of you know, does a little you know helping assistance there with the signature.

Gabby Martin: 10:37

And obviously, you know, as, as the judge said, you know we can't really identify what this is and you know, obviously, the government we can't really identify what this is and you know, obviously the government he wouldn't really sign anything as part of his release. But even if this were some document that he's releasing, that he's attesting to in some way, we kind of question whether he A had the capacity to do so, because it looks like he's on pretty strong medication. You know he can't really form sentences. He's having a kind of hard time, kind of part of it seems to be emotional, but also part of it seems to be him being very drugged up. And then obviously, vanessa assisting you know we think of terms of wills and trusts right, you can't kind of have somebody sign, you know, assist your very wealthy loved one in signing a will that you know lends everything to you or leaves everything to you. So yeah, there's a lot of kind of also capacity issues. If this was an actual legal document that he'd have to sign.

Joshua Gilliland: 11:45

It also just doesn't make sense, because it's one thing if this is like some power of attorney for getting legal representation to look at his case, you know, encouraging him, for we got this law firm that's going to help you, but we need you to sign so they can help you. Like that I could get. But this was just weird almost as weird as a dying declaration where you're not dying, um, so call me old-fashioned, all right. Which then brings us to matt taking the shot aimed at kingpin. This turned out radically differently than I expected, because I expected kingpin to have some very conflicted feelings out of loyalty. It's like, wow, this guy took a bullet for me and instead it's I should have him killed. Let's finish this off once and for all. That. That was not the result I was expecting, and I see shaking heads Gabby, you're very forceful here.

Gabby Martin: 12:50

Your reaction it kind of sets up the perfect framework, right for this very public scene. Um, nobody knows, uh, you know, except for the few people that matt murdoch is is their devil, right? Um, and it's not like he's publicly revealed his identity, like like an iron man or, you know, spider-man or whoever, and, um, you know. So it sets up this very big thing for him to put Fisk in. He saved his wife, he saved Fisk's life, right? It kind of, you know, pay it back publicly because he did this big, big right and it for me I thought they were going to go with, as we talked about the matt as da route, right, and have him name matt as da to kind of keep him closer, and he just barrels past that and just says, nope, just just the dead vigilante is, you know, or whatever he says.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 14:08

And it's just, a dead hero is better than a live vigilante.

Joshua Gilliland: 14:11

That was a great yeah, yeah, I uh what. What troubled me about it? It it sends the. Matt should not have taken the bullet, for the kingpin Society would have been better off if he had not been the hero, and that's a really sad reaction that their problems would. New York would not have had a body count with police officers just executing people in the street overnight if Kingpin had been shot and Frank.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 14:47

Castle really makes a point of that when talking to Matt and saying, like how could you take a bullet for this guy? I mean, frank really kind of just couldn't wrap his brain around that rightfully so, with Kingpin's reaction. Uh stories, thank you for for that activity yeah, and that's it's.

Joshua Gilliland: 15:12

It's just not a good reaction because it's yeah, well, they would have been better off if the kingpin had died, like, literally, society would have been better yeah, and it really does seem to like and this is why I had you know kind of a challenge with it, is it?

Gabby Martin: 15:28

it almost seemed as if you know, cause obviously there were rewrites with the show, right. They kind of scrapped a lot of stuff and I always got the impression that the first episode was them reusing a lot of material that they had already filmed and then kind of cutting to whatever storyline they had they had wanted to kind of implement. But this seemed to almost return to that kind of odd narrative structure that the first episode had and kind of undercut all the work that was done over the season, you know, with matt kind of pulling away from his work as a defense attorney, right, which would lead you to believe he's moving to the prosecution side. So, yeah, it just it was very odd choice yeah, I mean there's.

Joshua Gilliland: 16:13

I did. I did not read all of them, I only remember the articles about them, of daredevil effectively running hill's kitchen and like a little army of daredevils running around. Are we going that way instead? Uh, it's just, it's just weird. Um, it was very an unexpected turn. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth, because you cannot have events of such magnitude and Kate Bishop sit it out, miss Marvel sit it out, spider-man sit it out. You have all these heroes based in New York and Clint Barton probably suiting up and driving down from upstate to take action. So it's just a very weird situation because you have all these vigilantes and heroes who would not stand for this, so let alone the rest of society.

Joshua Gilliland: 17:14

That said, we then pivot to uh, what the okay? So bad move if you're waking up from any procedure and you say the old girlfriend's name to the current girlfriend you already had to say from an assassination attempt. Bad move. Glad you have someone there to say it's the drugs talking, but still bad move. You have someone there to say it's the drugs talking, but still bad move. Uh, but let's get what kingpin's up to with red hook and the quest that our heroes eventually go on for uh figuring out why red hook is important, so we got some notes here. Uhby, can you talk to us about moving funds through Red Hook?

Gabby Martin: 18:07

Yeah, so we finally get official confirmation that he is misappropriating city resources, right, or, if he hasn't started yet, he's certainly indicating that that's his intention to do that, right, because he tells Vanessa that you know she had moved millions through Red Hook and now he can move billions, right, so there's that financial piece, and he also says that that's really why he ran for mayor. If that's maybe something that changed, maybe, but regardless he is misappropriating city resources, right. So this is a violation, at minimum, of the conflict of interest policy that we talked about in one of the earlier episodes in New York and generally elsewhere, but particularly in New York, um, under 2604B3, um cannot use their position, uh, to obtain any financial gain, contract, license or privilege, um, and they can't use it for any private or private financial interests as well, um, and they can't use confidential information that they know as elected officials or other public servants to for financial gain. So then, at worst, right, that's at minimum violating kind of his oath of office, right, and his kind of conflicts of interest. But you could make the argument and I think it's pretty clear from what he's admitting here that there is a conspiracy to commit fraud, right, that is, I think, what he is engaging, vanessa, in that they're going to do with Red Hook.

Gabby Martin: 19:55

You know, we've seen this with other elected officials defrauding under 18 US Code 371, there's a count to conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States, which does apply to states as well, as we saw with Bridgegate. And then, of course, wire fraud 18 USC 1343. So there is a scheme to defraud, right, they're using this for financial gain, they have intent and obviously they didn't have wire fraud there, right, because they're sitting in a room together, but the minute they call or text, as these individuals often do, say Buck or anybody else, bang, you got the communicating via wire communications. So I do think they are on the hook for a bunch of other things, but certainly committing fraud using these city resources.

Joshua Gilliland: 21:02

Which brings us to the blackout. But there are a a couple. The blackout is a means, to the end, to push the city over the edge, uh, to build upon a crisis. That was just an assassination attempt. To how do we exploit the assassination attempt? Uh, think well again. They're not good comparisons, but but think how LBJ was walking around with a copy of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution before the Tonkin Gulf incident happened, like ready for that authorization to use force in Vietnam, just waiting for the moment when that would give them reason to get that passed. And Fisk wants to put a squeeze on the city council for an ordinance to go into effect and is wanting to send people home who aren't on board. And we have this issue of this blackout about to create chaos. So, your honor, are you the voice in the dark to explain the blackout scenario?

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 22:10

Yeah, the mayor gives various orders, he's in the city hall and he tells the task force you know you're going to be going after all the vigilantes. We don't care about due process, we don't care about warrants Clearly in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which is the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation. Shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation. And clearly, you know I've signed countless warrants over the years. But there has to be a showing to you before you sign a warrant, that there is good cause to sign this warrant.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 22:59

And he was telling this task force of his that it didn't matter that we are going to, without warrants, do what we need to do to go against the vigilantes. This would also be in violation of the Sixth Amendment, which does give in all criminal proceedings, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial. This is basically what guarantees you due process in a criminal case and he doesn't care about that. He's having them thrown into jail without any due process, clearly something that can never happen in real life excessive. Here people were being locked in little cages and there was no bail being set.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 23:52

He then gives his marching orders to Buck that Buck is to go to the hospital and take care of Matt. So much for him being gracious for Matt saving his life. He then goes to his chief of staff, sheila, who says I need to know who is out to get me and who is loyal on the staff. And then he has a scene with the Con Ed worker and we really don't know at that moment why he is talking to a Con Ed worker about. And we soon learned that what it is is to basically either shut off or short circuit the city's power so that there would be a blackout which would then give him the opportunity to declare martial law, which was his plan to create chaos and in that chaos basically become a dictator of New York City.

Joshua Gilliland: 24:50

All not good, all not good.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 24:55

And while he's doing all this, he has to take care of the one good government official that seems to be left, which is the police commissioner conversation, that the police commissioner is going to be going to Albany and to the governor and basically tell what is going on in the city of New York. Sheila clearly plays this recording for the kingpin. Who, then, is going to take care of Police Commissioner Gallo?

Joshua Gilliland: 25:32

I'm all for separation of powers and a federalist state of federal government, state, local government, but the state of new york is not going to sit this one out like they. They, the governor, should be on the phone going like what? What is going on? Because there are state offices in new york city, I presume, just as there are state offices in New York City, I presume, just as there are state offices in, you know, some of the capital cities here in California, whether it's Oakland, san Francisco, san Jose, you know there are state offices. They have to take notice.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 26:10

And the state of New York has a lot of power with dealing with the city and overruling things that the city does in fact do. I mean, even you know Kingpin declares martial law. That's not something, governor, who can declare martial law? And I was part of the state legal militia for a number of years and you know we drilled on martial law and in some municipalities where there was a declaration of emergency by the local declarer, by the locality, because a locality can declare an emergency but it's only the state that can declare martial law. Once there's an emergency, the state might send troops to bring the peace, to help out to rescues, and I did many missions in the state with hurricanes and with ice and with other things when the governor activated us after the municipality called those emergencies.

Joshua Gilliland: 27:16

Yeah, what you can't it's the. I am fine with the visually impaired lawyer that has a radar sense, I'm all on board with that. I'm not on board with the governor of New York sleeping through a blackout and taking no action and that there's only one elected official in new york city. You know that that was willing to go to the governor and say something. You know a foul was happening here. That just it's too big of a city for them to ignore. And maybe one thing if it was some small town and where people don't recognize what's happening that quickly, that that's more plausible for it to go. It's going to take a couple hours to figure out what happened here, opposed to it's New York City. So the feds would be involved. There's a huge federal footprint in New York City, Putting a very big FBI headquarters in New York City.

Joshua Gilliland: 28:20

Yeah, yeah, they're not going to go like golly gee, we're going to let the mayor handle this. Just no, just no. Which? Then let's talk about the Safer Street Initiative. Let's talk about the safer street initiative. We have the deputy mayor of communications doing the shakedown like a mob boss on the city council, or at least members of the city council to again it's. It looks a lot like organized crime of. This is an awfully nice car you have here type situation.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 28:56

We clearly learned that Deputy Mayor Daniel is Deputy Mayor of Shakedown.

Joshua Gilliland: 29:02

Yeah, yeah, communications is just an honorarium because he's communicating threats. Not good, not good. We also have someone get shot by a police officer that was looting Looting bad Individual should not have been doing. That Individual should have been stopped and prosecuted. All for that. Individual should not have had a summary execution and then a mask put over his face and saying it was just a vigilante. Because now we've entered to planting evidence to cover up summary executions and just that's the abandonment of law, that's the abandonment of the rule of law and it's turned into rule of the gun and they're living in a fascist state at this point and it's just.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 29:56

It's just messed up and it was very clear that the looter, when caught by the police stopped. You know he didn't take any overt action against the police, you know so they were. They were very clear in kind of showing that the police had absolutely no justification to kill this looter.

Joshua Gilliland: 30:19

Yeah, it's just evil Gabby.

Gabby Martin: 30:23

Yeah, no, and it's really, you know, we, you know again excessive force and all of that out of it. Because obviously, as the judge said, that's very clear, right, um. But the other thing, um, here is that they are guilty of tampering with evidence, right, they fabricate evidence by pulling um the the hoodie or the beanie over his head to make him look like he has a mask on right. And so in, under New York law it's a class E felony to tamper with physical evidence, including knowingly making, devising or preparing false physical evidence. So these cops would be guilty of not only excessive force and murder and all of that sort of thing, but, you know, tampering with physical evidence as well.

Gabby Martin: 31:21

And I think, just to circle back on the you know Deputy Mayor Daniel, he talks about asking gently in quotes, asking them to leave. The mayor has really no, these are elect, it's. You know, making the distinction between the employees. They're kind of asking to leave or stay home or whatever. These are elected officials. All the members of the New York City Council are duly elected officials. So there probably is some, you know, leeway they have there right in extreme circumstances. But just saying oh, you're dismissed is not necessarily. They are elected and not appointed positions. So we'll talk about some other appointed positions in a bit, but these are elected officials.

Joshua Gilliland: 32:09

Yeah, you don't get to do a shakedown on the opposition party. They too are elected, which pivots us to Karen. And well, matt Murdock goes home escaping an assassination attempt and the Punisher there is waiting for him in this blackout, and they have a home invasion of police officers that are now a kill squad to go out and kill Matt Murdock and they enter Murdock's home. So we're talking literal castle doctrine at this point in time of corrupt law enforcement. So one could argue that they are not acting in accordance with the law, even though they're wearing uniforms and murdoch and castle defending themselves from being murdered. This is problematic in all kinds of levels because technically, you're not supposed to resist law enforcement, but uh, when it's a hit squad and looking like something out of a dictatorship, it's in a new category that doesn't exist. Now.

Joshua Gilliland: 33:24

There were comments about the American Civil War should have been settled in the courts, to which Lincoln made the comment that there's no court, that, uh, you know this exceeds any jurisdiction of a court, and they're kind of in that situation right now. There's no motion to file. Uh, when people are coming into your home with rocket launchers and grenades, um, it's a, it's a new level and uh it. It flies in the face of what we expect in civil society, because none of that should be happening. You should not have kill squads sent by the mayor to eliminate you. So is self-defense justified? Yeah, because that's stopping law enforcement and transcended into a criminal enterprise. Would either of you like to share any other comments on that?

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 34:18

I like their Punisher shirts, you know, so that again kind of showed the Punisher connection from this kill squad. And I was also very glad to see Karen return to the show, because I like her character a lot and I'm hopeful that she'll be around for the next season a lot more than she was this season you know the actress is also fun on social media like loves the fans and yeah, she's a she's a true fellow geek, which is nice to see yeah, it's just like she's, she's got cred from true blood and everything else that she's been in and it's, you know, does signings for charity and it's like, okay, cool, like you're, you're in this, uh, gabby, any other comments?

Gabby Martin: 35:06

no, this was the um highlight. The scene was the highlight of the episode for me, although I think and this goes back to what I commented before of you know, everybody in this episode is, or you know, shows, very durable. Um, because we tend to forget that matt escapes the hospital to obviously flee uh buck, killing him within hours of being shot through the the upper chest, which, granted, I imagine it didn't hit any critical arteries. That's why he like or organs, which is why he woke up so quickly. Um, but he's still. He has a gaping, bleeding wound and he takes a lot of hits and keeps moving. Um, so so I guess the laws of wound care and general, the things that would affect you or I in our reality here do not affect those in this show and in the whatever reality universe the Daredevil show takes place in.

Joshua Gilliland: 36:13

Having been under general anesthesia for surgery and then been on the resulting pain meds, I would not be in fighting condition at that point in time. And I appreciate okay, they didn't hit the lung or heart Cool, that's fantastic. But I'm like he's's gonna be stapled shut like there's that's.

Gabby Martin: 36:40

That's a lot of flexing with and he walks, he walks from the hospital to his apartment and then he does some more fight. I don't know, I don't. I don't think the laws of physics apply.

Joshua Gilliland: 37:11

Taking out the IV would be hard. To do that without bleeding is a challenge. So, yeah, there's. Yeah, he takes a beating and keeps on ticking, just as Frank does as well. But that then pivots to. Let's go look at records and storage, which highlights the importance of records management. You do have to save records for a statutory amount of time and you know the great Browning Morian, who was a new discovery luminary, who wrote a book on records management. He tragically passed away and he was. He was a good friend, but when browning wrote his book there's like 14 000 records retention laws in the united states. A decade ago I don't think that number went down.

Joshua Gilliland: 37:45

So let's just say that minimum seven years that they have to hold on to records so everything from that law firm with Murdoch or Nelson and Page is in storage for a specific amount of time and luckily it's not Iron Mountain so it's easier to gain access to, because normally that stuff is intentionally hard to get to because it's confidential in nature, with attorney, client work, product and communications. So, like you have to protect it, they're able to get in, they, they do their thing and they find this information about red hook gabby. This looks like your notes about what's a freeport and her notes on freeport.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 38:31

But give me two seconds before we get to this. Yes, go for it, the Freeport. They find a motion, that was that they cite the Red Hook Charter of 1855, which, at least as far as my research that does not exist. Maybe I'm wrong, but what made me think of which?

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 38:52

does exist is, during the Occupy Wall Street cases in New York which I presided over some 2,500 of them one of defense lawyers did find various treaties dealing with the King of England turning over the property to Trinity Church and in an effort to show that Trinity Church wasn't technically the legal owner of many of the properties in New York.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 39:33

If I were to accept this particular defense that was raised and when I heard this Red Hook Charter 1855, that's the first thing I thought of was all of the various things dealing with Trinity Church and them not being the rightful landlord because of these various old historical treaties, and I initially was going to write on all of this into some omnis decision. And then I kind of was a little bit fearful as to where that might lead me as to ownership in New York City and I decided just to roll from the bench and let the appellate courts deal with it if they needed to deal with it, and it never became an issue. But that's what this Red Hook Charter of 1855 reminded me of and on that note I'll turn it to Gabby to discuss Freeport.

Gabby Martin: 40:20

Yeah, no, and it's really interesting because, like you said, you know, when we think of and we mentioned this before like New England, new York, the original 13 colonies, they did exist before you know kind of, we had the you know Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, all of these things that we, you know, think of as governing law here, there were much older documents, right, that governed society before the kind of modern laws we have today. But the way they describe this free port of Red Hook, where it would make all crimes legal and become its own city state, I don't know if that's necessarily the case because, similar to the judge, all I could find in my research is the concept of a free port has more to do with taxes than it does with, you know, say, any sort of laws, quote, unquote, right or criminal laws. So it's really, it's a place designated. We see this in the UK, I believe there's some in Ireland as well, and various places throughout the world and these, and none in the US currently that we know of, are designated by the government as areas with little to no tax in order to encourage economic activity. They're located geographically within a country, but they essentially exist outside of its borders for tax purposes.

Gabby Martin: 41:53

I think that's the part that's left off in the daredevil kind of concept of a free port. So, in essence, companies that are operating within these free ports can benefit from deferring the payment of taxes until their products are moved elsewhere, right? So the idea of a free port is that it's somewhere where goods are held temporarily, right, they're not there permanently, so they're not taxed there, they're taxed somewhere else. So companies can either pay taxes when the goods are moved somewhere else For example, if these are raw goods, right, they don't pay taxes until necessarily something is built, or they don't pay taxes until necessarily something is built or, you know, finished a product is finished or they could avoid them altogether if they bring in goods to store or manufacture on site for exporting. Again, that kind of raw materials argument. In the UK there's several of them and other places throughout the world, but this is very much a tax thing, not necessarily applying to laws or stuff like that.

Joshua Gilliland: 43:05

Yeah, and 1855 is after the founding of the United States, so that, like all this would require the United States carving out. I misheard it and that it was 1755 or something along those lines.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 43:34

And so I went back, and you know, and no, they did say 1855.

Joshua Gilliland: 43:40

Yeah, so timing doesn't work either. No, because it would have always been part of the United States. You would need an affirmative act to carve it out of the United States. I'm not aware of us doing that as a country, saying that this port is now no longer part of the United States for tax purposes. That seems very alien and against our nature as a country.

Gabby Martin: 44:08

Yeah, and it's interesting. It's, you know, kind of we talked about some of the gaps in structure of this episode and it just seems like, again, it's a simple thing, to just call it 1755 or even you know, 1655 would have probably been better, because that would have put you square in, kind of when the colonies were kind of you know, setting up shop and all that kind of stuff, and put you well away from, uh, you know, any kind of is there law, is there not law? Type of thing. Um, but it's just odd that they chose 1855. It almost reads like a typo in a script, um, that people went with. And then the production, you know company, was like, oh, now we have to make this document that says 1855, right, so it seems like a typo. That just kind of grew legs, right, and somebody I'm sure is maybe some person that was working on the script and was like, oh, shoot, that was supposed to say 1655, my bad, uh.

Joshua Gilliland: 45:12

So if that person ends up listening to this podcast, I'm sorry that we're calling out your typo yeah, was this some writers getting together like wouldn't it be cool if the the united states had a part that wasn't the united states where murder could be legal and there's no taxes? It's like what libertarian fever dream are you living in of? Just no. Like, no, we don't do that. Like you're not going to have a port in the united states that's going to be controlled by the United States Coast Guard, because if this is like free reign, free enterprise, we do whatever we want. Now it's a soft target for terrorists and nuclear weapons and other things that can do harm to the country. That makes no sense analytically. That's just not something that we would tolerate. I'm pretty sure if it did happen, we would fix that very quickly with an act of Congress to go yeah, we've just annexed this and here's your just compensation. Bye, bye.

Gabby Martin: 46:20

Yeah, it's a fascinating concept, though, like it's a fascinating narratively, the idea that this place exists where kingpin can kind of operate without rules, but it's within the geographical bounds of new york city. Um, you know, and again, if they had specifically kept it to tax purposes, which seems to be kind of you know, there could be a nefarious element there. Right, you know we talk about tax evasion and all these sorts of things, right, um, you know the idea that they, that art dealers like vanessa and others, would use these things to their advantage to park, uh, art there, which essentially seemed to be what she was doing parking art there and then moving it and not having to pay taxes. That does get her a windfall, but it keeps it more within the bounds of something that actually kind of legally exists.

Joshua Gilliland: 47:15

It's like Martha's Vineyard declaring independence, like it's just it doesn't make sense of. You know what we? We're now in charge of ourselves. Just it doesn't make sense.

Gabby Martin: 47:27

I mean I will say Key West has tried to declare independence before they have tried to annex themselves. So islands of the United States or coastal areas declaring annexation is not completely without history.

Joshua Gilliland: 47:49

But at least that would be more plausible, as opposed to a chunk of New York City being a city-state where commerce can just flow in and out without regulation. So no, because the property deal to buy things is still controlled by the state. So nobody owns this. None of the land deals matter now, because they're not subject to the laws of the United States. Okay, again, it's legally nonsensical. They, they needed a way to have a place where red hook or whatever could be for kingpin to operate with impunity, and this is what they came up with. And it's just legally weird, like it doesn't make sense. But there are things that, uh, continue to not make sense Again. We've talked about Punisherverse, all of the corrupt task force. We've talked about Sheila ratting out the commissioner. I don't think we need to stray too far to say what happens to the police, commissioner, is murder.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 49:07

But it did bring back Kingpin's favorite mechanism of murder in the comic book, so that really hadn't been seen in this TV show.

Joshua Gilliland: 49:16

Crushing the skull.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 49:17

Crushing the skull with his bare hands. So you know the Kingpin method was quite sick.

Joshua Gilliland: 49:28

To say the least. And and you know what would annoy me uh, trying to play this every man card in order to turn the police officers against their commissioner. You know the, the person that they've known probably their entire career, or known of their entire career, is someone. He's not for you, but I was in prison for murdering lots of people and I'm on your side. I don't think law enforcement would bend to the kingpin's will like that, I think that and you saw their faces when he crushed his skull.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 50:01

I mean, it was not like a. Those were not happy. Looks from the officers. They were scared. Looks from the officers. Yeah were scared. Looks from the officers.

Joshua Gilliland: 50:10

Yeah, it sends a message of I'm on the wrong team, I'm leaving now Bye-bye. A few people highlight that of yay, let's do more of this. So we have the next morning kingpin does a news conference. He appoints heather to be the commissioner of mental health.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 50:39

uh, she agrees again another showing of why you don't mention the girlfriend's name at the hospital when your other girlfriend's there yeah, just just.

Joshua Gilliland: 50:52

I mean, I understand he was medicated, but you gotta just just no, uh, just no, no, no, uh, yeah, uh, we have the safer streets initiative which looks like was enacted overnight. So again, it's that Tonkin Gulf. You know, 99 to one or 99 to two type passage of. Did anyone read this? You know, it's just. It's like the declaration of war against Japan on December 8th was 99 to one. You know, like Jeanette Rankin, excuse me, yeah, we weren't at 100 yet, we didn't have 50 states, but it was everybody but Jeanette Rankin voted for the declaration of war because she was an avowed pacifist and promptly thrown out of office at the next election. Because that doesn't, there wasn't a good option. Because that doesn't there wasn't a good option.

Joshua Gilliland: 51:54

Those who were not on board with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution are remembered with more favor those who were voices against the Patriot Act or, you know, the authorization to use force after 9-11, there's kinder historical views of them now for a variety of reasons. But this is passed in the middle of the night because of a blackout, so it's a fraudulent reason. There's duress involved in why they get voted on. So all bad, but it says any vigilante, illegal activity is illegal. Illegal, which is kind of the point of vigilantism. It's already illegal, it's now more illegal. It's like speeding through a. You're not supposed to speed through a neighborhood, but it's more illegal if you speed by a school. It's that kind of logic. Um, it's now more illegal and apparently there are shoot to kill orders. We have a reference here to military law, with the governor to declare martial law. Your Honor, was that anything to add upon that?

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 53:00

No, it's just that it's a power of the governor and not of the mayor. The mayor can declare a state of emergency for the city, but the only one who can declare martial law for the geographical, for New York State, or any part thereof, is the governor of New York.

Joshua Gilliland: 53:17

Gabby, you have some notes about under Executive Law 24. Would you like to add anything to that?

Gabby Martin: 53:22

Yeah, so, going off of that, the mayor does have, as we mentioned before, the power to declare an emergency, and part of that is that you know, kind of teasing out what Fisk does, what is legal, what is not Part of what is. He can't obviously declare martial law, as we've talked about, but he can set a restrictions in place if he declares a state of emergency, you know, to kind of all within public safety, right, there are certain restrictions on this, including the duration of time. This does not exist kind of in perpetuity, these powers. But you know he can, you know, establish a curfew, prohibit people from moving around at certain times, right, curfew, prohibit people from moving around at certain times, right. Designation of specific zones, you know, within which the occupancy and use of the building may be prohibited and regulated regulated of closing of places of amusement and assembly, suspension and limitation of sale of alcoholic beverages, explosive firearms, flammable materials and liquids, prohibition and control the presence of persons on public streets and places.

Gabby Martin: 54:36

Designation of emergency shelter which is what we usually see when a official declares an emergency but I don't think Fisk is opening any emergency shelters for anybody and the suspension of particular laws, which I guess you could maybe argue. That's what he's trying to do here with martial law, you know, is really leaning into that suspension of laws. But you just you can't do that. And, Josh, as you said, people would notice if he tried to do this. He and he had a press conference about it too.

Joshua Gilliland: 55:14

So, uh, people would notice yeah, like the governor, the senate, us senators, the state legislature, they would go. What? No, like you don't get to do this. Uh, uh, new, uh, which then uh, pivots back to the hero, with them realizing that they're going to go raise an army and naturally following, you know, the like tradition of the green dragon. You know our heroes gather in a bar and that's where you know we have some law enforcement and others deciding to uh plan their next step against, uh, the mayor, uh, who is no longer acting as a public servant.

Joshua Gilliland: 56:04

Uh, we do find out that in red hook we have people in little cages, which includes Jack who, after our last episode and wondering about the swordsman, thinking that that was originally like Hawkeye's identity way back to Avengers. That was either 16 or 19. I remember reading it as a kid. Jack is the swordsman who's always been a foil to hawkeye and clint barton. So the fact that the hawkeye tv series had jack as kate bishop's mother's love interest was a nice deep cut twist that I didn't pick up on until doing a little research, because kudos to them for making that kind of a deep cut comic connection. That was very subtle, very well done, and you know back to you know just the early double digits of the Avengers comics. So that was very cool, but it should go without saying saying you can't just put people in cages and throw away the key. Um, especially, it looks like dog cages, like we're talking golden retriever. You know it's like people can't. You're not supposed to do that. Just no, um, just no.

Joshua Gilliland: 57:28

And we then pivot to season two after a mid-credits scene that makes more sense for Frank Castle breaking the arm off a dude in order to presumably escape. I would hope Frank takes people with him, because you have all these people with checkbooks who are now going to be very motivated. Not that I'm encouraging that behavior I am not but from a comic book perspective that makes sense. You don't leave people behind, all right. Either of you have any other comments or thoughts on this?

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 58:10

you have any other comments or thoughts on this? The slogan of the new rebel group to resist, rebel and rebuild. We are a city without fear. We'll make a nice t-shirt, I'm sure, and soon to be for sale by Disney. But yeah, you know, like we said it's, you know it's clearly a setup for the next season. So while, like you, I don't care about a cliffhanger, there was just several missteps in this episode that unfortunately after a really good season. I wish they had hit a home run as opposed to a double.

Joshua Gilliland: 58:47

Yeah, and I still think it's stronger than the first season on netflix, because the first season had a bunch of filler episodes. Yes, this had no filler episodes, it was just the finale that leads to season two. Had some say what moments to it?

Gabby Martin: 59:05

uh, that, again, that was a writer's room that needed a little more work, but overall, I think this was stronger than season one and, uh, I will defend that if I need to so and gabby your thoughts yeah, I mean, for me again, it kind of it started strong, um, you know, like I said, I loved the fight with Frank and Matt in the apartment, but where it gets to at the end, again I'm like you guys open to a cliffhanger. But I think there just would have been a stronger finish had it been, you know not this like all out war zone that it seems to be. You know, I think what I really liked was leaning into the kind of political machinations of it all right, and you know, I think it would have been a much stronger arc had you maybe not done, you know you could have you still had him turn into like Mayor Kingpin, right, um, but I think, having that, you know you could have you still had him turn into like Mayor Kingpin, right, but I think, having that, you know, having him still navigate the political landscape, having Matt as DA right, having this more nuanced, right, because I think for me, where it ended up, whereas it's this like fighting, you know, fist and fist, you know like with kind of more violence than kind of intellect and political strategy and all that which I think was the strong point of the season, um, and so I'm interested to see how they kind of you know, set it up because, again, like, there's a lot of people in New York that are affected by this and it's not just going to be like you know, like, where do you take this army right? Do you immediately depose Fisk, do you? You know, like, why are people not coming to New York City like to deal with this? You know?

Gabby Martin: 1:01:08

So, for me that was the kind of letdown. I think there was probably deeper, more richer storytelling they could have done and this just seems to be like you know, oh, let's have them just be. You know enemies and you know fight against each other type of thing.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:01:25

Yeah, because it could have been more interesting with a giant plot twist of he saved me. Now what? And fisk actually growing into the role of mayor and trying to be the mayor, like that's there's, there's nuance to that, there's character growth to that, as opposed to now being john the bastard of I'm a villain for being of the villain's sake, and everything with the kingpin is aggressive urban renewal so he can make money, so it's a nice place for him to live. I just I've missed opportunity to do more after having so many excellent, thoughtful points from a guy who steals fiddle, faddle, getting the book thrown at him to those who are doing truly ugly crimes getting out so they can commit more ugly crimes. So there's uh, yeah, I don't know if they just boxed themselves in and they didn't know how to get to season two or what the you know, did they get notes? I mean, there are all these weird questions. I'll be here for it. I'll absolutely be here for it, but they wrote a bigger story that should involve other characters.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 1:02:46

And that bigger story is in the comic book arc. That kind of is this story. I mean it's so. You know you don't necessarily want to go word for word for the comic book art because you do want to create some surprise. Granted, the the market for those that are reading the comic books as opposed to watching the tv are drastically, uh, different and most people wouldn't know that this was taken from from that comic book story. But that series, the arc where he remains the mayor, his wife kind of runs the criminal enterprise and Matt becomes the DA, and this could still be the way it goes. But it was a very, very good, good, thoughtful arc as opposed to let's just have a good guys against bad guys war yeah, it's again.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:03:35

There are other ways forward. That would have been um, because it was on this really neat setup.

Gabby Martin: 1:03:41

And then episode nine does a left turn that it's like, okay, that's so, there's no character growth, got it yeah, and I think for me too, even the the one, uh, main cop of the of the task force, right, um, I kept seeing that he was going to potentially turn on this operation, right um, you know, because they do paint him initially as this bad guy right, that's roughing up guys, um. But then he does say that, you know, his brother wears this badge, his dad wears this badge and there's a dedication to what the badge stands for, you know. And even when he's holding up the mask of a muse, it seems like he's not fully into this lie that's being sold. But then he's like, no, I'm just gonna like, stand here for all of this kind of um, you know, silliness, so you know, and this violence and and all of this kind of thing. So again, yeah, it's, it's a missed opportunity for, for deeper character development, I think, all the way around and make people think because it's.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:04:51

It's a sad fact that a lot of the stories that we get in pop culture are just fast cars, bright lights, explosions and you know, you know, punch the bad guy, as opposed to something with nuance that gets people to think of oh, wait a minute, like what is? Oh yeah, how is there no growth? How is there no thought? Like you know, people realize is this a good idea? Do I want to be on this path? So, um, or some.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 1:05:21

Some missed opportunities is what it comes down to yeah, missed opportunity.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:05:25

Overall, I give it a minus. You know this season, so again I thought it was. I looked forward to it each week. Um, enjoyed getting to talk about it each week, grateful to have it. So it's not like you're watching, it's like we're dumber for this, like that has happened of this has hurt all of us and there will be ramifications.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 1:05:48

And they had some great legal issues, some great courtroom scenes, some great real legal evidentiary issues. So clearly, as lawyers, this is a real fun show to watch and I understand that not everyone watching the show is a lawyer, so we have to not necessarily just deal only with legal issues. But there were a lot of missed opportunities to develop the characters a little bit more fully and to discuss ideas that matter today, which is really what sci-fi and is about. It's about you, you know, and marvel has always been this. If you look from their their early 60s comic books, it's always been a social commentary on what's going on now, and there were some missed opportunities to just turn it into a us versus them, vigilante versus non-vigilante, dirty cops against the. You know, just some missed opportunities.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:06:49

Yeah, it's grateful to have it, you know, and thankful for the cast and crew who, like the, the behind the scenes photos of, like the, the black tie party looks like they had a rocking good time with sitting and it was like you want to hang out with those guys Cause they it looks like they had so much fun with uh, like vincent with the band. It's like dude cool. Like more of that. And uh, or is there video? Because people would probably enjoy him singing and uh, so more of that please yeah, and excellent acting.

Judge Matthew Sciarrino (Retired): 1:07:27

You know there was. We're not making any bad commentary as to the parts. This is D'Onofrio played an amazing role. You know. Everyone really played their character well. The characters could have been developed a little bit more nuanced in that last episode.

Joshua Gilliland: 1:07:47

Yeah, yeah. And the fact that it's just at the end we're like this could use just a hint more cooking um says a lot about the quality of the show. So with that, everyone, thanks for tuning in. We're going to have a recap of star war celebration, we're going to start talking about andor season two very shortly and we're going to have a busy summer. There are lots of cool things coming up and stay tuned for more. So everyone, wherever you are, stay safe, stay healthy and stay geeky, take care.