Writer:
Steven S. DeKnight
Director:
Stephen Surjik
The name of this episode highlights the subtlety
this show has. They could have quite
easily named it “Ghosts of the Past” but it would have been too on the
nose. Shadows in the Glass hints at specters looming over you from the
outside and it is perfectly suited to the tone of the episode and the central
characters. This is an episode that is
all about duality and the psychology of trauma.
“It’s my fault he’s dead.” grieves the
boy, Matt. Then there’s Wilson .
The overweight, heavily bullied only child of wannabe local politician
Bill Fisk (The Wire’s Dominick
Lombardozzi) who is subjected to physical, verbal and psychological abuse from
his patriarch before one day snapping and doing the ultimate thing about it. Here we have two central characters, both consider themselves to be doing the right thing for the city, both (at
least in their eyes) are responsible for killing their fathers. Both carry the
psychological trauma of patricide and as such both men have a duality of nature.
Matt Murdock & Daredevil, Wilson Fisk & Kingpin. They clash with one-another because they’re
so similar… not the same… similar. Fisk puts his faith in the secular world,
Matt is devoutly Catholic and it is his religion that saves him. Even when he considers killing Fisk for the
good of the city, he knows that there are some smudges that can’t be washed from
the soul. Vanessa sees both men for who
they really are (or will in an episode’s time).
She has an acute sense of human nature; perhaps it is her salesperson
sensibilities –working in the gallery.
Perhaps it is because she is cut from the same cloth. She, seemingly, has no issue with Wilson ’s line of work; his fondness for
extreme displays of physical violence.
She’s a pragmatic woman and as such doesn’t seem to be blinded by
values, attitudes or beliefs.

Surjik’s construction of this episode
demonstrates, perfectly, television’s strengths over cinema. Where he can theme an episode around duality,
layer the narrative of the present over the narrative of Matt’s past, over the
narrative of Fisk’s past to paint an incredibly elaborate piece of art; what
have we learnt in three movies about the Avenger MM is closest too? How much do we know about Black Widow that
isn’t drawn from her time between the comic pages? The complexity of 1.08 is staggering. Put
alongside the previous two episodes it is an incredible study of psychology,
criminality and the human condition. It
has a level of intellect missing from Law
& Order and CSI for more
years than are worth counting… and it’s a “comic book” show. Remarkable.
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