Wilson Fisk’s Journey To Becoming The Kingpin
Daredevil season has been streaming for about a week and Netflix has set up Matthew Murdock and his alter ego to face their most dangerous enemy yet. It’s been about two and a half years since we last saw the devil of hell’s kitchen taking the helm of his own series and it is sure to be a thrilling ride for however long it takes you to binge the long-awaited third season. You may have watched the trailer and think that the show is introducing one of Daredevil’s greatest enemies and possibly who you might call arch enemy to the devil himself.
Well, I’m here to tell you that not only is season three set to introduce Daredevil’s arch enemy for the first time, but it’s also going to introduce you to Bullseye. That’s right, folks. For the first time, Netflix’s Daredevil will without question introduce us to the bulky badass himself, the Kingpin.
Now I’m sure that when I say something like that the initial reaction is to think I’m crazy or I just haven’t watched the first two seasons. I’m here to tell you that the Wilson Fisk we have been introduced is not the Kingpin at all, at least not yet.
Rabbit In A Snowstorm
The first time we meet the abominable Wilson Fisk we see a tall figure dressed head to toe in all black standing before a white painting, simple gradations of white juxtaposed against his dark silhouette. Vanessa, the curator, approaches this man that we’ve never seen before, but immediately we recognize the figure before us even with his back turned to the camera. Vanessa stands beside him and tells him of the children’s joke that the painting is named for.
“People ask us how we can charge so much for what amounts to simple gradations of white. The truth is it’s not about the artist’s name or the skill level involved. All that matters is how it makes you feel.” and as Wilson Fisk turns his face to the camera for the first time to look Vanessa in the eyes he replies, “It makes me feel alone.”
Throughout the first season, we get a clearer and clearer vision of exactly why it is that Wilson Fisk feels so incredibly alone. We see exactly what he is capable of when confronted with the idea of that loneliness becoming solidified. The first time we see any real sort of outburst from him is when Anatoly interrupts the big man on his very first date with Vanessa. For the first time perhaps, he has let business slip into his personal life and he is not pleased with that at all. So displeased, in fact, that he feels the need to relieve Anatoly of his head with the door of an SUV.
The idea that his potential relationship with this new and intoxicating woman could be spoiled by this intruder drives Fisk to one of the most brutal acts of the entire series. Before Anatoly receives the beat down of a lifetime Fisk screams that Anatoly has “embarrassed” him and it is in these two scenes that I believe the crux of Wilson Fisk’s character can be discerned.
Wilson Fisk, I think it is fair to say, is a bad man that does bad things indiscriminately, but in his own words, he is not cruel for the sake of cruelty. Fisk is a man with a plan, a man for which the ends justify the means. It doesn’t matter how many people are hurt or die in the crossfire, so long as he can create a better life tomorrow. After all, what is one man doing great evil for the sake of a better future weighed against many men doing evil for the sake of evil? But it is in these evil deeds that Wilson finds himself in conflict. Wilson believes himself to be the good Samaritan pushed into temporary darkness in order to help many.
The Wilson Fisk we meet still believes himself to be the savior of Hell’s Kitchen, which is why he remains in the shadows, embarrassed and ashamed of all the harm he has caused and the destruction he has wreaked. He hides like a rabbit in the blizzard of his own wrongdoing.
The Man Who Cast A Shadow In the Dark
“There is conflict in you. Man cannot be both savior and oppressor, light and shadow. One has to be sacrificed for the other. Choose…and choose wisely. Or others will choose for you.” — Madame Gao
The Wilson Fisk of season one is a man at war with himself. He is playing both sides of the fence not just because of his villainous deeds in the dark and his helpful philanthropist antics on the daytime news. It goes much further than that, much deeper and Madame Gao hits the nail on the head. However, I’m not so sure she understands the real reason behind this conflict. While everyone around him believes that Vanessa has made him come undone, I believe this conflict began well before Vanessa and she merely acts as a catalyst revealing the gap between who Wilson Fisk is and who he views himself to be.
In episode eight of season one, we get our first look at the mechanisms that are driving Wilson Fisk and we understand almost immediately that this man is in pain. The episode begins with Fisk waking from what appears to be a nightmare in a cold sweat. He rises and immediately looks at “Rabbit in a Snowstorm”. We hear Yo Yo Ma’s “Unaccompanied Cello Suite №1 in G Major 1007: Prelude” as he prepares his breakfast of a single omelet with chives before the sun has even had a chance to rise. He heads to his closet and carefully lays out his clothes for the day, before putting them on and taking out his father’s cufflinks. As he turns to the mirror we expect to see the strong statuesque man dressed to nines in all black, but we don’t. Instead, we are greeted with the visage of a young boy covered in blood. He walks to the exit the closet and inspects this young, blood-soaked child once more before turning off the light.
We later find out exactly where this image comes from and why it is burned so deeply into Wilson’s head. The trauma inflicted upon him as a child is something he carries with him every single day and it’s not something easily let go of. This small moment tells us so much about the man this blood-soaked boy grew into. He does not see himself as the strong, powerful, and villainous man we as the viewers know him to be. He still views himself as the young boy pushed into making the dark choices for the sake of others. We find out that after Fisk murders his father he and his mother cover it up by throwing the bits of his body away a day at a time in separate bags for an entire week. This is a little boy who hides his darkness.
Wilson learns at a very young age to cover up his darkness and hide it from the world while continuing on with his life like everything is fine and normal and good. This is a lesson little Wilson takes to heart and holds on to with everything he has; if he can just hide the darkness long enough to make good, then the darkness won’t matter. This is why no one speaks his name until Daredevil beats it out of them, while Vladimir argues that “if we speak his name it reveals him to be just a man.” I’d argue that speaking his name in relation to his criminal activity reveals him to be exactly what he is, a criminal.
I Am The Ill-Intent
Through the course of season one, we see Wilson Fisk wage a war on himself just as much as Daredevil does. He is a man ruled by conflict but that inner turmoil, over the course of the first thirteen episodes, slowly and increasingly becomes resolve. As Daredevil fights to expose Wilson Fisk for the man he is so too is Wilson coming to terms with the man he has become, no longer seeing the young boy bathed in the blood of his misdeeds, but a strong and powerful man who no longer has to fear his own darkness. Madame Gao, Owlsely, and the others see Vanessa as a catalyst that is weakening Wilson’s resolve to do what is necessary for the sake of their plans for the future. I’d argue that is it Vanessa’s acceptance of Wilson’s brutal past and his thirst for what he believes will bring a better tomorrow no matter the cost that allows Wilson’s darker half to finally find comfort in the light.
As Vanessa lies in a hospital bed poisoned by what Fisk believes to have been an attempt on his own life by any one of his many enemies, he promises her, with a smile as she lies unconscious, that the people responsible will suffer greatly for what they have done. A promise he repeats when she regains consciousness. A promise she gratefully accepts knowing full-well the lengths he will go to keep that promise. This acceptance and the gratitude that come along with Vanessa entering his life, I believe, allows Wilson Fisk to open the door on his darkness, unafraid of what the spotlight will mean. With the love of a good woman this man is capable of truly becoming himself, unafraid and unashamed he is free to walk down this path knowing that no matter what else comes along, no matter who may try to stop him, he is no longer alone.
At the end of season one episode eight we see the same scenes of Wilson Fisk getting ready, but this time he is not alone. Vanessa joins him for breakfast, omelets for two, and she even helps Wilson get ready for his day, making a point of picking out a different pair of cufflinks for him to wear, showing him that the past is the past. He’s no longer back there and he’s no longer alone.
“I always thought I was the Samaritan, but I am not the Samaritan, or the priest, or the Levite. I am the ill-intent.” -Wilson Fisk
Those You Cannot Teach To Fly, Teach To Fall Faster
Seated in the back of an armored van Wilson Fisk regales his captors with the story of the good Samaritan and for the first time perhaps, we see Wilson Fisk admit to himself as much as to the other men in the van that he is not the good guy. He has gained the courage and acceptance needed to come face to face with the man that he has become not the man he has viewed himself to be. This is the moment I believe to be the origin of the man we know as the Kingpin. Up until this point, Wilson Fisk has been a man who has accumulated power through whatever means necessary while hiding in the shadows, never confronting his darkness.
We see from the very beginning that he is not THE dark power in Hell’s kitchen. He is merely a player, one of four corners of the dark powers that vie for control of the city along with Madame Gao & the Triad, Nobu with the Yakuza & the Hand, and the Russians. Over the course of the first season, we watch as Wilson Fisk’s ambitions slowly pull him out of the darkness and have him consolidate all of the power around him. Even Madame Gao at one point asks Fisk when his ambitions will be turned to her. But as we see Wilson becoming more in tune with himself and more aligned with his vision for the city it all comes swiftly crumbling down thanks to the work of one unknown man. One man brings down all the years of planning and hard work that Wilson has spent his life on. At least, that’s how Fisk sees it.
As all his planning and hard work go down the drain Fisk realizes very quickly who he is and what he has become. As season one comes to a close we see Wilson Fisk seated alone, dressed in all white staring at the wall in front him. When we see Fisk for the first time in season two (Eight episodes in) we see him dressed in an all orange jumpsuit benching nearly five hundred pounds, he sits up to great The Punisher (Frank Castle) having barely broken a sweat. The interesting thing is that in the open of the very next episode we see Fisk’s own intake in our lovely prison system. He strips down in front of the guards, disgraced, and we see him in that same white jumpsuit from the end of the season one. He walks down the narrow corridor almost as if he’s walking to his own baptism as if this man is about to be reborn.
You can call it a prison if you’d like, but I’d argue that it’s more of a chrysalis than anything. This is where the man we know as Wilson Fisk will come to an end and the villain known as The Kingpin will be born. In fact, the first time we even hear the word “kingpin” used is in season two episode nine, where Mr. Dutton confronts Fisk in order to assert his power and make sure that Wilson knows his place.
“Cut the shit, fat man. I’ve known guys like you my whole life. Killed most of ’em. You ain’t never seen a throne you didn’t wanna sit in. So I’m here to make myself crystal clear. There’s only room for one of us in this prison and it ain’t gonna be you. Not ever. Because I’m the Kingpin of this bitch.” — Mr. Dutton.
The next time we see Mr. Dutton he is surrounded by his entourage as Fisk enviously glares at him in the prison cafeteria. The time after that is when a ravenous Frank Castle beset upon Mr. Dutton by Fisk himself stabs a shiv into his lung just before taking out every member of Mr. Dutton’s cell block and posse. The final time we see Mr. Dutton he lies in a hospital bed in the infirmary as Fisk sits beside his bed eating a nice steak with actual silverware as he explains to Mr. Dutton that he will soon drown in his own blood and that he was right, there is room for only one kingpin.
Keep Kicking Him
Wilson Fisk has been on a journey to self-discovery in the same way that Matthew Murdock has been on that same journey. This is why these two characters are such great foils to each other. They are both struggling with accepting the men they are becoming, both blinded by ambition and a need to do something for their city. Well, it seems that Mr. Fisk has finally accepted the man he is and as he says in his own words
“When I’m finally let out of this cage, it won’t be to wage war it will be to win one.” — Wilson Fisk
Matthew Murdock is entering season three as a broken and lost man. He has routinely been beaten down, bloodied up, and broken. He has had his morals come into question and his mission doubted by the people closest to him on many, many occasions. Matthew Murdock has gone from a man that is fully aware of and aligned with his goal to a man who is desperately struggling with his faith and the mission he has dedicated his life to. He is a man who has learned to fear the darkness within him. While Daredevil may have been able to beat a conflicted Wilson Fisk struggling to remain hidden, I’d say going into to season three Matthew Murdock is nowhere near prepared for the fully realized Kingpin.
The Kingpin has come out of prison and his chrysalis more powerful than ever, with no need to remain hidden and plenty of time to plan. Wilson Fisk is no longer that conflicted little boy covered in his father’s blood. He is so much more than that now. He is the Kingpin. And he is more than prepared for Daredevil and his alter ego Matthew Murdock, both of whom should be terrified; because just as his father taught him, possibly the most important lesson Fisk’s father taught him, you don’t stop kicking when he’s down. You keep kicking him.
What do think? Does Matthew Murdock have any idea what’s coming for him? Will he be anywhere near prepared for the fight he has coming to him? Are you ready for the Kingpin to make his grand entrance?
Whatever happens, I’d say that the man without fear has plenty to fear this season.
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