[92/00] I’m going to give “The Perfect Game” one of the highest compliments I can muster --it felt like an episode of *Batman: The Animated Series*. Maybe I’m just swayed by the black-and-white cinematography, but the episode bears the hallmarks that made the seminal series (which features a spiritual cousin to Daredevil) so distinctive. The unique visuals, the focus on a villain’s psychology, the detective work, all bring to mind Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and Eric Radomski’s extraordinary work. I’m naturally drawn to writing and performances, but it’s worth noting how much the visuals are a part of the story here. The flashiest element is the black-and-white sequences that represent Poindexter’s file. But just as laden with meaning are the scenes with Dex that (nearly) bookend the episode. The distinction between the cold open, where Dex is precise and exacting with his morning prep (not unlike a certain other Dexter), and the camera cuts and composition are sharp and precise to match, sets a tone for Poindexter’s character and his deliberate, arguably pathological need for perfection. Director Julian Holmes contrasts that with the (near) closing scene in the midst of his crash-out after things go off-the-rails with the woman he’s stalking. The way the camera swirls and careens back and forth, matching the normally measured killer’s sudden lack of emotional control, helps sell the mental break on display here. It’s a deft means of communicating the difference between where Dex begins and where he ends. We see where he truly begins too. (Or most of that anyway. I suspect we’ll later learn how his parents died and probably that he had a hand in their deaths.) The choice not to simply have Fisk or Dex’s therapist reading his file in voiceover, or even to do a standard flashback, but rather to make Kingpin a sort of spectator in Dex’s past, is inspired. And integrating all of these scenes from Poindexter’s history into Fisk’s blank hotel suite is creative. It gives the presentation a certain minimalist quality that lets the core performances and emotions of the scene hold the center. The stylization and inventiveness of it really elevates the material. So does the approach the show takes to Dex. On the one hand, he is sympathetic. He’s lost his parents, and even if we don’t know whether he’s a reliable narrator about what happened, it clearly had an impact on him. Maybe, like his baseball coach, they were kind, and he was pathological. But maybe they were exacting, something young Dex internalized until it warped him. For much of this, you see a wounded child, fearing abandonment, clinging to the notion that being perfect will earn him love like a security blanket. Routine gives him comfort and purpose, and in a different world, you can imagine him getting the care and support he needs to be a decent person. But on the other hand, there’s a chilling sense in which those measures, put in place by Dr. Mercer, are a cage in which to contain a monster. When he echoes her statements of empathy, it plays as robotic, insincere, a mask he can slip on to make his way in polite society. When he works at a suicide hotline, he dutifully follows the script until his approving supervisor is out of earshot and then preaches violence and revenge to a suicidal soul. In the vignettes of his perfect game gone horribly awry, you see a poor kid suffering from emotions to great for him to understand. But as he gets older, you see a young man using what he’s learned in therapy not to get better, but to playact in ways that hide what’s lurking within him. Those two sides of him emerge in his mix of attachment and vengefulness to the women in his life. Dr. Mercer clearly leaves an impression on him, since his pursuit of Julie seems at least partially motivated by the way she resembles his therapist. And you can understand why a young boy, helped by someone who’s endlessly patient and helpful with him, would imprint to some degree, feel like he needs that person with “a good heart” to keep his worst impulses at bay. Yet, in telling moments, the mask slips. When a dying Dr. Mercer tries to say her goodbyes, he resents her for “abandoning” him, the disappointment in and departure of another parental figure tearing him open and letting the beast out. You see the same when the manufactured reunion with Julie goes south, as his stalker tendencies slip and her discomfort becomes evident. He desperately wants that connection, but ironically, lacks the empathy and maybe the human emotion necessary to forge it. So when things inevitably go wrong, he loses control and lashes out in ways that are both sympathetic given where he’s coming from and scary given the threat he poses to those unlucky enough to be in his crosshairs. The material is so rich in that way. The beauty of so many of *Batman: The Animated Series*’ villains is that the creative team prompted the audience to both recoil at the bad guy’s actions but also spurred them to understand why the antagonist became this way in a fashion that couldn't help provoke sympathy. Poindexter’s life is both a horrorshow and a tragedy, one that makes you feel for the crying little boy on a pitcher’s mound and fear for those unfortunate souls in his path when his fragile psyche cracks open and the monster comes out. That is, after all, the goal. Despite his attachment to Vanessa and his own bleak childhood, Kingpin is no longer a sympathetic man. He is someone who searches out the soft spots in those around him and figures out how to press down on them hard enough, and at just the right times, to move them in the direction he needs. The audience’s part in all of this is to see what makes Dex tick and understand him better as both perpetrator and victim. Fisk’s part, on the other hand, is to search out the cracks in the edifice of Poindexter’s being, so that he can turn the man into the perfect pariah to take the heat off Kingpin’s own public scorn. It is diabolical, not merely in the way it ties into a standard evil plan, but in the way it turns a man’s problems and pain into a craven bid for PR distraction. Of course, Dex isn’t the only person Fisk is preparing to throw under the bus for his own mercenary ends. The choice to have him give Matt to the feds as a supposed collaborator, turning the FBI’s sights to his archenemy is both a clever move from a villainous chessmaster and a sharp plot motivator. It spurs Ray to visit Matt’s allies and measure their reactions. The light interrogations are revealing, showing different approaches to the same central questions, and allowing the performers to play in the space of knowing things they won’t say and intimating others. Karen is caught off guard, especially when she suspects that Kingpin’s fixer is primed to eliminate her. But she’s also fiery when she regains her footing, unwilling to give anything away and challenging Ray to go after the real bad guys rather than wasting his time on Matt. Foggy is different. He’s honest with Ray, walking right up to the line without disclosing Matt’s nighttime activities, but also knows his rights and his recourse and isn’t afraid to stand up to the guy. Ray is interesting here too, clearly believing that he’s onto another shady part of Fisk’s criminal enterprise, both motivated to find another target to catch and kill and also not off-base that there’s something fishy going on with Murdock. It’s why those interrogation scenes are so superb. Each party in them is holding things close to the vest, giving things away strategically, and having valid reasons behind each of their perspectives. I’ll confess, it’s been long enough that I don’t remember the details of Karen’s involvement in killing one of Fisk’s henchmen, but that too adds another interesting dimension to how all three of these noble (or noble enough) figures swirling around Fisk play this situation. Ironically, the least engrossing part of the episode is Daredevil himself.One of the quiet boons of “The Perfect Game” is that it’s mostly Matt-free. And while it’s obvious that Daredevil will survive the sunken cab situation, keeping him largely sidelined for a whole episode at least helps give the incident some added gravity. (No pun intended.) A manhunt for Matt works as a nice extension of the heat steadily rising from the FBI, from both Ray and Poindexter. The visuals, the psychology, and the crime noir sensibility of it all calls to mind one of, if not the, greatest superhero shows of our age. Sitting alongside *B:TAS*, even for an episode, is rarified air. Let’s hope *Daredevil* can keep it up.

what a brilliant episode. even from the opening shot, one could tell this was going to be well executed. the set up, the psyc hints, the manipulation signs. wilson bethel is incredible as dex.