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Daredevil: Does Matt Murdock Know Karen Page’s Secret?

By Nick Tylwalk

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(NOTE: This article contains spoilers for episode 11 and episode 13 of the Netflix Daredevil series. If you haven’t started watching yet … well, geez, what are you waiting for? Here are six reasons to get you started.)

One of the true revelations of the Netflix Daredevil series is Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page. I say that not because I didn’t think the True Blood alum would do a good job with the character, but because of the multiple ways her portrayal is different from the Karen from the comics and how she ends up spending much of the show pursuing her own angle on how to help rid Hell’s Kitchen of Wilson Fisk.

Page certainly isn’t the first strong supporting character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but she is the first one to have what amounts to her own separate storyline going on. While the quest of reporter Ben Urich certainly crosses over with the actions of the other main cast members, it’s really his interactions with Karen that drive him to seek the truth — and eventually put them both in danger.

That peril comes to a head in episode 11, “The Path of the Righteous,” when Karen is kidnapped by Fisk’s right-hand man, James Wesley. Instead of merely killing Page, Wesley hopes to convince her to dissuade Urich from pursuing his story on Fisk’s younger days, and particularly his murder of his own father. That leads to one of the most shocking moments of the entire run, as Page not only shoots Wesley, but unloads multiple shots into his chest, killing him. She also hints that it is not the first time she’s shot someone.

With Daredevil already establishing early on that Matt Murdock can tell if someone is lying or nervous about something simply by listening to his or her heartbeat, he knows something isn’t quite right with Karen. Yet he’s just as much in the dark about Wesley’s death and her role in it as everyone else is, including Fisk, who never does figure out what happened to his (only?) friend.

But toward the end of the final episode, “Daredevil,” Matt confronts Karen right after they’ve said goodbye to Foggy Nelson, leading to the following exchange:

Matt: “There’s been something in your voice. It’s been there for a while now. I thought whatever it was, whatever’s been … I thought it would get better once Fisk was put away, but … It hasn’t, has it?”

Karen: “We put him away, yeah. But it won’t bring back Elena, or Ben, or erase what we’ve been through or what we’ve had to do to get here.”

Matt: “Yeah. A lot of decisions I’d do anything to go back and change, but I can’t. None of us can.”

It’s tough to say for sure with both of them beating around the bush a bit, but Matt’s answer sure seems to suggest that he knows more than he’s letting on. Even though Karen never told Matt and Foggy that she had her run-in with Wesley, much less that she shot him, it’s not too far-fetched to think that Matt might have figured out that she had something to do with it. He’s keeping his secrets from Karen — she never does find out that he’s Daredevil — so maybe this is his way of allowing her to keep one of her own, at least in her own mind.

Clearly, it appears to be open to some level of interpretation on the part of the viewer, which is always fun. If Daredevil returns for a second season, it will be interesting to see if the writers choose to follow up on this plot thread or if Karen’s past comes back to haunt her in some other way.

Next: Who was Stick talking to at the end of Daredevil, episode 7?

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