I wonder how they'll do the Karen's past thing. My heart hopes that Matt and Karen end up on a road trip up to Fagan Corners to lay low for a bit, as that'd mean they'd have some connecting time all to themselves. Plus, if anyone's capable of understanding Karen's past best, it'd be Matt.
I also hope that Karen’s past is revealed in Season 3, but I have a feeling Karen is never going to open up to Matt and tell him herself.
After he lied to her about Daredevil, she’s unsure if he cheated on her (which he practically did), and he’s treated her like an “idiot” this whole time, I really don’t think they’re close enough anymore.
They began as these two innocent people in pure, white love, but as time and the seasons go on we continue to get darker and darker into both of these character’s personalities.
I think Fisk or someone else will reveal her secret and completely destroy her reputation, (i.e. maybe lose her job/everyone will start treating her as an unreliable source), and Matt will be the one there to comfort her.
I hope we get to see Matt apologize, PROFUSELY, and have both of them actually open up to each other for the first time since season 1 episode 13 (the hug).
That one five minute scene of them being real with each other caused so many people to ship them, so I am very anxious to see if the writers will allow them to be honest with each other from now on.
I know it’s very likely we’re never getting the Avocado Family back, but I just really hope we get Karen and Matt’s close friendship back, no romance necessary.
Let’s analyze the shit out of it - Karedevil in 1x12 aka the Hug scene
One cannot leave out such a beautiful scene when analyzing Karedevil scenes. After the balloon scene from 1x11, that cute scene from 1x07, and the last Karedevil scene of the season in 1x13, these two are finally making contact both physically and emotionally, and this “hug scene” is all about breaking down walls and dropping the mask. So, without further ado, let’s go.
And brace yourselves, it’s going to be a looooong post.
First off, it’s important to remember that the hug scene is the SECOND Karedevil scene of the episode. We should keep that first scene in mind (around 9′ or 10′), when Matt walks into the office while Foggy’s already there and then talks with Karen. In that first scene, Matt looks cold, almost emotionless. He doesn’t let anything show.
Nevertheless, he notices Karen’s uneasiness and asks her if something happened. That’s when she tells him: “The world fell apart. Didn’t you notice?”
She starts opening up to him even though she doesn’t tell him the truth (that’s she’s having nightmares because she killed someone) and we’re not shown a compassionate Matt: we’re shown a wall. At this point, it’s the Great Wall of China.
That being said (and you should bear it in mind), about the “hug scene”: I may be a psychopath but I just love the beginning of that scene (48′40′’) when Matt is desperately trying to open the door. I mean, when you realize it won’t open you get that it’s locked and you stop, right? Here Matt just keeps trying to open the door rather vehemently, showing how many fucks he doesn’t give anymore after that rough night. And his voice is so broken when he says: “Karen? Karen? You’re in there?” That means he either felt it was her in the office or that he heard her on the phone with Ben. Either way, I find it cute.
She then opens the door:
Matt: “We’re locking this now?”
Karen: “Seems like a good idea.”
And then, Matt, who was walking away from her, decides to turn back.
I find this element so important, because a) he looks much more emotional than when they met earlier in the episode (and they haven’t seen each other ever since) and b) he tries to get closer to her, he wants to pour his heart out to her but he doesn’t know how and he doesn’t know if he should. So he just answers: “Yeah.”
And they stand their ground in silence, both facing each other for a few seconds which are everything because these precious, silent seconds embody his hesitation.
After that he tries to get rid of her:
“It’s late, you should go home.”
But Karen takes none of that.
“Matt?” she asks in a weak voice.
He doesn’t answer, he just freezes.
Karen: “Is this what we are now? Three people who don’t even talk to each other?”
And then Matt starts talking about Stick and when he says “... we were close once,” the camera focuses on the expression on Karen’s face:
She knows that he’s about to open up to her.
Matt: “I know this guy. We were close once. He told me if I… I’d have to push the people that I care about away if… if I wanted to be effective at what I do.”
Karen: “Seems like you listened to him.”
Matt: “Yeah. I thought I didn’t. This guy he has a way of getting in your head, you know.”
And the camera zooms in on Matt’s face as he slowly breaks down...
“And here’s the thing: I had a really shitty night.”
And Karen feels he’s hurting. The camera zooms in on her face too, because she can relate to what he’s saying. After all, she took a man’s life not so long ago.
Here she not only realizes Matt he’s deeply hurting, she realizes his words might as well be her own.
“The kind when you think you’ve seen the bottom of humanity and the pit’s just getting deeper, you know?”
She does.
“I… I can’t. I can’t do this alone. I can’t. I can’t take another step.”
The shot is up close, more than ever, as Matt’s walls are falling apart.
And Karen closes the distance between them.
And he doesn’t fight her. He lets go.
“You’re not alone. You never were.”
And she tightens her embrace and so does he.
For once, he completely opens up to Karen, he accepts her embrace, the comfort she’s offerring him, he cries, he grunts in the crook of her shoulder. This is what intimacy looks like. I don’t remember Matt letting go like that with anyone else except Foggy, not even with Claire, which shows that romantic interaction doesn’t mean intimacy. That scene was raw, it was real, it gave him the strength to go on. Karen gave him the strength to go on fighting because she showed him he was not alone, that people cared about him, that SHE cared about him.
This scene (at least in my opinion) is the mirror of the balloon scene in the previous episode. In 1x11, Karen had tried so hard to break down Matt’s walls but he wasn’t ready to open up, and it was all about the back and forth bewteen them, which was epitomized by their positions in space, and this process is the same here: Matt tries to get close to Karen, then he turns his back on her, then she starts talking to him and he stops running. Finally, SHE goes up to him and unlike in episode 11, he accepts the disappearance of the distance between them.
The “hug scene” is such a HUGE step in their relationship, and even though this scene is not a romantic one per se (even though I’m pretty sure this hug was romantic for Karen because she already has feelings for Matt), it shows how much they’ve come to care for each other and how much trust and intimacy is present between them.
Now take that handkerchief, cry your heart out, take a deep breath and think about next season, because here are the seeds of a future EPIC love story.
