Let’s pause here for a moment and consider that curiously red sanctuary.
Red, in film, rarely bodes well. It’s often meant to be evocative, foreboding, even hellish. The glowing red eye of HAL-9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey spoke to the computer’s ultimately devilish intent. The rose petals in American Beauty exuded terrible temptation and desire. In The Shining, we didn’t just see red in Stanley Kubrick’s famous flood of blood into the lobby, but in the hotel’s very crimson bathrooms.
Catholic churches rarely choose to bathe their interiors in the deep red we see in Daredevil here. It’d be unsettling for the faithful, and it is unsettling here. We, as viewers, see the red as an ominous sign of things to come: Blood will be shed soon, and quite a lot of it.
But in Christianity, blood and, by association, the color red, bring more to the party. Because we believe that Jesus shed his own blood to save us, that very blood becomes a symbol of sacrifice and redemption. That’s why many churches paint their doors red: It’s a reminder of Christ’s sacrifice, and a symbol that whoever walks through those red doors has found a place of sanctuary and refuge—a place of safety where someone can begin the process of rebuilding. (The season’s last episode, incidentally, features a shot of this self-same church’s red door.)
If you look at Netflix’s Marvel shows, each one has its very own color palate: Luke Cage a bright, optimistic yellow, Iron Fist eco-green, Jessica Jones a chilly, noirish blue/purple. Daredevil’s has always been red, from the opening credit sequence on. That red has always spoken to the “devil” part of Daredevil—the rage roiling underneath the red suit, the blood he takes and gives as he fights. But I think it has always spoken to something deeper, especially this season: The power and beauty of sacrifice: Of blood shed for a better purpose.
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