After teasing a possible recovery throughout the fifth episode of Daredevil: Born Again “The Grand Design,” Vanessa Fisk is dead. After everything she and Wilson went through to be together, the crimes they’ve committed and the people who died along the way, she died due to the injuries she sustained when Bullseye attacked Fogwell’s Gym.
Or did she die after drinking some pineapple juice, despite the implication that she was unknowingly allergic to it?
It was a small detail that was, frankly, completely unnecessary.
Daredevil: Born Again gave Vanessa a perfect death. It was karmic in nature since she was targeted by a man she manipulated, and indirectly killed by the man she loves. It’s a metaphor for how Vanessa doesn’t really belong in Wilson’s world. That her insistence on standing by him has destroyed her. So why try to suggest that she died because of an allergy?
Vanessa’s Injury Should Have Been Enough
The temple is one of the most vulnerable places on the human body because it’s the thinnest part of the skull. Underneath that thin stretch of bone (called the pterion) is where four skull bones frontal, parietal, temporal, and sphenoid meet. A major artery called the middle meningeal artery runs underneath.
If that artery is damaged, blood begins to pool in the space between the skull and the brain’s outer membrane. This is called an epidural hematoma and it is lethal.
Arterial bleeding is pressurized since arteries carry oxygenated blood from the heart to the body’s tissues at high pressure. But it’s also slow enough that the brain can manage it…for a while. The patient wakes up, speaks normally, and can recognize names and faces. They seem like they are going to be fine until they crash.
This is what doctors call a lucid interval, a temporary improvement in a patient’s condition following a traumatic brain injury before they start to deteriorate. This is what Vanessa experiences after her surgery. She wakes up, having reverted back to the kinder personality she had back in the beginning of the original Daredevil series. She wants Wilson to tell her the story of how they met, even though she remembers it. For a few minutes, she is acting like herself.
Then the pressure inside her skull crosses a threshold that her brain can no longer manage. The brain begins to shift downward and compresses the brainstem, resulting in a lack of blood flow and brain damage. As the body struggles to compensate for the lack of blood flowing to the brain, the patient suffers from high blood pressure, irregular breathing and a slower heart rate.
While it’s clear this was done to make Vanessa’s death feel even more tragic, her recovery and sudden deterioration is based on a real-life condition. This is sometimes called “talk and die” syndrome, because patients who experience it are often lucid and conversational right up until the moment they crash.
Surgeons may have succeeded in removing the glass inside Vanessa’s head, but it was too late to reverse the damage it caused. A slow arterial bleed can remain undetected during the surgery itself, with no warning of what’s really going on until it’s too late.
So What Was Up with the Pineapple Juice?
Pineapple contains an enzyme called bromelain. In most people, bromelain causes a mild tingling or irritation around the mouth which is harmless. For it to kill someone, you would need to have a severe allergic reaction. The kind that triggers anaphylaxis, where your throat closes and your blood pressure drops within minutes.
But anaphylaxis isn’t as simple as a flatline on a cardiac monitor. Symptoms include hives, swollen lips, difficulty breathing. What we see with Vanessa is a sudden crash, not an allergic reaction. Also, neither Netflix’s Daredevil or Daredevil: Born Again alluded that Vanessa was allergic to pineapples. Fisk says it makes her lips tingle, which is the bromelain doing its thing, not a sign of a dangerous allergy.
So the pineapple juice on its own couldn’t have killed her.
But when a writer draws your attention to a certain detail, it’s for a reason. This trope is called a Chekhov’s Gun and it’s one of the oldest rules in fiction. You don’t show the audience a loaded gun unless you intend to use it. The way Vanessa reacts to pineapple juice was awkward and misplaced in an otherwise well-written scene.
Three Reasons Why the Writers Included the “Pineapple Juice” Reference
There are three reasons why the writers would include the reference to pineapple juice.
The first one is the juice is a warning that Vanessa isn’t herself. Fisk had to remind her that she hates pineapple juice because it makes her lips tingle but she still wants it anyway. The show implies that if Vanessa had lived, she would’ve had a complete change in personality. It’s actually a shame we’ll never get to see if these changes would affect her relationship with Fisk and her ability to tolerate his brutality.
Second, it’s possible that the juice was poisoned. The name and location of the hospital she’s being treated at is leaked to the public later in the episode, so it’s possible that an enemy could have tracked her down. But that doesn’t seem likely since Fisk and his men are also at the hospital. And Vanessa herself spends most of her stay on an operating table.
It’s possible that someone who’s anti-Fisk and was already working at the hospital could have done it. Maybe that poor nurse Fisk was yelling at reached her breaking point and wanted payback? That could be an interesting development.
And finally, the pineapple juice could actually represent how Fisk can’t help but hurt Vanessa no matter what he does. It was him deciding to smash the glass sculpture Bullseye threw that led to Vanessa’s injury. When she asked for pineapple juice, he gave it to her anyway despite knowing she dislikes it. He was so happy to have his wife back he couldn’t help but fulfil her request without much thought.
Fisk is one of the most powerful men in New York City, yet his power and wealth can’t give him what really wants, which is Vanessa.
Either way, Vanessa’s death was an emotional gut punch even if you knew it was coming. It helps set the stage for what’s looking to be a chaotic second half of season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again, now that Fisk has lost the only person who kept him in check.
New episodes of Daredevil: Born Again premieres every Tuesday on Disney+ at 9:00 p.m. ET/ 6:00 p.m. PT.
