Ryan Kirksey
The following recap contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again S1E3, “The Hollow of His Hand” (written Jill Blankenship and directed by Michael Cuesta), and S1E4,”Sic Semper Systema” (written by David Feige and Jesse Wigutow and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff)
It’s ironic how often Daredevil: Born Again highlights the use of one of The Man Without Fear’s greatest abilities. Throughout the first four episodes of the new Disney+ show, we have seen (and heard) how Matt Murdock uses the heartbeat of someone near him to know if they are lying, afraid, nervous, or honest. That heartbeat often impacts and influences the decisions Matt Murdock makes either as a lawyer or as Daredevil. But it’s clear through four episodes this series is missing the heartbeat that powered the first three seasons of the Netflix adaptation—namely, Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson).
After the shock of Foggy Nelson dying at the beginning of Episode 1 at the hands of Bullseye and Karen Page’s subsequent move to San Francisco, Murdock’s life has been turned upside down and his Daredevil persona has been stuffed away literally and figuratively. Murdock can not simply let himself become the man that threw Benjamin Poindexter (Wilson Bethel) off a roof one year ago, even if the Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) is back in town and an army of “bullshit fanboys” of the Punisher are going around town enacting vigilante justice under the cover of his logo.
Matt Murdock has decided to try and let himself trust the process and the system to take down the bad guys of Hell’s Kitchen. But in trying to bring out the best of the city and its structures, he has also brought out the worst in himself.
Continuing the story from Episode 2, “The Hollow of his Hand” largely focuses on the trial of Hector Ayala (Kamar de los Reyes), a do-gooder caught in the wrong place at the wrong time who is being falsely accused of throwing a cop in front of a subway train and killing him. The police in this series are largely covered in a blanket of being “dirty” so Murdock and his associates not only have to battle the legal system but also a corrupt unit that will stop at nothing to eliminate the witness who knows Ayala is innocent, while allowing Ayala to be the one who takes the fall despite him breaking up an illegal shakedown.
When Murdock’s witness gets on the stand and refuses to testify because he sees the violent stares of dozens of police officers in the courtroom, Murdock has to improvise. In that moment, he unexplainably goes against his promises to Ayala and reveals to the jury that his client is the White Tiger, a man who is powered by an amulet and spends his days and nights fighting crime.
The television audience, knowing his past, can see this is a thin veil for Murdock putting his own actions as Daredevil on trial, and trying to find any desperate way he can to win as a lawyer because he has chosen to no longer save people as Daredevil. Not surprisingly, the judge and district attorney don’t like this turn of events, but allow it to continue. Ayala seems shocked by his lawyer’s betrayal, but the trial then becomes about the good Ayala has done and how his life is devoted to saving people, not killing them.
Ayala is found not guilty, but it comes with a heavy price. Not willing to give up his “calling” of being the White Tiger, Ayala takes back to the streets, only to be gunned down at the end of Episode 2 by a hooded man wearing the Punisher logo across his chest.
Murdock, a vigilante himself, had to know this would be a potential consequence. To publically reveal Ayala as the White Tiger and expose him and his family to that kind of open publicity was so far removed from what a “hero” would do, and now Murdock has no one to blame for himself for Ayala’s death. Murdock’s mission to do right by people through a broken system that counts on crooked police was taken to such an extreme that it led to an innocent man’s death and a family in mourning.
One of those family members confronts Murdock at the beginning of “Sic Semper Systema,” when Ayala’s niece Angela Del Toro (Camila Rodriguez) confronts Murdock about her uncle’s death. In the comics, Angela Del Toro eventually takes up the mantle of White Tiger and seeks training from Daredevil, so this could clearly be a storyline in future seasons, or Del Toro could join the evolving roster of the MCU’s Young Avengers.
This confrontation inspires Murdock to track down Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) in an attempt to ascertain whether he is behind the death of Hector Ayala and all of the other Punisher-logo violence happening in the city. Castle is found living underground, no longer active but still a wounded and violent man. He and Murdock pick up on the debate they had over two seasons in the Netflix show about what it actually means to do good in the roles they have chosen for themselves.
But while Murdock has never agreed with Castle’s philosophy on eliminating any and all potential enemies, he clearly has never needed his help more. This is one of the other ways the post-Daredevil, post-Foggy death Murdock is a shell of himself. He is afraid to pick up the Daredevil batons again but wants people like Frank Castle to rise to their calling and “do good” for people. The contradiction of Murdock telling Castle the city needs him while not long ago exposing White Tiger and signing his death warrant shows the conflict in Matt, and it’s getting to the point where he is not going to be able to keep the Devil inside much longer.
That couldn’t be more slap-you-in-the-face clear than with the “case of the week” Matt gets in Episode 4, when his boss Kirsten (Nikki M. James) assigns him a low-level petty theft client, Leroy Bradford, who needs representation. This man, who has been to jail dozens of times before, is looking at another 30-60 days in the slammer but begs Murdock to try and get him just probation. The conversation (really, the monologue by Bradford) is served to us to prove how the justice system is more interested in locking people up than helping get to the root of their criminal activity and stopping it.
Murdock uses his charm and guile with the prosecuting attorney to get his client just 10 days in prison, but the experience in the courtroom with Ayala, with Bradford in the prison, and with Castle underground clearly has woken up something in him. That figurative awakening turns into a literal waking up that night when Murdock pulls out the batons and starts training with them again.
Through all of this, there is the other side of the New York City coin with Wilson Fisk’s rise to become mayor and his struggle to “get things done” while trying to avoid the landmines of red tape and bureaucracy along the way. He wants to clean up the Red Hook port and turn it into a hub for industry. He wants to distance themselves from the five gangster families, but they keep committing acts of violence with Vanessa’s (Ayelet Zurer) approval anyway.
I understand the tension here pointing back to the diner scene in Episode 1, where both Murdock and Fisk say they want to accomplish things without giving in to their dark sides. But while Murdock’s story has turned him into a complex man he never wanted to be, Fisk’s story just comes across as mundane and boring to me right now. Maybe I just miss the slamming-a-guy’s-head-in-a-car-door Fisk.
Even when one of his loyal lackeys, Daniel (Michael Gandolfini) makes a crucial error that leads to news coverage of Fisk being called “Mayor Garbage,” he lets Daniel keep his job (and his life) after a heartfelt apology. The Fisk of old would never.
But the end of the episode shows that there is hope for the Kingpin to emerge from Fisk’s shadow. After Vanessa’s admission that she had an affair when Fisk was gone for so long, he learns the man was a local artist named Adam. Over a disgustingly large dinner of sausages and pasta, Fisk is entertained by Adam’s pleas to let him go and release him from the cell he is locked in. Those cries serve as sort of dinner music for the former crime boss and likely some kind of therapy as well. We’ve seen Fisk in marriage therapy as he tries to mend things with Vanessa, but it appears the only thing that will really soothe him is his violent nature.
We can only hope that the paths it appears Daredevil and Kingpin are about to take cross sooner rather than later.
