The 3rd episode of Daredevil: Born Again was about Matt Murdock proving that Hector Ayala was innocent and he hadn’t killed Officer Shanahan. Murdock was able to get his hands on Nicky Torres, the CI that Hector was trying to save from officers Powell and Shanahan, but he lied and said he wasn’t even at the subway station where the incident happened. So, Matt had no option but to reveal that Hector was the vigilante called White Tiger and try to get the jury to see that he was a hero and he couldn’t have killed a cop on purpose. That worked out, and Hector was allowed to walk out of the courthouse a free man. But Mayor Wilson Fisk didn’t take that decision too well. His marital problems were getting muddy, but more importantly, Hector’s acquittal went against Fisk’s anti-vigilante stance. Hence, he allowed his frustrations to get the better of him, and he allegedly hired Punisher to kill White Tiger. However, was it really Punisher who pulled the trigger, or someone wearing his costume? Let’s talk about the 4th episode of Daredevil: Born Again to find out.
Spoiler Alert
Matt Gets His New Case
Episode 4 of Daredevil: Born Again opens with Matt visiting the coroner’s office and fixating over the fact that Hector was killed with such a close-range shot and yet no one managed to find the shell casing. Before Matt can look into it any further, Angela (Hector’s niece) walks in, wanting to see her uncle. Matt pacifies the little girl while also taking her allegations about the cops killing Hector into consideration. He tells her that she can’t lose hope, and that she has to believe that justice will be served. This is when we get a glimpse at the supervillain called Muse, who can be seen dragging one of his victims somewhere near the subway tracks.
I guess the episode is trying to insinuate that Muse is the killer, but I don’t think he had anything to do with Hector’s death; he has other issues, though. The focus shifts to Daniel Blake partying with BB Urich and one of her friends at a club, where he reveals Fisk’s plan to meet a company called CleanGreen Haulers because they have a “dope recycling idea.” As Blake starts to bore them with the details of the plan, BB and her friend decide to go bar-hopping, but Blake calls it a night and heads home. Right across the street from the club, we see a man, Leroy Bradford, getting arrested for allegedly stealing 2 boxes of popcorn to contrast the kids’ extreme opulence with what the middle-class or the lower middle-class is facing and to set up Matt’s new case.
Leroy Highlights The System’s Issues
After learning about Bradford’s plight from Kirsten, Matt heads over to Detention to meet him. Leroy scoffs at the fact that a blind lawyer has come to represent him and then orders Matt to get him out on probation, instead of letting him rot in jail for even a second, even though he is guilty. Look, I get what the show is going for here. It’s trying to show that while rich White criminals like Fisk get to become the mayor, poor Black criminals like Leroy don’t get the same level of leeway. However, the dialogue writing is so bad that it’s impossible to get behind Leroy’s bullheaded stance. Anyway, since Matt is Matt, he charms Sofija, one of the individuals in charge of dealing with these low-profile cases, into reducing Leroy’s month-long sentence to just 10 days. While heading back to Leroy’s cell, Matt runs into Officer Powell, and he tries to assess if he is the one who killed Hector. Once he is sure that Powell didn’t have a hand in Hector’s murder, he parts ways with the corrupt cop; well, they exchange a few barbs about finishing the fight they had started in Nicky’s apartment.
Leroy is not happy with having to spend 10 days in jail, and he tells Matt how it’s so odd that the city is willing to spend its resources on detaining people like him instead of giving them sustainable income, proper living conditions, and affordable food. Matt sympathizes with Leroy, but here’s the thing: if you know that the system is broken and unfairly treats its citizens, why would you get caught and then berate the lawyer who is trying to give you a fair deal? If you want to game the system, you have to be good enough at stealing? You can’t be an ineffective rebel and then blame everyone else for punishing you. With all that said, I don’t think this subplot is going anywhere. Yeah, you can see it’s there to “deepen” New York as a city. But is that “deepening” going to affect Matt’s arc in any substantial way, or is he going to resort to punching and kicking, thereby turning all these subplots into filler material? I don’t know.
Blake Messes Up
We get a brief scene between Wilson, Vanessa, and Heather where they are discussing the reason behind Vanessa’s decision to have an affair with Adam and how it all stems from Wilson’s absence and her daddy issues. Then they talk about forgiveness and how that’s the only way to save this marriage. And, right after ending the session, Heather makes sure that Vanessa isn’t being physically or psychologically abused by Wilson. The scene then shifts to Red Hook, where Wilson tells Sheila, Blake, and Buckman that he intends to do a complete structural overhaul of the decrepit shipping yard. Sheila warns against it, but Blake, as usual, sucks up to Wilson and supports this move. That said, she does explain the proper process to achieve what Wilson wants.
When Sheila and Blake are out of earshot, Cashman does underscore the fact that the ruckus being created by the Five Families is going to harm Wilson until he sentences at least one of them or kills all of them. As Wilson goes about his day, meeting children at their schools and attending a Latvian heritage celebration, Sheila and Blake learn that news of Wilson’s deal with CleanGreen Haulers has been leaked and he has been labeled as a union buster. That causes Wilson to explode, and as he screams about identifying the leaker, Blake comes forward and reveals that he is the one who accidentally exposed Wilson’s plans to BB Urich while partying with her. Fearing that he is going to be fired, Blake begins groveling, and that miraculously causes Wilson to calm down. He assures the kid that he is not going to fire him, but if he makes another mistake like that again, he warns Blake that it’s the last mistake that he is ever going to make.
Punisher Didn’t Kill White Tiger
Matt goes to the site where Hector was murdered, and he uses his superpowers to find the shell casing. Given how it has a Punisher logo on it, he decides to pay his old frenemy, Frank Castle, a visit. As soon as Matt walks into Castle’s lair, he attacks him and almost buries a hatchet into his skull. When he realizes that it’s Matt, he lowers his guard. That’s when Matt begins explaining that Castle’s violent ways have made him an idol for the wrong crowd, and now police officers are flaunting his logo, emulating his ways, and doling out extrajudicial punishment without any fear of repercussions. Matt knows that Frank didn’t kill Hector, but he wants him to change his ways so that the wrong crowd stops getting inspired by him. This is the show’s way of addressing Punisher’s, let’s say, problematic fans in real life. You can say that the series is a little late to the party because Jon Bernthal, the actor playing Castle, took them to task nearly 7 years ago. However, given how you’ll still see certain people with violent political agendas flashing the Punisher sign and partaking in all kinds of heinous activities in the name of “justice,” you can say that this whole scene is sort of relevant. It’s just that the talking points are so stale that it doesn’t quite manage to be impactful.
The conversation between Matt and Frank gets interesting when the latter senses that Matt feels the weight of the words that Frank had told him on a rooftop almost a decade ago about how Daredevil is one bad day away from becoming Punisher. Yes, Benjamin Poindexter survived, but that doesn’t erase the fact that Matt threw him off the roof of Josie’s Bar with the intention of killing him. Frank thinks that Matt wants to do something like that again and avenge Hector; he just wants Frank’s blessing. Frank tells Matt to accept that he hasn’t done anything substantial to honor Foggy’s memory, he has Hector’s blood on his hands, and his “I’m going to be a good lawyer and my vigilante days are in the rear-view mirror” shtick isn’t working anymore. This gets a violent reaction out of Matt, but he keeps himself from giving Frank what he wants. Matt brings his conversation with Frank to an abrupt end as he convinces himself that he has done right by Foggy by ensuring that Poindexter rots in a cell for the rest of his life.
Wilson Has Imprisoned Adam
At the end of Daredevil: Born Again episode 4, after spending a romantic night with Heather, Matt is seen visiting the room on his apartment building’s roof and contemplating putting on the suit again, which is probably something that he does very often. This is juxtaposed with Wilson climbing down the steps of his apartment (yes, the heaven and hell allegory is apparent) and eating his food down there while Adam cries his lungs out. This shows that, regardless of the picture that Wilson is painting in front of everyone else, including Vanessa, he is still the Kingpin, and he is torturing Adam on a regular basis for sleeping with his wife. Wilson has repeatedly said that he doesn’t harbor any ill feelings towards Adam, and he is genuinely working on repairing his ties with Vanessa.
However, the fact that he is working on his feelings by punching the hell out of Adam every single night means that he doesn’t have any intention of becoming a better person. He is going to hurt Adam until he is satisfied enough to forgive Vanessa for her missteps. Both Matt and Wilson are lying to themselves and to the people around them that they have changed, but they haven’t actually, and they are raring to openly go back to their old ways. Will they though? Well, based on the trailers and other promotional material, yes, they will. By the way, seemingly unrelated to all this, we get a follow-up scene of Muse extracting blood out of one of his victims, because he is going to use that to paint his murals that are spread all across the city. This is just setup for Matt’s altercation with this supervillain of the week; nothing more, nothing less.
