The second episode of Daredevil: Born Again—written by Jill Blankenship and directed by Michael Cuesta—is titled “The Hollow of His Hand”, and I really like that by the end of the episode, the title can read as a sneer at our heroes and all their attempts at letting the law and justice prevail.
Silly heroes.
Matt and his team do their best to use the law to prove that their client, Hector Ayala, is not a cop killer—without mentioning his other life as the masked vigilante White Tiger. Naturally the system works against them at every turn. Meanwhile Fisk settles into his new role as New York City’s mayor, and tries to convince Vanessa that they can be a real couple again… while Vanessa does her best to preserve her life as a crime boss.
And underneath both storylines is the steady pulse of Matt and Fisk’s darker selves: can the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and The Kingpin really deny their whole selves forever?
A Spoilery Recap
Matt, Kirsten, and Cherry continue their seemingly doomed defense of Hector Ayala. They have the secret witness stashed away, and then they bring him in for a dramatic reveal and he… shits the bed and denies everything. And of course Matt knows he’s lying, but can’t say anything.
And this becomes the pivotal point for the season, when Matt, rather than finding a solution through Daredevilry, outs Hector as White Tiger. His thinking (which is sound) is that once people realize that Hector is a costumed hero, they’ll understand that he isn’t a murderer. And we get a series of civilian witnesses and police reports praising White Tiger to the skies, and, in the short term, he goes free.
But of course this was also a terrible idea, because not only did Matt do this without Hector’s consent, but he’s now painted a big fat target on his back. Fisk uses Hector as the first target of his campaign against vigilantism; New York City’s totally-not-corrupt-anymore-at-all mayor monologues to BB Urich about the need for law and justice, and a hooded person shoots Hector in the head the night after he’s released.
A hooded person with a giant terrifying Punisher skull spray painted on his body armor.
Grace
I like that the show is adding to the worldbuilding that sets it apart from the Netflix seasons—seeing that people have begun spray painting the Punisher skull with the word “TRIGGERED” scrawled over it is chilling.
Cutting from Fisk’s scabbed, clenched fists on his fancy dining table, to Matt gritting his teeth and washing his still-bloody hands in a courthouse restroom—that’s what we want! Especially when Matt goes straight into his “Hello? Is—is somebody there? I’m sooo helpless” act when the crooked cop comes in and confronts him. MORE OF THAT PLEASE, show.
The conversations between Matt and Hector are the kind of heartfelt discussions of morality and superhero-ing that I want from these kinds of shows. I loved that this episode gave a long moment for Hector to talk about the coquí frogs of Puerto Rico—specifically to mention that while they annoy the tourists, Boricua know that they’re the music of the island. (If you want coqui song, here, have some Mars Volta!)
The scene with Fisk and Vanessa sitting “together” at either end of a VERY long breakfast table is an obvious nod to Citizen Kane, but I like it as shorthand. And am I correct that there were mourning doves calling outside the window throughout the scene? Makes for a nice contrast to Hector telling Matt about the coqui, who mate for life and call to their lovers with beautiful song.
Using the BB Report interstitials to comment on the action feels a little Sex and the City season one to me, but it works when the writers are really using it for commentary. A generic gruff man eating pizza does nothing for me, but that superintendent saying that Hector won’t get a fair trial cause he’s Puerto Rican, while he sweeps the sidewalk in front of his building? THAT does something. I’ve met that dude many times, and he gives me a sense of how people in the community are talking about “masked vigilantes”.
Retribution
The “HaHA, the witness you were going to murder is in another vehicle!” fake out would work better if they hadn’t used it at least once in Daredevil’s third season.
When the surprise witness finally arrives, Matt seems surprised and relieved. If he’s putting on an act for the people who don’t know he’s Daredevil, this is a great moment, and belongs in the “Grace” section. If the show wants us to believe that Matt fucking Murdock didn’t hear and smell that man as soon as he walked inside the building, then it belongs here, in “Retribution”. What say you, readers?
I’m not a fan of the new dynamic between Fisk and Vanessa, especially if she’s going to imply that he’s trying to get vengeance on her for sleeping with another dude. If he wanted vengeance, she’d know it—or at least, she would have known it, in the moments before her brutal death. Speaking of, this Adam fellow is for sure dead, right?
As much as I love Kamar de los Reyes as Hector Ayala, and I do, I really didn’t dig the repetition of “It was the right thing to do”. I understand that he’s another stoic hero who doesn’t really want to talk about his heroism, but I wanted more. And there was an opportunity there to talk about White Tiger as a specifically Uptown, Puerto Rican hero, to have people from Washington Heights come downtown and talk about him as a member of that community. The people who testified on his behalf felt a bit generic to me—and also what woman in New York takes a shortcut through a dark alley late at night? We’ve all seen the first Spider-man, come on. And also also, there aren’t actually that many alleys in the city.
Fiorello’s Desk
As Fisk and Vanessa wait for Heather Glenn to come in for their therapy session, they have something close to an honest conversation. Vanessa doesn’t want to “watch everything fall apart”—i.e., their crime empire—but Fisk believes that a moment of chaos will lead to a stronger peace later. Again, between watching this show and seeing Mickey-17 last weekend, I kind of wish all the media that was actually made several years ago would quit commenting on, like, today. (I don’t know what’s happened today, but I bet it’s nothing good.)
Fisk seems to have larger aspirations than just the mayor-hood, and wants Vanessa to be patient while his machinations play out. But beyond blackmailing that police chief last week, I don’t see much. I did love that he used BB Urich to announce his plan to stamp out vigilantism rather than any more mainstream outlet.
How’s Lent Going, Matty?
When Matt tells Hector Ayala: “I think you might be surprised at how much you don’t miss being [White Tiger]” it sounds suspiciously like the lady is protesting too much.
On the morning of Hector’s judgement, Matt goes to the courtroom early, sits in a bench with stained-glass-light pouring down on him, and turns his broken Daredevil horn in his hand over and over again. One might even say in a manner that feels rosary-adjacent.
In summary, humans of the jury, I don’t think Lent’s going too well.
Quotes!
“Why would he do this without the amulet that gives him extraordinary strength? Would any of you walk into battle with one arm tied behind your back?”
—Matt, making a solid point about Hector Ayala.
“All your bones break. Your organs are eviscerated. Your body twists up like a circus balloon full of blood. But here’s the kicker: you’re still alive. You don’t actually die until they back the train up, and then your body—it just bursts.”
—DA Hochberg (John Benjamin Hickey) making getting hit by a train sound metal as hell.
“Wait, do I want to get hit by a train now?”
—Me, watching this episode.
“A man who cooks, a case well-won, and Foggy Nelson: May God hold them all in the hollow of His hand.”
—Poor deluded Heather Glenn, who doesn’t yet understand that Matt was put on this earth to suffer, and that invoking God only makes it worse.
Closing Argument
We’re all assuming that wasn’t Actual Punisher at the end, right? Frank Castle has his issues, but I can’t imagine he’d shoot Hector Ayala for helping people. He never even shot Matt, really, and Matt was whiny bastard in most of their interactions.
To go back to the “Hollow of His Hand” thematic stuff—I like that Heather Glenn, this kind, intelligent person from a more reasonable world, has now collided with Marvel’s favorite guilt-ridden martyr. She has a celebratory post-trial dinner with Matt, she gets him to open up about Foggy, she toasts his success and his lost friend. In a different kind of show, this would be the scene that played just before the credits rolled. Instead it’s the prelude to Fisk declaring war on vigilantes—specifically to destroy Matt—and the anonymous murder of a good and honorable man.
I’ve pinpointed my problem, I think. If this show was the first iteration of Daredevil, and this had shown up in the midst of the increasingly cluttered and pale Marvel TV offerings, I’d be trumpeting it from every water tower in New York. As it is, it’s acting as a kinda sorta de facto sequel to one of the most successful things Marvel ever did, and it feels rushed choppy in comparison. I enjoyed this week’s episode more than last week, just as an episode of television, but I still hope that the show reaches for the heights of its predecessor as the season unspools.
And finally, Kamar de los Reyes was excellent as Hector Ayala—I’m disappointed and ticked off that we don’t get more of him as both his civilian self and White Tiger.
