Hi folks. It’s your friendly neighborhood Jonny here with a review of the latest episode of Daredevil: Born Again. Starting with a spoiler-free episode recap for people who like to skim headlines: Daredevil: Born Again Episode 3, “The Hollow of His Hand,” is off-kilter, extremely violent at times, and features a lot of courtroom scenes in addition to a ruthless Irish “cowboy.” What more could you possibly need to know?
For real, though? I thought it was okay. Marvel hits notes of empathy, strangeness, and downright sadness in this one. Still, there are blemishes. It feels like a natural progression of the series, a series that, I daresay, is (slowly) finding its footing with each subsequent episodes.
There will be SPOILERS from here on out. You have been warned.
Notes on Episodes 1 and 2
These mainly establish that Daredevil, aka Matt Murdock, a New York City lawyer at Murdock and Associates, has given up the vigilante game after his best friend is targeted by a ruthless killer and adversary of his, Bullseye. Bullseye shoots Murdock’s longtime legal partner, Foggy, in cold blood, and leaves Murdock’s world shattered.
However, when Daredevil’s sworn enemy Kingpin, aka Wilson Fisk, runs for Mayor of New York and wins, Murdock is forced to keep an eye on a rising tide of darkness, all while romancing an attractive therapist who also happens to be providing counseling for Fisk and his wife. The latter is now running their criminal underground, while the former works things from the seat of governmental power. Very sinister, to be sure.
Murdock, ever the hero even in lawyer-mode, takes the case of a man accused of killing a cop on a subway platform. This man, Hector Ayala, was just doing the right thing, attempting to help a confidential informant escape with his life from two corrupt cops hellbent on beating his head in. One of the cops fell in front of the train in the scuffle. Hector is being blamed.
This being a Marvel show, Hector is also a Daredevil-esque vigilante by the name of White Tiger. He and Murdock decide to keep this a secret from the court, and Murdock is counting on his all-star witness, Nicky Torres, the man that Hector saved, to win them the case.
“The Hollow of His Hand”
That sets the stage for the courtroom drama of Episode 3, which oddly enough starts with Hector telling Murdock a story about coqui frogs and love in Puerto Rico while they sit in a holding cell. If that doesn’t sum up what Daredevil: Born Again can do, then I don’t know what does.
Next, some thugs murder two other thugs during a late night handoff at the Red Hook docks, and the Fisks feel their criminal empire slipping into chaos. Kingpin himself appears to want to foster this chaos in the underworld so he can crack down on it as mayor, while Vanessa Fisk thinks that he’s just trying to undo all the good work that she has done, perhaps in an act of revenge because Wilson has found out about Vanessa’s clandestine lover Adam. Nothing like a steamy soap-opera story between married villains to liven up a Marvel plot.
Then the BB Report comes in, which is kind of like a new-age news outlet produced by BB Urich, a young journalist and woman of color who is uncompromising in placing her finger on the pulse of New York City. These interludes are some of my favorite moments in Daredevil: Born Again because they allow the show to make interesting (and overall pretty decent) attempts at parodying society and modern news consumption. Kingpin also recognizes the efficacy of this new-age media, and chooses to do interviews with Urich rather than “The Times,” which represents all the Bezos-owned, musty powerhouses we know in our REAL world.
There are interesting jumps at artsiness in this episode, demonstrated by a hard cut between Kingpin’s knuckles and Murdock's, showing their matching punch scars and drawing a parallel between the characters, who did both grow up in Hell’s Kitchen and do share a particular dark side while using the power they draw from it for very different reasons.
While the courtroom scenes do a decent job of evoking tension (I was on the edge of my seat while the corrupt cops tried to stop Nicky Torres from entering the courthouse and, of course, when the head juror gave Hector’s sentence), the actual lawyering of it all is abysmal. When Torres flakes on his testimony and lies under oath, saying that he didn’t see anything on the train platform that night, Murdock huddles back up with his team and gives a yawn-inducing speech about the efficacy of truth and how it’s the only thing that can save Hector now.
Murdock then goes on to reveal his client’s secret identity in court, ultimately winning the case but making some very powerful enemies. Fisk takes notice and hires the Punisher to murder Hector the night he is released. In spite of Murdock’s warnings, Hector re-dons his White Tiger costume, and is shot point blank through the head on the street. That’s the end of the episode.
My Thoughts
Now, I thought that this was fine TV. If you’re looking for a dark superhero story, you could do worse. Some of the characters and moments shine, and the atmosphere of it all can be pretty badass. I like how Hector and Murdock are able to have conversations about the vigilante life without too much worry about “powers” or sci-fi elements that sometimes make other hero backstories feel lofty. At their core, these are just two guys trying to clean up the streets of New York with their fists. That’s cool in a burly kind of way, and when Kingpin does come down on White Tiger, I did feel a piece of my heart breaking (in a good way).
Still, the show has a ton of blemishes. The acting is consistently...just fine, and the weird moments that I love aren’t enough to pull the whole thing together in a way that I would feel comfortable recommending without reservation.
So, I’ll recommend it with reservation: “The Hollow of His Hand” will be enjoyed by fans of Daredevil and dark Marvel, but it’s not worth watching the first two episodes of Born Again for. It creates some interesting moments, and capitalizes on them with varying degrees of success.
Hector was a great character. RIP to his iteration of White Tiger. I’m interested to see how Murdock responds in Ep 4. Something tells me we’re going to see him back on the streets as Daredevil before long. Hopefully that means more badassery...and more of a reason to watch.
Episode Grade: C
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