Daredevil: Born Again takes it's Gloves Off, but doesn't land it's jabs

A review and analysis of the writing decisions made for Gloves Off, episode 4, season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again on Disney Plus. 

SPOILERS AHEAD

Starting off with one of the best introduction scenes in the history of Marvel television, Bullseye creates lethal injections (shout out to Ice Cube) out of the tiniest objects inside the tiniest of corners. It’s what Bullseye does best, along with showcasing his ruthlessness, nihilism, sadisticness, and sociopathic nature. He brings danger to innocent civilians during the battle and doesn’t care as when they get hurt, as long as he gets to kill a few task force members.

In addition, he plays with the emotions of a scared innocent bystander who begs Bullseye not to kill him. To which Bullseye’s response is a sick smile and stating he’s one of the good guys, before leaving and painting his logo with ketchup on the entrance.

Despite such a fantastic scene, the episode wanders off into a lot of last season’s flaws. The one thing Born Again has really been missing that the original Daredevil had was well-created philosophical discussions that connected with each of the characters’ arcs. This is not just essential to the original show, this is essential to the Daredevil mythos as a whole, as his comics also carry this style.

Characters will go on long diatribes, where they discuss various events that shaped their personalities and their beliefs  about the world. The opposing characters tended to either counter-argue or internalize the other’s beliefs to figure out where they stand on them. This was the nature of many of Matt and Foggy’s talks, as Foggy would always offer a new perspective to Matt’s actions as Daredevil. 

Such discussion boosted the story by giving plot lines extra time to be seasoned, as they were extensively interacted with in everyday conversation and not just the events they occurred in. In addition to proper development, these discussions also provided the viewer with something to think about after they finished the episode. 

Much like most of the reboot, this episode only hints at a fraction of that when Daredevil debates a seminarian at his church about grace and ethics. It’s a nice graze at the idea, but not nearly enough to stay true to the character’s mythos. 

Another integral part of what made Netflix’s Daredevil so beloved is the intelligence of the side characters. Netflix’s Daredevil is littered with intelligence that isn’t exclusive to the main characters or the villains. People like Ben Urich and Karen Page were extremely resourceful, which made for interesting television even when the focus was on the sub-plots.

It also served to create the true picture of Marvel Television’s New York City: a gritty city which requires everyone to be on their A-game and always in survival mode just to scrape by. This is what made sympathy prevalent for characters that weren’t as street smart, it felt they actually NEEDED protection. Whether it was Melvin Potter AKA The Guardian, or the civilian Luke Cage rescued during an earthquake in episode 1 of The Defenders. 

By losing the resourcefulness of their side characters and making everyone a bit less smart, this feeling of New York’s grittiness and emotional attachment to characters that need protection is lost inside of Born Again.

Within this episode, I’m mainly referring to Karen Page. Even if her style was chaotic and put people—including herself—in trouble, she remained very dependable and could sneak by, making smart decisions in dangerous situations. This was the opposite in episode 4 when Karen Page and Kirsten McDuffie (Matt Murdock’s law firm partner)— both  characters whom the show very much wants to portray as smart— make a critical error by sending their most integral witness against Kingpin into the hands of US Marshals. Kingpin has his team track their whereabouts, and sends his hitman Buck to eliminate the witness.

Not only was this a very short-sighted move considering the resources Kingpin has as a mayor with ties to the federal government, it is also nonsensical when you consider that Karen already has built an underground movement with multiple safe houses alongside Daredevil and Detective Cherry. For the past few months, they’ve been using it to hide from the Task Force and successfully complete runs to weaken them. They’ve also used them to safely stash multiple fugitives from law including Swordsman, Soledad del Toro, and Angela del Toro. So why not use it now to stash the witness, instead of needlessly sending him into risk? No real reason, besides a cheap manner to extend the drama and make the heroes struggle. 

It’s the equivalent of if Tsunade sent Naruto to the Sand Village to hide him from the Akatsuki instead of keeping him inside the resourceful Leaf. 

The second questionable writing decision– and one I think has been prevalent throughout the season– is failing to create character arcs with long-term build. Instead, they are shoehorned in at random. I think this was a problem since season one where the split between Vanessa and Wilson was very hard to fathom, much less to the point where Vanessa cheats on Wilson and then fantasizes about another man’s hands in front of him at therapy. 

Another Vanessa-Wilson problem was this episode’s Achilles heel, where it was very hard to get behind a Vanessa autonomy character arc, since it came out of left field. Vanessa has always been a resourceful and independent woman, but it has been no secret that she’s relied on Wilson. She’s definitely alright with that, as the majority of her character journey is that she admires art, and she views Wilson’s vision as Kingpin from an artistic lens. What Kingpin is doing with New York City has always been a picture she wants to see painted.

Netflix’s Daredevil has never been shy in portraying that Vanessa and Wilson are intrinsically tied together in this manner, so to create this autonomy arc feels crammed in. Within this episode, Vanessa disobeyed Wilson’s advice when he told her to avoid going to his boxing match in order to protect her from Bullseye. 

It’s implied that part of the reason Vanessa disobeyed and went to the match was because of a conversation she held with the Governor of New York, Marge McCaffrey. Vanessa was the one that got her off of Fisk’s back. However, she did it by selling the vision of a charity mission she funds that was not properly explained in the show, which again felt shoved in because neither it nor Vanessa’s decision-making had any mention so far this season.

Marge explicitly told her, “You can do all this without Wilson”. This statement gave her confidence, and the confidence she gained from completing this deal made her rush in headstrong, much to the anger of Wilson. This was how she got to the point where she ended up bleeding out. 

I’m not against an autonomy/independence arc for Vanessa. I think it can be fascinating and very well done, especially considering the acting range and delivery talent of Ayelet Zurer. However, after the therapy sessions in season 1, Vanessa and Wilson felt reconciled and that they were ready to proceed on the same page. Vanessa did have an off-screen autonomy arc before season 1 started when Wilson was absent from the criminal world, but that was a requirement out of circumstance, not a conscious decision.

I don’t dislike the concept of arc, I dislike the way it’s shoehorned in to create a shock factor. I very much would’ve enjoyed the shock of Vanessa bleeding out if there were more scenes of the Fisks debating whether they were on the same page , it would’ve made the payoff stronger.

But unfortunately, Daredevil: Born Again continuously suffers from weak writing, and it was very apparent in Gloves Off, which otherwise had some fantastic televison.