The people yearn for more worldbuilding episodes
This week, Daredevil: Born Again is back with two episodes. While “Shoot the Moon” is a bit slower compared to the premiere episode, it does a great job of showing the political climate of Mayor Fisk’s New York rather than telling the audience about it. In an eight-episode season, will that be harmful or helpful? That remains to be seen.
Immediately following the events of the last episode, Cherry is seen getting taken to the hospital, while some task force agents are in body bags, thanks to Dex, aka Bullseye. The following scene takes place in a church, with Dex looking for Sister Maggie, claiming he needs absolution. The scene ends with that eerie blue shade that takes over as the audience enters Dex’s world. And from there, Dex is a sinister presence, always lurking and watching, for the rest of the episode. Speaking of Dex, Matt and Karen begin to have an interesting conversation that always seems to plague Matt: should Dex die for killing Foggy? More on that in the next episode’s review.
One question some have probably wondered is, why doesn’t Fisk just reveal Matt’s identity? But there’s actually a good reason for him not to. Matt Murdock is a “champion of the vigilantes,” as Vanessa called him, plus he was publicly seen saving Fisk’s life. Revealing his identity now would only give him more support from the underground. So instead, Fisk calls for a manhunt for the hero Matt Murdock, pinning him from both sides now, and making it harder for him to move freely. Cut to another upbeat BB Report video, suddenly interrupted by the creepy-looking fake Fisk, who details a real look at what people think about Fisk and all of the initiatives he has rolled out. There is a leak in the Mayor’s office, and who knows what Fisk will do when he finds out who it is. His rage is only growing, as shown by his reaction to his boxing trainer and his threatening conversation with Daniel.
One of the most important scenes in the episode is a realistic portrayal of the politics of Fisk’s New York City, and not far off from real life. Angela and her aunt Soledad (Hector Ayala, aka White Tiger’s niece and wife) get caught in the wrath of the task force, and Soledad is taken away, along with a couple of teens and a bodega owner. Scenes like this show the task force for what it truly is, just a bunch of people looking for trouble to “handle.” As the fake Kingpin says, the vigilantes are “hiding in plain sight as random people I just don’t like.” Does this ring a bell?
I don’t want to say the final action sequence saved the episode, because it was still a good episode, with a lot of setup that I think will be paid off by the end of the season. But, I will say it might be the reason for the half-star in the rating. As I said at the beginning, there’s no way to tell right now whether this will be helpful or harmful for the season, given that there are only eight episodes. But for the episode, it does a good job of putting you into this anti-vigilante world that Fisk has started to build.
Rating: ★★★ ½
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