This week’s Daredevil: Born Again is more of a transitory and lighthearted episode, at least up to a point. Matt’s corner of the MCU can’t exactly be called sunny, as the two teases of serial killer Muse make clear, but “Sic Semper Systema” offers up a few laughs and a more low stakes case, intended to give him and the audience a bit of a break after last week’s gut punch of an ending. It also brings the short, but welcome return of Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle, who more than makes the most out of his screentime.
Fisk and his supporting cast get more to do this week in what’s an even split between his political and personal life. In the former’s case, he’s put on the backfoot when BB Urich reports confidential info on the Red Hook ports and union busting spilled to her by his yuppie assistant Daniel Blake (Michael Gandolfini). In the first two episodes, it was clear Daniel’s schmuck nature was hiding aspirations of going over his boss Sheila (Zabrina Guevara) to get deeper into Fisk’s circle. It’s unclear if Born Again is setting up a deeper connection between the two men, or Daniel is just really buying what Fisk is selling. Either way, the young man manages to pull off an impressive feat by not just owning up to what he did, but doing so in such a way that Fisk keeps him on. Despite the severity of the leak, this conversation was the least stressful thing Fisk had to deal with at work, given he had to endure two separate versions of Starship’s “We Built This City,” first by a group of schoolchildren and then again at the Latvian embassy. At least the latter were on key!
Meanwhile at home, we get some more insight into Vanessa’s affair with Adam, and what drove her to the arms of another man after Fisk’s post-Daredevil departure. As she says to their therapist (and Matt’s girlfriend) Heather (Margarita Levieva) throughout their session, his leaving was a betrayal to her, and drew similar feelings of suffocation she felt growing up seeing her father’s affair. To find solace in the arms of another man, and an artist at that, was a reclamation of her agency lost when Matt forced her husband to go back to prison. Despite what it looks like to Heather, Vanessa isn’t helpless in this marriage, and she knows it—just like she knows her husband. Of course he’s met with Adam, and of course what he calls a simple man-to-man conversation is actually code for “locking Adam in a cage for weeks and eating dinner in front of him.” For anyone else, this would be a bonkers reveal, but it’s not even the worst thing Fisk has done since he was reintroduced in Hawkeye, and there’s no doubt he’ll have more in store for poor Adam eventually.
Meanwhile, Matt is having a rough time after Hector’s murder. Taking on a simple petty larceny case like Leroy Bradford’s (Charlie Hudson III) would be a welcome distraction for him, and he’s more than willing to flirt his way into getting his client the best sentence possible. Despite Leroy’s repeated insistence for probation and avoiding any time served, this really is the best Matt can do. Leroy’s arc ends with him telling Matt about how much his priors hang over him and the city’s harsh penalties for small crimes like stealing cereal leave him in a constant state of inescapable victimhood.
Things are broken in New York, from the way it harshly punishes people like Leroy for minor crimes to vigilantes getting shot in the head after winning a case against the police. In meeting Hector’s niece Angela Del Toro (Camila Rodriguez) at the morgue at the top of the episode, Matt’s forced to reckon with how he helped contribute to that breaking when he abandoned Daredevil and outed Hector’s vigilante life. Foggy’s last words to him were telling Matt he didn’t want to give his friend a reason to suit up, so how can he not have second thoughts when the world is making him see how unfair things have become in his absence?
And that brings us to Frank. Jon Bernthal remains as great as ever in this role, and it’s an effective instance of the show using its connections to the past to convey how in and out of each other’s lives he and Matt are. With Karen gone, this is the only friend Matt has from his old life, and the Punisher has all the rage for New York and Foggy’s death that Matt won’t allow himself to fully have.
Whatever Frank’s been up to since last we saw him at the end of Punisher’s second season will have to wait, likely in his upcoming special. Here, he’s on hand to make clear he has zero approval for the Punisher cops—to call it “disdain” may be putting it lightly—and to, in his own way, allow Matt to go back to that “candy-ass hero shit.” Fighting the cops in the second episode unlocked something within him, and as the episode’s end shows, the temptation has returned. He’s not quite ready to take that full step into being Daredevil again, but chatting with Frank means he’s no longer feeling guilty about wanting to give into those urges.
Now all he needs is a reason or two to go back to the old him—and funnily enough, next week will see two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again drop. The TV lord works in mysterious ways.
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