According to the “man on the street” reports created by BB Urich (Genneya Walton), a budding journalist forced into doing PR for the administration, New Yorkers love the new regime. We do see clips of a pirate show called “City Without Fear,” in which someone in a Fisk mask shouts about the Mayor’s corruption, but most citizens claim to feel safer in the current status quo. That may be due to the fact that the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, led by cruel cop Powell (Hamish Allan-Headley), attacks only the most vulnerable part of society. Fisk’s team gets to insist they’re taking terrorists and threats off the street while the victims, locked away in secret detention centers, are never allowed to speak.
That dynamic plays out in a B-plot involving Jack Duquesne (Tony Dalton), a member of New York’s upper crust accused of being the vigilante known as the Swordsman (any Avengers reader can tell you that the accusations are true). Locked in a basement prison, Duquesne must undergo a psych evaluation from Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva), Matt’s ex-girlfriend who has become a supporter of Fisk’s methods after being attacked by the serial killer Muse last season.
The interrogation scene, in which Glenn coerces Duquesne to answer loaded questions about his mental health, is the stand out of the episode. The rich sense of mood that Benson and Moorhead create throughout the episode is on full display here, as the few rays of light that make their way into the basement interrogation room only make the gloomy blue hue of the shot feel heavier. Dalton lets Duquesne retain his charm and his confidence, while Levieva shifts the trauma that Glenn feels when she sees an apparition of Muse into a self-righteous cruelty that she turns against her captive.
On one hand, the interaction between Glenn and Duquesne illustrates the boldness of Daredevil: Born Again‘s second season. Watching a Mexican-American actor play a character who was illegally detained by militarized police and who has had the legal system turn against him cannot help but bring to mind recent events, a comparison the show invites. The Anti-Vigilante Task Force not only looks like ICE, but it exclusively attacks immigrants throughout the episode, cheered on by young men impressed by Fisk’s performance of masculine power, while Matt’s law partner Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James) is reduced to running, as one character calls it, “a legal aid hostel” for those desperate for their day in court.
On the other hand, it’s a bit disappointing that a legal conversation with heavy real-world analogies is the best part of a TV show about a guy with enhanced powers who dresses up like the devil to punch bad guys in the face. Rumors about the original plan for Born Again‘s first season suggested that it was more of a legal and political thriller, more concerned about Murdock’s case load and Fisk’s policies than it was about fights between Daredevil and Kingpin.
Born Again‘s season 2 premiere does begin and end with Matt in costume as Daredevil. Moreover, Benson and Moorehead shoot the fight scenes with an almost operatic bombast, veering away from the grittiness of the Netflix era (but not the violence, as demonstrated by a close-up of bone piercing the skin after DD breaks a baddie’s arm) and toward something more fluid and grandiose. Further, the first fight scene ends with a ship full of illegal weapons crashing and effectively shutting down imports into NYC and the last closes by promising the return of the supervillain Bullseye.
