.jpg&c=0&w=700 "The Maharaja of Gondal: Mr AMG")
Daredevil: Born Again has come with two episodes this week to mark the halfway point of the season. “With Interest” and “Excessive Force” bring some fight scenes to the table, which have been missing from the show in recent weeks. Their return is more than welcome, and they give Matt a reason to show out and suit up now that he’s embraced his inner demon once again.
“With Interest” is the shorter of the two, and the only other actor to get billed in the intro aside from Cox is Mohan Kapur as Ms. Marvel’s father, Yusuf Khan. Matt’s hoping to get a bank loan, but despite establishing a rapport with Yusuf–who’s more than happy to gush to the lawyer about his daughter, aka the hero of Jersey City–he’s not able to get it. From then on, the show pivots to the real meat of the episode as Matt works to stop Irish gangster Devlin (Cillian O’Sullivan) and his crew from robbing the bank and killing Khan and the other hostages inside.
Devlin is part of the Five Families that make up New York’s criminal enterprise, which Vanessa previously had under control before Fisk pulled them away from that life to become the city’s mayor. That chaos he hoped the warring families would bring after the botched Red Hook hijacking disrupts what was a joyous celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, and this heist reintroduces us to Angie Kim (Ruibo Qian), a detective friend of Cherry’s last seen in the pilot. While there’s not much to her and Devlin’s phone conversations–if you’ve seen any hostage negotiation scene, you’ve seen this part of the episode–but her appearance here establishes her as a “good” cop to contrast against the Punisher fanboys strewn throughout New York’s finest.
As a one-and-done, “With Interest” is a fun one that makes the most of its runtime and gives Matt ample room to show his stuff while keeping his secret intact. He’s in full control of the situation, and now that he’s accepted that he wants to put the hurt on criminals, he’s letting himself enjoy this. More than beating up bad guys, he relishes the moments where he can needle the crooks and get hostages out before steering things in a direction where he’s able to knock some heads. (That dual shotgun catch and thug knockout in the stairwell? Very cool.) And in true Matt fashion, he saves his best move for last by breaking Devlin’s legs during their fight at the end.
But he’s truly back in costumed action in “Excessive Force.” Similar to the original Daredevil’s second episode, it’s a kid in danger that spurs him into heroics—in this case, the kidnapping of Hector’s niece Angela Del Toro. After pleading to Matt to look into the people that’ve gone missing around New York, she gets snatched herself when she investigates on her own. If there’s one thing Matt can’t ignore, it’s a kid in danger, so he says “Fuck it” and suits up to go save her himself.
Our kidnapper is Muse, a villain from Charles Soule and Ron Garney’s Daredevil run in 2015. As teased in earlier weeks, he’s a serial killer whose impressive artwork all over the city is made with the blood of his victims. (According to Cherry, he’s managed to rack up a body count of 60 victims, which is ridiculously high for a character we’ve not seen much of.) While he doesn’t speak, his presence and costume do all the talking for him; director David Boyd does an effective job at building up Muse’s terror through closeups of his eyes and shots of his underground lair, which is filled with drawings and drained victims he hasn’t disposed of yet.
It’s one thing to have Daredevil and White Tiger running around, ditto a newer vigilante known only as the Swordsman (Tony Dalton’s Jack Duquesne, seen briefly in action via grainy video footage). But for a serial killer? Fisk is gonna need some help, hence an anti-vigilante force made up exclusively of cops with the Punisher tattoos, promising them no bodycams and overtime so they can get things done. Among those ranks is Cole North (Jeremy Earl), a cop from Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s more recent comics run. Aside from a returning Powell, he’s the only other prominent cop in this subplot, which is all but begging for Frank to come back in and knock their heads around for co-opting his symbol.
Until then, Fisk is hoping the task force will produce results that finally make him look like a winner. Luca (Patrick Murney) has no intention of paying the money Fisk says he owes to the other Families, and the ongoing pursuit of his Red Hook project hits another roadblock when he fails to get donations from the city’s wealthy elite. Fed up with things not going his way, Fisk finds an outlet for that frustration by freeing Adam, giving him an axe, and letting the poor prisoner take his best shot.
So we get two fights that cross cut between one another. Fisk vs. Adam isn’t really a fight so much as it is watching the former Kingpin beat the absolute hell out of a man half his size before dragging him back into his cage, sated for the moment. Muse, who’s just a regular guy here instead of an Inhuman like in the comics, does much better against Daredevil and manages to hold his own long enough to escape while the hero saves Angela.
It’s just too bad Muse isn’t more of the episode, because he’s a nice shakeup from the gun toting criminals and gangsters that normally make up Matt’s adversaries. Compared to “Interest,” “Excessive Force” doesn’t quite stick the landing. There’s enough here that works, but it’s clear the show’s creative shift led to some hiccups, and its new villain may have been one such casualty to get the season out the door.
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