After a messy pair of opening episodes, Daredevil: Born Again tries to recenter and streamline itself with “The Hollow of His Hand”, an episode that taps into the familiar rhythms of O.G. Daredevil with a renewed focus on both Matt Murdock’s legal efforts and Wilson Fisk’s double-entendre laden world of secrets, hidden plans, and abrupt displays of violence and power. Though Daredevil: Born Again‘s return to a more familiar form is welcome, “The Hollow of His Hand” still feels too superficial in its climactic moments, its shocking ending only punctuating some of the emerging issues with its structure and uneven tone.
“The Hollow of His Hand”, to its credit, starts off on a strong foot; as the trial for Hector Ayala hastily begins, Daredevil: Born Again offers itself a very neat, simple metaphor in the form of Ayala and the White Tiger. As two men abundantly familiar with the personas they bring out in the dark of night, Murdock and Fisk are aware of the purpose of those identities; which is why, in the previous episode, Murdock fought to keep Ayala’s vigilante identity suppressed from court, and has taken on this moralistic fight against the corrupt police department he’s spend years butting heads with.
But as “The Hollow of His Hand” progresses, things become increasingly dire for Murdock and Ayala, especially once star witness Nicky Torres neglects to testify, and Murdock once again finds himself at the mercy of a broken system he’s tried to have faith in – one designed precisely to protect and enable the corrupt powers of those already holding all the power. This, of course, is a representation of corruption familiar to Matt (harkening all the way back to the first episodes of the series, and Karen Page’s case against Union Allied), and provides Matt with an adversary to fight against using everything but his fists, in his attempts to continue being a man of faith in the system he’s spent a decade-plus having a brutal on-again, off-again relationship with.
I’ve always enjoyed how Daredevil explored Matt’s faith in God and justice; these are not unfamiliar ideas, even with a character like Ayala, who is just a more righteous version of the first part of the OG’s The Punisher arc back in its second season. But these explorations feels different here, because Born Again shaves off the complicated edges of a vigilante character with someone as seemingly unfallable Hector Ayala, which makes for a much easier character to be sympathetic with; but when the result is essentially the same (Matt fighting uphill until he makes a drastic decision with severe, immediate consequences), the softening of the character he’s defending just makes the choices of both characters less resonant, more a result of plotting than the complex, satisfying character work Daredevil occasionally displayed during its original run.
Before we get to Matt’s big decision to try and save Ayala, let’s pull back a bit, because “The Hollow of His Hand” takes a few detours to check in on Wilson’s world – which, as it often is, is a pastiche of interesting performances and ideas highlighted by D’Onofrio’s dialogue chewing, and a clear sense this series isn’t sure how to allude to his larger ambitions. When Vanessa suggests laundering $200 million through an art sale, Fisk shrugs off the idea and pontificates about his “larger” goals and ambitions, and how unconcerned he is with the power vacuum created by his absence from the Five Families.
Though Vanessa warns him whoever survives the bloody chaos will come for him, he is undeterred; if there’s anything consistent across the two iterations of this series, it’s Wilson and his all-consuming need for control, which “The Hollow of His Hand” captures well in Fisk’s quietest moments, like the reveal of his bloodied knuckles (matching a similar shot in the previous episode), a sign that he’s feeling the weight of his own ambitions as he tries to be this “new” version of himself – and of course, that whatever happened with Vanessa and “Adam” is driving his decisions more than anything else, no matter how little he’s letting on (does anyone really believe his whole “let chaos reign for a bit” spiel?).
That relentless, tunnel-visioned approach doesn’t bite Wilson in this particular episode; however, it certainly does with Matt, who decides to reveal Ayala’s vigilante status as a last-minute Hail Mary to the jury. Unfortunately, it’s here where the episode begins falling apart a little bit; as is pointed out to him later, Matt’s decision to reveal Ayala’s identity doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Matt’s seen first-hand how this knowledge can lead to bloodshed (many times) – and beyond the fact he spent the last episode arguing about hiding that identity, his hypocrisy is a decision that feels a shade too short-sighted, even for someone like Matt Murdock.
It really begs for more space, especially when “The Hollow of His Hand” reveals how White Tiger’s presence serves as a catalyst for the heart of the season’s stories, and where they begin to intersect. In an inverse from the old Daredevil, Born Again seems more concerned with the decisions and choices each character makes, rather than the actions and events that inform those choices; Matt’s story isn’t grounded so much in his character, rather than a plot button that needs to be pushed; but with just a few minutes to establish how desperate Matt, Cherry, and Kirsten have become (which… boy, Cherry and Kirsten are just going to be one-note replacements for Foggy and Karen, huh) before we’re moving to the big reveal, a montage of testimony, and the decision, there’s not a lot of room for Daredevil: Born Again to dig into the minds and hearts of Matt and Hector, to draw out the contrast in their approaches to heroism beyond “they do the ‘right’ thing”, which makes the parallels the episode ultimately draws between them seem pretty thin.
At least we get to see Matt back in court, being his usual cocksure self for a bit; otherwise, “The Hollow of His Hand” relies on Kamar de los Reyes’s performance as Ayala – which is terrific, but once it is shoe-horned into the larger conflicts forming in the season, holds a little bit lasting impact. It’s really unfortunate we don’t spend more time with Ayala after he is declared innocent, before he decides to don his mask again – especially because when his character is unceremoniously shot in the head (presumably on Fisk’s orders, while he complains to BB Urich about the setbacks to his mayoral platform, though this could also be tied to the still-unseen villain Muse), his story is immediately absorbed by Fisk and Murdock’s larger, lasting conflict.
This allows it to ignore how many logical leaps of faith it takes to get to that moment; but as Tiger’s lifeless body crumples to the pavement, revealing the Punisher logo-adorned chest plate of his assassin, it’s clear White Tiger’s murder is the catalyst for the season’s larger stories to take shape (I’m just going to guess that Punisher’s not been a fan of seeing cops adorn his logo, one of those socially-relevant talking points I’m entirely unsure Daredevil: Born Again is capable of really engaging in). It just comes at the cost of its characters making sense; we spend entire episodes of Matt trying to prove the mask is meaningless, just as Fisk prattles on about Vanessa’s seemingly small-minded concerns about little conflicts that don’t matter; both act the exact opposite way in these final moments, contradictions that might be interesting, if the series ever considered pausing for a moment to explore the layers of complexity behind their actions.
That would require some time, though, a valuable resource Daredevil: Born Again would rather waste with Fisk and Vanessa trading vaguely-phrased barbs with each other, or the very silly bait-and-switch director Michael Cuesta tries to play with Cherry quietly sneaking Nico across the city to the courtroom. And it can’t linger on either halves of its story for too long, since we are now three hours in and the larger beats of story are just starting to tease themselves out; that rushed feeling comes at the cost of Ayala’s emotional impact on the story of “The Hollow of His Hand”, and a show that, at the end of its first act, is still trying to figure out how it wants to tell its story.
Grade: C+
Other thoughts/observations:
- when was the last time we saw any court case make its way through the system this quickly? Guessing the state Supreme Court has some superpowered administrative assistants and paralegals – now there’s a miniseries for you.
- Kamar de los Reyes is so goddamn good in this episode, it’s a shame this arc was so condensed down, there was clearly so much for him to explore. RIP to a great actor, whose brief presence here will be greatly missed.
- Love how nobody flinches at the random, unexplained mention of Ayala’s magic amulet. Do we think that amulet returns later in this season?
- Been seeing a lot of talk about how Foggy’s death could be a faked one, as seen in the comic books. I really hope that is not the direction the series is going, because oh boy, would that be dumber than how they unceremoniously killed him off.
- Matt is really putting all his faith in a drugged-out narc to be his star witness? That alone seems a bit unlike Matt, even at his most optimistic (which he clearly is not right now).
- Obviously Heather’s presence as Wilson and Vanessa’s therapist is more important than the actual sessions themselves… which is a relief, because it’s not like their first session held any actual intrigue (beyond whoever Adam is).
- How many shots of Kirsten knowingly nodding or looking on are we going to get this season?
- I get how the BB Report inserts are supposed to add texture and character… they don’t, and I’m already tired of them.
- “The mask doesn’t make the man” is a great point – but one that we know Matt doesn’t exactly believe in, nor is it one that applies in a courtroom where a prosecutor can throw it back in his face so easily (is anyone else convinced the prosecutor’s closing argument was better than Matt’s? It kind of was, and I do wish this episode leaned a bit harder on Matt’s indulgent legal dramatics a bit).
- The cops whose bones we heard crunching in the last episode are… mostly fine here, save for a couple bruises? Odd, though I guess we don’t see the one whose arm was broken.
- Again – do not understand the point of the Buck Cashman character, who waltzes around the city as the only obvious connection to Fisk and his previous life, something he seems to flaunt rather than try to be subtle about. I don’t like this character.
- I’m really interested why the creative overhaul also brought (*cough* former IDF officer) Ayelet Zurer back instead of the original plan, which re-cast her role with Sandrine Holt. Her performance continues to be the same odd dichotomy of commanding energy and flat line delivery, which makes her presence feel larger than her actual character does.