Summary
Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 tees up the finale in “The Hateful Darkness” with several stand-out scenes and a very on-brand gloomy tone.
We’re so close, aren’t we? New York is slipping through Wilson Fisk’s fingers. Matt Murdock is having to negotiate with saints. Buck has had to put loyalty first. “The Hateful Darkness” is gloomy and portentous enough to live up to that title. Season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again is approaching its end, and Episode 7 is about getting the pieces into play so that the finale can deliver something resembling an ending, though granted not too much of one, since Season 3 is already greenlit. The darkness is hateful indeed.
This bleak tone suits the show. Fisk spiralling into even more dangerous and public mania is terrifying, given that he already crushed a man’s head with his hands when he was relatively stress-free. Matt is having to reckon not just with his own safety but also Karen’s, wrestling with making deals with his former adversaries and bargains with higher powers just to stave off the inevitable moment when he crosses his most deeply held moral lines. Violence was already spilling out into the streets; now those streets are slick with the blood it spilled. City Hall is shadowed by the flickering candlelight of vigils for the fallen. How very Daredevil.
Karen Is Being Made an Example Of
After being apprehended by Powell, Karen Page is Fisk’s latest political prisoner. And he knows he has bagged a sizeable catch, at least in terms of antagonising Matt, which is probably why he visits her personally to gloat and choke her through the bars of her cell.
Fisk fast-tracks Karen into vigilante court for another sham trial like the one that Swordsman was subjected to. But this one will be public, a media circus that leaves Matt in a position where he can’t help her, at least not as Daredevil, lest he reveal himself as the very thing that Fisk is suggesting. It’s a smart play. Karen has to fight Fisk’s regime in court.
If only she knew a lawyer or two.
Jessica Jonesing
Even though her powers are still on the fritz, it turns out Jessica Jones can still be pretty useful. Since she has previous with Mr. Charles, she decides to visit him directly and warn him off her and her daughter, Danielle. He’s not entirely convinced she’s still capable of following through on her threats, but he’s not Fisk’s biggest fan either, so he reveals some pretty crucial information.
The only feasible legal obstacle to Fisk’s plan is Governor McCaffrey, who is trying to unseat him and is the only person with authority to revoke his Freeport charter. Fisk might have most of the legal apparatus in his pocket, but he was never able to sway McCaffrey. Now he’s desperate, he’s liable to try and take her off the board another way.
This creates the possibility of redemption for Bullseye. Matt is reluctant to turn to him for anything. He can’t escape the fact that he hates him for killing Foggy. But if Bullseye is serious about wanting redemption, he now has the opportunity to balance the scales. When Fisk sends an assassin to take out McCaffrey, Bullseye is there to save her.
Matt Murdock for the Defence, Your Honours
Through a Brett Mahoney cameo, Karen is able to secretly meet with Matt to lay out her suspicions that Fisk’s scheming has reached another level, and her belief that she needs to take him on in court. Matt agrees, knowing that Fisk is losing control of the city and is trying to make an example of Karen publicly to tighten his grip.
This is how we get the best fist-pump moment of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, Episode 7. Kirsten, who’s defending Karen, introduces her co-counsel – Matthew Murdock.
Matt knows he can turn the publicity of the trial to his advantage by repeatedly drawing attention to Fisk’s relentless abuses of power, primarily through his Anti-Vigilante Task Force. Powell gets a major grilling on the stand. McCaffrey, watching on TV, knows the political moment to unseat Fisk has finally arrived.
The Fight Isn’t Over
The fight against Fisk isn’t as simple as winning or losing this trial. Karen remains in custody, but she’s steely enough to take several slaps from an antagonised Heather – who continues to see the hazy spectre of Muse in her periphery – and ask for seconds. Karen’s time on the punching bag wasn’t intended to make her physically capable. It was a metaphor for how willing she is to fight.
And she’s going to need to. The last we see of her, she’s staring up at the ceiling of her cell with a bruised face and a split lip, but she doesn’t seem especially concerned. She seems, in fact, to be quite happy with her predicament. Perhaps she knows she’s winning.
Daniel’s Redemption
I’d be remiss not to mention Daniel. His arc reaches its terminal point here when he’s finally presented with the dilemma that has been coming all season: Sell out BB and embrace the dark side, or turn against Fisk and his regime at his own expense. He chooses the latter.
It’s a close-run thing. Daniel initially delivers BB to Buck, but he can’t quite go through with it, knowing that burying bodies and providing more to bury, let alone those of his friends, isn’t quite in his DNA in the way he thought it might be. He allows BB to escape. And when he goes to tell Buck, he knows he’s approaching his own demise.
Credit to Daniel, then, for finally refusing to show any weakness, even in his final moments. His standing up to Buck gets him beaten and coldly executed, but his courage will be remembered, perhaps by Buck most of all.
