The sixth episode of Daredevil: Born Again, "Excessive Force," is a transitional episode. Which is not at all a bad thing, quite the opposite. It almost feels like we're now at the part of the journey that corresponds to the broken pieces coming back together in the title sequence. It feels as if we're at the cusp of something considerably more explosive, that I expect to come in the next episode (mere hours away as I type this), because a lot of the pieces that were moving slowly at first are now picking up speed.
The episode both begins and ends with scenes that switch between Matt and Wilson Fisk. In the first few minutes, we see them both experience what can only be described as an incursion by their other lives into their respective protective bubbles. Fisk is confronted by Luca, an unwelcome visitor from the life that doesn't belong in the mayor's mansion. Matt has to process the fact that his new girlfriend Heather is asking questions about his past dealings with vigilantes, Daredevil among them.
It doesn't matter that the questions are probably innocent, it still creates an untenable situation. Which makes me wonder if he may actually choose to tell her about himself in the very near future. This would actually echo what happens in the comics, which could be in interesting twist considering how otherwise dissimilar this version of the character is to her comic book counterpart. Either way, the difference in his demeanor between the mention of the Punisher and Daredevil reminds us that Matt has a spectacuarly bad poker face.
The demand for him to unretire Daredevil grows steadily throughout the episode. Hector's niece Angela comes by the office to drop some hard truths in his lap, and tie together Hector's story with what's coming next. Doing nothing becomes increasingly untenable, and Matt is already doing research into the area when Cherry shows up to deliver the news about a serial killer.
SIDEBAR: And this is where I'll make a brief stop to make what might sound like an odd complaint: What self-respecting blind guy listens to the audio output on his computer at "normal" 1x speed? The ability of blind expert users of text-to-speech technology to understand artificial speech at absolutely ridiculous rates is about as close as we get to an actual compensatory superpower in the real world. We're talking up to 22 syllables per second compared to 8 syllables per second for controls, according to one study, which also quite interestingly showed that blind experts use their visual cortex for this. I realize they needed to communicate to viewers what he was doing, but I actually found it quite jarring, and surely there could have been some way to handle it differently.
For his part, Wilson Fisk is feeling a different kind of pressure mount that's not only coming from having a serial killer grafitti artist loose on the streets, but also in the form of reminders that he is not as well adapted to the world of politics as he might have assumed. I question the wisdom of the attendees at his political function as they're trying to back Fisk into a corner, delivering veiled threats. However, these are players that hold real power, and aren't the kind of people that can be made to quietly disappear. And at least one of them can wield a sword. 😉 How's that for an unlikely cameo appearance?
Fisk is spurred into action, and puts together a task force of police with questionable records. This becomes yet another moving object in the increasingly stronger field of gravity that pulls on the larger story. Finally, he acts out his frustrations in a brutal fight against Adam that leaves the latter barely alive (if this were the real world, we'd be talking internal bleeding throughout the body). Perhaps he feels some sense of control in being able to control himself, or a sense of pride in the mercy of handing the other guy an axe to defend himself.
These scenes are shown alongside Daredevil's fight with Muse, that also ends with a narrow escape by the villain. There's some weird stuff happening here, such as Matt not pulling the drain hooked up to Angela's leg and trying to restart her heart with that still in there (I mean, you can't just pull it out, but you also can't just do nothing). However, the fight scene itself is very entertaining. At the end, when Angela comes to, I find their exchange quite moving. The way he responds first with "It's okay, I'm here," and then in a slightly lower register, as if he'd forgotten to alter his voice: "Yeah, I'm here." It's a final confirmation that he's back. It is what it is. He's at peace with it all.
This is an episode that mostly makes me more excited for next episode, but I did enjoy the chest pieces being moved, and the sense of how the bigger story is coming together. We're about to enter the final third of the season, and the next episode will be the last one to contain mostly material from before the creative overhaul, so I'm also interested to see how it will all be weaved together. I will see you all back here then!
My face lit up reading your little sidebar here! I bet at least 90% of the show’s audience didn’t bat an eye, but I immediately wondered why it didn’t sound like gibberish to my untrained sighted-person ears. But I agree with you it was probably because the audience needed to understand the article too for story purposes. At least, that explanation makes the creatives look better than the alternative.
I loved the Swordsman cameo. This episode and the one before it are the most interconnected the Marvel Disney+ shows have ever felt. Also, I didn’t even notice that it was a slightly different intonation when he repeated the “I’m here” line at the end, so thank you for pointing that out! What a cool writing/acting choice.