It took visiting an old, well, not exactly friend to nudge Matt Murdock back towards becoming the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. How many times can the law fail the people he cares about before he goes full vigilante again? Daredevil: Born Again episode 4, “Sic Semper Systema” finally brought the Punisher back to the MCU. This, along with a few other reality checks, might be exactly what our hero needs to literally be a hero again.
Who was Matt Murdock’s client this week?
His partner Kirsten, who knows that he’s allergic to making money, throws him a pro bono case since he’s going through a rough time after Hector Ayala, a.k.a. the White Tiger, was murdered at the end of last week’s episode. He won the court case by being reckless, and his client paid the ultimate price. Kirsten kindly sets him up with a little karmic reset.
Or so she thinks. At first, Leroy is just irritating. He insults Matt’s vision, or lack thereof. He demands that Matt get him parole instead of jail time. He denies the crime he committed even though he was caught on camera. “Could it have been a skrull?” asks Leroy, referencing the shape-shifting aliens who have showed up sporadically in the MCU in Secret Invasion and Captain Marvel. (By the way Matt deadpans “nope,” he must also have not been a fan of Secret Invasion.) Still, Matt dutifully goes to arraignment and flirts his way into getting Leroy’s sentence knocked down to 10 days in jail. He does this by super-smelling what the woman had for breakfast. I cannot imagine that that move would work on me, but Daredevil and Daredevil alone is welcome to give it a try.
Leroy is still upset, however. When Matt tells him to be grateful he learns a much-needed lesson about the cyclical nature of the prison industrial complex. Jail time means missing public benefits appointments, going hungry, stealing food, and more jail time. It costs the government more to lock him up than to feed him, so why do they? Matt’s leaning on the legal system to do its job but people keep getting hurt even when he thinks he’s doing the right thing.
So how come Matt went to visit The Punisher?
Let’s back up before we get to the good stuff. Hector’s niece Angela shows up at the morgue and angrily talks to Matt at the beginning of the episode. She’s convinced that the cops killed her uncle, and knows that Matt thinks so, too. (I’ve done no research on this, but I’m pretty sure that’s the first and only time you’ll hear the phrase “the f*cking cops” on Disney+…) Later he sees Officer Powell, the dirty cop whose partner got killed, in the hallway and tries to agitate a confession out of him. As Powell denies the accusation and monologues about respecting the badge, Matt checks his heartbeat. He’s telling the truth.
So Matt goes to the scene of the crime and finds a bullet casing with the Punisher logo on it. He takes a convoluted path to Frank Castle’s underground lair/studio apartment to have a little chat. Now… does Matt really think that Frank is involved in Hector’s death? Doubtful. Frank shrugs it off as the work of fanboys. Matt does not press this and instead uses the opportunity to pick a fight with Frank about serving the community. Why doesn’t he do real good instead of plotting who to “punish” next? This is what Matt really came for: to confront a vigilante with a different sense of justice, because his isn’t working for him.
Frank sees right through this, and correctly pins the source of Matt’s crash out on Foggy Nelson’s death. He didn’t do enough to avenge his best friend and it’s been eating at him. He knows he wants to do dark things to people who deserve it and is scared of that feeling. (It’s a bad day when a Catholic is getting his guilt trips from The Punisher and not The Church.) Jon Bernthal is so, so good in this scene. It’s a delight to watch these two debate and provoke each other. But it’s not just Foggy that’s eating at Matt. It’s Hector, and Leroy, and Wilson Fisk being Mayor. How do you fight all that injustice from within the system?
Matt goes home where his increasingly serious girlfriend Heather is waiting for him. I’m fully choosing to ignore the way she said she was worried he was going to trip and fall without her around, or whatever. It’s astounding how much these two don’t know about each other. After she falls asleep, he sneaks up to the roof and starts training again. Baby steps, Matthew!
Why was Mayor Fisk dealing with a garbage scandal?
First of all, Daniel Blake should not be at the club. Over drinks, he excitedly tells his new friend B.B. Urich all about Fisk’s plan to work with a tech company to decrease garbage output and increase recycling. (There’s just one problem: it would involve busting unions.) This may or may not be connected to his grand plans to industrialize Red Hook. The next day, while Fisk is attending two separate events with choirs singing “We Built This City” at him, B.B. publishes the story calling Fisk “Mayor Garbage.” What will they think of next?
Daniel admits to leaking the information and majorly sucks up to Fisk in the process. Because of his sycophantic play, he doesn’t lose his job. He may have made himself indispensable. Like Matt, Fisk is not too enthused about having to work within the system these days. He probably sees the value of keeping someone as loyal and as chaotic as Daniel around.
Oh, and we got confirmation in this episode that Vanessa had an affair with the man named Adam they keep talking about. Thank you, marriage counseling with Heather. We also learned that Fisk is keeping Adam locked up in an underground lair cell. Uhh, whoa. Fun fact: something like this low-key happened in real life. Buddy Cianci, the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island for over two decades, was charged with kidnapping and torturing a man he believed was having an affair with his wife back in 1984. Cianci pleaded no contest, resigned in disgrace, and then got re-elected in 1991. America!
Who was *that* at the end??
Serial killer alert! You know all the graffiti we’ve been seeing throughout this show so far depicting Fisk, the Punisher, and the White Tiger? At the end of the episode, a guy with a creepy mask drags a body into the subway tunnels. When they get to his underground lair (that’s three lairs total, for those keeping track of the #laircount) he sticks a comically large needle into the guy and starts draining his blood. This is our next Daredevil villain pulled directly from Marvel comics: Muse, who uses exactly what you think to paint the town red. See you next week!
