“The Hateful Darkness,” the seventh episode of season two of “Daredevil: Born Again," is one where fans of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) taking a familiar but different approach this season when dealing with Mayor Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio).
After her arrest by the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) is put in police detention and awaits her trial. Matt, dressed as Daredevil, makes a visit with her thanks to the help of Chief of Detectives Brett Mahoney (Royce Johnson).
At Karen’s televised trial, Matt comes out of hiding to serve alongside Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James) and be a part of Karen’s legal counsel.
Earlier in the episode, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) confronts Mr. Charles (Matthew Lillard) about the attack on her house by his men. Mr. Charles informs her that Luke Cage (Mike Colter), the super-powered father of his and Jessica’s daughter Danielle, is working for the CIA.
Mr. Charles also tells Jessica that Fisk intends on killing Governor Marge McCaffrey (Lili Taylor). She relays this information to Matt while on a rooftop of a building.
Later, Daredevil releases Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter/Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) from his restraints so that he can do the one good deed he seeks for balancing the scales. As a result, Bullseye is able to prevent an assassination attempt on the governor.
Daniel Blade (Michael Gandolfini) holds BB Urich (Genneya Walton) captive and is about to hand her over to Buck Cashman (Arty Froushan), but eventually has a change of heart and allows her to escape.
Angered, Buck attacks and tortures Daniel into telling him (Buck) where BB is. Refusing to give her location, Buck reluctantly shoots Daniel and kills him. Before leaving the scene, Buck does look at the now deceased Daniel for one more time.
Now that Matt is out of hiding and makes an appearance as a working attorney, there’s no reason now for Fisk to throw all darts at his greatest foe.
A lot of civilians in New York City are turning against him, and Fisk no longer has his precious Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) by his side to keep him grounded. By this point, he’s a ticking timebomb reading to go off at any given moment.
Getting to see Matt out of the Daredevil suit for once this series was a good inclusion by the show’s creators. Even if he believes the justice system is broken and has been abused so many times before, Matt is still willing to operate properly in a court of law.
Other than the main story, one of the better smaller plotlines is the relationship between Daniel and Buck. Daniel wanted to be liked and respected by Fisk so much that he almost handed BB over to Buck, but he decided not to.
Daniel was so close to becoming another possible Fisk, which is ironic considering actor Michael Gandolfini’s father is the one and only James Gandolfini from HBO’s “The Sopranos” as Tony Soprano.
Buck, not wanting to disrespect Fisk but also not wanting to kill Daniel, decides to commit the latter even if he didn’t want to. Buck has been under Fisk’s command for so long and for Daniel to be one of the first people he was hesitant to pull the trigger on is saying something.
Buck did enjoy being Daniel’s sort-of older brother as opposed to being just Fisk’s fixer. Having to kill Daniel might have an effect on Buck, but it also may not. Typically, those like Buck who are trained to be killing machines are ones who don’t process emotions well.
If Buck does decide to perhaps go against Fisk, then that’s just one more domino to fall and eventually make Fisk’s empire in New York crumble.
