Daredevil: Born Again S02E03 Review: Trial of the Swordsman

Daredevil, Born Again, Season 2, Episode 3: The Scales & the Sword

Yeah, this feels like it probably should've been the big bombastic moment at the end of the premiere of the season, or at least the second episode. After a fair amount of meandering, "The Scales and the Sword" kind of... goes through with the Jack Duquesne trial. And while I do appreciate Duquesne's actor hamming it up with his commentary of the sequence, it just feels... quite one-sided. Which I suppose is the whole point of the kangaroo trial, but considering how long it took us to get here, it really did feel like we could've gotten here in a lot faster. The other Daredevil seasons do take their time with the trials, but they actually took the effort to go through some attempt at making up defenses and discuss legal strategies. Which I don't pretend to understand... but if the narrative for this season calls for a sham, kangaroo trial that the lawyer doesn't have time to prepare for, why not just rush through this trial and get it over with in the first episode? 

There is some nice bits with Kirsten as she tries her best to help Duquesne in a trial that's clearly rigged against her. She gets to call out Heather early on in the episode, but otherwise her blindfolded journey through the AVTF prison just serves to let Daredevil 'work with' the descriptions and get into the prison to stage the jailbreak. I'm... I'm not convinced that Kirsten is sensitive enough to provide Daredevil with all the descriptions, but sure. (This episode is also particularly clunky with exposition. Matt and Karen wants to destroy the weapons in Red Hook... but Matt interrogates Kirsten about Duquesne. So Matt infiltrates the evil base seemingly to rescue Duquesne... but then Matt and Karen later act as if freeing the prisoners was an unexpected development?)

The actual jailbreak is entertaining, with Daredevil being joined with Jack "Swordsman" Duquesne as they beat up AVTF agents and make liberal use of baton weapons, but even for a superhero show, it is rather odd that there's only so few prisoners of the AVTF raids. Enough to pile into a car. Sure, maybe Matt didn't free everyone, but considering only Daredevil and Swordsman had the vigilante abilities to fight back against trained, armed soldiers, it feels like we're stretching the credibility a bit. 

Angela del Toro and her White Tiger amulet also show up randomly (and unexplainedly) with a vague 'I can help', apparently having done stuff offscreen? Karen lets her, and while she gets to free her aunt and slash some tires, it feels shoehorned -- either show us the new White Tiger actually be a badass fledgling vigilante, or keep her elsewhere. Her inclusion just felt odd. 

I did like the callback to the Mr. Charles discussion with Kingpin in the first episode, however, where Kingpin gets the 'foreign workers' on the Northern Star and then orders the ship to be blown up, killing all the witnesses and pinning the crime on the evil vigilante Daredevil. That was neat. If only it happened in closer proximity to the foreshadowing. (Where is Mr. Charles, by the way?)

On the villain side... we see a lot more meandering, really. Vanessa just feels airy, and she feels so off compared to the more intelligent and ruthless character we're more used to. Even if she's paranoid or scared, she's not really showing it. Heather continues to be an asshole, but she gets to trade barbs with Kirsten instead so I suppose that's a bit different? Buck gets to go through a discussion of Kingpin's little 'kingdom', which I felt, again, would've worked a bit better earlier on before we've spent two episodes in the season giving so much focus on Blake. Vanessa's also... shipping Buck and Heather? Which feels so random and unnecessary, and feels like not something she'd think about considering the whole Bullseye situation. 

Blake continues to a bit more focus, this time trying to look for blackmail information on the Mayor (who I think is a new character) that's coming down hard on the legalities of the Northern Star's sinking. Again... not very interesting. BB Urich goes live with another TikTok meme-wacky Fisk parody, which has to count at self-indulgent at this point. 

The Punisher is noted to be absent in the show, and... and I really don't understand why. I get that he has his own mini-movie or whatever planned, but to just handwave him aside without at least a cameo? Karen, for a moment, seems like she's entertaining filling Frank Castle's role in the series -- which would be a neat development that wouldn't even be out-of-character for her -- but we just don't get much development, again, from either of these characters. 

I'm not sure if Officer Saunders is going to be relevant as one of the few anti-Powell, anti-Kingpin members in the task force, but I've already complained a bit about the side-character overload. Bit of a shame. Born Again's first season did a great job focusing on different characters and themes, but this one just seems intent on jumping around and dragging its characters all over. (No Bullseye either in this episode, disappearing just as he gets a bit of focus.)

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner: 

• Matt and Karen's interrogation of Taskforce Officer Saunders has callbacks to previous interrogation scenes in the Daredevil show -- the 'unhappy man' threat is a callback to season 1, episode 2; Karen and Daredevil doing an interrogation aided with Daredevil's lie-detection powers is a callback to season 3, episode 6. (Thanks, internet!)
• Angela del Toro, of course, succeeded her uncle Hector in the comics as well as the second White Tiger. Comics!Angela was a lot older than her MCU version, though.