Good grief, last night's Daredevil: Born Again was bad. It's no wonder even Disney realised the show needed to be drastically retooled--this was clearly an episode from before Dario Scardapane was brought in. It might be too little too late, though, given how weak the show's been in the ratings. Why, Disney? Why don't you value writing?
Last night's episode, "The Hollow of His Hand", was written by Jill Blankenship, whose biggest credit is being showrunner on a CW superhero series called Naomi. But "The Hollow of His Hand" is barely a superhero story. As the rumours had informed us, Born Again was originally written like a legal drama and that's just what "The Hollow of His Hand" is. I suppose it suffers particularly because I've been watching Ally McBeal lately, a lawyer show written by a lawyer, one with exceptional writing talent. But I can't help thinking Blankenship could've done better than to have the prosecution establish absolutely no motive for Hector Ayala to assault the cops, allowing Matt Murdoch's narrative to completely dominate the courtroom. But Matt nonetheless is shown drinking bourbon like this case is a steep hill for him to climb.
White Tiger is an actual Marvel superhero but one might be forgiven for thinking he was just some yahoo invented for this series. The late Kamar de los Reyes gives a decent performance but he's working with a character who's no more than a stereotype. We learn next to nothing about him except he's a good guy and he dreams about going back to Puerto Rico. Oh, and he wears a really lame costume.
Honestly, Daredevil's costume isn't much better. The old series was usually better when Matt was wearing a black shirt and jeans. This is supposed to be set in the same world as Tom Holland's Spider-Man but while Spider-Man's costume is slick and cool, Daredevil's looks like a standard TV superhero tank. It's amazing no-one considered making it closer to how it looked in the comic; something more like a circus performer, very lightweight and not so different from the shirt and jeans in terms of tactical advantage. It's frustrating because I know Disney wants to set up a Spider-Man versus Kingpin story but they have so completely dropped the ball on making that seem feasible.
Maybe Dario Scardapane can right the ship before the end. That's a lot of pressure for a guy who wasn't even one of the best writers on Punisher. And, oh, yeah, last night's episode had that Punisher subplot, with the cops who apparently emulate the Punisher by . . . executing a vigilante?
Daredevil: Born Again is available on Disney+.
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