No one who didn’t watch it ever believes me when I tell them, but the Netflix Punisher show felt like it was designed specifically to upset people with Blue Lives Matter American Flag Punisher decals on their F-350s. All of the main villains were either ex-military who’d gone capitalist or criminal to make money by killing people, corrupt cops, or right-wing politicians bought off by Russian oligarchs — a who’s who of the kind of people that people who are really into the Punisher logo love.
It’s always been odd that the Punisher TV show is harder on these people than the company that owns the character. Disney has never seriously objected to the co-option of one of their marquee superheroes’ symbol by fascists, even as they’re willing to block grieving parents with Spider-Man stuff on their child’s gravestone. For one reason or another — and I leave it to you, fair reader, to learn a bit about the historical relationship between capitalists, corporations, and fascists and decide that reason for yourself — the Mouse has been bizarrely gloves-off on the issue.
This is the reason why, when I saw that one of the corrupt and murderous cops being beaten up by an enraged you-left-me-no-choice Matt Murdock had a Punisher skull tattoo, my notes read simply “ARE YOU FUCKIN’ KIDDING?!?”
Don’t get me wrong: Daredevil: Born Again’s depiction of the NYPD’s relationship to its martinet mayor Wilson Fisk is either confused or complicated, depending on how charitable you wanna be about it. Fisk has murdered a whole lot of cops and everyone knows it, so it’s understandable that Commissioner Gallo (Michael Gaston) and many of the rank and file want nothing to do with him. (Not that the death of cops involved in defending the Capitol building from Trump’s deranged followers on January 6th stopped the police from backing his candidacy. Ah! Well. Nevertheless,)
But in most other respects, the demographics responsible for Mayor Fisk line up with the demographics responsible for President Musk and his pal, Donald Trump. Influencers, like online journalist BB Urich (Genneya Walton), take him seriously. (This despite the fact that he pretty obviously killed her journalist uncle, Ben Urich, during the original Netflix run.) Staten Island loves him. He loves Geno’s Steaks in Philadelphia. Once again, writers Matt Corman and Chris Ord (who co-created the show with Dario Scardapane) are not being subtle about the Fisk/Trump allegory. Moreover, the entire show is premised on the right-wing notion that crime in New York City is out of control and that the cops are underfunded and understaffed — all of it pure fantasy, all of it a major boon to candidates Adams and Trump alike. The Kingpin ran as the law-and-order candidate, just like the convicted felon currently occupying the kiddie table as Elon Musk runs the country into the ground. So when Fisk winds up shaking Gallo down by threatening to expose his love child, and buying off the Thin Blue Line by promising them tons of extra cash, it feels a bit more in line with both reality and the rest of the show.
Against these reactionary forces stands Matt Murdock, quite unexpectedly. Visiting a client in the jailhouse one day, he overhears a man being beaten by cops during interrogation. The man is Hector Ayala (Kamar de los Reyes, the late actor to whom the episode is dedicated), a good Samaritan who intervened in what looked like a random beatdown and found himself under attack by the corrupt cops doing the beating. In the ensuing tussle, one of the cops falls to his death on the subway tracks; the beating victim runs away, and Hector is arrested as a cop killer.
What nobody knows until Matt’s private investigator, Cherry (Clark Johnson), discovers it, is that Hector is secretly the White Tiger, a costumed vigilante powered by a magical amulet. Matt manages to thwart the attempts of the district attorney (John Benjamin Hickey) to introduce Hector’s extracurricular career in the trial, but he can’t get him out of Rikers, where Matt openly feels the NYPD will murder him.
But Matt can save the life of Nicky Torres (Nick Jordan), the guy the cops Hector fought with were beating when he went in for the rescue. Using his super-senses to spy on the dirty police, he tracks down Nicky’s location and helps him escape, only for Matt to get beaten the cops in turn. Only when they attempt to execute him does he snap into Daredevil mode, absolutely whipping the shit out of them — I’m talking snapped forearms, heads bashed into refrigerators, the whole beautifully violent nine yards. When the episode ends, it’s an open question if they’re even still alive.
If they aren’t, if Daredevil has killed cops in the same way he tried (but failed) to kill Bullseye after the death of his pal Foggy, that surely gives Mayor Fisk the pretext to destroy the man’s entire life. But for now, Wilson’s busy with problems of his own. His chief campaign advisor, Sheila Rivera (Zabryna Guevara), has advised him to make things right with his estranged wife, Vanessa, or risk losing traditional-values voters. (Another case where the show’s finger is decidedly not on the pulse: Traditional-values voters flocked to the twice-divorced rapist and his chief backer, a weird online pervert who’s been revealing a new child with a new mother every other day.)
So Wilson and Vanessa go into couples’ therapy, albeit in the most Kingpin way possible: With the help of his sleazy new right-hand man Buck Cashman (Arty Froushan) He selects as their therapist Dr. Heather Glenn — Matt Murdock’s girlfriend. Probably no ulterior motives there!
Born Again’s chief problems remain its inconsistent policy regarding cop-kissing and the lazy Newton Brothers score. Its strengths, however, are simply too strong to resist. Vincent D’Onofrio, Charlie Cox, Ayelet Zurer, BB Urich’s vox populi street interviews straight out of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, the almost gleefully blatant attacks on Trump and MAGA, and the spectacularly visceral hand-to-hand combat, some of the best American screens have ever been treated to. For me, for now, that’s plenty. Daredevil can be both the bleeding heart of the MCU, in every sense of the term.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.