In episode 4 of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, Bullseye attracted Fisk’s attention by killing a bunch of AVTF officers. Matt decided to go and find Bullseye before he did anything rash and got himself killed. Meanwhile, Karen worked on compiling the testimonies of all the people who had been imprisoned in the basement of the Red Hook Port warehouse by Fisk and the AVTF in order to make a compelling case against Kingpin. Additionally, she convinced Kirsten to represent Christofi at the court, and while Kirsten did accept Karen’s request and interviewed Christofi, unfortunately, Buck got to the first mate of the Northern Star and killed him. Going back to Matt, he eventually got to Bullseye and tried to prevent him from throwing his life away to atone for the sin of killing Foggy. However, Bullseye was too determined to kill Vanessa, Fisk, or both; so, he gave Matt the slip and showed up at the exhibition match between Fisk and Matterhorn. Now, Fisk was using that match as a trap to capture Bullseye, which was why he didn’t want Vanessa to attend it. Vanessa either didn’t take Fisk’s advice seriously, or maybe she had a death wish, and she showed up at the match and caught a glass shard with her head. Both Fisk and Matt tried to stop Bullseye but they failed, and while Fisk took care of Vanessa, Matt went after Bullseye. What happened next? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Foggy Is Back (In A Flashback)
Matt brings Bullseye into the basement kitchen of a restaurant to avoid the watchful eyes of the AVTF. Contrary to what Fisk wants everyone to believe, the workers in the kitchen help out Matt with whatever he needs to stabilize Bullseye, thereby indicating that even though the polling numbers show that Fisk is popular, the ground reality is very different; people still see vigilantes as the real saviors. That said, Bullseye doesn’t want to be saved by Matt, and he keeps telling him to let him die as he drags him from one hiding spot to another. He thinks he has served his purpose, and he needs to die now. When Matt threw Bullseye off the roof of Rosie’s bar the night Foggy died, and Bullseye didn’t die, he began wondering how he survived that fall. When the fog in his mind cleared, he knew that he had been manipulated and used by Fisk and Vanessa, and he needed to make things right. Bullseye doesn’t know if Vanessa is dead but, I guess, showing her that she isn’t invincible, and that Fisk isn’t untouchable, is more than enough for him. Bullseye tries to talk about Foggy, but Matt keeps him from even uttering his name, because he hasn’t forgiven him yet. This is where Matt’s subplot starts to oscillate between the past and the present. Nothing much happens in the present-day half of this narrative, because Matt and Bullseye keep running from one place to another to avoid getting caught by Powell and his AVTF crew until they reach Clinton Church and hide there. In the flashback half of the narrative, Matt and Foggy take on the case of Lionel McCoy, who turns out to be an old friend of Foggy’s. The “Avocados at Law” have a plea deal for McCoy, which he is unwilling to take because he believes that Fisk’s people will kill him in the prison. This is how they sorta learn that Landman and Zack, the firm that they work at, is essentially owned by Fisk. So, instead of getting McCoy to sign the plea deal, they let him take the public defender route, so that at least he could stand trial and fight the false allegations that have been leveled against him.
As punishment, their superior, Levine, dumps a bunch of papers related to the McCoy case on Foggy and Matt’s desk, and tells them to sort it out and send it to the public defender’s office by Monday. While doing so, Foggy finds out that McCoy’s address in the arrest warrant is wrong, which means that McCoy can use that to avoid being jailed. But that brings up the topic of whether or not they should inform McCoy about this discrepancy. Matt (who is wearing a wig so awful it made my eyes ache) wants to keep his job and let McCoy face the consequences of his actions, while Foggy wants to risk his job and help McCoy get a second chance at life. They go for the second option, and McCoy thanks Foggy for helping him out. However, that’s when the fear sets in that if Fisk can’t kill McCoy in jail, he’s gonna have him killed in his house. So, Foggy takes his and Matt’s savings, gives it to McCoy, tells him go away from New York, away from Fisk’s reach, and take a second swing at life. When Matt learns about it, he’s not mad and he appreciates the fact that even though they are broke and down on their luck, Foggy found a way to support someone who not only needed some help but also deserved it. In the present day, Matt remembers that quality of Foggy’s and, instead of letting Powell and the AVTF find Bullseye in Clinton Church, he takes him to Frank’s old lair, and asks Karen to help him fix up Bullseye. The look on Karen’s face screams that she doesn’t like this decision of Matt’s, but I’m sure Matt’s going to convince her to bury the hatchet and allow Bullseye to shift over to the light side.
Wesley Is Back As Well (In A Flashback)
While the doctors of Metro General Hospital and Fisk are busy tending to Vanessa, Blake is in the waiting area trying to manage the media, who are hungry for some morsels of information about New York’s most vicious power couple. BB arrives to meet Blake and get an idea of what’s going on with Vanessa, and Blake’s first reaction is shock at how she found out where Vanessa had been admitted. I mean, BB was sitting right between Blake and Sheila. The Fisks must’ve arrived with a massive convoy to Metro. And, as mentioned by BB, there are only a handful of hospitals in New York. So, I don’t know why Blake is so surprised that BB has discovered the exact place where Vanessa is being treated. Anyway, when BB senses that Blake doesn’t want to answer the questions she’s asking for the BB Report, she leaves. While BB is leaving, Blake does let her know that Vanessa is in critical condition (it’s so badly ADR-ed that it got a genuine laugh out of me). Moments after that, the fact that Vanessa is in Metro General is leaked by the press, which leads Blake to assume that it’s BB who is behind it. When a reporter rushes into the hospital, Blake stops him from getting to Fisk, Vanessa, or the staff taking care of Vanessa. But it’s Buck’s intervention that gets the reporter to leave. With that out of the way, Buck takes Blake out for a ride. Much like Matt, Buck gets a little flashback back-and-forth action in his subplot.
In the present-day part of the narrative, Buck seemingly deals with Blake’s betrayal, and in the flashback part of the narrative, he is recruited by Fisk and Wesley to “take care” of Lionel. It’s revealed that Wesley (who also has a god-awful wig) and Buck go way back, and Fisk made him his right hand after Wesley’s death because he spoke so highly of Buck. That said, Buck’s first job for Fisk didn’t go well because, thanks to Foggy, Lionel ran away from his apartment before Buck could get to him. In the present day, Buck takes Blake all the way to Albany. From Blake’s perspective, it seems like Buck has been ordered by Fisk to kill him because Fisk suspects that he’s the one who leaked Daredevil’s footage from the Northern Star to the “City Without Fear” Fisk impersonator, and that he’s behind the Metro General leak as well. On top of that, Blake thinks that Buck is getting back at him for digging into his past without his permission. However, when Buck and Blake reach the spot where the latter thinks he’s going to be killed and buried, we find out that Buck just needs Blake’s help with cutting up Christofi’s body and putting him 6 feet under. I know that this means that Buck knows for sure now that Buck will never betray Fisk, and he will stop investigating his background. However, I have a feeling that all this pressure is eventually going to get to Blake and he is going to defect against Fisk, Buck, and their associates by joining hands with BB. Or maybe I am wrong, and my assumption that Blake has a spine is wrong, and he is going to over-commit to Fisk’s cause by killing BB. Who knows? We’ll see.
Vanessa Is Suffering From Amnesia
We see Fisk and Vanessa walking on a beach, and it’s unclear if this is a memory or something that Fisk or Vanessa thinks they should have been doing instead of establishing their empire in New York. This is juxtaposed with Fisk losing his mind as the ER department of Metro General Hospital try their best to bring Vanessa back from the brink. Once Vanessa has somewhat stabilized, Fisk calls Powell and tells him to bring in Bullseye and Matt in one piece and alive so that he can give them the punishment that they deserve. After Powell leaves, Dr. Merati arrives to take Vanessa for her surgery. This is where Fisk’s subplot starts oscillating back and forth between the past and the present too. Again, nothing much happens in the present-day half of the subplot, because Fisk just watches Vanessa getting operated on. In the flashback half of the subplot, we see Vanessa getting her job as an art dealer, picking out the “Rabbit in a Snowstorm” piece for her collection, and then meeting Fisk, who is brought to her doorstep by Wesley. Going back to the present-day stuff, Vanessa comes out of surgery and asks Fisk to get her some pineapple juice. Fisk finds that to be quite odd, because Vanessa doesn’t like pineapple juice. But since he wants Vanessa to get whatever she wants, he orders the nurse to fulfill his wife’s demand. Vanessa expresses some displeasure at Fisk’s authoritarian attitude, which is odd because she has become used to it. Well, it’s supposed to come off as odd because it’s the first sign that Vanessa isn’t herself anymore.
In episode 5’s ending, Fisk comes to the heartbreaking realization that Vanessa is suffering from some kind of amnesia following the hit she took to her head. Human anatomy experts can educate me if an injury as deep as the one Bullseye inflicted to the right side of Vanessa’ forehead can impair one’s memory, but in this case, that’s exactly what’s happening. I guess the surgery only repaired some of the superficial problems, and the doctors were unable to detect the actual damage that it has done to Vanessa. As predicted during last week’s recap, I don’t think Vanessa is going to die. She is going to remain alive so that she can see the empire that she and Fisk have built crumble and fall. That can seem crude if you are reading this right after watching Fisk bawl his eyes out as he sees the love of his life convulse on the hospital bed, but it’s Fisk and Vanessa we are talking about. And I am not Matt Murdock. I can’t empathize with these 2 monsters, no matter how many times Daredevil and Flashback Foggy educate me about giving people a second chance. These 2 deserve every bad thing that’s coming their way and then some. Yes, that sounds harsh, but I am sure I will be vindicated once you see the horrors that Fisk unleashes upon New York City to vent his anger over Vanessa’s predicament. In fact, I am pretty sure that this episode (which is a shallow attempt at invoking nostalgia and serving as a bridge between the Netflix run and the Disney+ run) wants you to sympathize with Fisk and Vanessa so that the show can shock you with Fisk’s future actions. If you think otherwise, feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section below. By the way, I think it’s interesting that, instead of the score, the sound of waves crashing onto the shore plays over the credits. Again, I don’t know if Fisk and Vanessa ever spent a summer at a beach. Maybe they did and it’s a fond memory for Fisk and Vanessa, which is why both of them are remembering during these trying times. Or maybe it’s a trip that they wanted to take but didn’t, which is why they are imagining going to the beach and regretting choosing a life of crime over a life of chill and luxury.
