REVIEW: Daredevil: Born Again – Season 1, Episode 5, “With Interest”

Television Reviews

“With Interest” is the first filler episode of a Daredevil season, and it’s both annoying and illuminating. It’s annoying because it feels weightless and skippable, which no episode of the show should feel, especially when they’re fast-forwarding through what should be longer storylines, like Wilson Fisk being elected mayor or Matt’s best friends either being killed or moving far away. And it’s illuminating in that it doesn’t feature any of the new characters that replaced the old series regulars – outside of a quick phone call with Kirsten – and you don’t miss them one bit. In other words, Daredevil: Born Again feels weightless in general, so the filler isn’t as bad as it could’ve been had the rest of this revival been good or interesting.

On St. Patrick’s Day, Matt applies for a bank loan to keep his new firm afloat and ends up being taken hostage when a team of Irish criminals robs the bank.

Before we get to how badly “With Interest” wastes that promising premise, let’s talk about the opening scene and how eye-rollingly shameless it is. Matt arrives at the bank, sits down, and the banker he talks to is… Kamala Khan’s father, Yusuf Khan. Remember when fans were speculating that Spider-Man or Hawkeye or even Daredevil’s fellow Defenders could show up on Born Again? Well, instead, they decided that the character we really wanted to see was Ms. Marvel’s goofy dad. And his appearance is as stupid as it sounds; he acts just as silly as he did on Ms. Marvel, and he talks about his daughter at length – not just in this scene but throughout the episode (yep, he sticks around for the whole thing) in the most forced ways possible, even at one point pulling out a Ms. Marvel Funko POP. (“The vault cannot be unlocked simply, like the piggy bank I gave to my daughter Kamala.” For the love of God!) The reason for this is to get Matt Murdock talking about how awesome and special and amazing Kamal Khan sounds; they figured Daredevil: Born Again would be a hit because the Netflix series they’re cannibalizing was so popular, so they decided to set aside an episode to use as a 45-minute advertisement for one of their duds. It’s, therefore, immensely gratifying that Born Again is bombing harder than Disney+’s biggest failures (and still sliding), meaning they’ll get absolutely nothing out of this soulless cross-promotion.

***SPOILERS***

As for the rest of “With Interest,” it’s the most streamlined episode of either series in this iteration of Daredevil yet. The entire episode takes place in the bank, where Matt, after hearing sirens and other indications that a hostage situation is taking place, goes back and allows himself to be captured so he can help. And he does some nice things, like calming people down when the two gunmen whose only job is to guard the hostages, who were told not to talk, conveniently walk away, or explaining how bad it would be for the robbers to shoot someone using his understanding of the law. (And thank God, because no one but an experienced trial attorney would know that killing someone makes you guilty of murder; the writers of this show clearly did their homework.) At one point, when the police request that they release two hostages as a sign of good faith, the thieves pick Matt and a woman whose husband is made to stay, and Matt convinces them to release the husband instead of him. And finally, Matt advises Yusef to stall the thug at the vault while he covertly gets his Daredevil on (without getting into the costume, of course; what do you think this is, a superhero show?). This stuff isn’t all bad, but it’s executed poorly; Matt trading his freedom for the husband’s is good, for example, but it comes in an episode of a show that doesn’t match the tone of Netflix’s Daredevil, where we’d believe that one or both of these people could die. As a result, you don’t watch the scene and think, “Wow, Matt saved that guy’s life!” You think, “Oh, that was nice of him.”

When the action happens, it’s… inconsistent. Matt’s first fight in “With Interest” is with a thug who’s escorting him to the restroom. Once they’re alone on a stairwell, Matt lets loose and takes the guy down, knocking him out and stealing his red mask. It’s not as good as the fights in Netflix’s Daredevil, but it’s still pretty good; Matt not only has to defeat the bad guy but stop his shotgun from falling and refrain from making too much noise, which keeps the fight exciting. The guy at the vault door with Yusef is more easily subdued, and when the police barge in, Matt simply slams one bad guy’s head against a wall in a poorly choreographed maneuver that doesn’t look like Matt hits him hard enough to put his lights out. Finally, Matt catches up with the leader, who escapes while disguised as a cop, and puts on the confiscated red mask to kick his ass. It’s a pretty good fight, but Matt’s coup de grâce in which he breaks the guy’s leg is another instance of how this show feels like Disney trying to be adult but still feels silly. Yes, Matt delivers a brutal hit, but the break doesn’t look real; it looks like it was CGI’d into the show, much like Daredevil jumping around on rooftops in the premiere or breaking the bad cop’s arm in the second episode. Instead of using practical effects and choreography, Born Again is taking the easy way out and animating these violent moments, and the result is very noticeable and underwhelming.

Since “With Interest” is a filler episode, there isn’t much characterization, but that makes it feel like it doesn’t fit with the rest of the season. For example, Matt has quit being Daredevil, and he’s trying to keep from going back into action despite the occasional pangs he feels for being a vigilante. Here, he does the usual rubbing of his horn as though it’s a rosary bead, but when the action starts, he’s never conflicted; he doesn’t think twice about getting himself captured or fighting the bank robbers. Even when he puts on the mask and chases the escaping leader, he never considers telling the cops what happened and letting them handle it; he just goes after the guy. I’m not exactly thrilled with the “I am Daredevil… NO MORE!” storyline, but if you’re going to do it, at least stick with it and make it consistent. There’s also a hint that one of the gang leaders who was working for the Kingpin – or, to be more accurate, working for Vanessa in the Kingpin’s absence – was the mastermind behind the robbery, but since he was barely a character and a “previously on” clip was needed to remind the viewers he even existed, it doesn’t matter. Even the episode itself feels like an afterthought; Matt recovers the stolen gem from one of the hostages who was actually part of the robbery, but this happens off-screen, and there’s no explanation of what the gem was or why the bad guys wanted it. For that matter, there’s no significance attached to an Irish crew robbing a bank on St. Patrick’s Day aside from “GET IT!? ‘CAUSE THEY’RE IRISH AND STUFF!” (There’s an excellent book by the recently departed Nelson DeMille called Cathedral about a team of IRA terrorists taking St. Patrick’s Cathedral hostage on St. Patrick’s Day; that scenario was full of meaning, and the book is much, much better than this episode and this show.) Daredevil was a deeply human, well-written, consistent, and very fun series; Daredevil: Born Again is fluff masquerading as its forebear, and in “With Interest,” it becomes a commercial for an even worse show.

Let us know what you thought of “With Interest” in the comments!

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