While Season 2 Daredevil: Born Again is a big improvement from the first season, it still has yet to reach its full potential. Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 Episode 6, “Requiem” had an excruciatingly slow start, only really taking off after the first 15 minutes.
While Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio, Law & Order: Criminal Intent) has overstayed his welcome as the show’s main villain, his army of goons provide the more interesting plotlines. Buck (Arty Froushan, Carnival Row) and Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva, The Acolyte) share a tense yet intimate moment after Vanessa’s (Ayelet Zurer, Angels & Demons) funeral that seems to finally touch on Heather’s conflict that had been set up in the beginning of the season. While the scene might leave viewers wanting more, it’s a relief that Heather’s storyline isn’t being forgotten altogether. Her character’s lack of presence in the recent episodes was apparent so shifting the focus to her would give some much needed variety to the season.
Daniel (Michael Gandolfini, The Many Saints of Newark) and BB (Genneya Walton, Project Mc²) travel to Staten Island for Daniel’s birthday as he grapples with the possibility of BB leaking information from the mayor’s office. Surprisingly, Daniel and BB’s storyline was the strongest this episode. Gandolfini and Walton’s chemistry was slowly built over the past season but has finally paid off and heightens the conflict between the two as they come to terms with their feelings for each other amidst all the drama. Allowing them to grow from friends to something more really allows the chemistry to shine; you can’t help but to root for the two as a pair despite the amount of secrets they withhold from each other.
After much speculation, it was no surprise that Jessica Jones (Kristyn Ritter, Jessica Jones) would be making her MCU return in Daredevil: Born Again. What was shocking was her lack of impact within the episode. All of Daredevil’s (Charlie Cox, Boardwalk Empire) allies seem to have run out of things to do. While they’ve finally introduced Jessica’s daughter storyline, Jessica herself had little to do besides partake in a repetitive fight scene. The fight choreography isn’t terrible, but it seems to be designed around big impacts rather than realism. The camera movement makes stacked hits obvious and the backlighting deprives this scene of more color than usual. The benefits of this fight were the lack of Daredevil’s unnecessary screaming and the callback to Jessica’s powers not working like they used to.
With Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll, True Blood) finally doing something of impact this episode, there’s hope for a high octane end to the season. It’s doubtful that they’ll say goodbye to Fisk for good, but there’s hope that Heather’s storyline opens up new possibilities for other antagonists in the third season. While not the strongest episode of the season, Episode 6 guarantees that no plotline will be left forgotten.
