TV Review: “Gloves Off” Is ‘Daredevil’ At Its Comic Book-Best

I don’t know if “Gloves Off” is the best episode of this season of Daredevil: Born Again thus far, but it’s definitely the one I’ve enjoyed the most.

In part, this is because it’s arguably the most comic book-y episode yet, with Daredevil (Charlie Cox) doing some foundational detective work to track down Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) before engaging in the first superhero/supervillain showdown the series has had since the Muse episodes last season. But it’s also because the “charity” boxing match, ludicrous though it may be as in execution (more on that below), provides a focal point for the episode, a center of gravity around which nearly all the season-long plotlines and character interactions swirl and/or are inevitably drawn towards.

Tightening those threads in that manner helps underscore the series as a singular whole greater than the sum of its parts, rather than merely being a stage on which some semi-related plots and ideas play out.

The episode opens on a strong note, with an extended “day in the life” sequence involving Bullseye waking up, preparing his breakfast, greeting his neighbors, and setting out for a diner, where he orders a milkshake before calmly orchestrating a showdown between himself and the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, which predicatly ends with all the AVTF goons dead. I am a sucker for this sort of thing – anything that involves a birds-eye view of someone cooking their meal then neatly arranging it on a plate is like catnip to me – even before getting into the fact that it’s all scored to a Billy Joel song (“New York State of Mind,” natch).

But personal taste aside, it’s an important sequence for the idea setup later in the episode: Bullseye wants to atone for his past actions, and is starting to view himself as a hero, someone who can balance his past (bad) acts of violence with new (good) ones. Not only does this create a fun tension in the character amongst those of us familiar with the far more traditionally psychopathic Bullseye of the comics, it adds an additional layer of complexity to the ongoing moral struggles of Matt Murdock and how he rationalizes the morality of his alter ego in the face of people like the Punisher or, now Bullseye.

Not surprisingly, Matt is less willing to give Bullseye the kind of leeway he gives Frank Castle, given that the act Bullseye is trying to atone for by butchering fascist goons is the murder of Matt’s best friend, which means this episode gets injected with a bit of classic comic archenemy showdown vibes. Not only does this mean we get to see Matt doing some investigative work tracking down Bullseye, but we get an actual Matt Murdock In A Church scene in this episode, something this series has been sorely lacking. The ensuing confrontation, from Matt (trying) to ambush Bullseye all the way up to Bullseye knocking a guy off his scooter to escape, is arguably the best action scene of the season so far, simply because it involves actual characters on both sides of the fight (as opposed to the “Matt vs. faceless goons” fights we’ve gotten thus far).

The sense of heightened comic book reality carries all the way through to the episode’s climatic centerpiece, the Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) boxing match. It is, in its own way, as ludicrous in its ways as the kind of physical feats employed by Daredevil and Bullseye, from the mechanics of Fisk’s strategy (I am no pugilist, but I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to angrily pound your opponent’s face into pulp whilst boxing, especially in what is meant to be a fundraising exercise, even/especially if you’re a supervillain trying to present a “well meaning good guy” facade to the public and have easily a hundred pounds on your opponent) to Chekhov’s Glass New York Skyline Tchotchke (which is both parried and broken in just the right way for maximum dramatic effect).

Yet at the same time, the way the entire episode builds to that sequence, they way the gravimetric pull of it draws in all the plotlines around it — from Daniel (Michael Gandolfini) and BB’s (Genneya Walton) cat-and-mouse game to Sheila’s (Zabryna Guevara) moral reservations to the way it represents Fisk playing fourth dimensional chess and somehow winning and losing at the same time to, finally, the Daredevil/Bullseye material from earlier in the episode — supports, as the best comic book stories do, the heightened reality of it all (even plot points earlier in the episode, like looping Kirsten (Nikki M. James) in to take the deposition or Vanessa’s (Ayelet Zurer) visit with the governor, are driven by the match). It also works because it ultimately leads to an event which – theoretically, at least – promises huge ramifications for everyone drawn into the orbit of the event. Which is to say, nearly the entire series. That’s a lift that the somewhat heightened reality of “Gloves Off” easily supports.

The Law Review

• The other thing the overhead shot of Bullseye making breakfast does, aside from tickle my fancy, is call to mind similar shots involving Fisk’s omelets from the Netflix series.
• Relatedly, the diner is, of course, the same diner where Matt and Fisk had their meeting in the first episode of last season.
• Are you Team “tear the wrapper of the straw in the middle and pull the two sides off the straw” like Bullseye, or Team “tear the top end of the wrapper and draw the straw out” like me? (Ed. Note: I’m team tear the bottom 2/3 off and leave the paper on the straw but in my cup until I’m not around other people.)
• This is something I’ve always bumped against with comic book Bullseye as well, but while I’m willing to concede a preternatural ability to throw things with unerring accuracy, it still feels like you’d need some kind of superhuman ability to inflict damage with some of those things. Like, sure, Bullseye can accurately hurl a lobster claw at someone’s eye, but how does he do it with enough force that it sinks halfway into the guy’s skull?
• Also, who orders lobster from a diner for brunch/lunch? What diner even has lobster?
• Sadly, that is probably a series rap on the Swordsman (Tony Dalton). I hope he pops up somewhere else in the MCU down the line (“The Swordsman will return in Avengers: Doomsday….”).
• I appreciate Matt more or less shrugging at the idea of letting teenaged Angela (Camilia Rodriquez) continue to be White Tiger instead of hypocritically arguing she’s too young or it’s too dangerous or whatever.
• Glad Matthew Lilliard is back! Also, as much as I want Maximum Comeuppance for Fisk in the end, I did enjoy Dollar Dollarman (Arty Froushan) getting one over on Mr. Charles’ goons.