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Daredevil: Born Again Is Getting Lazy in “Gloves Off”
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Daredevil: Born Again
Daredevil: Born Again Is Getting Lazy in “Gloves Off”
Wilson Fisk keeps coming to Matt Murdoch’s (metaphorical) house and peeing on the rug.
By Emmet Asher-Perrin
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Published on April 8, 2026
Image: Marvel Studios
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Image: Marvel Studios
Hello—I am not Leah! But as they are currently away, I have been asked to mind the Daredevil store. In the spirit of laying everything out as they would, this week’s episode is called “Gloves Off,” written by Chantelle M. Wells and directed by Solvan “Slick” Naim.
A Spoilery Recap
We open on the world’s from Bullseye’s point of view: Ben Poindexter is living in a nice new apartment (apparently someone was happy to rent to the guy under an assumed name though he likely had no history or credit score and let’s not even try to parse out where his money is coming from because he sure doesn’t seem to have a job) with a routine similar to the one he had before he met Wilson Fisk and his life went to hell. He’s doing pushups! Wrist rotations! Making his bed with hairpin precision! Making his eggs! He’s listening to Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” in his head and we’ll let him have it because he’s just trying to have a day.
And then he makes an extra egg for his neighbor’s cat (the neighbor is named Mrs. Smithers, which is already funny, but that’s got nothing on the cat, who has a food mat that reads “Mr. Meowgi”) who is, for some reason, fed in the hallway of their apartment building. Mrs. Smithers believes that this makes Dex (who she knows as Tony) such a nice boy. Dex heads to a diner, orders a banana milkshake—with whip, because he’s right, that is what everyone wants—and calls in to the AVTF hotline claiming Frank Castle is in the diner with a gun. The place is promptly filled with goons all holding rifles. Dex dispatches them while Billy Joel continues to play.
Image: Marvel Studios
There’s a guy at a table who has inexplicably ordered the lobster. He’s holding a tiny dog, which Dex takes the time to let him know is unsanitary (no, that was the dining choice, buddy). The guy is worried this means he’s about to be offed, too, but Dex assures him that he’s one of the “good guys” before using a ketchup bottle to mark the door with his little logo on the way out.
We’ve got another Phisk video reminding folks that the Northern Star may have exploded, but the important thing is the boxing match Fisk is starring in to raise money for the New York Born Again Revitalization Project—which is such a mouthful, I’m going to refer to it as NY: BARP whenever it comes up. At the current Resistance HQ, Karen is filming Soledad Ayala’s testimony about how she was detained in a cage by the AVTF, while Daredevil talks to Duquesne. He’s out, sadly: The Swordsman isn’t much of a superhero in environs such as these; he feels he’s getting too old for this shit. On the upside, he’s given Karen an account number, so the resistance now has a sugar daddy, which they do desperately need.
Karen needs to get this latest SD card to BB, but it’s too dangerous outside. Angela insists on doing the job as she stole an AVTF truck and is on their list. Daredevil doesn’t disagree, but he does remind her that wearing her uncle’s amulet is a major responsibility. Suddenly, the group is discovered by Christofi Savva, the first mate of the Northern Star; he’s here to help and can tell them everything. Meanwhile, Vanessa is heading to Albany to meet with the governor on Wilson’s behalf. She calls him out on sending her away right before his prize fight, and while Wilson insists that he’s just tying to keep her safe, she’s not pleased.
Matt and Karen talk next steps with Savva, knowing that they’ll need to rope Kirsten in to take his statement. Karen doesn’t think that should be hard, given that most of the Task Force will be at the fight tonight. You know, the fight, being held at Fogwell’s, the gym where Matt’s dad had his last fight.
At least the two of them are canny enough to realize that this is a blatant lure. They’re unfortunately also bright enough to realize that they’re not the only folks that might be intended for the trap: Bulleye is, too. Which means Matt has to save him, of course.
They tell each other that they love each other before they go off on their separate tasks, so that’s probably not a bad omen at all.
The AVTF bust into Kirsten’s office, insisting that she might be hiding Duquesne, and she tells them off while they make it clear that due process and the law don’t mean a thing as far as they’re concerned. At the free port, Wilson is worried about their many leaks, but Mr. Charles is there to ask why all the weapons from the Northern Star are still in New York and not on their way to do what they were intended to do in Guinea-Bissau. Charles believes that Wilson Fisk is having a very hard time controlling his very small part of the world. They exchange thinly veiled threats, and then less thinly veiled ones when Buck dispatches Charles’ armed guard. Wilson tells Charles to be patient and insists he will make good on… whatever he’s ostensibly promised to the big boss lady.
Image: Marvel Studios
We get two meetings between women: Karen goes to talk to Kirsten, and (finally) lets her know that Matt is alive and okay. Kirsten asks what she needs. Then we see Vanessa’s meeting with Governor McCaffrey, who is very clear on her stance: She doesn’t like Wilson at all… but she likes Vanessa. While she refuses to back Mayor Fisk, she will back the two of them together. As Vanessa herself was previously arguing to her husband, they’re a package deal. Angela gets the SD card to Javi for drop off to BB and tells him not to screw it up.
Matty proceeds to gear up in their one AVTF uniform and shouts the NYPD out of the diner Dex destroyed earlier. Some quick detective work gets him the coin from his own church that Bullseye flung, so he heads home for, presumably, the first time in a long time. He sits in the pews and prays to Saint Lucia. The new priest-in-training hears him and they have a chat. Matt presses him for information, and he does give him what small amount he knows about Dex because Matt insists that he will be saving lives if he does so and promises not to kill him. He learns that Dex has a view of the church from his apartment window, which allows him to easily track the guy down. There’s a massive fight in his apartment, and Dex eventually takes Mrs. Smithers hostage and tells Matt that he means to do one good deed to make up for Foggy’s death: He’ll do what Matt can’t do.
He’s going to kill Fisk.
Dex gets away from Matt and heads to Fogwell’s while Savva gives his testimony to Kirsten. They plan to hand him over to U.S. marshals, who are meant to keep him safe. (It’s like they’ve never been on their own show before.) Daniel meets BB with their ringside tickets to the match. Javi shows up and pretends to be a fan, taking a picture while he slips BB the SD card. Daniel is visibly suspicious, but they play it off and continue their not-date. Fisk is preparing for the match and asks Buck to keep the front door unguarded; Buck hates the idea of Wilson making himself bait, but he gets a call about Savva and Wilson tells him to take it and tie up their loose ends.
Image: Marvel Studios
Daniel buys a bunch of swag at the match, which he shows BB (and us by extension) in great detail, for no reason, of course. One of them is a very ugly bust of Fisk surrounded by the city, made of glass. Sheila says that she hopes he got the employee discount; of course, Daniel didn’t even know one existed. The fight begins and Wilson promptly begins wailing on The Matterhorn. Savva and his escort are murdered by Buck, and Fisk gets word, leading to renewed vigor in the ring. Right as The Matterhorn is about to go down, Vanessa enters in a white dress. (Metaphors! Visual cues!) Wilson gives the guy two final punches, after which he’s taken from the ring on a stretcher. The crowd is cheering, though some people—BB, Sheila—are visibly stunned. Vanessa tells Wilson that she came to him with a win, but he insists that she leave as quickly as possible.
Bullseye is already taking out AVTF officers with extreme prejudice while Wilson screams at his men to get Vanessa out. Vanessa pulls a gun on Dex; Dex throws the ugly glass keepsake; Wilson hits the keepsake with his champion belt, shattering it into a million pieces; Daredevil arrives to stop Dex and swings him through the front window to safety.
If you’re paying attention through all this, you can see Vanessa frozen behind Wilson.
Because, you know, the stupid glass swag. It shattered, and now a piece of glass is lodged in her head. She’s bleeding everywhere, staining her white dress. Wilson screams for an ambulance, laying her gently on the floor of the ring. (I’m sure that’s sanitary…)
Grace
Image: Marvel Studios
Okay, I’m extremely tickled by aspects of how the prize fight is being constructed, I’ll give them that. Using Fogwell’s to host is just mean and absurd to boot: If you wanted to make the maximum amount of money—as this thing is meant to be for charity, remember—you’d hold it at Madison Square Garden, not some dinky ancient gym that has somehow, magically, not closed in the intervening years of superhero battles and nonsense. Calling it “Scrappin’ in the Kitchen” is just adding insult to grievous bodily harm here; he might as well have named it Hey, Double D, I’m Pissing in Your Living Room, Better Come Stop Me!
There was a point where I thought the entire episode was going to be from Dex’s point of view… and I kind of wanted it? Particularly after they show him doing so well for no discernible reason. Where’s he working? How did he establish a false identity? How often is he just stalking Matt and why is it so easy for him to do it?
Duquesne turning over a rich guy bank account to Karen is adorable. I’m not sure how useful it ultimately will turn out to be—how’s the post office working these days? Can they get stuff delivered easily? Where are they sourcing their food and medicines and such?
I am curious about what Fisk has promised Valentina’s people, of course, and always enjoy any excuse to watch Mathew Lillard do his thing, The monologue about wombat shit was delightful; his exhaustion at dealing with Fisk’s extreme sensitivities is more than fair.
Image: Marvel Studios
While I’m annoyed at the extent to which they’re short-handing Matt and Karen’s relationship, I am glad that they’re being relatively adult about their feelings for this segment. Yeah, they love each other and they both know it. Is it circumstantial to this moment? Maybe. Does it matter? Not so much. They’re both being shelter in the storm to each other for now, and that works in this fragment of time.
Deborah Ann Woll has this incredible grounding effect as an actor, even when the premise of her scenes are silly. The show should be thanking her on bended knee every episode. I wish the scene with Karen and Kirsten had gotten more time because I want to know more about their relationship in general; Karen has a tendency to hold people at arm’s length, which is deeply ironic because she’s so good at gaining trust. If she really believes that she’s a manipulator, as she said to BB not long ago, we should learn more about how that feels to her, and what it’s like to be on the other side of it with someone who is firmly on her team but less personal with her, like Kirsten is.
Also, just, more Kirsten too, please? The person doing what used to be Matt’s job, the part that actually makes the Daredevil premise compelling?
Oh, and I’ve got to give a shout-out to Matt’s prayer to St. Lucia because Leah obviously would. Lucia (or Lucy) is the patron saint of the blind—because she was tortured, in a version of her story, by having her eyes gouged out—and also of martyrs, which feels particularly important here.
Retribution
Image: Marvel Studios
Sorry, is it tacky to put your own music in an episode of a show you’re directing? Slick Naim’s “At a Disadvantage” is playing at the start of the fight segment and it just feels weird to me. The song worked, I think, but it felt wink-wink at a moment that didn’t need it.
And I started with that because I’m not even entertaining the possibility that Vanessa could be dead because that would be beyond tackiness in my book. I get that Daredevil loves having Matt and Wilson in their parallels, and they’re currently unbalanced because Matt lost Foggy and Wilson didn’t lose his most important person.
Oh wait, but he did, though. He just lost him ages ago.
There’s a Wesley-shaped hole in Wilson’s life. It’s been there for years and it’s never talked about because his love for Vanessa is pretty all-encompassing—but Wesley was, in many ways, equally (though differently) important. Buck is clearly pseudo-Wesley for all intents and purposes, and he doesn’t remotely approach who the man was to Wilson Fisk. So, in many ways, Matt’s parallel was the one working to catch up.
I’m assuming that this is just a way of pulling Vanessa off the board for the rest of the season because if she was truly dead, Fisk as a character would be useless in any capacity going forward. One of the best pieces of the first season was Vanessa making it clear to Wilson that he needed to treat her like a partner in order for this to work, and Fisk coming to terms with the fact that his wife is his superpower. When they are in sync, they are unstoppable; it’s one of the only times when I’m practically happy to root for villains, heinous though they might be. This whole episode abruptly turned that premise on its head by making her a liability, and did so in an extremely boring way.
So she better be fine, or currently getting resurrected by the Hand, is all I’m saying.
And I suppose we’ll just have to weather Wilson Fisk’s breakdown in the meantime.
Fiorello’s Desk
Image: Marvel Studios
Here’s where you lose me, with regard to that boxing match: Wilson Fisk has nearly a hundred pounds on the guy he’s fighting. Now, I know that he’s likely being framed more as the “layman” in this situation due to not being a professional boxer with a career in the ring, but weight classes are a thing for a reason. I don’t care how many fights The Matterhorn has won in his career, he is still two-thirds of the guy he’s duking it out against.
Obviously the whole thing is rigged from go, but my question is simply: How did anyone think this would make Fisk look good? If he wins—which is clearly the intention here—how does it not come off as this giant whaling on a much smaller guy who, for all his years of professional training and dozens of wins, could barely get a right hook in?
I’m assuming this is meant to be the beginning of a downturn for Fisk, but his own team should be setting him up for success regardless, and this feels egregious. Why is anyone in Fogwell’s cheering? They all stop once Wilson drops him, but he’s been spraying the ring with the guy’s blood from the bell. This shouldn’t have surprised anyone.
Quotes!
“I mean, the milkshakes are good.”
—This poor server, who genuinely cannot understand why anyone would ask what a diner is “famous for” (If it’s a good one, in New York, it’s famous for always being open with a menu longer than a James Joyce novel.)
“We’re a matched set. I should be there tonight.”
—Vanessa, who knows where their narrative strength is coming from
“Little Lego walls of wombat shit to get the bitches. They literally shit bricks!”
“Charles, you are not on my agenda.”
—Wilson Fisk being arguably very diplomatic in the face of an opening speech about wombat mating processes
Closing Arguments
Image: Marvel Studios
This was a rough one. While there are good bits being woven in, it’s extremely aggravating to watch them set up so many intricate pieces and then wipe the board every time things get too complicated. Let them get complicated! This should be messy! That’s why one of the best parts of the episode was Daredevil nodding along with Angela when she told Karen that the AVTF was already looking for her, so why not risk her life out there.
Messy! All of them could die or disappear at any moment, and they know it. Okay, Savva didn’t, maybe. Poor guy. He missed out on the first show’s season three arc, which hinged entirely on getting a witness to the stand. (It didn’t work out for anyone.)
I’m going to have to chat with Leah about the priest-in-training’s behavior in this episode, though, because I feel like he did a patently terrible job? Just because Matt promised not to kill a guy? Let’s just say, Father Lantom this guy is not, to the point that this feels like a major error in the plot.
At least Lantom knew exactly who he was sending out with what information he chose to give when he talked to Matt. This new guy told an AVTF officer where a suspect was, ostensibly knowing that people are being disappeared off the streets by people in these uniforms, just because he knew the guy wouldn’t die. Not great, not-Father! The fact that Matt didn’t tell him off for it was even weirder? I know he can get fixated, but how is this a guy you would want in charge of the church where you grew up?[end-mark]
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