There is a specific moment in any superhero show when the thing you are watching quietly stops being a superhero show and becomes something that feels closer to a political thriller you would have found on cable back when cable still meant something and Daredevil Born Again Season 2 Episode 2, Shoot the Moon, is exactly that moment for this season, how it cant be when you got Fisk running NY and using all his political power to both show to the rest of the nation something that is really not happening like that utopia of the city been save and calm, and on the other side he is running his criminal empire like its nothing, he actually normalize large scale crime in the city. The episode does not announce the shift, it does not put up a sign that says we are doing something different now, it just starts moving and by the time Wilson Fisk stands at a shows his face on camera and tells New York City that Matt Murdock is missing and that Daredevil is responsible this was a master chess move like oh dont put a bullseye on his back like he is wanted and Fisk was like "we want our hero back" that was laughable tbh, you realize the chess board has changed completely and Fisk is the only one who knows it. This is not the big swinging Kingpin energy of someone who breaks skulls to solve problems, this is patient and cold and suffocating to watch and I thought the first episode of this season was a soft opening that will ramp up and sure it did, Shoot the Moon is the show following up by making the statement even harder.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18923754/
- Platform: DISNEY+
What Vincent D Onofrio is doing right now with Wilson Fisk is the kind of performance that makes you thin like damn I have been underestimating the character in past seasons because it was all his wife running the empire while he was been jealous all the time and didnt have the grip over the city that he has now, imagine he got DareDevil on the run. This version of Fisk as a functioning elected mayor who can manipulate public narrative on live television while simultaneously hunting down the man who saved his life is a whole different animal from the mob boss who threw people around in hallways. That press conference move is such a boss like move in its logic that you need a second to actually sit with it, because think about what he cannot do openly and then think about what he does instead, he turns Matt into a missing person the city needs to find and turns Daredevil into the suspect the city needs to fear, and just like that every single person in New York who loves vigilantes is out searching for Murdock while every single person who hates them is hunting Daredevil, all without Fisk lifting a finger or tipping his hand. The controlled rage D Onofrio brings such a calm scenes is also doing a lot of work in this episode, because there is one moment during a training session where his personal trainer pushes him a half step too far almost like you forgot who you talking to right?, and Fisk puts that man through a mirror with one punch, I even though he was going to finish him while on the ground, and that single moment reminds you that the politician costume is exactly that, just a costume, and the thing underneath it has not gone anywhere but he is doing a perfect work at hiding it, for now. Michael Gandolfini as Daniel Blake is also earning his screen time this episode, specifically in that quiet moment where he closes his laptop and sits alone with the realization that someone inside Fisk inner circle is leaking footage from the Northern Star, and the way Gandolfini plays that dawning paranoia without over explaining it shows you pretty fast that there is real talent in this guy, he turns into such a good support character latter on.
What actually surprised me this episode in a way I was not prepared for was the Angela del Toro scenes, because the scene where the AVTF rolls up on that convenience store and drags her aunt Soledad out for basically nothing look more like a reminder of how Fisk and his AVTF is running the city and makes such a good contrast than the rest of the episode. The show does not dress it up or soften it, it just shows it, and the detail that the kids who were shoplifting and Soledad was trying to reason with moments earlier end up being the same people standing there watching her get taken away by federal agents is the kind of storytelling that does not need dialogue or music to make its point. That scene pushes Angela toward Kirsten McDuffie and sets in montion whatever the White Tiger amulet is eventually going to mean for her this season, got HIGH hopes she puts on the mask too, and the path there feels earned in a way that a lot of superhero origin just work because the show lets real world weight do the emotional heavy lifting instead of manufactured script. Comparing what this season is doing to what Marvel has attempted with political commentary before, the gap is wide and big, because this feels just way better handle and specific where a lot of their previous attempts at commentary felt like they were written by people who had heard about politics and had no idea how to apply them into content without feeling one handed.
The closing fight at Josie place is fast and well choreographed and exactly the kind of that makes you say YYEEAAAHH everytime DareDevil goes fkn wild and doesnt hold back and does feel like this needs to close on after a lot of slow burn, and then Karen showing Matt the AVTF officer she managed to capture herself is the right kind of cliffhanger because it does not feel cheap or forced, it feels like a natural extension of who Karen has always been. Deborah Ann Woll in that quiet dancing scene before everything falls on this season she is coming back stronger as Matt companion and it feels so good because on the previous season their relationship problems really felt suffocating and Matt never fully give up on the mask while she just did but now she realize they against the wall and have to go all in, is just being two people trying to hold onto something normal for five minutes while everything around them is on fire. Shoot the Moon earns a 7.5 out of 10 from me, the Bullseye pacing issues are real and the BB Urich thread telegraphs itself too early, but watching Fisk run his political machine at full power while the show keeps finding new ways to complicate every person standing in his way is enough to keep this thing going stronger after each episode, and that AVTF officer sitting somewhere waiting to talk turns into this effective possible reason to immediately start episode three but I do preffer one episode per week though, even when Im running behind.
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