Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) runs New York and his polling has never been higher. Vigilantes face mandatory life sentences. the streets are clean and no one is paying any attention to the weapons he’s smuggling into the city. No one aside from Karen Page, Matt Murdock, Cherry and Mr Charles…

A near re-pilot, this takes its time to check in with the big cast and uses that to tell us just how high the stakes are. Fisk has won. He’s mayor and the city is his, even if defiant flashes of reality keep appearing. For example, there’s a great recurrent gag involving a public information film that’s cut to avoid anti-Fisk graffiti that speaks to this. As important, the two sailors who almost kill Matt on the gunrunning boat in the opening action sequence quickly become something other than simple goons. They almost certainly kill their colleagues when the boat is scuppered, but they also do so in full knowledge that Fisk will kill them. They’re victims too, because that’s all the Kingpin knows how to make. Their run across the city, and to the immigrant community that hides them, would always be effective drama. Watching members of Fisk’s taskforce offhandedly beat the innocent in 2026 as the same thing happens on the streets of Minnesota and so many other places is terrifying. Marvel have taken a lot of flak, entirely deservedly, for kowtowing to the worst excesses of their right wing fans and the establishment they exist in. They don’t do that here and it’s all the better for it.

This is a story focused on fragile humanity and how it survives in the face of fascism. For Matt and Karen, played with typical brilliance by Charlie Cox and Deborah Ann Woll, survival comes from training, determination and their own burgeoning relationship. For other characters, like Tony Dalton’s Jack Duquesne and Michael Gandolfini’s Daniel Blake it comes from either accepting or refusing to accept their situation. No one is safe, every one is living moment to moment and those moments are getting closer together.

The key to this episode is that freighter and how different characters view it. Matt, Karen and Cherry (all-time great Clark Johnson) see it as a crack in the armour. It is, but their perspective denies them that hope, even as Fisk reaches the same conclusion and Mr Charles arrives to ‘assist’. Played with wonderful, cheery  menace by the great Matthew Lillard, he’s a reminder that even Fisk isn’t the top of the food chain. He’s hope, even as he reinforces the Mayor, because he’s proof Fisk can be hurt. Proof that he’s human too..

But humanity is also what almost gets Matt killed. Rescuing Cherry from the AVTF, he panics as the older man has a heart attack, flashing back to Foggy dying in his arms. The final action sequence here is typical Daredevil balletic brutality until this moment and the escalating shock of seeing Matt lose, and be unmasked is incredible. The fakeout as to who saves him is beautifully done too, even if we know Mr Castle is busy elsewhere.

Because as the episode closes, Bullseye has saved Matt and Cherry’s life, Matt has been beaten to a pulp, Cherry has had a heart attack and Fisk and the AVTF are running rampant.

Verdict: It’s episode 1. Buckle up. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart