Daredevil: Born Again Episode 5 Does Something Marvel's Streaming Shows Forgot How To Do

Spoilers for "Daredevil: Born Again" follow.

Episode 5 of Marvel Studios' "Daredevil: Born Again" is set on St. Patrick's Day; it opens with a quick-cut montage of New York City bustling with green spirit, set to a cover of "The Rocky Road to Dublin." The episode's March 25 premiere date missed the actual holiday by a week, but it still gives Marvel fans a lovely gift. The episode takes a break from Mayor Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) to focus only on Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), who doesn't need his Daredevil costume to fight crime.

A quick recap: Matt is at a bank, seeking a loan for his firm Murdock & McDuffie. He leaves empty-handed, but when he's not even a block down the road, an Irish bank robber named Devlin (Cillian O'Sullivan) and his crew break in, wielding colored masks and assault rifles. They're using the holiday as cover for their heist; on St. Patrick's Day, you'd have to go to Boston to find a police force more understaffed than the NYPD.

Hearing the robbery thanks to his enhanced senses, Matt purposefully walks back into the bank. The episode plays out similarly to robbery/hostage thriller films like Spike Lee's "Inside Man," but this time it's one of the hostages that takes the robbers down.

In doing so, "Daredevil: Born Again" delivers a truly standalone and self-contained episode. There's nothing more to the episode beyond this simple premise, but there doesn't need to be. There is a beginning, middle, and end. The episode begins with Matt sitting at the desk of assistant bank manager Yusuf Khan (Mohan Kapur), and it ends with our hero back at that desk, sneakily returning the diamond the robbers were after. That scene ties a satisfying knot instead of begging that you instantly watch the next episode.

Now, there are some eye-rolling Marvel Cinematic Universe tie-ins in the episode. (Mr. Khan is the father of Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel, and the show makes sure you know that.) But otherwise, "Born Again" just did something too few streaming programs do: Actual episodic storytelling.

When streaming TV first took off, an early selling point was that the programs wouldn't use the "new episode, then wait another week" release model. No, streaming originals would be designed as essentially multi-hour-movies for you to binge in one go. 

One of the reasons "prestige TV" and anti-hero dramas (e.g. "The Sopranos," "Breaking Bad," etc.) were so lauded was because of their serialization. These shows weren't just doing formulaic adventures inside a strict status quo — the characters changed over time. So, why not lean even further in that direction? The problem was, though, that most streaming programs didn't actually have hours' worth of narrative to tell. Episodes would tread water and couldn't be appreciated on their own terms, only as part of a whole.

Streaming TV truly did feel like the movies in the sense many shows would've been better with tight two-hour runtimes. Yet this model of "two-hour movie as a 10-hour mini-series" solidified into place because it worked well for streaming services' business model: The viewer has to click on the next episode, and then the next. You'll be a lot more tempted to do that if you think you'll only know the whole story by watching to the end. Frustratingly, streaming services were also less willing to invest in full-sized writers' rooms or seasons longer than 10 episodes. Shorter seasons meant that writers almost literally didn't have the room for one-off episodes.

The original "Daredevil" had this exact sort of saggy pacing, especially in seasons 1 and 2. There were a handful of more self-contained episodes, the best being season 2 episode "New York's Finest" when the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) holds Daredevil hostage and they debate their methods. But it wasn't enough.

The Disney+ Marvel shows, including things like "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" and "Secret Invasion," largely commit the usual streaming TV sins. "WandaVision" bucked the 8-hour-movie trend early on thanks to its "new decade aesthetic every episode" gimmick, but it fell away from that thematic episodic structure by the end. The main exception was the animated "X-Men '97," where every episode stood on its own. 

As opposed to the Netflix "drop the whole season at once" model, almost all of the MCU shows are being released weekly, "Daredevil: Born Again" included. This could be a sign of Marvel realizing the lessons of old TV never needed to be unlearned.

Interestingly, episodes 5 and 6 of "Daredevil: Born Again" were dropped on the same night. Part of me suspects this two-for-one deal is to placate people who would complain that "nothing happened" in episode 5. But even this episode ties into the series' running thread in more subtle ways. Since the ending of "Born Again" episode 2, Matt has been slipping back into violence. He probably saved lives by stopping the bank robbery, but taking it on himself shows the arrogance of a vigilante. Matt hasn't technically put the Daredevil costume back on yet, but he might as well have.

Comic books, like television, have experienced a pivot to serialization. It's harder and harder to get a satisfying reading experience out of a single issue these days. But a single issue is all that some of the best "Daredevil" comics ever needed.

Take "Daredevil" #191, or "Roulette," the capstone of Frank Miller's initial run on "Daredevil." Daredevil, holding a revolver, plays Russian Roulette with a paralyzed Bullseye. (Matt is of course holding the gun for his immobile partner.) Daredevil tells Bullseye a story about Chuckie, a young boy who worshipped Daredevil for being strong. Chuckie wanted to be like Daredevil so much that he stole his father's gun and shot a classmate with it. Daredevil asks Bullseye the question he's asking himself:

"What am I giving people, by running around in tights and punching crooks? What am I showing them? Am I showing them that good wins out, that crime does not pay, that the cavalry is always on its way, or am I showing them that any idiot with fists for brains can get his way if he's fast enough and strong enough and mean enough? Am I fighting violence — or teaching it?"

Sure, the issue is stronger if you know the full context of Daredevil and Bullseye's hatred (like how, ten issues prior, Bullseye had murdered Daredevil's lover, Elektra), but you don't need that context to enjoy the comic. Similarly, this "Born Again" episode is also, in theory, a perfect one to catch if you were just flipping through channels.

In my view, "Daredevil: Born Again" has made some crucial improvements to the Netflix original, including a realization that episodic pacing isn't something to always avoid.

"Daredevil: Born Again" is streaming on Disney+.