After a pair of opening episodes setting up its new status quo and letting Matt blow off some steam, Daredevil: Born Again gets back to legalities for its third episode. “Hollow of His Hand” is the show at its most courtroom drama, which allows it to make a case for street-level heroes in the superhero ecosystem and begin planting seeds that’ll bear fruit in later weeks.
“Optics” ended with Matt howling in despair as he (rightfully) beat down two dirty cops looking to silence a witness that could help get Hector Ayala out of prison. Despite the threat of the cops conspiring to make sure witness Nicky Torres doesn’t reach the courthouse, he ultimately does this week, in what is actually a pretty easy fake out involving Cherry and one of his old contacts leading some of the city’s finest on a brief goose chase. That’s alright, though, because it’s once Nicky gets on the stand that it becomes clear how much of a threat the police pose.
Countless story after story over the years has shone a light on police brutality across the United States, and Born Again doesn’t pretend its police are any better. Even before the camera cuts to Punisher tattoos on some officers, there’s enough of them in the room that seeing them from Nicky’s position would be terrifying on its own. Matt can throw down with the cops and verbally jab with Powell all he likes, but for any regular person, speaking out against the police–whether it’s a high-profile case or something comparatively smaller–can be a death sentence the moment they enter the court. It’s no wonder then, that Nicky chooses self preservation and doesn’t implicate the cops.
With no other option to save the case, Matt takes things into his own hands by outing Hector’s identity as the White Tiger to the court. It’s a risky move–especially as he doesn’t afford Hector the grace of being told beforehand that what Matt did was on the table–and one that threatens to undermine the entire case, putting a bigger target on Hector’s back (and his own) than ever before. Before all that, however, Hector took the stand to give his side of the story and present himself as a human being to sway the jury. Hector’s moments are brief, but moving; even if he wasn’t moonlighting as a vigilante, it’s clear he would’ve stepped in to defend the police from beating Torres to a pulp regardless. This was, for those who may not know, actor Kamar de los Reyes’ final performance before he died of cancer in late 2023, so it’s tough to know if the character was due for greater things after this, or his ultimate fate came after his passing. Regardless, he injects Hector with a nobility that is compelling to the jury, but almost suffocating for Matt. Having given up Daredevil and content with not looking back, he’s talking to himself as much as he is Hector when he advises leaving the heroism days behind if things go their way. But for Hector, hanging up that suit isn’t a choice. “Being White Tiger is who I am,” he tells Matt later in the episode. “It’s a calling. I didn’t choose it, it chose me.”
Ultimately, Matt’s gamble pays off: people who Hector saved during his vigilante days, including the police, come forward during the trial to tell stories of the man who saved them from certain death. Not even the police’s defense attorney describing officer Shanahan’s death by subway in grisly detail is enough to win over the court, and Hector is declared not guilty on all charges. It’s a celebratory day for Matt and the Ayalas, with the threat of Fisk’s response to the case looming overhead. (Save for some snippets of a hijacking gone wrong over in Red Hook and couples therapy, Fisk and Vanessa don’t have much to do in this episode, leaving that particular pot simmering in the background until Fisk begins to lay out his response to anti-vigilantism.)
True to his word, Hector can’t not be White Tiger, even just hours after he was declared innocent. After what’s probably the first proper suit up scene for the MCU in years, Hector begins to get back to work… only to be quickly given a bullet to his head by an unseen figure sporting the Punisher logo on his chest. Who did it? Was it on Fisk’s orders? Those answers, and the fallout from this death, will have to wait–all we’re left with over the credits is the sound of the coqui tree frog, the animal Hector tells Matt about from his home of Puerto Rico earlier in the episode, the sound of a humble creature calling out to its mate for life.
It probably would’ve behooved Disney to pair “Optics” and “Hollow of His Hand” together, given how they’re clearly meant to fit together in Born Again’s wider narrative. That will really only affect eventual rewatches, and as is, it doesn’t stop “Hand” from working as a generally solid episode of television that ends with a tragic payoff: Hector’s blood is now on Matt’s hands, and it’ll define his actions throughout the rest of the season.
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