“We in Danger, Girl,” could best be described as the consequences episode. Many, many plotlines set up over the last two episodes are all collapsing in. Basically, nothing is going right for the characters—and it was the perfect choice for this show.
“Reality Check” is—drum roll please—a great episode of Revival. Perhaps the first even good episode of Revival. It actually flowed properly and felt like it was utilizing the interesting questions at the heart of its premise while maintaining solid, cohesive plotlines. I wasn’t frustrated; I wasn’t thrown off. The episodic and the serialized nature of this story are finally working in harmony.
“Straight to Hell” is exactly the kind of finale I would want from this show if I had speculated one from the beginning. All the pieces of the puzzle slam together in a violent, intense, dramatic crescendo. And—amazingly—without absolutely ruining the storyline’s gravitas by wrapping things up too fast or forcing everything back into the status quo. I’ll say it again in the final paragraph, but this is quite the way to get people hyped for the next season. I am hyped for the next season. I cannot imagine how they’ll continue this storyline—or what it might do to the broader MCU canon.
“Will the Real Natalie Please Stand Up?” is a terrible continuation of Ironheart. It has a lot of fun moments. It highlights both the fun science fiction concepts it’s playing with—and, to a lesser extent, magical concepts—while giving us an action-packed, CGI-packed heist scene. But it also, jarringly, has the same “convenience” factor to its narrative that plagued “Bring Me Home,” but to a much, much, much worse degree.
Ironheart’s first episode, “Take Me Home,” is one of the best opening Marvel episodes I can recall in terms of engagement. You get basically everything you need to attach to the story and get excited to see where it goes. Unlike Daredevil: Born Again, the plot is starting right away, no slightly non-sequitur hook required. There’s superhero-type stuff happening from the jump.
“Keeping Up Appearances” Is Extremely Bleak TV Let’s go back into the powder keg of possible issues that is Revival with the next episode, “Keeping Up Appearances.” And I am happy to say that this episode doesn’t turn into what I expected. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have issues; it’s just not the episodic structure…
Revival has kind of a bad first episode in a lot of ways, but does reveal how a good premise can carry an audience through the initial setup. And that one big, showy premise can give rise to several core questions/concepts that are so intriguing, and open so many doors for seasons of storytelling that it’s hard not to want to see what could happen next.
“Isle of Joy” is a fantastic episode. I am consistently enjoying the constant use of parallels between Fisk and Daredevil, and this time, it’s about love lives. It’s about interpersonal drama. How much of their “real” selves do they let through? How do others deal with them when they do?
“Art for Art’s Sake” is so settled into what I want from a gritty superhero show that it paradoxically doesn’t give me as much to talk about. The plotlines are converging, interacting, cracking open one another in ways I mostly expected.
Yes, finally! “Excessive Force” explodes with all the pent-up energy that this series has been waiting to use. It sets up the stakes and the dominoes so aggressively that there was never any question that Matt would become Daredevil, once again.
“With Interest” finally gives us a superhero episode. I said last review that I wanted the pot to boil over, and it basically did. Daredevil locks in, even if the mask hasn’t come on. I hadn’t expected the episode to break the seal being a very trope-heavy, classic superhero scenario, but, hey, it was a ton of fun.
“Sic Semper Systema” is a pure setup episode—and it’s the only reason it suffers. The last two episodes were a very clean arc, the White Tiger arc, and it ended brutally. But it also ended, and the fallout isn’t lingered on as much as I expected. It’s just bringing up the boil.
