Happy Saturday, Geekly Gang! Kyra Kyle here with this week’s Daredevil: Born Again review/reaction. This week’s episode, “Requiem,” breaks away from the show’s recent trend of focusing on a few specific characters. “Requiem” also showed how too many characters can cause problems with building a compelling story.

Honestly, I forgot just how many characters Daredevil: Born Again attempts to juggle. “Requiem” even added Jessica Jones to the mix. I doubt Jones will show up again until the final, final battle. Yes. Daredevil and Kingpin square off near the end of this episode. I doubt that’s the final, final fight between the two this season. I don’t know where to begin. I started with Jessica Jones, and she does show up at the beginning of “Requiem,” so she may be as good a place to begin as any.

Jessica Jones has a child, presumably with Luke Cage. When she speaks with Daredevil, Jones mentions that her powers have become unstable after giving birth (that shows up later in this episode) and that “some of their kind were willing to comply with Kingpin.” Does that mean Luke Cage surrendered himself to the Anti-Vigilante Task Force (AVTF)? Maybe. Charlie Cox (Daredevil) has expressed interest in Mike Colter returning to his role of Luke Cage. This could open the door for that. I wouldn’t say no to Colter making another run as Cage. But Cage–and Jessica Jones–deserve their own show or shows.

Jessica Jones doesn’t have much to do in “Requiem.” We catch glimpses of her taking out the AVTF at her house, she shares a rooftop conversation with Daredevil, and helps Daredevil crush the AVTF at the Red Hook docks, but not before showing her powers being flaky. It was fun seeing Ritter return as Jessica Jones. It will be fun if Mike Colter reprises his role as Luke Cage. But it’ll be less fun if Jones and Cage play second fiddle to Daredevil in a show. This is Daredevil: Born Again. The show bears Daredevil’s name and has introduced its fair share of new vigilantes. There’s a reason the AVTF exists.

While there are rumors of a Defenders revival, I’d like to see Jones and Cage in their own show together, or at least give the two a special presentation like the one The Punisher will get in the middle of next month. I can’t wait for The Punisher Special. I believe Marvel plans to give Jones/Cage a show or special, but they’ll needto convince Colter to return to the Luke Cage role. Charlie Cox has been on record, saying he wants Colter as Cage. Colter hasn’t yet shared that sentiment.

With Jones out of the way, let’s get back to Daredevil: Born Again’s core characters. Or at least who I think should be Daredevil: Born Again’s core characters. Kingpin doesn’t take his wife’s death well. Gasp! JK. That didn’t surprise me. It also didn’t surprise me when Kingpin murdered the doctor who failed to save his wife, even though the doctor undoubtedly did everything he could to save Venessa. Kingpin attends Venessa’s funeral, and then we don’t see him until his fight with Daredevil. The fight leans into Kingpin’s loss. We even get a moment when Kingpin laments destroying the painting her purchased from Venessa (also signifying the day they first met). It was done well enough, but it felt forced. “Requiem” had too many other characters and story threads to tackle.

Ironically, Daredevil also had little screen time. Sure. He and Jones took down the AVTF (as I mentioned above), he shares a tense moment between Bullseye and Karen Page (but Daredevil served as a sounding board for Karen Page, sharing her motivation to kill Bullseye), and he fights Kingpin, but even this fight gets interrupted by Page spurring the resistance (NYC) to fight back against Kingpin and Kingpin even gets a moment to mourn the loss of his painting (his greatest connection with Venessa). I know I said Jessica Jones had little to do in “Requiem.” The same may be true of Daredevil. And this is his show.

It took the second or third viewing of “Requiem” for me to remember that Daredevil: Born Again had paired Heather Glenn (Daredevil’s ex) and Buck Cashman (Kingpin’s right-hand assassin). Heck, Vanessa set the two together at a formal dinner a few episodes ago. Please forgive me. I tried not to pay attention to the scene Glenn and Cashman shared. Buck asks Heather to choke him like Muse choked her. Yikes! I couldn’t tell if the showrunners wanted this scene to read like someone dealing with trauma (Glenn facing her fears) or Glenn and Cashman getting kinky. Maybe it’s both. If it’s both, yuck. I wanted to skip this scene the second and third time. Was Daredevil: Born Again going for uncomfortable? If so, mission accomplished. I felt uncomfortable.

Moving to another would-be romantic pairing, BB Ulrich celebrates Deputy Mayor Blake’s birthday at his mom’s house. Blake takes Buck’s advice and feeds BB–that’s a lot of “B” names–fake information about Kingpin. BB almost takes the bait, but she melts when she scans Blake’s childhood bedroom. Aw! She genuinely cares for him, and Blake cares for him because he’s been protecting BB from Buck for several episodes by this point. He can no longer protect her from Buck. This could lead to an interesting couple of episodes for Blake. Does he choose Buck, and by extension, Kingpin? Does he choose BB? Does he play both sides? This scene doesn’t take too much of “Requiem,” but it’s strong.

And that brings us back to Page and Daredevil. I don’t know if their relationship will last. We see plenty of cracks when Page threatens to kill Bullseye. Page and Murdock don’t see eye-to-eye with how to continue the rebellion. For now, it looks as if Daredevil’s methods govern the movement, but Page gets abducted in “Requiem’s” closing moments. While Kingpin murdering the doctor was a gimmie, I don’t know how he’ll deal with Page. She wants Bullseye dead. Kingpin definitely wants Bullseye dead. The two may have a shared goal.

“Requiem” tries its best to juggle all of Daredevil: Born Again’s characters, but the show has too many characters. I didn’t even mention White Tiger. She didn’t have much to do either and quickly vanished. There’s only so much screen time for all of these characters. Wait! Doesn’t Matt Murdock have a legal partner? What has McDuffie been up to these past two episodes? Oh. And I didn’t mention the brief moment we had of Matthew Lillard’s Mr. Charles. So…many…characters. But I am interested in what a Page/Kingpin exchange will look like. Next episode’s title, “The Hateful Darkness,” may hold a clue to the next show’s motif.

But what do you think? Let us know in the comments. Thank you for reading, and wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.