Daredevil: Born Again Episode 4 - Sic Semper Systema - review - A city of vigilantes, a system in flames

In Daredevil: Born Again, New York has become a city of vigilantes, with a system in flames and too much pain and suffering going on.

Some battles are fought in the streets. Others unfold in silence, behind closed doors, in the weight of a name scrawled onto a body bag.

Disclaimer: This here? No capes, no gavels—just perspective.

This isn’t a recap; it’s a deep dive into the tension, the symbols, and the storm brewing in Daredevil: Born Again. Some truths are in the shadows; some are in the subtext—this review is all about both.

Hell’s Kitchen has always belonged to the desperate, the forgotten, the ones clinging to a sense of justice in a city that grinds them into dust. But now? The scales are tipping. Too many masks, too many ghosts, and not enough lines left to cross.

Sic Semper Systema, the fourth episode of Daredevil: Born Again, pulls us even deeper into the city’s rot—not just the chaos on the surface, but the slow, inevitable collapse underneath.

The moments before the fist lands.

The silence before the system erases another name.

The realization that this is not a city waiting to be saved.

It’s a city waiting to break.

The aftermath of a death that no one mourns

There’s a body on the table, and the system is already moving on. It always does.

The coroner’s hands work with precision, methodical and detached. A name becomes an evidence tag. A legacy is reduced to what fits inside a plastic bag. Not even death grants a vigilante permanence.

For Matt Murdock, it’s not just another loss. It’s proof. Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t just chew people up. It swallows them whole. Buries their names. Pretends they never mattered.

But this death leaves something behind. A mask, thrown into an evidence bag like an afterthought. A reminder that once you step into this war, the city decides how long you last.

The Devil’s way of seeing the truth

Then comes one of the most striking sequences of the episode. No grand revelations. No last words. Just Matt, listening to a city that refuses to speak.

He doesn’t need a confession, a witness, or a lucky break. Just silence.

The right angle.

The thing the world refuses to see.

And then—a casing, resting in the dirt, waiting for someone who can hear its story.

Matt doesn’t hesitate. He picks it up, and in that instant, everything changes.

The way this moment unfolds is masterful. We don’t just watch Matt put the pieces together. We feel it.

And suddenly, the silence of the city isn’t empty. It’s full of whispers, threats, and something much bigger than a single crime.

The rise of the masked and the fallen

There’s a shift happening in Hell’s Kitchen, something you can almost hear beneath the surface.

Too many masks, moving through the night like flickers of a fire that hasn’t fully caught yet. Some fight for justice. Some for vengeance. Some because they have nothing left to lose.

The death of one vigilante should have been a warning. Instead, it’s an invitation. And not everyone who accepts it plays by the same rules.

Because somewhere in the shadows, there’s someone watching. Someone who doesn’t just wear a mask but makes them.

Two men, two paths, one inevitable collision

The episode builds toward a moment that was never a question of if, only when.

On one side, Matt, still clinging to the idea that justice can be salvaged. On the other, Frank Castle, long past pretending there’s anything left to save.

Their reunion is a slow burn. No punches, not yet. Just a verbal war where every line is a weapon, every silence a deeper wound.

And then, the final moment.

The hesitation. The truth laid bare.

The realization that no matter how much Matt fights it, part of him understands Frank Castle far more than he wants to admit.

Frankly? Mr. Frank.

Fisk, the silent storm

And while others fight in the shadows, one man sits at the head of it all, savoring his meal like a king watching the chaos unfold.

The episode contrasts Matt’s restless uncertainty with Fisk’s unwavering control. The framing, the pacing, the way every movement feels measured, there to reinforce the same truth.

Fisk never needed to lift a finger to shape this city. He just needed patience.

And now? The game is already set.

A city in flames, a reckoning on the horizon

There’s no (literal) explosion in this episode, no moment where everything violently breaks apart.

But there doesn’t need to be.

Because sometimes, the real destruction happens before the first shot is fired.

A single casing, waiting on the ground.

A mask left among the evidence.

A moment of hesitation.

And eyes in the dark, watching it all unfold.

Hell’s Kitchen is already burning.

And no one is ready for what comes next.