Two vicious Russian brothers working for Fisk strike back against Daredevil. Fisk moves to further consolidate his power in the criminal underworld.

Marvel‘s and Netflix‘s Daredevil in its fourth episode again mixes things up a bit, this time focusing on the villains for the first season. The episode gives much more depth as to the characters we’ve only been briefly introduced to. We don’t really get their overall plan, but instead it’s their personalities that we get to see on display.

The episode really centers around Vincent D’Onofrio‘s Wilson Fisk, the big bad behind it all. Up to this point we’ve only seen him briefly in the previous episode, and haven’t gotten much as far as his personality. D’Onofrio brings his amazing acting abilities to the role. It’s not just what he says, or how he says it, but like many of the characters he’s played in the past, there’s subtle gestures, tics and moves that really bring him to life.

What’s also great is through all of those gestures, D’Onofrio also gives us a villain who’s a bit deeper than we’ve seen before in Marvel’s live action releases. There’s a sense of being wounded that comes from him an almost feeling of loss. Throughout the episode, even though he may be this powerful underworld Kingpin, he’s also a bit awkward and shy when pursuing a woman he’s interested in. How he acts just creates greater depth to the character. One wonders if these small gestures were written in for the character, or this is something D’Onofrio brought to the role.

The acting in this episode was amazing, showing how solid the live action Marvel offerings can be. We’ve finally got a villain we can feel for, as much as we fear.

Overall rating: 9.25