Editor’s Note: Spoilers ahead for Daredevil: Born Again

For an episode without any of the character’s signature action, Daredevil: Born Again Episode 3 sure packs a punch. Returning to the courtroom for the dramatic trial of Hector Ayala (Kamar de los Reyes), this week’s installment in the hotly-anticipated reboot feels as much like a compelling legal drama as it does a superhero series, exposing the true identity of White Tiger and even featuring a brief allusion to Miles Morales’ father. Yet, for all the tension and suspense hanging over Matt Murdock’s (Charlie Cox) desperate defense, one of the episode’s most telling moments unfolds just outside the courthouse with a subtle callback to Daredevil Season 3 that makes the superhero’s bitter death in the episode’s final minutes feel even sadder.

Matt and Kirsten McDuffie’s (Nikki M. James) first strategy for winning Hector’s trial rests on Nicky Torres (Nick Jordan), the man Matt saved at the end of Episode 2 and the only person who can corroborate Hector’s official statement. Getting Nicky to the trial safely is another story, however. To dodge police interference, Cherry (Clark Johnson) brings the witness to the courthouse in an unmarked van. Still, when the corrupt Officer Powell (Hamish Allan Headley) catches the van anyway, it’s revealed the move is a decoy and the real plan was to ferry Nicky to the courthouse in a taxi all along.

It’s a clever trick that perfectly encapsulates the compelling courtroom drama of the episode, but if the situation also feels familiar, that’s because the ordeal directly mirrors the same dilemma for Agent Ray Nadeem (Jay Ali) back in Daredevil Season 3.

Matt’s Trick in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Is a Subtle Callback to ‘Daredevil’ Season 3

For those who need a quick refresher, Matt accomplishes a similar legal feat back in Daredevil Season 3 because Nadeem was a crucial witness in his own right for Matt and Foggy’s (Elden Henson) desperate case against Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio). An FBI agent who witnessed Fisk corrupt his entire security detail, including the same Benjamin Poindexter (Wilson Bethel) who fully embraces his Bullseye persona in Daredevil: Born Again, Nadeem needed to survive long enough to testify to a hastily-convened special grand jury on all of Kingpin’s many crimes. As a way to safely transport Nadeem to the courthouse, Matt stashes him in an unmarked van he assumes to be safe, but it doesn’t take long for the pair to come under heavy gunfire on the street, resulting in one of the original series’ most harrowing scenes.

Daredevil: Born Again Episode 3 doesn’t just call back to this sequence by depicting similar circumstances for the star witness in the Hector Ayala case. By having Matt anticipate that his unmarked van would be caught this time and using it as a decoy, the series shows that Matt learns from his mistakes with Agent Nadeem and develops a plan specifically based on their violent detour.

Moreover, just as Matt’s superhuman powers can help them evade death in Daredevil Season 3, the character’s intelligence wins out with this new strategy. Even though Nicky Torres proves to be an unreliable witness, he makes it to the courthouse safely and Matt’s vigilante curveball still manages to win the trial, though the trial’s subtle connection to Nadeem only adds to the episode’s tragedy, since Hector doesn’t live long enough to survive his hard-won freedom.

‘Daredevil: Born Again’s Nadeem Parallel Highlights Matt’s History of Losing Sympathetic Clients

The connection between Hector Ayala and Agent Ray Nadeem’s days in court reminds us that Matt has a tragic track record of losing the clients he most wants to save. The pair’s tragic deaths reiterate that even the best efforts of an excellent lawyer are rarely enough to overcome the malice of a city filled with people like Officer Powell and even the newly empowered Vanessa Fisk (Ayelet Zurer), the latter of whom ordered Nadeem’s death after Kingpin successfully rigged the grand jury in Daredevil Season 3.

Likewise, part of what contributes to both men’s tragedy is their sense of mutual innocence. Hector never meant for that police officer to get hit by a train, and Nadeem is easily the most beloved character of Daredevil Season 3’s ending, a man who only ever wanted to provide for his family, but whose pride led him to the early grave of an unfilled pool in his backyard.

Despite the men’s similarities, Hector’s case feels even more tragic for both him and Matt because of the extra unfairness of his death. With a level of consideration that implies Matt still thinks about Nadeem’s tragedy often, the lawyer planned based on prior experience he couldn’t have had in Season 3. For a moment, Matt seems to almost honor Nadeem’s sacrifice by turning their trauma into a successful trick for the defense.

Put simply, Matt plays the game he lost with Nadeem and wins it for Hector, only for Daredevil: Born Again to add to the soul-crushing loss Matt already feels from Foggy’s premiere death by killing Hector immediately after. As a result, both Matt’s strategy and Nadeem’s sacrifices once again feel like they were for nothing, though these persistent failings do point towards a common enemy.

Matt’s Latest Loss in ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Unveils the Full Injustice of the Law

Aside from both men’s tested innocence, one connection between Nadeem and Hector that is emphasized throughout Daredevil: Born Again Episode 3 is the cause of both men’s deaths. In the end, both men die as a result of the same broken system depicted in the reboot’s opening credits, and both men are ultimately casualties of corrupted law enforcement. Yet, while Nadeem’s case is open and shut, and a result of the Fisks gaming this system, Hector’s death appears to come from officials within this system itself. Building on the Punisher’s (Jon Bernthal) skull symbol teased during last week’s premiere, this week depicts another police officer with a skull tattoo displayed prominently on his neck throughout the trial, and the skull vest proudly flashed by Hector’s killer suggests a rogue element of the force has fully taken the law into their own hands.

Not only does this development set up the Punisher’s imminent return and a future conflict between vigilantes in masks and vigilantes in the NYPD, but it also serves as the latest example of one of both Daredevil shows’ most pervasive messages – the law is not infallible. In the same world where someone like Wilson Fisk can murder Ben Urich (Vondie Curtis Hall) in Daredevil Season 1 only to be interviewed as the mayor by his niece, courts do not dispense justice as often as they make vulnerable people even more vulnerable to recrimination by the powerful.

Therefore, although it’s a small detail, Episode 3’s connection between Nadeem and Hector heightens the latter’s tragedy by proving not even Matt’s improved efforts are enough to save his latest client, while the cause of this tragedy itself provides the latest example of how people who abuse their power are long overdue for a visit from the devil.