This Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 Subplot Mirrors One Of The Best Sopranos Episodes

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Spoilers for "Daredevil: Born Again" season 2, episode 5 follow.

Watching "Daredevil: Born Again," I feel like HBO is on the makers' minds. The show's cast includes Clark Johnson as private investigator Cherry; Johnson directed several episodes of "The Wire" and had an acting role in the fifth season as newspaper editor Gus Haynes. In season 1, "Born Again" had Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio) attend couples' therapy with his wife Vanessa, i.e. the same premise as "The Sopranos" — a mob boss on the couch.

"Daredevil: Born Again" has even cast the next best thing to the late "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini: his son, Michael Gandolfini. (His breakout role was a younger Tony Soprano in the 2021 film "The Many Saints of Newark.") Gandolfini plays Daniel Blake, a political staffer on Fisk's New York City mayoral campaign. Daniel climbed his way into Fisk's inner circle with devotion, but his close relationship with investigative reporter B.B. Urich (Genneya Walton) has compromised him into an unintentional leak in the Fisk administration.

In the latest episode, "The Grand Design," Fisk's right hand man Buck Cashman (Arty Froushan) asks Daniel to take a car ride with him. Daniel, and the viewer, thinks he's going to be whacked for the leaks, especially once Buck stops at a supply store and then has them park in the middle of the woods. It turns out Buck has only brought Daniel along to bury a different body: Christofi Savva (Yorgos Karamihos), a sailor who could have testified about Fisk's arms shipping scheme.

Watching Daniel driving to this dirty business echoes "The Sopranos" episode "Long Term Parking," where Adriana La Cerva (Drea De Matteo) goes on a ride and is less lucky than Daniel.

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In "The Sopranos," Adriana is the girlfriend of Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli), honorary "nephew" of Tony Soprano. In season 4, the FBI entraps her to act as a mole inside the Soprano crime family, which she does under duress for two seasons. The subplot culminates in "Long Term Parking," the twelfth and penultimate episode of season 5 (directed by Tim Van Patten and written by Terence Winter).

Adriana confesses to Christopher, who strangles her (almost lethally) in rage. He considers entering the Witness Protection program with her, but after weighing his options, he instead goes to Tony. Tony calls Adriana, inventing a story that Christopher tried to kill himself, and sends Silvio (Steven Zan Vandt) to drive her to "the hospital." Instead, Silvio drives her into the woods and shoots her dead. Christopher leaves Adriana's car at the long term parking section of an airport to make it look like she ran.

"Long Term Parking" is one of the most remembered "Sopranos" episodes, not just for the brutal tragedy of Adriana's death but the suspense in how it's told. The moment of Adriana's death is kept offscreen, but the episode puts you in her headspace of suspecting the worst but listening to the voice that hopes for the best instead. The episode doesn't show Christopher going to Tony, so when Tony calls Adriana, we don't know for sure if he's lying. As the car ride goes on, we (and Adriana) realize what's happening and are filled with dread.

Think of the season 3 episode "University," where Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) kills a young stripper, Tracee (Ariel Kiley). "The Sopranos" took glamor out of the mob life by showing how relatively innocent women like Adriana and Tracee aren't spared from the violence.

HBO

Watching "Long Term Parking," one is reminded of the 1997 gangster film "Donnie Brasco." Specifically Lefty Ruggiero's (Al Pacino) summary of what happens when a crime family kills one of their own: "When they send for you, you go in alive, you come out dead, and it's your best friend that does it." While Christopher didn't pull the trigger on Adriana himself, he still chose to let her die. 

During the episode, he goes out for some air to make his decision about whether he loves Adriana or being a gangster more. His choice is sealed the moment he spots a poor family at a gas station. It's as if he remembered Henry Hill's monologue at the end of "Goodfellas" about living life "as a schnook," and realizes that's what awaits him too if he enters Witness Protection.

On "Daredevil: Born Again," while Daniel is played by the real life son of Tony Soprano, he's really a Christopher-like figure to Kingpin. His drive with Buck in "The Grand Design" was his initiation; now his bosses know he's loyal enough to not only handle the political business, but the violent criminal business too. If/when they discover B.B. is the leak (as she continues to antagonize Fisk with "Mr. Robot"-like livestreams parodying the mayor), Daniel's next test of loyalty will likely be handling her. In other words, he'll be put to the same test as Christopher Moltisanti was in "Long Term Parking." Only time will tell if he makes the same choice to be loyal to his boss above all else.

"Daredevil: Born Again" is streaming on Disney+.