Warning: This review contains spoilers!
Can the real Marvel Cinematic Universe please stand up?
On March 4, season one of “Daredevil: Born Again” premiered on Disney+. The release follows a decade since the original Netflix series, “Daredevil,” debuted in 2015, which was cut short following the creation of Disney+ in 2018. Charlie Cox returns as the titular character, Matt Murdock/Daredevil and shares the screen once again with Vincent D’Onoforio’s terrifying Kingpin, the main antagonist.
The show, like its original run, starts strong and holds back nothing. It’s vicious and layered, and does a more-than-decent job in establishing continuity between the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
The returning cast also includes Jon Bernthal as the vigilante Punisher/Frank Castle, Elden Henson (his best friend and fellow “Avogado,” Foggy Nelson) and one of his many complicated situationships (a friend-turned-love-interest-that’s-back-to-a-friend), Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page). Wilson Bethel and Ayelet Zurer also return as Bullseye and Vanessa Fisk, respectively.
Since “Daredevil,” Cox has returned to the MCU twice. He had a cameo in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021) where he provided his counsel to Peter Parker (Tom Holland) regarding Mysterio’s allegations that Peter Parker killed him, and appeared for a few episodes of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” (2022). He was noticeably missing from “Hawkeye” (2021), where Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) must deal with the consequences of the unintentional resurgence of Ronin from Echo, Kingpin’s niece.
We’re thrown into the familiarity of the show’s lore by seeing the golden trio (Matt, Foggy and Karen) leaving their legal clinic, noticeably not in Hell’s Kitchen — signifying the transition from Netflix to Disney+. During their celebration, Foggy gets a frantic call and Matt leaps into action.
Less than fifteen minutes into episode one, fan-favorite and show-crutch, Foggy Nelson, is shot and killed by Bullseye; so much for Disney being family-friendly. Daredevil falls into the classic Marvel superhero treatment of “let’s really hurt your heroes in the worst way imaginable.”
This came as a shock to me. A vicious fight ensues between Daredevil and Bullseye, both throwing knives and their bodies at each other, all while the audio overlaps with Matt’s enhanced hearing of Foggy’s fading heartbeat till its inevitable stop.
Matt Murdock is known for his sacred promise of never killing. Serious maiming, though, is a different story. However, in his agony of losing his best friend, he pushes Bullseye off the rooftop with the intent to kill him. Luckily or unlucky for him, Bullseye gets away. Matt blames Foggy’s tragic demise on his vigilantism, leaving him to navigate the messy road of grief by himself.
The show excellently portrays the dynamics of Matt and Kingpin and intertwines them over and over again. Foggy’s death prompts Matt to grapple with descending into moral darkness, or at least a creeping moral dilemma, of taking matters into one’s own hands in a way unbefitting of him, or to have good faith in the legal system and the people of New York City (NYC).
Charlie Cox proves once again that he is irreplaceable as Daredevil. He does a tremendous job of making me question whether Matt Murdock is blind. He nails this comic character’s mannerisms from bone-breaking, blood-curdling fight moves and violence that Daredevil is associated with to poking holes into the law and irresistible charisma and cheekiness when he’s facing antagonists as Matt.
An iconic moment, which, albeit brief, is nearly comical in its homage to the source material. In one episode that appears to be purely for continuity expansion until the very end, Matt intentionally lands himself as a hostage in a bank in which Yusuf Khan, Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel (“Ms. Marvel” (2022); “The Marvels” (2023)) works at. Quite cheekily, Matt manages to de-escalate the situation on several occasions, aids in getting the other hostages out and desecrates the leader of the troop in a total KO move to that guy’s ankles. RIP him, I guess.
Speaking of continuity, there is an attempt to tighten some corners, but for legal reasons, it doesn’t fulfill the Marvel dream.
The most obvious absence is Spider-Man. In the finale, Mayor Kingpin leads NYC to a purge that lasts several hours in the show and is only just beginning; so, where is he? You’re telling me that NYC is once again in shambles, and there are no heroes around to help? I know it’s Matt’s show, but still.
Jack from “Hawkeye” returns as a conglomerate masquerading among Kingpin’s associates and is revealed to have taken his sword-hobby to new heights as a vigilante. Considering his relationship with Kate Bishop from “Hawkeye,” I’ve got a lot of questions about the interconnectedness.
Matt’s not the only one getting in on the action. Bullseye has a pretty wild escape scene from jail where he cracks a bloody smile and spits a tooth out, killing a prison guard; this was a great comic reference.
The Punisher is just as savage as ever. The show furthers the complex relationship between the Punisher and Matt. In some sense, the Punisher’s aggressive tactics can be argued as support for Kingpin’s anti-vigilantism agenda, but when compared to the men that Kingpin employs to kill Matt and beat people on the streets merely to establish dominance, the lines are blurred. He has an unapologetic monologue with Matt where he rips Matt a new one for not maximizing justice as Daredevil: “Did Foggy get life?”
In the finale’s fight at Matt’s house, the Punisher mercilessly kills the men Kingpin sent to kill them.
His violence creates an interesting juxtaposition for the overarching theme of brutality and vigilantism, where “dirty cops” proudly wear the Punisher’s logo. They express their pride in his work and seem to have a twisted interpretation of the Punisher’s legacy. Frank doesn’t hold back — “You think you know my pain?”
Then, the biggest brute of it all — Kingpin. “Daredevil: Born Again” starts with Fisk putting away his Kingpin legacy to start anew, finding it not fulfilling enough to tackle the problem with the city. It seems at first that this is all a ploy to fully execute his dream: a city without vigilantes or any checks and balances so he can remain head of the empire.
He attempts to push his habits down, only to fail when push comes to shove. However, the season does this masterful accumulation of showing Fisk try and fail to be Kingpin. Arguably, the most diabolical line of the show stems from a casual conversation between Fisk and his mayoral committee staff: “You propose registering the vigilantes. That’s like making a grocery list of cancers. I propose treatment.”
Fisk, whether as Mayor Fisk or the Kingpin, is downright terrifying. It was obvious from the get-go that his Mayor Fisk persona wouldn’t last long as he slowly began to crack through the facade and return to his more violent counterpart. One creative way the show does this is by tying the religious undertones of “Daredevil” to the sin of gluttony; we see Kingpin eat some form of elaborate breakfast and then a high-carb dinner that increases in portion size with each episode, indicating how much closer Kingpin is to returning.
In a well-paid moment in the finale, Mayor Kingpin crushes a police commissioner’s head with his bare hands, signifying that despite all his attempts to shove down who he was, like Matt trying to suppress Daredevil, Wilson Fisk will always be the Kingpin, and Matt Murdock will be Daredevil.
It is astounding that Kingpin was elected Mayor. The show did use a videographer content style to make this believable, and I suppose in a world where Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, can be a congressman, then surely Kingpin can be a mayor.
What was powerful about this show is that there’s little shock factor in it. You see how corrupt this fictional version of New York City is, which, albeit, is always going through some disaster.
The first third of the show tackles vigilantism from a legal perspective. Months after Foggy’s death and Daredevil’s retirement, Hector Ayala saves a man from getting beaten by cops. They beat him excessively, and in the mess of the fight, one of the men falls onto the tracks and is killed. Hector is arrested and Matt enlists to be his counsel, making an enemy of the cops.
Matt discovers that Hector is the vigilante known as the White Tiger and uses this to prove his innocence. Unfortunately, saving Hector leads to the White Tiger being killed by said dirty cops. His death amounts to Daredevil being born again.
With fewer heroes (vigilantes) on the streets, a new villain, or as Kingpin proudly proclaims, a vigilante, wreaks havoc — Muse. He kidnaps people on the streets and brutally kills them, draining the blood from their bodies and then hanging them medieval torture style. Their blood becomes his paint palette.
Again, where the hell is anyone else? New York City is crawling with vigilantes … Spider-Man, Kate Bishop, Ms. Marvel, the Punisher, Bucky, guys?
Kingpin retaliates, rallying the Anti-Vigilante Task Force to find Muse. At the same time, Matt and Hector’s niece discover that the White Tiger was tracking Muse before his death. Despite trying to keep her away from Muse, Matt finds out that she has gone off on her own to find Muse’s lair and prove her uncle’s good intentions as a vigilante.
Realizing what will happen to her, Matt has to make a choice. In true superhero fashion, he grabs his nunchucks and quickly regains his rhythm as he suits up. This showed how ready he was and the free, fluid movement he moves in as Daredevil highlights the justice and integrity of his character: Daredevil’s vicious character reflects the nature of the threats he faces. And as overdone as the trope is where the hero has to choose between saving an innocent person and ending the bad guy, because Daredevil exists to do just that, the scene where he saves Hector’s niece has a much more profound meaning: Daredevil is truly back.
Muse was heavily hyped in the promotional content, despite his screen time being limited. While this can understandably be disappointing to comic fans who’ve waited years for his debut, I didn’t mind it. Muse served his purpose, aiding in complicating the relationship between New York City and vigilantes and allowed Matt to give in to his nature of being Daredevil.
It was a great way for him to overcome his grief and inadequacy of being Daredevil. Sure, he couldn’t save Foggy or Hector, but without Daredevil, more people would be dead.
His return triggers Mayor Fisk to make it his mission to shut him down in every direction—starting with his girlfriend, Heather, who also happens to be the counselor for the Fisks.
I don’t like Heather as a girlfriend, but she was a useful character to bridge Matt and the Fisks.
Her anti-vigilante stance has created tension since the beginning of their relationship, which confused me as to how they could be in a relationship given their differences. I’m not surprised that they broke up, as the finale ends with Matt fully embracing the work Daredevil needs to do in cleaning up the mess of a city Mayor Kingpin and his new Secretary of Mental Health, Heather, have made.
The show meticulously prepares the viewer to find out that Kingpin is behind Foggy’s death. At the same time, the show pulls you in another direction, to the real villain. To quote Marvel, it was Vanessa all along.
In the first episode, it is revealed that when Kingpin disappears after the events of “Hawkeye,” she rises to run his empire. She’s a worthwhile successor as she is unafraid to get her hands dirty; she got Bullseye out of prison to kill Foggy, as his upcoming case would’ve exposed her illegal operation.
It’s a jaw-dropping revelation that is accompanied by an even more shocking scene. Matt storms the Fisk’s party, takes Heather to the dance floor to get close enough to the Fisks to dance with Vanessa (which, by the way, was comically hilarious because one, Matt pulled that transition off too-smoothly, and two, how did Kingpin not kill him then and there) and tries to get the truth out of her.
There is so much symbolism in the subsequent scene. First off, the Fisks’ event was a black tie event, with Vanessa wearing red, alluding to the blood on her hands. Up above, an escaped Bullseye sets up a rifle, face shrouded in blue, in contrast to Daredevil’s fierce red, aimed straight for Kingpin.
Matt takes the bullet, and the soundtrack tells all his actions cannot. Perhaps it’s to prove the goodness in vigilantes, maybe it’s to ensure that someone lives long enough to get Foggy the justice he deserves, or it’s because Matt Murdock is a good guy who doesn’t believe in murder.
On top of that, what killed the scene, and its superb directing, is that Kingpin doesn’t look stunned or terrified by the fact that someone attempted to assassinate him. He looks terrified by the fact that Matt, a man who arguably should want him dead and has tried to kill him, took a bullet for him. It brings the story back to the first interaction they share in the season, where Matt waits outside one of the Mayor’s press briefings, genuinely startling Fisk.
Not only does this cement the intricacies of these characters, but it also shows how much more agonizing their relationship will become. Fisk had two campaigns the entire season, one to become mayor, and two, continuing his work from “Daredevil” to prove to Matt that he’s just as in the darkness as he is. Matt’s action changed everything, and now that the truth is exposed, Mayor Fisk decides to crack down harder on vigilantism by mandating curfews and letting police brutalize the people of NYC.
This recurring theme of police brutality speaks to modern-day political tensions and is commonly found in comics. In such times, the comics have led to our heroes banding together in an epic team-up to take down the big bad guy. With hints of Spider-Man’s theme found in the end credits of the finale, there’s a good chance that, come season two, we’ll see what exactly Matt meant by getting a team together.
Final Score: 9/10
