In the aftermath of Captain America: Brave New World, which garnered negative reviews from critics and looks set to be another box office disappointment for Marvel, it’s fair to be concerned about the future of the MCU. Marvel Studios arguably has produced more misses than hits over the last four years, and as a result, there is a great deal riding on the next two Avengers movies, both financially and creatively. But a rebuild has to start somewhere, and Daredevil: Born Again shatters expectations with a mind-blowing, barnstorming first season.
As a fan of the original Daredevil series on Netflix, I was cautiously optimistic about the Disney+ reboot. That optimism gradually started to slip away as reports of a tumultuous production piled up, culminating in a full-on overhaul of the reboot.
Similar chaos doomed Secret Invasion, but it might have saved Daredevil: Born Again.
Born Again resumes the stories of several shows, including Daredevil, The Punisher, Hawkeye, and Echo. More than anything, though, it’s a direct follow-up to the 2015 Daredevil series, tying up loose ends and striking a similar tone with a familiar cast of characters.
That familiarity helps the show immensely, as fans of Marvel’s Netflix shows (now streaming on Disney+) don’t have to sit through another bland origin story. The show manages to establish its own stakes and chart a new path for these characters without resetting the timeline or forgetting the events of the first three seasons. It’s an impressive balancing act.
At the center of this excessively bloody and shockingly political tale is Charlie Cox, reprising his role as Matt Murdock for the third time in the MCU. Unlike in Spider-Man: No Way Home or She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Cox is not here for comic relief. He’s raw, emotional, and questioning his ability to make a difference in an increasingly chaotic world.
Meanwhile, Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk (aka Kingpin) is now back on the scene, running for mayor of New York City. Early on in the first season of Born Again, the two have a tense meeting in a diner, as Matt warns Fisk that he’ll be ready to stop him if he steps out of line. Fisk responds by letting Matt know that masked vigilantes won’t be tolerated once he takes office.
What follows is the most violent, mature, propulsive, and entertaining season of any MCU show to date. This season splits time between Fisk’s slow and steady rise to power and Matt’s new life in the wake of the first episode’s tragic conclusion. Fisk’s story is especially topical, as the deeply flawed man with a criminal past swiftly finds ways to enrich himself and corrupt those around him while promising to keep the citizens of New York safe.
I’ll admit that I was uneasy about the direction Marvel had taken the character in Hawkeye and Echo, but Kingpin is back to his old self in Born Again. If anything, Fisk is even more imposing, deranged, and dangerous here than he ever was in the original show, but he has to tamp the villainy down (slightly) in public as he attends to the more banal duties of mayorship. But as he and Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) begin to work through their issues, the slow rebuild of the Kingpin we loved to hate turns into a runaway freight train without any brakes.
On the flip side, Matt now works at a new law firm with former assistant district attorney Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James), and as determined as he is to put his crimefighting days behind him, that life refuses to leave him behind. Thankfully, Born Again finds plenty for Matt Murdock to do during the day, as the police are causing more problems than they’re fixing.
I was pleasantly surprised at how much legal procedural DNA remains in Born Again, especially for its first few episodes. Many of Cox’s best scenes as Matt Murdock have come in a courtroom while pleading with a jury. As convincing as he is as the Man Without Fear, the over-the-top fight scenes hit harder when you know who’s behind the mask.
Daredevil isn’t as omnipresent here as he was in the Netflix series, but the show knows when to deploy him for maximum impact. I wasn’t nearly as down on Captain America: Brave New World as many critics, but watching Born Again so soon after Cap 4 really emphasizes the importance of fight choreography in a comic book show or movie. Broken bones and bloody faces aside (of which there are PLENTY), these are some of the most captivating fights I can remember seeing in the MCU. I was instinctively grabbing at my own elbow every time I watched Daredevil bend one 90 degrees in the wrong direction. And that’s all before Jon Bernthal’s Punisher makes his triumphant return, cranking the violence up several more notches.
Born Again also benefits from an impressive supporting cast. Margarita Levieva gracefully walks a tightrope as Heather Glenn, therapist and Matt’s love interest. Michael Gandolfini eagerly joins the MCU as Daniel Blake, a low-level member of Fisk’s campaign team who knows what it takes to gain power. Michael Gaston shines as no-nonsense Police Chief Gallo, and Clark Johnson’s Cherry is an intriguing new sidekick for Matt.
Daredevil: Born Again is a breath of fresh air, not because it changes the game but because it’s the first competent season of television Marvel has produced since the Netflix shows. There are multiple interesting plots to follow from episode to episode, side character arcs begin and end in a timely fashion, and even a mid-season bottle episode (with a hilarious MCU cameo) manages to serve as a perfect break from the show’s almost dizzying intensity.
I could have done without the occasional comically gratuitous violence, and the season could have taken more time to flesh out some of its two-dimensional characters, but those complaints pale in comparison to my laudits. There’s meat on this show’s bones. It has something urgent to say about the moment in time we find ourselves, Cox and D’Onofrio give career performances, and it lays the foundation for a series that could run for years.
