Daredevil: Born Again: Season 1: The Off-Balance Review.
Let the Devil out.
Born Again’s first season finale aired on April 15th. This review will discuss both the episode and season in detail.
Please consider this your spoiler warning.
Though if you missed it, I reviewed the premiere of the show back in March. You can check that out here.
As always, thanks for reading Off-Balance! Until next time,
Ryan.
There are never any guarantees, in this, the modern entertainment ecosystem, acclaim, as common as volatility.
And upon its cancellation, in 2018, it seemed that Daredevil would bear this out.
Mature, dark and holding the source material close while not being totally beholden to it, either. Though not without its flaws, particularly regarding its general pacing, over its three seasons, the show would establish itself as one of the most well-realized superhero projects to come out of the genre’s ongoing spotlight era.
So perhaps it isn’t all that surprising then, that its revival/sequel series, Daredevil: Born Again, was eventually spoken into existence. If both by virtue of what its predecessor established and what its own potential could seemingly deliver on, as well.
Notably, however, this wasn’t easy.
Even as appearances by Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio) in a peppering of other projects over the past few years would see the Defenders shows canonized into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) proper, an elongated, troubled production would ultimately delay, more than once, the show’s efforts in making it to the screen.
Though in dropping its first season finale on Tuesday night, it was to see that initial journey for Born Again reach its end, mostly, with success.
Not removed from a few undeniable stumbles along the way but overall, living up to its eagerly-expected promise.
Raging though he may be, in the immediate aftermath of Bullseye’s (Wilson Bethel) attempted assassination attempt, Fisk realizes that all those meticulous puzzle pieces, as he has placed them, they are finally starting to come together.
They just need a push.
And there is no better catalyst for such action than doing what he does next, in gruesomely murdering Commissioner Gallo (Michael Gaston), thereby removing the last of any legitimate barriers in his quest to have all of New York, not just the underworld, tightly held in his white-suited palm.
So as the boroughs burn during a particularly well-timed blackout, it provides Fisk the public pretext he has been waiting for. Putting his mayoral powers to use, he enacts both martial law and doubles down on his anti-vigilante agenda.
Claiming “order” will be restored, no matter the cost.
Following the premiere, the most prominent sticking point in these parts wasn’t just the broad strokes of Fisk’s characterization but the subtleties of D'Onofrio’s performance itself.
He just didn’t feel as sharp as he has been nor could be.
But as the character settled into a grove, in fully embracing a return to his Kingpin mantle over the past few weeks, so too, did D'Onofrio. Coming to exude the energy, once more, that makes him one of the most unsettling Marvel villains working today (and he didn’t even need a car door to assist him this time, either).
Yet as he lies recovering in hospital, Matt tries to tell both Heather (Margarita Levieva) and Kristen (Nikki M. James) what he confirmed at the close of previous episode, just before he took Bulleye’s bullet for Fisk (forever to be stuck-in, as is Murdock custom, on his moral high-ground).
However dangerous Fisk is, Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) is perhaps even more so, with a quick flashback confirming that, yes, not only did she orchestrate Bullseye’s release, she ordered the hit on Foggy (Elden Henson) for good measure.
Though to what end, Matt just can’t figure.
Heather though, remains unconvinced and later joining the mayor’s office, seemingly commits to the anti-vigilante stance she has taken, if not without a touch of trepidation: an effective enough if wholly expected close to her arc as presented over the past few episodes.
Another reminder that, without any character work beyond surface-level introductions, Born Again’s efforts, season-wide, to truly dig into its new supporting cast really didn’t amount to anything of serious weight, besides having them deliver exposition or acting as poorly developed foils.
None, able to truly speak with Matt, as either of his personas, in the same vain as his established allies.
So right on cue, as the Kitchen’s Most Tormented Son™ uses the cover of the blackout to make his way home, he finds Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) waiting for him.
And never given as many opportunities as they probably should have been, to verbally spar as they do, Bernthal and Cox, in such command of their characters as they are, make sure not a single line of dialogue is wasted.
That unspoken mutual respect, forever to duel against their disagreements, often physical, in approach. And as Fisk’s hit squad descends upon the building, they find that divide put to the test once more. Taking the task force out, albeit, each in their own way, they realize it was Cole North (Jeremy Isaiah Earl) with his Punisher-logo engraved bullets, who killed Hector Ayala/White Tiger (Kamar de los Reyes).
Before Frank, disgusted with this revelation, can push Matt into crossing his line however, North takes matters into his own hands. Setting off a grenade, he blows the apartment to ash, the vigilante duo only evacuating to street level by the skin of their spandex, just to be greeted by a familiar face as they do: Karen (Deborah Ann Woll).
Having returned from San Francisco and immediately reigniting the flames of the most circular love triangle in all of superherodom, The Third Avocado reveals she called in a favour to Frank. Asking him to keep an eye on Matt, knowing his, well, entire M.O for reckless self-endangerment (even if Frank, never one to openly admit it, probably would have done so regardless).
Yet as Karen and Matt set off, finally repairing the bridge in their will-they, won’t-they dynamic, they also uncover just what it is Fisk and Vanessa have been plotting at Red Hook (and what Foggy was killed for, after getting too close): building what would be, in essence, an entire city-state on the complex, backed by a series of loopholes that would allow them to be expand their criminal empire unabated, exempt from any sort of legal repercussions.
Frank, however, doesn’t join them. He has his own scores to settle.
The real-life co-opting of the character’s skull logo by hate groups, the far-right, military and police personnel is something that has become more-and-more visible in recent years. Enough so, that the character’s co-creator Gerry Conway, alongside famed Punisher writer Garth Ennis have voiced their distain, as has Marvel themselves, with cut-and-dry disagreement on the page.
Practically speaking, though Born Again easily could have avoided drawing any sort of open parallels here, instead, to its credit, as discussed in this space previously, they made it a key point of the show’s narrative all season.
Concluded, as it is, with Frank tracking the corrupt cops down and promptly, cathartically even, killing as many as he can.
Restraining Frank, Powell (Hamish Allan-Headley) tries to recruit him, to which Frank spits on both the “cause” and any and all that follow it, denouncing everything Powell and his ilk represent.
It is a thread not fully tied off however, though clearly with intent. As Frank escapes his Fisk-ordained imprisonment in the episode’s post-credit scene, it is with purpose in his eyes. Any of those crooked cops who are still breathing, no doubt, they won’t be for much longer (a solid enough lead-in, presumably, to the Bernthal-led and co-written Punisher special which is set for release sometime in 2026).
Elsewhere, at Josie’s, Matt, as Daredevil, rallies his few allies to a shared goal. Fisk, having twisted the legal system to his whims, seems to believe he is untouchable.
They will prove him wrong… and take their city back.
And that, when all is said and done, is where Born Again’s first season ends.
On a pronounced cliffhanger yes but lacking the potential non-renewal worry that can often define many television shows of similar standing. The second season, well into production, is set to finish filming later this summer, per Cox and D'Onofrio themselves (as related to Substack’s own
of ).Ultimately however, when looking to parse the season as the whole, for better or worse, it all relates back to those well-documented production challenges and just how they informed what became the final product.
Six episodes had been completed before the show was taken back to the drawing board in mid-2023, resulting in the entire creative team, as was, departing the project. Dario Scardapane then came on as showrunner, alongside the directing duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.
The catch being, while the first, eighth and ninth episodes were, per Scardapane, completely new and crafted under his and Benson/Moorhead’s shared eye, the already shot material, while subject to some measure of editing and reshoots, was left mostly intact, with the old team still receiving appropriate credit. This, as the new group looked to create a through-line between two very different visions of the same idea by molding it into something cohesive.
So with all that considered, it is frankly pretty impressive that Born Again hit as many notes as it did, at least given the sheer artistic challenge it was up against.
Move through enough discourse online and the dissenters will emerge (and not without some measure of merit, to be fair) but it is understanding that Born Again never was and was never intended to be a fourth season of Daredevil wholesale.
As a revival/sequel, it followed that blueprint (plot-wise most notably, with Jay Ali’s Ray Nadeem even getting name-dropped in the finale), yet despite bringing back all the major cast members, years following the cancellation, it was never going to be 1:1.
Doing its own thing and so then, grading it on that standard, is, the bounds of nostalgia acknowledged, the only reasonable course.
Structured and presented in such a way that the cleanest comparison would be in emulating a series of individual comic book arcs, with overarching thematic overlays to match, what worked, worked.
There was Matt, struggling between his desire to help “the right way” as a lawyer, only to be confronted again-and-again, with the realities of a broken system. Despite knowing, deep down, that the most effective remedy he can muster is by picking up his billy clubs.
Even the season’s lightest episode, the fifth, which featured him entering into an unlikely team-up with Yusuf Khan (Mohan Kapur) to stop a bank robbery, built out from this.
His drive to help others, contrasted with his hesitancy in accepting his ability to do so from behind the mask, before he finally suited back up.
There was too, the urgent delivery of Frank’s story and as well, the real-world application of Fisk as a throughly corrupt and law-disregarding politician. All of this, next to the beats of specific character work and the performances that brought them to life. From D'Onofrio and Bernthal to, of course, Cox, who deserves all the credit for simply embodying every possible facet of Matt Murdock, even the contradictory, less-appealing ones, each time he appears on screen. Be it his quiet humour, unshakable sense of justice or his emotional volatility: relying on his instinct to push people away (Heather and Karen, specifically), unable and unwilling to truly articulate his reasoning, despite the relative net-positive of funnelling that angst into his vigilantism. Cox, making each element come to life.
Elsewhere, the supporting cast shone too, even if, for some, it was in comparatively smaller doses. The late Kamar de los Reyes as Hector or Zurer, only brought back following the overhaul, bringing a cold menace to Vanessa that wasn’t much present in Daredevil yet fitting in seamlessly here. Bethel was greatly underused as Bullseye, perhaps as a result of the restructuring but remained a greatly unnerving presence, even in limited work (with the episode’s closing moments establishing that he is still out there, loose).
Was all of it flawless? No, of course not.
Sure, maybe that comes from knowing the stitched-together nature of the production. The seams, once one is even just subconsciously looking for them hyper-visible, though it is an understanding that isn’t infallible.
BB’s (Genneya Walton) story, though given some serious momentum in the penultimate hour, clearly saw any potential resolution punted clean into the second season, while Muse’s (Hunter Doohan) arc, the middle portion of the season as it was, felt rushed and nigh-incomplete. In light of that, often, it could seem like Born Again had committed itself to the “Fisk or bust” approach. Which isn’t entirely a bad thing, given the strength of the character as portrayed but knowing now, how the now to-the-wind fourth season of Daredevil would have played out (with Typhoid Mary as the lead antagonist) there can be some worry perhaps, that the show won’t fully allow itself to breathe, beyond its familiar confines.
And again, though comparing it directly to the original show isn’t a totally effective exercise, from the general thematic complexity to the iconic fight choreography, neither, though the effort was there, were anywhere close to that established Daredevil bar. The absence of previous side characters could be felt at times and comic heads especially will no doubt be disappointed with the depiction of Cole North, as well: on the page, he is a firm believer in justice and later an ally to DD but here, he is shown to be the polar opposite.
Yet, rumours abound, naturally.
With New York City under siege, just who will answer the Devil’s call in season two?
Matthew Lillard was cast in February, in a yet-to-be-disclosed role and for as much as his absence is decried, any appearance by Tom Holland’s Spider-Man seems highly unlikely, given the rights issues surrounding usage of the character in live-action. Instead, the easy money is on the rest of Cox’s Defenders’ co-stars making their long-awaited return to the fold (with, at the very least, it can be hoped for, Mike Colter’s Luke Cage and Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones).
In essence, Born Again was a season of groundwork, strong though it was, most of the time. The bigger question, is seeing what the revamped creative team, now fully in charge going forward, can bring to the table.
After all, for Daredevil?
The fight for The Kitchen never ends.
Great review. Loved the season, had some complaints, but they basically nailed it. That being said...
guys, what are we doing with Swordsman?
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com
Great review, agree with most everything in it!