Daredevil: Born Again: Season 1 Premiere: The Off-Balance Review.
Welcome back to Hell's Kitchen.
This review contains major spoilers for both, as-released episodes of Daredevil: Born Again, in addition to the 2015-2018 TV series, Daredevil.
It isn’t entirely hyperbolic to suggest that Daredevil, which ran for three seasons from 2015 to 2018, remains a benchmark larger superhero outings should continue to strive towards.
Be it the grounded (relatively speaking) but incredibly hard-hitting action sequences, the dark, emotionally-dense character work or the strong performances across the board, bookended with a general sense of storytelling progression that respected the source material yet was honest in its own interpretation.
Not always consistent in its delivery (be it the elongated, uneven pacing or the minute of its writing and characterization both) but after the third season refocused the show with a tremendous confidence post-Defenders, it was encouraging to see just where things might go next.
Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox), though often raging against his strict code of ethics, defeated crime lord Wilson Fisk/The Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio) on his own terms, though not cleanly. Each man, knowing the other’s closet secrets and thereby entering into something of a tenuous understanding.
But having repaired the damage done in his personal life, Matt found himself looking forward to the future with optimism, with Foggy (Elden Henson) and Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) in support: even as Benjamin Poindexter/Bullseye (Wilson Bethel), shown receiving spinal surgery in a post-credit stinger, remained a dangerous variable.
Of course, any immediate future would never come to pass, with Netflix cancelling the show just over the month after that third season debuted, in November of 2018, despite high critical praise.
And for most projects, a cancellation as pronounced would be a creative death knell absent any sense of recovery but Daredevil (alongside its Defenders sister shows, if more prominently) endured in a way that was and frankly, remains wholly unusual.
Even in this, an era of tighter connection between media and its adherents.
The “Save Daredevil” online campaign would see the show maintain its occupancy in the public eye (in a far different way, comparatively, when up against, for example, everything that went on with “The Snyder Cut”, with both Cox and D'Onofrio acknowledging its impact) and in time, with a healthy degree of separation between Netflix and Marvel Studios proper, it was clear there was momentum to Daredevil’s future beyond half-hearted hypotheticals.
Fittingly, Cox and D'Onofrio both would reprise their characters in various Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) projects over the past few years, from one-off cameos to more substantial supporting roles. Finally, firmly, erasing the grey line regarding canonicity, for some, as it related to the Defenders’ place in the larger Marvel machine.
All of it, slowly but surely setting the stage for what became Daredevil’s soft sequel/revival project, Daredevil: Born Again, which debuted its first two episodes this past Tuesday.
Not a direct continuation in the strictest sense but not a reboot either, with all the major cast returning and very much held together by the foundation the original series built - though after a “total overhaul” that saw the show be completely taken back to the drawing board during active production, Born Again has a heavier set of expectations attached, beyond base success, given what preceded it (although it bears reiterating that while the “Born Again” name was clearly too good to pass up on, knowing the road taken, the storyline itself was already partially adapted in Daredevil’s third season).
A return to Hell’s Kitchen then, after just about seven years away, that is enjoyable enough in its introductory phase, though stilted and imperfect at times, as it, naturally, lays the groundwork for more to follow.
Both to their credit (and admittedly, deterrent) right from the jump, Born Again’s dual-premiere episodes don’t waste any time.
Bullseye, now operating openly as an assassin, is on the hunt. And after killing Foggy and numerous bystanders in a brazen attack, he is brutally beaten by Matt, as Daredevil, who succumbs to his no-killing rule and attempts to do so, by throwing Bullseye clean off a roof.
Bullseye survives but Matt, fearing what would happen if he continued operating unchecked, retires his Daredevil persona and vows to fight injustice “the right way”, solely from the courtroom: setting up a practice with new legal partner Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James), while Karen, devastated and shut-out from Matt emotionally, moves to San Francisco.
Elsewhere, Fisk, following the events of Echo, has kinda-sorta stepped back from his criminal empire with the help of his now estranged wife Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) and is later elected Mayor of New York City, on a campaign promise to rid the boroughs of vigilantes.
He soon learns however, that his equally strong desire to leave his past as “The Kingpin” behind will not be easy. Both as he struggles to establish himself as legitimate in the eyes of the police commissioner (Michael Gaston) and when investigative journalist BB Urich (Genneya Walton), the niece of the late Ben Urich (who, one might remember, Fisk personally murdered in Daredevil), enters his orbit.
Meanwhile, in Daredevil’s absence, local man Hector Ayala (the late Kamar de los Reyes) has been operating as a vigilante known as White Tiger, determined to protect the people of New York.
But when he accidentally kills a corrupt cop in a brawl gone wrong, Matt enters the scene as legal representation… only to realize, much like Fisk has, that old habits die hard.
Maybe the most important thing to remember however, as one settles into Born Again, is that, deeply indebted to Daredevil though it may be, the show must also find its own creative identity beyond it, for better or worse.
Equally so, after just two episodes, that process isn’t (obviously) finished. Sweeping generalizations or rushed-to conclusions won’t serve anything fairly.
But while killing Foggy, more-or-less writing Karen out and setting Matt on a new but ultimately familiar path are bold moves on paper, in practice, the show’s opening stanza struggles to communicate them all effectively.
No one thing, breathing as fully as it could, while lacking the raw, down-to-earth feel and maturity the original show made its calling card.
These inciting events, it isn’t that they’re ineffective on their own merits, per se - and no doubt they’ll picked up with more weight later on - it is that, as presented, they feel rushed and incomplete.
Rapidly, poorly compressed into the first ten, fifteen minutes before being followed by an immediate, year-long time jump: cutting off any opportunity for true emotional resonance, for both the characters and the audience.
A sense of obligation to the old guard, perhaps.
Per the reporting speaking to the show prior to its reset, neither Henson, Woll or Bethel were involved whatsoever originally, yet their work here (so far) doesn’t speak to full integration but rather, glorified cameos. Born Again, looking to bring all its new players onto the field in their place, which isn’t too surprising, considering.
Much like a new team taking over a long-running comic book title (which, well, makes sense) but seeming to disregard that the Foggy-Karen-Matt dynamic was integral to what made Daredevil successful, on a person-to-person level. And in the early going, neither Kirsten nor Matt’s new love interest Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva) are able to capture much of that energy.
Elsewhere, the dialogue can feel pretty clunky, the action choreography isn’t too sharp and although their one duelling, verbal set-piece is solid, while Matt (and Cox, then) is in form, Fisk simply doesn’t feel quite like himself. D'Onofrio is still a presence yes but that terrifying, at-any-moment-he-could-snap undercurrent that was always clear in previous portrayals just isn’t there.
It doesn’t seem as though the character is holding back but rather, the writing and D'Onofrio himself, which isn’t ideal.
Again though (and this cannot be emphasized enough) it is only the beginning.
And with the preamble out of the way, it shouldn’t be surprising to see Born Again find a groove over the coming weeks that more fully highlights its inherent promise.
After tracking down the key witness in Hector’s case and seeing him to safety, Matt, pressed into a corner, viciously fights back against the corrupt cops who have arrived to take him out (and possibly, given the way New York’s most well-regarded, Very Good Lawyer uses their heads as blunt instruments, kills at least one).
The second episode then, ends on its protagonist screaming into the wind, ever-conflicted as he is, having wanted to believe he could fight crime in a just, legal way.
But knowing too, that Hell’s Kitchen can’t do it alone. It needs the Devil… and so does he.
Another great review, Ryan!