After a seven-year wait, the blind vigilante lawyer known as Daredevil returns with his own series on Disney+.
“Daredevil: Born Again” debuted its first two episodes on March 4 to the tune of 7.5 million viewers in its first week, and marks the titular character’s fourth official Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) appearance.
This season made sure to pack a punch and saw Daredevil set against his most high-powered backdrop yet. This season had it’s ups and downs but it’s one OG fans won’t want to miss.
Fair warning for spoilers ahead!
Back in the kitchen
While “Born Again” is being launched as its own title, the series serves as a fourth season to Netflix’s original “Daredevil.”
Despite the name, the series doesn’t adapt storylines from the “Born Again” comic run, as this was adapted in earlier seasons. This time around, we find our titular hero Daredevil, aka Matthew Murdock, confronted with the insurmountable loss of his best friend that had viewers wishing the pre-release rumors weren’t true.
Although this is the shortest Daredevil season, the series still somewhat maintains the profound dialogue, character dynamics and raw action sequences that were beloved in prior seasons.
The first episode opens with the death of Foggy Nelson, Murdock’s law partner and closest friend. This loss at the hands of returning villain Bullseye leaves Matt feeling empty, devastated and lost.
Foggy never approved of Matt’s alter-ego, and the idea of keeping Daredevil alive knowing that he couldn’t protect his best friend leads Matt to hang up the mask for some time.
After Foggy’s death, we see Matt living his life as an affluent New York attorney, with a new partner, Kristen McDuffie. His practice has become lucrative, but Matt remains riddled with guilt and shame.
A strong point in this show is that we get to see the continued legal happenings of Murdock–his skills as a lawyer being put to the test more than ever.
While we anticipated the return of characters like Deborah Ann Wolls’s Karen Page and Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, both were used sparingly. However, set leaks for “Born Again”’s second season have already confirmed a bigger presence for both in the future.
We also see the return of Vincent D’onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin, Ayelet Zurer as his wife Vanessa Fisk and Wilson Bethel as Benjamin Poindexter/Bullseye.
As Fisk begins his mayoral campaign and eventually wins, Matt is increasingly concerned. Fisk is a notorious crime lord, and although he claims he’s through with that life, Matt isn’t convinced.
In the first half of the season, we see both men are tempted to resort to their violent tendencies to solve their problems.
Matt confronts crooked cops, who try to intimidate him and are responsible for the death of his client, Hector Ayala, a vigilante known as the White Tiger.
Concurrently, Fisk is unable to contain his rage over his wife’s infidelity, keeping her lover sequestered in a dungeon at an undisclosed location with no plans to release him.
The tipping point for both Murdock and Fisk is an emerging serial killer who calls himself Muse and uses the blood of his victims to paint elaborate murals throughout the city.
While Matt returns to the mantle of Daredevil, Fisk, seeks to gain more community support and approves the creation of the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, a group of NYPD officers who are permitted to operate as they see fit and without the use of body-cams.
The season ends on a cliffhanger that sees Fisk imposing martial law on the city of New York. Additionally, The Punisher is captured and Matt is joined by Karen in their fight against Fisk’s overwhelming forces.
New kids on the block
The series welcomes various new faces such as Genneya Walton as BB Urich. The niece of former New York Bulletin reporter Ben Urich, BB serves as the people’s voice and has news segments sprinkled throughout the series that showcase New York citizens’ takes on the events happening around them.
This season is rooted in crime, legality and action that feels close to the original but left many viewers, including myself, wanting to see more; after a seven-year wait, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.
With the series being officially part of the MCU, the inclusion of recurring CGI is noticeable, but only occasionally jarring. The stunt and fight choreography continue to amaze and give that original series feel.
I feel that this season lacked capturing the same levels of cinematography and scene composition as the original.
“Daredevil: Born Again” isn’t quite a return to form, but it’s a beacon of hope that Murdock’s story in the MCU is not yet finished. While this season delivers on the action, story and performances, I hope to see these elements amped up in the seasons to come.
I also hope to see more refined visuals akin to the original series that capitalized on the industrial lights of New York’s nighttime landscape.
Fall from grace
Murdock originally starred in his own series on Netflix for three seasons from 2015 to 2018, before it was canceled due to a sudden internal upheaval at Marvel.
Marvel pulled the plug on over 10 of its series across various networks and stream sites following the announcement of the Disney+ service in 2018, motivated by the desire to create more synergy between their shows and movies.
Because of this, shows like then-Netflix’s Daredevil and Freeform’s Cloak and Dagger were left in limbo and their futures were uncertain.
Until 2021, all Marvel series were only MCU-adjacent. The shows would make references to the films but it was never a two-way street, meaning the exclusion of these series would have no impact on the overarching story being told in the films.
Because of this, the series was able to take greater creative risks and find its footing.
While all the series had their unique takes and storylines, it was Daredevil that had managed to capture the widest audience and critical acclaim with its authentic and gritty characters, elevated by its poetic dialogue and perfectly calculated visuals.
The campaign #savedaredevil trended across socials for years as fans urged Marvel to give their favorite character a second chance.
News of a revival that would bring Murdock back to our screens came in 2021 and since then, we’ve seen actor Charlie Cox return to the mantle with brief appearances in Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk and Echo.
Road to redemption
“Born Again” began production in March 2023 and casting announcements soon started trending as it was announced that only Cox and Vincent D’onofrio would return, while other characters like Karen and Foggy were absent, with the latter set to die off-screen.
Characters like Vanessa were rumored to be recast.
Jon Bernthal admitted that he initially walked away from the first rendition of Born Again after he felt his character wouldn’t stay true to the work he had done in prior appearances.
Cox and D’onofrio recently admitted they were also unhappy with the way the first production was handling the story.
By June 2023, the show had six episodes shot but production was halted by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike and the subsequent Screen Actors Guild (SAG) strike.
This break in filming allowed Marvel Studios to step back and review footage. It’s unclear if it was an online backlash, a push from the stars of the show or a combination of both that resulted in the firing of the head writers and directors attached to the project at the time.
In October 2023, “The Punisher” writer Dario Scardapane joined the project as showrunner while Moon Knight and Loki directing duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead were given the reins to direct.
Thus, the project underwent a creative rehaul and was cut from the originally planned 18-episode long season to a 9-episode season.
While the rehaul may have shifted the tone and feel of the show closer to its Netflix counterpart, the pre-existing episodes, combined with the new material, lost cohesiveness at times as we saw two creative directions collide.
Those stitched-together pieces are jarring at times this season, but with Benson and Moorhead completely at the forefront of the series now, we’re surely in for an even more over-the-top and full-throttle season two.
Season two of “Born Again” was confirmed in February 2025 with filming commencing in March. The season is scheduled to be released in 2026.
