‘Daredevil: Born Again’ may just be the hero the MCU needs

A spoiler-filled review of the newest addition to the Disney+ and Marvel family.

Charlie Cox reprises his role as Daredevil for the fourth time in the MCU in the character’s own show. | Disney

“Daredevil: Born Again” is the most recent Marvel project to release exclusively on Disney+ and is the first to tie in the string of Marvel shows that aired on Netflix before the merger of 20th Century Fox and Disney in 2019.

The man without fear returns in his newest show, a continuation of the Netflix series that ran from 2015-2018 that ties in Matt Murdock’s (Charlie Cox) cameo appearances and Wilson Fisk’s (Vincent D’Onforio) own character development in previous Disney+ shows “Hawkeye” and “Echo.”

“Born Again” has been long awaited by fans, most of them only waiting to see how Disney would butcher their favorite anti-hero. Afraid that the show would be sanitized for younger audiences or that its seriousness, mainly the violence and dark emotions of its characters, would be exchanged for one-liners and over budget CGI battles, this project has been heavily scrutinized since its announcement.

The first two episodes released on March 4, titled “Heaven’s Half Hour” and “Optics.” The show is set to release an episode a week from this point on until reaching a total of nine episodes for the first season.

In the first few minutes of the show, returning Daredevil fans are met with the familiar faces of Murdock, his fellow lawyer and best friend Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and their reliable secretary-turned-kickass-reporter Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll). They drink to celebrate the retirement of a cop, Cherry (Clark Johnson), sharing a few laughs until Nelson receives a call from a client he’s keeping at his place.

This fateful phone call is the first domino that sends the audience on an emotional rollercoaster, as we move from a revelation of a new, bright red Daredevil suit and some fancy gadgets to the return of Bullseye, Wilson Bethel’s terrifying villain from “Daredevil” season three, to the sudden shooting and subsequent death of Nelson–all before the show’s intro rolls.

The original Netflix series contains several one-shot hallway fight scenes that have accumulated their own fan base over the years, but the fight at Josie’s bar between Daredevil and Bullseye falls flat, most notably due to the fact that CGI is obviously used to replace or enhance the actors as they exchange blows. The bar tries to fill with an atmospheric fog, but it just creates a muddy mess that leaves the fight choreography unappreciated, and even when the brawling pair heads upstairs to finish their fight on the rooftop, the slow pace of the fight simply doesn’t meet the standards most fans have after watching the original series.

Nelson’s death makes an emotionally charged Murdock drop Bullseye from the roof, a murder attempt the marksman thankfully survives (seriously, if they wasted that character again, Marvel Studios would burn) before jumping in to the show’s intro, one that pays homage to the original series while speaking to the new title: images of New York City landmarks break and fall before rebuilding into the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, making him new again.

This won’t be the last time this theme is seen, as the rest of the episode will follow both Murdock and the Kingpin Fisk himself in their “new” lives, beginning with a one-year time jump; Murdock as a high-end lawyer with his vigilante days far behind him, Fisk as a mayoral candidate who is seemingly trying to turn over a new leaf.

Murdock’s new firm includes a new partner, Kirsten (Nikki M. James), and that same Cherry from the bar, now working as Murdock’s eyes on the street. When Kirsten sends Matt off to meet a new client, a new love interest is presented instead; high-end therapist Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva), meant to pull Murdock back into the real world and out of his post-Foggy depression.

Matt has no opportunity for normalcy, however, as the return of Fisk to New York City and his candidacy for mayor leads the lawyer to meet him for a coffee date laced with thinly veiled threats on what would happen if either were to step back into their old ways.

It may be hard to believe that running on an anti-vigilante campaign in New York City, home of the Avengers, would work, but it turns out alright for Fisk, as the first episode ends with his victory in the polls and an address to New York to free them of all vigilantes, outlawing the very act of it.

“Wait, isn’t Fisk a well-known criminal? How could anyone elect him for mayor?” Unfortunately, electing a well-known criminal into government is probably the most realistic part of the show.

Episode two begins with another tame fight scene as Hector Ayala (played by the late Kamar de los Reyes) protects a man from being mugged by what are soon to be revealed two police officers. When one of the cops ends up dead by subway train, Ayala is placed under arrest.

Matt sniffs Ayala out at the police station when he overhears the police beating him in an interrogation room, promising to take his case and prove his innocence. Careful sleuthing by Kirsten and Cherry in a later scene reveals that Hector is the vigilante White Tiger, donning a white suit and a “mystical amulet” to fight crime at night.

Meanwhile, Fisk settles into office, setting his sights on his first hundred days. A tense interview from amateur journalist BB Urich (Genneya Walton) threatens to bring Fisk back to the dark side, but he instead directs his energy into fixing a giant hole in the road and going to couples therapy with his wife and previous co-conspirator Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer). The Fisks seek therapy from Heather, unknowingly creating another connection between Matt and the Kingpin.

There’s a disappointing lack of Daredevil throughout the entire episode, due to Matt’s resistance to fighting crime since the death of Foggy, but when he finds the sole witness to Ayala’s fight and has to fight off the two corrupt cops from before, we complete our fight scene sandwich for episode two with Matt letting out a frustrated–or arguably triumphant–scream before we cut to credits.

There’s other little pieces thrown into these two episodes that promise new storylines outside of our two main characters: an overzealous new assistant to Fisk, a mysterious street artist who may be the same man who approaches Heather at a book signing, and the sighting of a Punisher tattoo with a blue line flag on the wrist of one of the cops that beats on Matt at the end of episode two. Jon Bernthal has long been confirmed to revive his role as Frank Castle in this new series, and he may return to put cops who take Punisher’s ideals in vain in their place.

It’s an unfortunate trend for new heroes to be received with poor ratings in the Marvel universe, but “Daredevil: Born Again” is tasked with creating a new story while respecting the characters and their stories that occured beforehand. Any fan of the original show or the comics can easily see the reboot as a Disney project, from the budget increase to the more cinematic, light atmosphere, but it seems the scriptwriters and showrunners are eager to show that this is the same Daredevil from before.

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