This review contains spoilers for the first episode of Daredevil: Born Again.
This year marks a decade since the debut of Daredevil and the start of Netflix’s relationship with Marvel Television. In hindsight, the Netflix shows are very hit or miss, but it’s hard to deny their impact. For Netflix, it further established them as the premier streaming service. For Marvel, it provided fans with a darker and more mature take on the MCU, even if the connection between the shows and films was tangential at best. Through it all, Daredevil stood out as the biggest and best of these shows. Now, after 6 years away, Matt Murdock and his friends are back.
Well, Matt Murdock is back. Matt’s friends, Foggy and Karen, don’t have much time in Daredevil: Born Again before they’re killed and moved to the other side of the country, respectively. It’s an awkward set-up that hints at the show’s well documented creative overhaul. In short, the creators originally conceived the revival as more of a standalone legal drama, and they shot 6 episodes before executives decided it wasn’t working. They then installed a new showrunner, and the program became more serialized.
Those 6 episodes are still the bulk of Born Again’s first season with a new pilot episode preceding them. This is literally two shows fused together and while that sounds more chaotic than it actually is, the seams are still visible. In its weakest moments, you can feel the show struggle with being accessible to newcomers while still feeling like a continuation of the Netflix series. That it still mostly hangs together is a testament to the strong writing and consistently impressive acting.
After the awkward opening scenes, Born Again follows Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) still reeling from the death of his friend Foggy. He works at a new law firm and has officially retired the Daredevil persona. Meanwhile, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) is back in New York and intent on winning the city’s upcoming mayoral election. There are plenty of shows trying to speak to our current moment, none of them are subtle. Born Again isn’t either, but it finds a villain in Fisk who embodies all the ills of our political climate. Of course, it helps when you have a talent the caliber of D’Onofrio playing that villain.
D’Onofrio and Cox were the standouts of the Netflix series and they remain so here. Cox continues to make Murdock interesting and charming, even in his current wounded mental state. D’Onofrio finds more ways to showcase Fisk’s barely contained rage. The show clearly relishes giving the Kingpin a new playground as mayor. These are two characters who are trying to bury parts of themselves and thankfully you don’t have to wait long before the cracks appear. You can see the first signs in a scene where the two have a Heat-esque diner meeting. There’s an inherent tension based on the shared past of these two characters and a sense that either of them could lose control at a moment’s notice.
On the “full reboot” to “revival” scale, Born Again definitely falls into the latter category. It’s hard to imagine this series working as well for newcomers. That diner scene is a great example. The incredible performances create palpable tension, but newcomers unfamiliar with the Netflix series will miss the history and nuance. For fans though, this is the Daredevil that you know and love with a bigger budget and a new direction. There’s some obvious growing pains as the show struggles to work with two different creative agendas, but they never completely overtake the narrative. It’s a tricky act to balance, but Born Again pulls it off.
Daredevil: Born Again is streaming on Disney+. New Episodes release on Tuesday.