By Ben Konuch
“We’re not serving justice here, we’re babysitting chaos.”
While I previously complained about the disjointed nature of episodes five and six of “Daredevil: Born Again,” its last three episodes demonstrate the exact opposite.
Episodes eight and nine were the first episodes since the premiere completely created by the new showrunners Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead, and the difference in quality, directing and tone is immediately clear. If episodes eight and nine are a sign of the series’ potential in the hands of these showrunners, then season two of “Born Again” looks exceptionally bright.
Episode seven was a bit above average, due mostly in part to better fight choreography, some actual violence with the weight of its consequences not being shied away from and a stellar performance by Hunter Doohan. As Matt faces the consequences of stepping back into the role of Daredevil and what that means for him and the city, the manhunt for Muse escalates. Meanwhile, Fisk takes his plan of creating an Anti-Vigilante Task Force out of crooked cops loyal to him into full fruition. The episode ends with a better-than-average fight sequence and a subpar story conclusion to the Muse storyline, despite some great concepts and some better attempts at recapturing the grit of the premiere.
Episode eight, however, is perfect. The difference in directors is clear visually and tonally, with beautiful cinematography and a genuine grit to the story and the presentation of it as opposed to previous episodes’ hollow attempts to imitate realism.
The story finally revisits Benjamin Poindexter (Bullseye), and Wilson Bethel once again proves that he’s one of the best actors in any show. The genuine menace and presence he has on screen starts the episode with a tense opening, and that tension threads the entire episode in a way that the previous episodes sorely missed. Every moment building towards the episode’s climax raises the tension and the stakes, leading to an edge-of-your-seat suspense that culminates in a visually beautiful and narratively satisfying twist.
Episode nine, the series finale, doesn’t quite hit every high note of the previous episode simply due to the weight of how many story threads it has to carry. The finale feels a bit like “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in how much story material needed to be covered in such a short period of time to fix or explain what came before it, but the action is mostly fantastic and the final conclusions to each character’s season arc are a satisfying payoffs. With connections back to the premiere to give Foggy’s death a meaningful impact, and the return of Frank Castle and Karen Paige, the episode had jaw-dropping moments and one of the most horrifyingly violent moments in a superhero story of recent memory.
In the end, my final thoughts on “Daredevil: Born Again” are in conflict, much like the show itself. Its best episodes, the ones helmed by Benson and Moorehead, are some of the best Daredevil content we’ve ever gotten, but the episodes of reused old footage feel like a genuinely different show.
Matt shows horror and concern that Fisk is not only free but elected mayor in the first episode, only to not really care for the next six episodes, allowing him to operate with no suspicion or investigation in a way that is bizarrely out of character. Every episode after the premiere seems to give Matt a new reason to step back into the mask, and yet, he continually chooses not to, with very few character-based reasons why, until a largely anticlimactic event simply just changes his mind.
New villains are introduced with phenomenal promise, but are killed almost immediately after we actually get our first tidbits of story for them, creating unique potential with a forgettable impact. Gone is the original “Daredevil’s” ability to give its antagonists proper buildup and its heroes multi-episode arcs of meaningful investigation and conflict, and instead, plotlines are resolved with Matt having little agency in them.
This critique also applies to its new supporting cast of friends and allies for Matt. It isn’t a bad concept to have new characters by his side instead of our fan-favorites, but the execution leaves every “good guy” character painfully undeveloped. If I’m supposed to care about his new girlfriend, his new boss or his new allies of cops and former cops, the series does a horrible job of giving me any traits or personality to assign to these characters. The absence of Foggy and Karen wouldn’t be felt so strongly if the new characters were allowed to be developed in the same ways, but they’re limited to their character archetypes in favor of developing Fisk and most of his crew. The series sometimes felt like The Wilson Fisk Show, featuring crazy lawyer Matt Murdock.
Yet episodes eight and nine are without a doubt fantastic. These newly shot episodes are directed with a visually identifiable change in leadership, with artisan craftsmanship shrouding everything from the cinematography to the color-grading to the action in a completely new and gritty lens. With Benson and Moorehead’s episodes, we see the full potential of “Born Again” and it without a doubt saves the show from failure, but it also makes the mediocre episodes feel worse. Seeing Matt take a bullet for Fisk and agonize over the details of Foggy’s death makes his previous actions, especially in the case of Hector Ayala’s murder, feel empty and pointless.
Even when the series feels like a show at war with itself, the performances of its main duo in Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio – and every member of the original series’ returning cast – remain its emotional anchor and the main reason to keep watching. These actors channel their characters so effortlessly that even when the scripts fail them, they salvage disappointing writing and character decisions and do their best to ensure that the series treads water until it kicks back into gear with its final chapters.
Even with its inconsistencies, “Daredevil: Born Again” thankfully ends on a high note rather than a low one. If season two has the same quality throughout that episodes eight and nine showcased, I have full confidence that next year’s season will be a fantastic piece of television. But as it stands now, “Born Again” is not greater than the sum of its parts, and it’s hard to fully recommend a show that feels unpolished and unfinished while so much of it was used to set the stage for the better story to come under Benson and Moorehead’s vision.
I give episode 7 a rating of 7.5, episode 8 a 10, and episode 9 a 9.5
Overall, I give “Daredevil: Born Again” a season score of 7/10
“Daredevil: Born Again” is now streaming on Disney+
Ben Konuch is a senior Strategic Communication student who serves as a writer for Cedars A&E and as their social media lead. He enjoys getting sucked into good stories, playing video games and swing dancing in the rain.
Images courtesy of Marvel Studios
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