By Ben Konuch
“It’s hard to come to terms with a violent nature, hating the power it has over us.”
(The following review is spoiler-free.)
There was a time when “Daredevil” was Marvel’s best-kept secret. Originally produced under a streaming deal with Netflix, “Daredevil” starred Charlie Cox as the legendary lawyer and vigilante Mathew Murdock in a shockingly gritty and grounded take on superheroes and villains. Despite the popularity of the series and its subsequent spinoffs, the end of Marvel’s partnership with Netflix put an abrupt end to all projects, ending the series in 2018. Fans feared they would never see more of the Man Without Fear until brief cameos in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “She-Hulk” gave them a glimmer of hope that more stories were to come.
That hope has finally paid off with the premiere of “Daredevil: Born Again” on Disney+, solidifying the original series as part of the MCU continuity. After a troubled production, including a complete creative overhaul with new showrunners and bringing back many of the crew involved in the original series, “Daredevil: Born Again” has emerged from the ashes as a successor to the plot of the original series and its characters.
But can it live up to the legacy of the original?
“Born Again” is probably not going to top the heights of the original series’ best moments, especially coming off of the third and arguably strongest season of the Netflix era. Thankfully, “Born Again” doesn’t need to chase the success of its predecessor to find its own way forward. The series’ first two episodes make it clear that it recognizes the legacy that its characters must live up to, as well as the unique opportunity to evolve the show into something true to the spirit of Daredevil, yet new and bold.
The series opens with a glimpse of life as usual for Matt Murdock and his longtime friends and associates, Karen Page and Foggy Nelson, to ease returning fans and new watchers alike into the status quo of who these characters are and what their lives are like. However, a shockingly violent act makes Matt cross his one line – his refusal to take lives – and step away from being the vigilante Daredevil forever.
A year later, the unexpected announcement that his longtime enemy Wilson Fisk has announced his candidacy for mayor threatens to pull Matt back into the world of crime and violence to rediscover who he is and what a hero can be.
What made the original “Daredevil” so fascinating was the dynamic between Matt’s identity as a lawyer and his life as a vigilante, as well as his struggles to understand his violence and inner darkness not just as a hero, but also as a devout Catholic who believed himself to be an administrator of God’s justice.
In just these first two episodes, “Born Again” picks up these themes and breaks apart everything that Matt believes about himself: Can the Daredevil be born again from the ashes of his own failures? What kind of man will Matt Murdock become if he must rebuild himself in the face of unspeakable darkness? Can people like Matt, or even Fisk, ever truly change? At its core, “Born Again” does live up to its title as a series about new beginnings and identity.
Make no mistake, these first two episodes are not perfect, but they’re proof of a reassuring movement in the right direction. While the story and writing in both episodes are solid, the pacing and editing for the first episode are a bit uneven in ways that the second episode is already starting to readjust.
However, one of the series’ current biggest weaknesses is how Murdock and Fisk both have to dance around the MCU’s use of their characters as cameos in other projects. It creates a jarring disconnect to fans of the original series who haven’t kept up with shows like “Hawkeye” and “Echo” to understand what Fisk and Murdock have been up to in between season 3. Now, these large gaps in these characters’ stories are on full display.
Even for fans who have kept up with the MCU as a whole, story gaps still threaten to hold back “Born Again” from cohesiveness. How did Fisk go from being in prison in season 3 to being free and in control of his empire again by “Hawkeye?” Why hasn’t Murdock kept his word to go after Fisk if he ever started breaking the law again? I hope these are plot-related questions that will slowly be answered, but as of the first two episodes, they have the unfortunate effect of alienating “Born Again” from the series that spawned it.
And yet, “Born Again” is a series made and set years after “Daredevil” left off, and both its characters and its production bear the burden. Murdock and Fisk are the most notable changes, but tweaks to the rest of its returning cast make them seem older and harder since we last saw them.
The series’ production handles the long time gap well for the most part, but more expensive filming styles and some questionable CGI usage in the first episode show that the creative team still needs to find its footing in recapturing the grit and tone of its predecessor. The first episode contained both phenomenally intense action sequences and incredibly bland fights. With the second episode featuring a more gritty hand-to-hand fight, I’m hopeful that the first episode’s awkwardness is simply a sign of the burden of the show’s reshoots and not a warning for the series as a whole.
So is “Daredevil: Born Again” the triumphant return of the series that fans fell in love with back on Netflix? Maybe it’s not as daring or as authentic as we’d hoped, but the premiere of “Born Again” works to find the balance between MCU storytelling and the grounded approach that worked so well in the past. The series aims to be a worthy evolution of its predecessor, even if it returns with a defiant whisper rather than a triumphant roar. I just hope the rougher edges get smoothed out as the series progresses.
I give “Daredevil: Born Again” episode 1 a score of 7.5/10 and episode 2 a score of 8/10
“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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