Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

An enjoyable patchwork quilt of a season.

Spoiler Warning for Daredevil: Born Again

There is a lot to love about the reboot of Daredevil. It is an accomplished production in all ways – acting, direction, set design, costuming, music, CGI, stunts, make-up and everything in between. But the fallout of the creative overhaul and change in the series’ tone and storytelling midway through shooting can be felt in the patchwork nature of this season. In the end, it delivers half a story, but it does leave me wanting the rest.

I am not an avid fan of the Netflix Marvel television shows. They remain a little too dark and violent for my personal taste, but the shows were decent quality for the most part, and I loved Krysten Ritter’s portrayal of Jessica Jones, and Charlie Cox as Daredevil. When the news came that Cox would return in a reboot for Disney Plus following a great cameo in Spiderman: No Way Home (2021), I was delighted.

I was not surprised when Cox confirmed that the reboot would not be a continuation, but rather Daredevil in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was pretty obvious that Kevin Feige kept the television arm at arm’s length from the MCU movies until they came under his own production control. Both Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio, who was returning as Kingpin, stated that the series would be its own thing. That married too with their cameos in Hawkeye (2021) and She-Hulk (2022).  

But then there was a change of leadership at Disney in late 2022 with Bob Iger returning. It led to an overhaul of the strategic direction Marvel had been taking with the television and movies to address criticism that Marvel had lost its magic and was focusing on quantity over quality, silliness over good storytelling.

The impact of that change has been felt in some of its productions. Echo (2024) felt particularly patched together, keeping just enough backbone for it to feel like a cohesive narrative, but still feeling like it was missing the flesh of the story, nevertheless. The Marvels (2023) and the latest movie release, Captain America: Brave New World (2025) had similar storytelling issues, and the impact is felt again here in Daredevil: Born Again.

When the Daredevil series was internally reviewed in 2023, it led to a complete change in direction. Out was the idea that this iteration of Daredevil was not a continuation of the Netflix version of the show, a legal procedural episodic take, and in came new showrunner, Dario Scardapane, along with new writers and directors, to take the series back to be a continuation of the previous show. Characters previously not in the reboot such as Foggy Nelson were suddenly back and the character of Vanessa Fisk reverted to the original casting. The show had the challenge of having to combine previous footage and storytelling with the new direction. It is perhaps no wonder that the difficulty of the challenge can be felt in the end product of this season.

What is successful is the throughline of Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk both living without their alter egos at the beginning, and over the course of events struggling to maintain and sliding back into being Daredevil and Kingpin. This first season was about living up to the title of Born Again and that part of the storytelling works for me. Indeed, it is commendable that they managed through the previous footage and story content to find the elements that helped to bridge it and make it all feel coherent. The first episode was a great set-up and anchor for the through-line with the death of Foggy and the election of Fisk as Mayor. It was unsurprisingly heavily reshot. But unfortunately, some of the subsequent storytelling jars just enough in some of the episodes to give away that this is a stitched together throughline and not an intentional narrative.

“With Interest,” which is episode five in the run, is the clearest standout of the ‘old.’ While there is a link to wider events, the bank heist storyline with special guest of Miss Marvel’s father, Yusaf, turning up as the assistant bank manager undoubtedly shows the old tone. It is enjoyable enough as Matt having to be Matt in the bank foils the bank heist using his Daredevil talents without the suit. However, I can see why the change of direction was needed if all the episodes were in this vein.

There is also a thinness around the subplot of White Tiger which gives away the lack of original intentionality to be a thread woven into a wider throughline rather than a stand-alone weaving. The Muse storyline also feels that it lacks additional foreshadowing and seeding in the earlier episodes in a way that would have made it hit home harder when it culminates in a surprisingly quick resolution in episode seven (although it remains one of my favourite episodes despite that flaw).

There is a sidelining of the new sidekicks (Matt’s law partner Kirsten McDuffie and the retired cop Cherry) in the back end of the season which jars with them being positioned as the new supporting acts at the front. This is compounded with the return of Karen Page and Frank Castle’s Punisher in the final episode. They get to support Matt rather than the newbies.

Karen’s return works best in the finale, but again there is a lack of connective tissue after the pilot. The set-up of her absence with the death of Foggy is well done and Matt getting shot a good in-story reason for her return in the finale, but in between there is nothing. It would have been easy enough to have had phone calls, email messages, something that layered in more depth to the complicated nature of her relationship with Matt after Foggy’s death through the rest of the episodes.  

If something needed to be dropped, for me it was the whole Punisher thread. It feels like an addition to the story which did not need to be there and which could have been erased to make room for exploring these new characters with Matt more.  The bad cops’ hero worship for Castle may have been an element in the original creative, but Frank ends up dominating the finale in a way which does take away from Daredevil’s predicament. He gets the additional action scene (partially because the story has Matt injured), the showdown with the cops, and he even gets the post-credit scene rather than Matt (presumably to help set up the new Punisher special in the works). There is no doubt that Jon Bernthal excels in the role and he gives a great performance, and I’m certain many fans were delighted at how Punisher-heavy the finale was, but I would rather that it had not placed so much focus on the character.

The finale was one of the more disappointing episodes for me. I don’t have an issue with the lack of resolution to the Kingpin vs Daredevil power struggle, because the wider arc of them being reborn into those roles is resolved. But I am frustrated that the storytelling doesn’t have even more Matt than we got.

What I did like was the descent into immorality, the caving into fear and into the cult of Fisk that we got to see in Fisk’s side of the story. It provided great moments for Michael Gandolfini as Daniel Blake, Arty Froushan as Buck Cashman, and Margarita Levieva as Heather Glenn. But kudos to Zabryna Guevara who gave a great performance as Sheila Rivera, giving into her fear. This part of the storyline also provided a moment of extreme violence between Fisk and the Police Chief which was stomach churning.

I’ll admit that the extreme violence in the finale was also something that I didn’t enjoy, and possibly another reason why I felt the stuff with Castle could have been left out. Overall, the season had struck a decent balance in the fight scenes prior to the finale. They’d been brutal and shocking in some ways but generally kept it to one shock per fight – a broken elbow here, a broken leg there, an occasional headshot. What was jarring about the violence was the way people just bounced back as though their face hadn’t been smashed into a table/wall/fridge in a manner that would have caused serious injury. If this level of violence is being shown then the real likely consequences of it should also be shown.

My final negative on the series as a whole is the character of BB Urich, played by Genneya Walton. I kind of enjoyed the ‘BB reports’ segments as a nice meta touch utilising voices of the people to show the sides of the political discussion, but it was haphazardly used. I think they need to land more consistently on how they use the BB reports or drop them and expand more on the character of BB herself as she kind of drifts in and out in the same way as McDuffie and Cherry. I very much like the dynamic between BB and Daniel – both using each other.

What I loved was the primary relationships which were showcased through the season. Matt and Heather’s relationship went a little from zero to a hundred without a lot of background, but what was there worked incredibly well. It felt like a relationship and it was truly disheartening to see it start to breakdown at the end of the season because of the secret of Daredevil and Heather’s own views on vigilantes becoming militant after her assault from Muse. Nice storytelling and character development.

The relationship which stole the show though was Fisk and Vanessa. The subplot of their rebuilding their relationship is great. Whoever decided to bring back Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa deserves plaudits because she was brilliant. She has amazing chemistry with D’Onofrio.

As does Charlie Cox. The early scene of Murdock and Fisk meeting in the diner is also fantastic. D’Onofrio and Cox are brilliant in their roles. They give great performances throughout the season and the strength of those performances carries the day when the story is hanging on by a very thin thread. In that, they’ve had the support of a really good production which has pieced together the patchwork of footage and story just enough to make it cohesive and to create that great throughline.

In conclusion

There has been a lot to enjoy in the season. With the floor swept clear of having to deal with the change of creative direction and storytelling, it can now focus entirely on taking the story forward.

The series is left in an interesting place. Vanessa and Wilson are reconciled and in power with vigilantes locked up in cages. Matt is displaced, reborn as Daredevil and with few allies on his side as he seeks to win the war.

It’s a great hook for season two and I can’t wait to see where they take it from here.  

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