Daredevil: Born Again Starts Out Pulling No Punches

About the only problem with Daredevil: Born Again is that the blatant and obvious comparison between the campaigning and election of Wilson Fisk as mayor of New York City and Donald Trump as president of the United Sates is that it is an insult to Fisk. Fisk campaigns on platform of being a man that can get things done as did Trump, but in the comics and the previous appearances of Vincent D’Onofrio as Fisk, he is portrayed as an actual genius who can get things done, while Trump is neither of those two things.

That aside, the new series on Disney+ that continues the tale of Daredevil from the Netflix series with almost the entire cast returning, is — so far in the two premier episodes — very good. Below is my spoiler-free review — well, no spoilers aside from the above fact that Kingpin runs for mayor, which you would have seen in any trailers or commercials. Because it is a spoiler-free review I won’t go into any details of the plot beyond that, and will only talk about things like writing, performances and such.

The first episode is written by series co-creator Dario Scardapane and directed by showrunners Aaron Moorehead and Justin Benson. Episode 2 was written by the other two series co-creators Matt Corman and Chris Ord, and directed by Michael Cuesta. Most of them are TV series vets, with the exception of Moorehead and Benson, who were the filmmakers behind the mind-bendingly creepy movie The Endless, and the solid indie time travel flick Synchronic. All of that experience shows in both the writing and the directing. Dialogue is mostly natural and convincing, and the story is intriguing enough (so far) to hold up during the longer slow sections.

Of course, most of the credit for that interest and intrigue during the parts where nobody is beating anybody with a stick goes to the actors. Everyone falls right back into their roles like falling into a familiar comfortable bed. Not that they don’t exhibit any changes from the Netflix series — both Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock and D’Onofrio’s Fisk are written and performed as more complex and conflicted characters in this sequel. Nearly everyone else gets a chance to show that they have grown as actors in the intervening years between the Netflix series and now — with the exception of Clark Johnson, who didn’t need to. He was perfect way back in Homicide: Life on the Streets and he still is.

The directing in both episodes is solid, with maybe a bit more atmosphere in the first episode than the second. Moorehead and Benson are credited with directing 12 of the 18 episodes to be divided up over 2025 and 2026, and I look forward to each one, based on that first episode. The action in both episodes is great, with their Episode 1 getting the upper hand in style and creativity. Fair warning — some of that action is very bloody; more so than its predecessor series on Netflix.

For those wondering how connected this new series is to the MCU, the answer was provided back in the Hawkeye series and Echo, but in case you never watched those two, there are some unnamed but clear references to MCU characters, including one surprising mention.

I won’t give Daredevil: Born Again (Marvel Television; TV-MA; 18 eps.) a score yet, but it is now hovering close to the top number in the 10 scale, and will land somewhere well above 5 I bet, unless things really go down the toilet.