Daredevil: Born Again was a finished show before it was this show. They filmed the whole thing. It was done. And right around that time Kevin Feige was given his power back, when Bob Iger came back, and he was basically told go make things better, give us quality over quantity. So he went and looked at all of it, and he’s like, yeah, this sucks. And they redid it.
That’s how we got Karen Page back. That’s how we got Foggy back. And now that they’re committed to quote unquote quality, they really have to make sure everything is worth it, because Marvel can’t afford any more screw-ups. Honestly, I’d go bigger than Marvel. Disney can’t afford any more screw-ups right now. They’ve killed Star Wars with their nonsense, and there’s a slew of people out there who’ll tell you it’s because of this or because of that, but at the end of the day it boils down to one very simple thing. Storytelling.
This is a full-on spoiler review of the first two episodes. If you haven’t seen them, they’re on Disney Plus. Go watch those first, because we spoil the heck out of it.
How We Got Here
When Netflix got these characters, they were trying to take on a lot of the Marvel type stuff, and they wanted to start with the street level heroes. That’s what they’re actually called in the comics. So it was Daredevil, it was Punisher, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, who’s Power Man, and Iron Fist, who was Danny Rand. Eventually they did their own sort of mini version of the Avengers with the Defenders, which is funny, because that’s actually the wrong name. Salty’s pointed it out before. The Defenders in the comics is Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider and some other characters.
When this show was first announced, what they were saying was that it’s not going to be a continuation. The Multiverse exists, and the people who play these characters are the perfect version of what you think of when you think of them. So it was, okay, well, what are we going to get?
Then She-Hulk happened, and Matt Murdock showed up, walk of shame and the whole bit. Remember he wears the yellow and red in that one. That was originally the outfit he was intended to wear in this show, the classic Daredevil outfit from back in the day. And She-Hulk matters here for another reason, which I’ll get to.
Then the upheaval. Very conspicuously, they hadn’t talked to the actress who played Page, and they hadn’t talked to the actor who played Foggy. Then all of a sudden they were being cast in the thing. Meanwhile Kingpin’s off being used by Echo and Hawkeye to reintroduce the street level characters into the whole thing. And you start to hear good things. They got one of the stunt coordinators back from the original show. They were really working on it.
The Cold Open Burned Me
My co-host’s highlight of the first episode was getting to see Karen Page and Foggy again. And yeah, we did. We were both very excited when they came on screen. But just because I liked seeing them doesn’t mean I agreed with what happened, because then all of a sudden they’re gone. Rest in peace.
The way I’ve said it is I feel very bait and switched by that. The show doesn’t give you any time with them. You spend the cold open of the first episode with them and then they’re gone.
That cold open is a day in the life. Hey, have a good evening, this and that, they go to the bar, there’s a police officer who’s retiring who’ll become important later. Then out of nowhere Bullseye shows up, and he’s the Bullseye from the final season of Netflix’s Daredevil, out for revenge apparently. They do a brief callback to the Colin Farrell one, where you see a bent paperclip kill a fly. That’s totally from that movie. He shoots Foggy, so now on top of fighting, Matt is hearing his heartbeat start to go down, and he’s fighting, and he’s getting stuck like a pin cushion. Dude is running around with six knives sticking out of him. I know the armor protected him from the really bad stuff, but six knives are sticking out of you. That doesn’t tickle.
The minute Foggy’s heart stops, Matt tosses the dude off the building, and it doesn’t kill him. In the comics it’s ambiguous whether Bullseye’s a mutant or just somebody like Hawkeye who’s really good at what he does. I’ve always leaned toward mutant, a little stronger and tougher, but they’re obviously not leaning into those things just yet. So Bullseye becomes a MacGuffin, and by the way he doesn’t get any kind of death penalty in sentencing. He goes to jail, which means somebody said don’t get rid of him, he stays in the toolbox.
Then they jump forward a year. The new intro isn’t bad, by the way. It’s actually really good. Jeremy Jahns said he thinks they should’ve played the original intro here and switched to the new one later, because at least it would’ve been the final time you see it.
My co-host thinks you need to look at that opening as the chapter ending from Netflix. It’s Disney and Marvel from now on, that chapter of his life is over, and Page could pop back up again. She totally could. I have no confidence she will.
When you kill someone off for a valid reason within the plot and the story, that’s one thing. When you do it unceremoniously in the cold open, twenty minutes in, and then swap the old characters out for two new ones, that’s another. You get McDuffie, his new partner, and you get the cop, now retired, who at the end of the cold open caught Matt on top of the building. McDuffie was never in the trailers, and neither was the cop, at least not meaningfully. They sold us on Foggy and Karen.
What Glossy Looks Like
I feel like I can tell the glossy bits from the parts that are darker and grungier, and those are the recuts. The glossier bits feel very Marvel, and I think that’s what the original show was going to be. I don’t believe they reshot every single scene. I think they kept moments, even beats, where they could.
But that whole cold open is new. When they cut away to the building at the very end, that looks like either a facade or a CG expanded fake set. The barroom set feels fake. The street is a sound stage. And they’ve got Daredevil flying around like he’s Spider-Man, which is very akin to the comic books, where he’s got his cane with a rope in it and he lashes onto things and swings around. Netflix didn’t do any of that because Netflix wanted everything grounded. Here he looks rubber bandy. He’ll swing stiffly, land, and they transition to the real him, and it’s a little ham-fisted.
My co-host doesn’t see the glossiness at all, and that’s fair.
The First Episode I Wanted
I talked a little about this with Salty. In a perfect world, give us that opening as the entire episode. Foggy gets shot, fine. Have him go into a coma, a vegetative state. Now Matt has someone he can come back to, very confessional style, because he’s sort of turned his back on the Catholic Church even though he really hasn’t. He’s got someone to talk to who’s non-responsive. Karen’s struggling with the whole thing. The cop has to reconcile with Matt about what’s going on. McDuffie’s trying to figure things out. You let that cook.
You could have had him die at the end of that first episode. That was one option. Or you let it run the whole season. Matt has power of attorney, and he can’t bring himself to let Foggy go, because with all his senses he’s constantly checking to see if there’s anything there, even though the doctors already told him he’s brain dead. After whatever big climactic thing the season has, Matt comes to the decision that he has to move on, and he unplugs it. Karen comes in after the decision’s been made. She wasn’t privy to it and she’s angry with him. Do that in the penultimate episode, let the finale deal with the repercussions, and that’s when Karen decides she has to leave. “I’m glad you moved on. Now I have to also.”
Now you’ve given a full, proper goodbye to the characters you sold us on.
My co-host’s answer is that maybe that’s the point. The show is about Matt, and sitting on those two doesn’t make it feel new. But the series has always been a collective character piece, and the second episode bears that out. It’s my own pet peeve. Do I dock a point for it? Probably. In my own heart, I do.
Better Without the Suit
By the end of the first episode Wilson Fisk has fully won. He’s the mayor of New York, and Vanessa, who we hadn’t seen in forever, has apparently been running the family. Matt’s retired. He’s not Daredevil anymore. A year later he’s a full-blown attorney, Murdock and McDuffie on the door, and the cop who knew he was Daredevil is now his investigator.
The second episode is much better. There’s very little daredeviling in it and I’m okay with that. What’s funny is without Daredevil it did better.
This is the White Tiger episode. The actor who plays him regrettably passed away, and they dedicated the episode to him. White Tiger’s a very supernatural character. He’s got an amulet that gives him powers, he’s a vigilante, and he busts up what look like dirty cops. At the very end of that last scene, one of them has the Punisher tattoo. I have a feeling the Punisher special presentation could very well be him cleaning up these Punisher wannabes, which I think would be cool.
And this is where I start wanting to complain about She-Hulk more, because Matt lives in court in this one. He’s visiting a client, he’s doing lawyer things. It’s a legal procedural, which is what it needed to be. She-Hulk was sold as a legal dramedy in the tone of Ally McBeal or Boston Legal, but that would involve actually being in court, and they hardly ever were. I can think of three cases: the first one, where she becomes She-Hulk and fights Titania, the one with the shapeshifting Asgardian elf, and the final one against the dude bros. Those were perfunctory at best, mechanisms for the plot. You can tell the writers of this show know how to write legal stuff.
There’s a scene where Matt’s talking to the judge and the prosecutor and says his client didn’t have his magic amulet. The minute he said magic amulet, I was like, what show are we watching? That felt super corny. My co-host only heard amulet.
Matt’s partner tried to set him up in the first episode, and that carries over. I’d call them dating. Again, we just swapped old life for new life. And yes, he has a five o’clock shadow and walks around with a busted lip most of the time, but the whole thing still feels really, really clean.
Then they track down the guy his client rescued, the only witness, and Matt learns the police have found him too. Matt shows up, sends him to his investigator, and waits for the cops. He tries his best to just take it. They beat him up a little, and when they go to kill him he says please, don’t do this. And then he gets all Daredevil on them. So that’s what we’re doing.
There’s rumor that Jessica Jones is supposed to show up. Honestly, there’s a world in which Danny Rand comes back too. The first season of Iron Fist was horrible, but I feel like the second season really tried hard to redeem itself. I’ve also heard the actress who played Elektra in the Netflix series may make a cameo, probably as a flashback. I’m speculating on that part.
There you go. Now you know. And if knowing is half the battle, you’re halfway to being a know-it-all yourself.
The Verdict
The Daredevil: Born Again premiere, the first two episodes together, lands at a 6.5 out of 10 on the Know-It-All Index for me. My co-host has it one higher, a 7.5.
Normally we give things three episodes, and this is only two, but they presented them together, so I’m rating them together.
The 7.5 case: some parts were slow, especially sitting through Kingpin talking. The acting’s awesome, but he’s very purposeful and very quiet, and the therapy scene could have gone a little faster. My co-host liked the first episode more because of the action, and thought the second ended great once the Daredevil stuff showed up and it wasn’t all law and order. The police commissioner and the reporter were really good story too.
For me, they had a hard time getting started. I feel the reshoot. Maybe it’s because I loved that Netflix show and I hold it to a high standard, and the showrunner was talking all kinds of smack online, like we went places Netflix wasn’t willing to go. Really? Did you, though? The first episode was trying super hard to say see, we’re just like the old show. The second one knew the story it was telling and set it up.
If there was any moment I loved from the first episode, it’s the one at the very end, when Fisk comes out of a meet and greet and there’s Matt waiting for him on the street.
Fisk is eventually going to try to ban masked vigilantes in his city. That’s a huge story in the comic books, not that the MCU follows the comics anymore. The third episode might be where we jump in.
I’m criticizing some things, and overall I’m in the bag for these shows. Always. It’s a good story. Sometimes I can see the seams, but it’s not distracting, and there’s a world in which they make this whole thing come together a little smoother. That’s what I hope they do.
Let me know what you thought of the first two episodes, and whether you’re on board with what you’re seeing. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above. Never forget, everyone loves a know-it-all.
