Like every other '90s kid who had little to no access to comics, my introduction to Daredevil was via Spider-Man: The Animated Series. When the character made his live-action debut with that film starring Ben Affleck, everyone decided to hate it, but I enjoyed it. I mean, I liked it to the point of being skeptical of the Netflix adaptation, especially after learning that he wouldn't be wearing his suit until the very end.
However, with every episode of that first season, I was so won over by Charlie Cox and the incredibly talented team working around him that I was ready to sing anthems about him. A lot of people didn't like Season 2, and I don't agree with all of them. And I think Season 3 was perfect, cementing Cox's Matt Murdock as the definitive representation of the character. For a second, due to changes in Marvel's upper management, it looked like we wouldn't see him in the red suit again. That said, after a few cameos here and there, Cox is once again getting his own show.
Creators: Matt Corman, Chris Ord
Stars: Charlie Cox, Margarita Levieva, Wilson Bethel
Created by Dario Scardapane, Matt Corman, and Chris Ord, Daredevil: Born Again takes place (probably) about 8 years after the events of the Netflix show's third season. Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, and Karen Page have been working together to take down Wilson Fisk, and Foggy is very close to putting the Kingpin behind bars. But Benjamin Poindexter, aka Bullseye, shoots Foggy dead before that momentous occasion, which traumatizes Matt to such an extent that he throws Poindexter off a building with the intent of killing him.
Likely due to Bullseye's enhanced surgeries, he survives the fall and is successfully imprisoned. However, since Matt has broken his "no killing" rule, he hangs up his boots. With Page taking a sabbatical, Matt teams up with Kirsten McDuffie to continue helping people as a lawyer, not a vigilante. Daredevil's absence gives Fisk the confidence to return to power after his violent altercation with Maya Lopez (his adopted niece), and he decides to run for mayor of New York. Although Fisk claims he wants the city to be free of vigilantes and crime, Matt grows increasingly anxious about his ulterior motives, making him wonder if he should put on the costume again.
The writing for Daredevil: Born Again is odd. It tries to pander to nostalgia for the title character's run on Netflix. Then it tries to put all that in the rearview mirror to make way for imitations of older characters: Heather Glenn seems like a Page stand-in, McDuffie is Foggy, and Cherry is like a mix of Ben Urich and Sister Maggie. But he doesn't want to push the story forward too much, because apparently the writers are saving all the good stuff for future seasons. So a lot of Matt’s arc is spent in subplots that are tangentially connected to the main plot, which is a murder mystery centered around Foggy’s death. Since these subplots oscillate between being some sort of shallow political commentary on racism, classism, and police brutality or an MCU cameo-fest, Matt just feels uninteresting. There are some occasional moments of levity or wordy legal exchanges where Murdock manages to shine, but they’re too sparse to be impactful. The same can be said for Wilson Fisk. The guy peaks early on and then works his way up to, well, staying at that peak. None of the other villains feel like a genuine threat. They have the most cliché motivations. And they just pop in and out of existence without leaving much of a mark. As for the supporting characters, I couldn’t care less about any of them.
For better or worse, Daredevil: Born Again is a Marvel-Disney series. See what I mean? It feels less like an extension of the character's Netflix series and is more in line with things like Hawkeye, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Echo, especially when it comes to the action. To be clear, I'm aware of the fact that those three seasons of Daredevil weren't just a series of fights and brawls. It was a dramatic series with extensive conversations about justice, faith, family, friendship, love, and more, with a healthy dose of action thrown in. It got rough during dialogue-heavy sequences, but when it went into action mode, it eclipsed everything else that was happening on the small or big screen. The bar is undeniably high, and this "fourth" season doesn't even come close to clearing it. There are some flashes of good action direction and filmmaking after the sixth episode; everything before that is absolute garbage. The editing, the camera work, the lighting, it's all shockingly atrocious. No shade to the crew of Daredevil.
The cast of Daredevil: Born Again deserves better than this. Charlie Cox is effortlessly charming, heartbreaking, and an emblem of optimism all at the same time. There's such earnestness to his performance that you can't help but root for him. It's just that the script around him is so scattershot that when he finally puts on the iconic suit, I'm like, "That's it?" Vincent D'Onofrio is fantastic. It's kind of hilarious to watch him play out Fisk's take on diplomacy and subtly revert to his old ways. But Kingpin's dialogue and character progression are so tepid that even someone as good as D'Onofrio fails to elevate them. Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Wilson Bethel, and Jon Bernthal barely appear in the show, so don't get your hopes up. Ayelet Zurer gets solid screen time and is good. Of the new entrants, it's Michael Gandolfini who makes you sit up and pay attention. The rest of the supporting cast is undeniably great. However, at the cost of sounding repetitive, the poor writing doesn't allow them to shine.
Like all Daredevil fans, I got excited about Born Again after watching that exquisitely edited trailer. And I'm pretty sure that many ardent fans will refuse to see the Marvel-Disney show's shortcomings because they'll be too happy to have Charlie Cox in the MCU again. But is this what the superhero subgenre and its fandom has been reduced to? Should we just be glad that these versions of our favorite characters haven't been permanently retired and then retooled? Should we rejoice in the idea that the great Kevin Feige has brought them into the fold, rather than standing on the sidelines and nervously mentioning the events of the "sacred timeline"? Because that's just sad. I'm not surprised that the series is as bad as it is.
There was a creative overhaul during the writers strike. The planned 18-episode season was cut down to 9 episodes. That obviously affected the tone, the plot, and the character arcs. So, the final product is a mess. Well, I hope you all enjoy it more than I did. In the meantime, I'll be over here watching those 3 seasons of Daredevil and reminiscing about the good old days.
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