Daredevil: Born Again (Season 1) Review: A Promising Start That Features Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio at Their Best

So, the long-awaited and highly-anticipated Daredevil: Born Again is finally here. Shifting the series from its Netflix heyday, which ran a successful three seasons between 2015 and 2018 to Disney+’s Marvel Television, I have one thing that worries me the most: Is it going to be Disneyfied?

Besides, save for Charlie Cox’s brief appearance as Matt Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home, his subsequent return in the god-awful She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and the missed-opportunity Echo in the respective television series didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Well, thankfully, the first episode of Daredevil: Born Again isn’t suffering from a watered-down version for the sake of pleasing the wider demographics. This is especially true during the first 15 minutes as the episode doesn’t waste much time getting down to business. We see the return of Matt and his best friends, Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) as they share their happy moments at Josie’s Bar in Hell’s Kitchen.

But it isn’t long before all hell breaks loose with Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter (Wilson Bethel) is back for vengeance. In case you need a recap, Poindexter was last seen in the final episode in the third season of Netflix’s Daredevil, whose spine was broken after Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) rams him against the wall. A subsequent surgery has saved him and now, his return sees Poindexter go by the moniker of Bullseye, complete with a costume and a mask, start wreaking havoc at Josie’s Bar.

Long story short, the episode gives us what we love about the Daredevil series in the first place: the gritty, street-level mayhem that doesn’t shy away from violence and brutality. The ensuing fight between Daredevil and Bullseye is thrillingly staged in a long, unbroken take from the interior of Josie’s Bar to the staircase and right up the rooftop. Matt is angry as hell and he doesn’t hold back during his fight against Bullseye. His immense anger, of course, is triggered by a moment that I’ll leave it to you to find out what’s really going on.

No doubt the first 15 minutes successfully establishes the dark and uncompromising tone and it’s off to a great start. A year after the incident, we learn that Matt has since left his crime-fighting vigilante days behind and focuses solely on his work as a lawyer. He has since collaborated with fellow attorney Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James) while the retired NYPD detective Cherry (Clark Johnson) is now working as a private investigator.

The seven-year gap between Netflix’s Daredevil and Daredevil: Born Again means a lot of things have happened. As Matt is starting over, an old wound returns. The return of Wilson Fisk, who was arrested at the end of the third season in the Netflix series and now he’s out in the streets again. Except that he’s no longer the same angry Fisk he used to be. That fearless mobster better known as Kingpin in the past is now replaced by a new Fisk, who wants to give back to the New York City by running for the mayor election.

The first two episodes are largely spent focusing on the two men (Matt and Fisk) living their respective pasts behind and starting afresh. At one point, there’s a scene which instantly reminds me of the verbal confrontation between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in a diner in Heat and here, we have Matt and Fisk sitting across each other in a bar having a small talk over a cup of coffee. The tension between the two of them is palpable even with just words coming out from their mouths. It is also a testament of great and nuanced acting from both Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio.

The series also introduces Hector Ayala, played by the late Kamar de los Reyes, who died from cancer in 2023, and Matt’s new love interest, Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva). The two episodes that I have streamed may take some time navigating the storyline, which I hope will pick up for the subsequent episodes. But for now, Daredevil: Born Again is promising under the good hands of showrunner Dario Scardapane.

The review is based on the first two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again currently streaming on Disney+, with the rest of the seven episodes will be streaming on a weekly basis except for the simultaneous episodes 5 & 6.