The Magic of Daredevil: Born Again

Six years, four months, 14 days, and 18 hours after the final season of the original Daredevil show premiered, Daredevil was “Born Again” on the small screen. While I’ve been one of the people campaigning for, and then celebrating, the return of this show for all of those six years and change, it took me a while to really get my hype up as we were counting down the days until the release of these first two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again. 

As I mentioned in my reaction video to the Daredevil: Born Again trailer (direct link to YouTube here), I’m always guarding my heart when it comes to this character. A lot of that comes from knowing what he means to me. Related to that is knowing that I’ve had mixed feelings about every single season of the previous show on my first viewing. For example, here’s a quick post I wrote after my first viewing of season one. And I distinctly remember revising it a couple of times so it wouldn’t read as too negative.

For my part, I was shocked to discover that this was the "smoothest" viewing experience I’ve ever had watching new episodes of Daredevil. There are still seven episodes to go in this first season, and things may change for me as early as next week and have me tossing my TV from the balcony. But, so far, I’m very invested in the story. The cherry on top is the handling of Matt’s senses and, even more importantly, his overall personality. I seriously have nothing to complain about there. Imagine me of all people left genuinely impressed with how well they hit the sweet spot with the sensory stuff. I’m actually going to have to post a video about that area specifically so that I can show exactly what I mean, though I may have to wait for one more episode to drop.

I will head into spoiler territory below, starting with those very controversial first fifteen minutes, and putting the spotlight on some of the characters we meet in this episode. You’ve been warned.

I was about 98 percent sure heading into this episode that Foggy wasn’t going to survive it, though I think a lot of people, including myself, were shocked that we got so little time with him. Rumors about this highly controversial move had started up a long time ago, so I did have the time to emotionally prepare myself for it. Social media and the rumor mill are very much a double-edged sword here. I appreciated the head’s up, whereas others might not have wanted to know. On the flip side, I would imagine that many people went into the episode not expecting anything like this and being a bit traumatized by it. 

It’s an absolutely massive and tragic development. There’s no doubt about that. I actually rewatched season three a week ago, in anticipation of Born Again, and I’ve been thinking about Foggy’s close brush with death in that season over the last couple of days. How he talks about being unfinished, and his profound relief and joy at being alive. Watching these separate events back to back, involving the same villain no less, is heartbreaking.

Is this really the last we’ll see of Elden Henson? I very much doubt that, though I don’t know if I’m expecting to see a few flashback scenes, or the revelation of a “fakeout” death. If this is not the end for Foggy, they have some explaining to do. I can think of ways to achieve this without involving the Hand or anything of a more mystical nature, but they’re definitely going to have to work for it if they go that route. 

Either way, and whatever the end result might be, it is clear that both viewers and our main characters are meant to understand that Foggy is dead, and that becomes a main driver for the story. One thing I’m more certain of is that we will return to the “why” of his demise. There’s the Red Hook connection between this Benny person Foggy is talking to in his final minutes, and the “Queenpin” Vanessa Fisk. I’m interested to see what that is all about.

Foggy is a favorite character of mine, so if his death is going to be worth anything at all, it has to mean something. It has to serve the bigger story, and do it well. The first thing it does is give Matt a very good reason to put away the costume, and barely even look back. That’s where we find him at the one year later mark. The fact that this tragedy also had him toss Bullseye off a roof is, I think, another big reason for his being able to retire Daredevil more easily than he’s done in the past. I believe there’s a big part of him who’s terrified of what Bullseye made him do.

We all know, and very much anticipate, that this new and more peaceful life is not going to stick, and we see Matt being forced to “let the devil out” at the end of the second episode. But, at the same time, we’re also seeing a more mature version of Matt than we saw in the previous show. 

Does Matt live his life with a more extreme version of that? Sure. Is he struggling to come to terms with sides of himself that he doesn’t like or that may even scare him? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean that all of these sides are not contained within him at all times, and I think that’s the more interesting theme they’re trying to explore this season, with both Matt and Wilson Fisk. How do you make room for all of the pieces, and live with the complexity?

I don’t know if this is a result of Charlie Cox having more freedom in his approach to the character, but I saw a greater emotional range out of Matt Murdock in these two episodes than I remember from the original show. And guess what? All of it seemed authentic.

And this brings me to another way Foggy’s demise – and Matt’s (temporarily?) broken relationship with Karen – can work to bring more nuance to this character. Mind you, removing these characters from center stage is not something I would consider necessary to achieve any of this, but to me Matt’s world in the previous show felt somewhat walled off, and now it feels less so. There were always references to a bigger world out there for Matt the civilian, but we didn’t really see much of it. There’s talk of Matt’s successes with the ladies, but we see no real signs of the side of him who might pursue such exploits. In season two, Matt mentions to Karen that he and Foggy have connections at Columbia in case she wants to go to law school, but we see no signs of a larger social circle. Both Stick and Elektra feel more connected to his Daredevil side, and even Claire exists more as an adjunct to this “man on a mission,” even though she does her best to bring him down to Earth.

When it comes to the simple pleasures in life, we hear Matt in conversation with Claire in the original show make references to a music collection, but again there are no signs of it. In Born Again, in the very first episode, Matt has a record playing. It’s a small detail, but it represents Matt actually investing in himself for more than ten minutes. Is it to help with the grief or is it just for the pleasure of it? I don’t care. All I know is that what I’m seeing here brings out signs of normal, relatable humanity, that the older version of the same character seemed to struggle to project to the same extent, and that I didn’t even know how to put my finger on until I noticed the contrast.

Even the way he’s managing the grief seems very mature. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful to see Matt place the card from Foggy’s memorial service in his jacket every time he leaves home, signaling that Foggy is always with him, but at the same time, he’s doing his best to move on in constructive ways. With the introduction of new characters (again, these obviously could have been introduced alongside the old ones) we get an opportunity to see Matt being various shades of a normal(ish) person around both people who know about Daredevil (Cherry, the retired cop turned investigator), and those who do not such as Kirsten and new love interest Heather. 

I realize that not everyone necessarily needs more of this kind of thing, but Matt having a well-developed personality, not to mention goals, desires, and connections outside of Daredevil makes him much more interesting to me as Daredevil. When he finally has to let all of his rage out at the end of the second episode, that doesn’t seem to me as even flipping the switch or breaking with some other part of himself. He’s still all there, and it’s beautiful.

So who else is more afraid of Vanessa than Wilson after watching these first couple of episodes? In her husband’s recent absence, implied to be the result of some kind of deeper personal journey following his final encounter with Maya in Echo, she’s taken over the running of the criminal empire and made it, in her own words, “bulletproof.” The relationship between these two fascinates me, and when Wilson talks about knowing about a mysterious Adam in Vanessa’s circle, whom she asks him not to kill, I’m not sure whether this is a romantic side interest or her personal fixer.

There are some interesting people in Fisk’s circle, most notably new character Daniel Blake (Michael Gandolfini) whom I’m desperately trying to get a read on. He strikes me simultaneously as cloyingly sycophantic and as someone who may be playing his own game. He’s a bit creepy. In a good way. Something’s up with him for sure.

Fisk’s freshman troubles give us a sense of what’s happening in the city more widely. We’re told that the police force is dwindling – and highly polarized when it comes to Fisk – and that crime is up. Vigilantes are stepping into the void, though Daredevil is clearly missed, by some at least. Fisk’s anti-vigilante platform didn’t appear in a vacuum, but I’m wondering if we’re really talking mostly about the White Tigers, Daredevils, and Spider-Mans of this world, or whether random people putting on a mask and dispensing mob justice is also a big part of this. I guess time will tell.

Of the three new notable presences in Matt’s life, both Kirsten and Heather have a prominent history in the Daredevil comic book, as any regular reader of this blog will be well aware. I went into the history of Heather Glenn a bit in my trailer reaction, wondering if she would bear any traces of her comic book persona. So far, that doesn’t seem to be the case, though their first meeting is almost as seemingly random as their meeting in the comics, albeit orchestrated by Kirsten. I like what I’ve seen of her, and I do think she and Matt have some genuine chemistry. Making her the Fisks’ marriage counsellor is an interesting move, as is creating a connection between her and the troubled young man at her book reading that I think we’re collectively assuming to be Muse.

For her part, Kirsten McDuffie retains much of the irreverent playfulness of her comics counterpart even though I don’t see her as a romantic interest for Matt at this point. Considering they’re law partners, that’s probably a good thing. While we don’t know her well just yet, I took an instant liking to this version of the character. I also appreciate that she was at the scene of the crime when Foggy was shot, and was in fact one of the last people he spoke to, which gives her a unique level of insight into what Matt went through in losing him.

The same is true of Cherry, the retired police officer turned investigator who works for the new firm and who found out about Matt being Daredevil on that fateful night. Cherry has a close namesake in the comics in corrupt politician Randolph Cherryh, though there seems to be no connection there. The kind of role I see for him here, besides the obvious investigative one that Karen used to fill at one point (as did Dakota North in the comics), is as a bit of a Ben Urich character. Because this universe’s Ben Urich died long before learning about Matt being Daredevil, and was actually a closer associate of Karen’s than Matt’s, he never got to assume the pivotal role he plays in the comics. 

I also very much appreciate there being an investigator on hand for narrative reasons. He can find things out that Matt cannot, both through his professional connections and expertise and owing to the fact that he can, you know, see. The detective work Matt does on his own in the second episode is brilliantly executed and perfectly apt, but they clearly have different strengths and non-overlapping skill sets. One of my biggest gripes while watching the otherwise excellent season three of the original show was how Matt would just know where to show up with no explanation of how he got the relevant information.

Really looking forward to following the Hector Ayala storyline. I’m still on the fence about BB Urich. They could do something interesting with her, but so far her interviews with the people of New York were not a favorite part of these first two episodes. Other than that, I liked seeing the city really injecting itself into the storyline. This was obviously a big part of what made the original show work as well, and if anything it feels bigger in scope here. 

And speaking of the immersive qualities of the show, I loved the music. Both the incorporation of the original theme, the new score and the great selection of songs playing throughout. It gives it a slightly different edge than the original show while still keeping some key reference points. The new title sequence is also glorious. I like it even better than the original and find it interesting that they’re making everything hard and brittle as a contrast to the dripping paint of the first show though both are obvious references to the shapes of things, which is a good fit for Daredevil.

The CGI of Daredevil swinging around was not great, and while the choreography of the fight with Bullseye was very strong, their rooftop struggle had a color cast that made it look too stylized for my liking. These are minor quibbles for me, as I tend to put less emphasis on the fight scenes anyway, and are also balanced well by the absolutely brutal final scene of episode two that is very reminiscent of the type of violence we saw in the first show.

I may walk away from the next episode with very different feelings, but so far I’m overwhelmed by how much I loved these two episodes, and how everything just clicked for me. I didn’t expect to be this excited and hopeful that the best may yet be to come for Matt Murdock. More please!