Daredevil: Born Again is a rough reboot with a promising future

Before Disney Plus and its parade of post-Endgame Marvel series, shows like Daredevil gave the studio a convenient way to infuse the MCU with a grittier, more dramatic energy. Being a Netflix project, the original Daredevil could go harder with its action and darker with its nuanced depiction of the man without fear. And with multiple solid spinoffs of its own, Netflix’s Daredevil felt like it was working its way toward becoming a key part of Marvel’s future big-screen plans.

Though the New York City of it all made an eventual Daredevil x Avengers crossover seem possible (albeit improbable), those hopes were dashed when Marvel’s production partnership deal with Netflix ended. For a time, it looked like Marvel intended to soldier on without Daredevil and the Defenders while cultivating a fresh crop of heroes to fight in the streaming wars. But that was clearly no longer the case when the devil of Hell’s Kitchen made unexpected, back-to-back guest appearances in Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk and Echo.

In Disney Plus’ new Daredevil: Born Again series, you can see Marvel trying to recapture the street-level magic that made its Netflix shows pop. Born Again whips so many of the classic Daredevil tricks and picks up on old narrative threads that it almost plays like a proper continuation of its predecessor’s story at first. After working through some clunkiness in its first few episodes, the show finds a good rhythm in its back half that’s surprising given how troubled the project seemed when Marvel decided to overhaul it mid-production. But while Born Again eventually finds its footing, its disjointed plotlines and uneven pacing make it feel like a soft reboot that can’t always decide where its focus needs to be.

It’s possible to dive into Born Again without having seen much of Netflix’s Daredevil, but the new show’s story about how blind attorney Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) is driven away from his secret work as a superhero hits harder the more you know about his past. Though everyone around Murdock understands how hard he fights to get his clients justice in the courtroom, few have any idea how many lives he has saved and changed for the better while fighting against New York City’s most vicious criminals.

After years of working with both of Murdock’s personas, his legal partners Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) both understand how putting on the Daredevil mask helps him channel his inner rage productively instead of letting it consume him from within. Former marine-turned-vigilante Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) also knows from firsthand experience how much worse off the city would be without Daredevil. But when Murdock suffers a devastating loss that turns his world upside down, he can’t help but feel that it’s time to leave the superhero life behind.

Aesthetically, at least, Born Again bears a striking resemblance to its Netflix predecessor as it first opens with an episode written by showrunner Dario Scardapane, who previously worked on both Daredevil and 2017’s The Punisher. It initially seems as if Born Again intends to get back to the basics with its central trio starting a new, more grounded chapter of their lives before easing you into its heightened mode of storytelling. But the show abruptly shifts gears early on in a way that really emphasizes how much retooling Marvel did after dismissing Born Again’s original head writers Matt Corman and Chris Ord over creative differences in 2023.

Rather than leaning into its courtroom drama elements first and building to its action gradually like Corman and Ord reportedly wanted to, Born Again instead leads with a brutal set piece that feels calibrated to get hallway brawl fanatics frothing at the mouth. The move makes sense when you look at Born Again as Disney’s latest attempt at winning over viewers who liked Netflix’s TV-MA-rated Marvel shows. But there is a distinct Disney Plus™ glossiness to the show’s CGI-enhanced set pieces that — aside from the overall bloody and bone crunchiness — makes them feel more a bit more like a CW production than the studio probably intended.

You can also sense Marvel’s edits in the way Born Again quickly sets Karen and Foggy aside (and doesn’t bring them back for a long while) in order to establish former New York Assistant District Attorney Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James) and retired cop Cherry (Clark Johnson) as Murdock’s new allies. All of the show’s newcomers and their lack of knowledge about Murdock’s Daredevil identity help reinforce the idea that he’s trying to turn over a new leaf.

That secrecy lends itself to Murdock’s new personal relationship with therapist Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva), and it complicates his dynamic with Hector Ayala (Kamar de los Reyes), a client accused of killing an NYPD officer. Presumably, some of that is for the benefit of new viewers who might not realize that the original Daredevil is also available to stream on Disney Plus. But it also often makes Born Again seem like it’s moving its central character back to square one, which clashes with the fact that this is technically meant to be the continuation of an ongoing story.

Born Again feels like it’s torn between dueling desires to do its own thing and pick up where Netflix left off, especially when it’s zoomed in on Murdock’s civilian life. Once it brings infamous crime lord Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) back into the picture, however, you can really start to see how Marvel might be able to make this work well in due time.

Born Again is far from the first show to wax philosophic about the secret identities of superheroes and villains being their true selves, but Cox and D’Onofrio’s performances are the reason the idea works so well here. There’s a crackling energy coursing through every scene they have together that speaks to how Murdock and Fisk are both men struggling (and failing) to control their dark desires.

In Fisk’s case, those desires transparently read as Trumpian as he launches a mayoral campaign on a draconian law and order platform designed to rid the city of vigilantes. And, while it’s clearly taking some cues from Marvel’s comics, the show gets surprisingly explicit (for Disney, at least) about the fact that it is commenting on the US’ current political climate.

What’s both interesting and exhausting about Born Again’s first season is the way that, even though you can sense how drastically it changed during the production process, both of its creative teams obviously came up with compelling ideas for how to give Daredevil a second life in the MCU.

Aside from the Frankensteining, the show’s issue is that there are simply a few too many moving pieces in play, which makes some of its supporting characters’ subplots feel busier than they probably should. Because the show manages to get itself into solid enough fighting shape in its last few episodes, its greenlit second season will likely be a stronger outing. But Daredevil: Born Again’s two-episode debut is going to be a little rough to start when it begins streaming on Disney Plus tonight.

Daredevil: Born Again also stars Zabryna Guevara, Genneya Walton, Arty Froushan, Michael Gandolfini, Ayelet Zurer, and Wilson Bethel. The show is now streaming on Disney Plus.