Trying to figure out what Marvel series are part of the MCU and what aren’t is a bit confusing. The series that were made for Netflix in the 2010s, under a Marvel Television group that no longer exists, are NOT part of the MCU. Daredevil was one of those shows. Around 2020, the television piece of Marvel’s empire was absorbed by Kevin Feige’s Marvel Studios. Now, however, there is a new Marvel Television division, under Feige’s supervision, making series that are supposed to connect directly into the MCU. A new Daredevil series, now streaming on Disney+, is a part of this arrangement. Get it? Neither do we.
DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Night in New York City. We see the corner of 51st and 10th, and a group of friends going out for the evening.
The Gist: Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Franklin “Foggy” Nelson (Elden Henson) are going to a bar to the retirement party for Cherry (Clark Johnson), an NYPD cop that works with the three of them at their law firm, Nelson, Murdock & Paige.
As everyone is having a good time, shots start to ring out, and Matt leaps into action as Daredevil, a vigilante hero that has been celebrated by some in New York but reviled by others. He goes after the shooter, Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter (Wilson Bethel), pursuing him through the building where the bar is located, occasionally getting the upper hand, but getting beat down at others. On the roof, his keen hearing — he is blind, but his other senses are enhanced — picks up that a profound tragedy in his life is occurring on the ground. Distraught, he grabs the prone Dex and throws him off the roof.
A year later, there have been a lot of changes in Matt’s life. He’s now partnered with former ADA Kristen McDuffie (Nikki M. James) in a new law firm. Karen has moved away and the two of them are no longer romantically linked. And Daredevil has not made an appearance since the tragedy at Cherry’s retirement party. Karen returns for Dex’s sentencing hearing, but has no plans rekindling anything with Matt. In the meantime, Kristen sets Matt up with Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva), a therapist friend of hers, and they hit it off.
Changes are happening elsewhere, too: Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), who was once the crime boss known as Kingpin, comes out of hiding, recovered from his broken back. He surprises his wife, Vanessa Marianna-Fisk (Ayelet Zurer), with an appearance at her meeting of the Five Families, but he tells her that she remains in charge of his old crime empire. He needs the enterprise to be, as Vanessa calls it, “bulletproof.” He’s a changed man, and one of the big indicators of it is that he’s wearing a grey suit instead of his signature white one. Another indicator is that he plans on running for mayor in the upcoming recall election.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Daredevil: Born Again is a follow-up to the 2015-18 Daredevil series that first streamed on Netflix. While the first season wasn’t connected to the larger MCU (it was produced by a separate Marvel Television unit that no longer exists), this current series is definitely connected.
Our Take: The saga of an MCU-connected Daredevil series has been going on for close to three years now. At first, the new series wouldn’t be connected to the old one, despite the return of Cox and D’Onofrio to the roles of Daredevil and Kingpin, respectively. But a change in creative teams — original creators Matt Corman and Chris Ord made way for current showrunner Dario Scardapane — shifted the show to a direct sequel to the Netflix series, also matching it in look and tone.
That was likely the right decision. One of the things we enjoyed about the original Daredevil series was its moodiness and ability to show how Murdock is able to fight as effectively as he can without the use of his vision. Given the original series’ Hell’s Kitchen setting, a noirish look and feel was necessary. Making Daredevil something different at this stage seemed to be too much of a risk. It feels like Scardapane signaled that with the fight scene between Daredevil and Dex, which uses the same continuous-shot style that the epic fight in the first episode of the original series did.
Cox and D’Onofrio have evolved their characters over the past decade, especially when they’ve appeared on other MCU shows and films. In fact, D’Onofrio has mentioned that the deeper, more emotional Kingpin that we saw in Hawkeye and Echo, which is the version we see in Born Again, is his preferred way to play the character. It certainly plays more into D’Onofrio’s copious skillset, as he gives Fisk/Kingpin a depth that he didn’t quite have in the original series.
What we also appreciated about Born Again being connected to the original series is that we’re not getting the usual Marvel-style drawn-out origin story that spans multiple episodes. Where we are is at a crossroads in both Murdock’s and Fisk’s lives, where their true natures are being hidden at first as they process their respective traumas. But we know that those true natures won’t stay hidden for long, and the Heat-esque scene where Murdock and Fisk have a summit at a coffee shop was a good way to foreshadow their inevitable confrontation.
Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: After the results of the election, Murdock walks through a wild scene on the streets, and Fisk stares down at the city from his roof.
Sleeper Star: Jon Bernthal will show up eventually as The Punisher, which will be fun to see.
Most Pilot-y Line: We love it when Murdock and his friends talk about the “good old days” of Hell’s Kitchen, talking about how dark and gritty it was. We find it hilarious because the Hell’s Kitchen we know has been gentrified since at least the turn of the century.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Fans of the original Daredevil series should enjoy Daredevil: Born Again, because it continues the original series’ story and its dark tone, with a story that’s feels like it’s going to build to an exciting climax.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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