“Daredevil: Born Again” (2025) is the ostensible fourth season of Netflix’s “Daredevil” except the title change indicates the streaming platform change to Disney+. If you do not know who Daredevil is, he is a blind vigilante whose other senses were heightened after he lost his vision. By day, he is a criminal defense attorney. Five years after the end of season three, Matt (Charlie Cox), Foggy (Elden Henson) and Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) are still working and playing together until an old foe, Benjamin Poindexter/Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) reemerges and attacks them. The aftermath leaves Matt feeling shaken at his reaction to this tragedy, and he swears off being Daredevil. Meanwhile the return of Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), aka Kingpin and Daredevil’s nemesis, is met with unease from Fisk’s wife, Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer), who has been running his criminal enterprise with much success. Both men decide to leave the past behind and have a fresh start in the respectable world. Matt becomes a partner at a high-level law firm with his law partner, former District Attorney Kristen Mcduffie (Nikki M. James). Fisk becomes Mayor of New York. The ladies doth protest too much and Matt cannot help but feel dissatisfied at the inefficiencies of life on the right side of the law, and Mayor Fisk must show more restraint than the rage-filled Kingpin ever would. Both sides of the aisle agree: bureaucracy cannot solve problems that violence can. How long before they resume their alter egos, and how will their decisions impact the communities that they adopted?
If you have not seen “Hawkeye” (2021), “Echo” (2023), and “Ms. Marvel” (2022), you can probably get by without any problem because that is the life that I lead…for now. You can even skip most of the Netflix “Daredevil” series except for Season 1 Episode 3, which is crucial to understanding that Fisk is not just some random, exchangeable evil guy but has a very specific way of navigating the world and cloaking himself with lofty goals to disguise base desires. D’Onofrio is such a good actor that even if you do not enjoy this genre of television shows, he is still a delight to watch, but it is hard to appreciate it fully without that episode. For D’Onofrio fans from his days in “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” there is a serial killer storyline, and I was secretly disappointed that he did not do the too close lean just for a second. Too much acting integrity.
Cox is Daredevil and Matt Murdock, who is a bad attorney, not that anyone cares. He is hot, soft spoken, well-intentioned, psychologically tortured and can fight. Expect a lot of primal screams and mournfully looking out of kitchen windows. The only time that he gets overshadowed is whenever Frank Castle/The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) appears, which he does in a couple of episodes, and the world rejoiced. Since Matt is trying to reinvent himself into a civilian, it may be better if you are unfamiliar with him because then it will be easier to deal with some developments if you are at the entry-level stage.
If you are interested in immersing yourself in all things “Daredevil” before jumping into “Daredevil: Born Again,” you must watch the three seasons of the Netflix version (save the last season for after “The Defenders,” Season 2 Episode 9 of “Jessica Jones,” Season 2 Episode 10 and 13 of “Luke Cage,” Season 2 Episode 10 of “Iron Fist,” “The Defenders,” and Season 2 Episode 1 and 2 of “The Punisher.”) He makes a cameo in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021). All are terrific shows except for “Iron Fist,” but only because the actor who plays the protagonist is the least interesting part of the show. I have not seen “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” but he makes an appearance in Episodes 8 and 9.
People who watched Netflix’s “Daredevil” are a lock, but if you are expecting answers about what happened to him during the snap, you will be disappointed. Most of the season will satisfy old timers who missed the masked hero because it retains the main characters and nails the gritty world. If you are looking for vibes, you have come to the right place, but for people who scrutinize television shows as if it is a complex piece of literature, the pacing will be frustrating and uneven. One episode is fun, but it is a throwaway, stand-alone then the second to last episode rushes through the events as if they are a contestant on “The Amazing Race” headed to the airport. It is as if it did not occur to the writers that there could be protagonist/antagonist character development and exploration of romantic relationship simultaneously while building up the mythology of the series.
The main storyline focuses on the dance between Matt and Fisk and the tension of whether they will return to their old personas because once they do, they are enemies again. It is mostly nice to see them again, but outside of Fisk, Matt has no deep relationships, which makes Fisk even more interesting than he already is. For Matt, the series quickly jettisons the old and focuses on the new supporting characters, who are fine, but most are more archetypes than three-dimensional human beings. Also, Matt is not a good enough attorney to pull off not being a vigilante. When new comic book characters are introduced, it is almost as if there is a no powers rule, and they are not allowed to overshadow him so they are limited in their appearance, which may disappoint readers hoping to see lesser-known characters appear onscreen. It is almost as if “Daredevil: Born Again” looked at its predecessor and thought, “No one is getting a spin off on my watch” then made sure everyone was there to serve Matt.
“Daredevil: Born Again” knows where it wants to go but does not know how to get there. The creators are using Fisk’s political ascent to mirror our own plunge into chaos with a second term of Presidon’t using government institutions for personal gain and to harass the people that they were meant to serve. It is a fever-induced, dystopian vision of our worst fears about what the destruction of the Republic will look like, but with little visceral understanding of how to solve that problem or what kind of people fall prey to it. It is a laudable goal squeezed into a framework that it is not meant to fit in without steadier, more seasoned hands at the helm. The idea of Daredevil as the leader of the resistance is not inherently a bad idea. If you have an elected leader who is a criminal cloaking himself into the rule of law to subvert it and extrajudicially execute the opposition, who better than an attorney who believes in the law and the value of all human life, including criminals, to stop him.
Overall “Daredevil: Born Again” is exciting to welcome back, but fear that it will not succeed in its laudable motivation: to show how to resist fascism and hate. First the show’s creators must craft a seamless world before imbuing it with meaning. For example, if they could take someone like Vanessa, build her up then fumble the bag at the eleventh hour through no fault of Zurer’s acting prowess, then we are just watching a Potemkin Village that will fall backwards on itself under the slightest scrutiny. Perfect fan service, but not able to transcend and surpass the flaws in storytelling.
