Season 2 of “Daredevil: Born Again” (2026) is the ostensible fifth season of Netflix’s “Daredevil” except the title change reflects the 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 as a child and his unmasked identity is Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), a named partner at a law firm that makes zero profit. After the end of Season 1, Mayor Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) completely controls the city, and New York became a complete dystopia forcing Matt and Karen (Deborah Ann Woll), his former client, secretary, journalist, vigilante whisperer turned vigilante, underground. This season scales it back a smidge to make it more feasible for the rule of law to be restored, but how will they pull it off?
If you are new to “Daredevil: Born Again” and want to join the ride, you have a lot of homework to do. At a minimum, you need to watch “Daredevil” Season 1 Episode 3 and the first season of “Daredevil: Born Again.” If you want a comprehensive plan, then you must watch the all four seasons of the Netflix version except before starting the last season, switch to “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), but it is not too compelling. 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. In “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” (2022), he appears in Episodes 8 and 9, but it feels as if “Daredevil: Born Again” would prefer to pretend it never happened. If you want Fisk’s complete story, you will need to toss in “Hawkeye” (2021). If you want to understand one anti-climactic episode of the first season of “Daredevil: Born Again,” then watching “Ms. Marvel” (2022) is a must, but the lemon may not be worth the squeeze. If you want Jessica Jones’ complete story, then you will have to watch all three seasons of her Netflix series and “Luke Cage.” I still have not seen “Echo” (2023) among many MCU Disney+ streaming shows before “Avengers: Doomsday” (2026) so I cannot speak to whether it will enhance your viewing experience before finally diving into the first season of “Daredevil: Born Again.”
Matt not practicing law was actually a good thing, and now that he and Karen are together, they are way more fun to watch. Also, Cox is looksmaxxing and prepared for a shirtless scene, and on behalf of the delegation of viewers, we thank you for your service and sacrificing God knows how many delicious meals. Other than the action scenes, Cox has not been given enough compelling material to show off his acting chops then when he gets dialogue, the writers seem terrified of the ideas that they came up with and rush through it. While the season starts strong with some excellent fight scenes, it eventually devolves into inelegant brute strength and crowd choreography. If Disney+ is going cheap on fight choreography, then they do not understand what makes the franchise compelling. The best episode is Episode 3, which gave “One Battle After Another” (2025) a run for its money.
Similarly, D’Onofrio is not given as much to do unlike the prior season when he had to suppress his violent impulses to get power. Instead, he has a boxing scene and becomes the equivalent of a beast except in the scenes with onscreen partner, Ayulet Zurer, who is always on point regardless of the caliber of the material. Instead, the Deputy Mayor of Communications Daniel Blake (Michael Gandolfini) ends up being the most compelling character this season as his relationships with journalist BB Ulrich (Genneya Walton) and coworker Buck Cashman (Arty Froushan) complicate his joy at making the big leagues.
As for the other supporting characters, Kirsten Mcduffie finally gets a real storyline though still in the margins. Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva) feels as if she is being developed into a future big bad and offered some disturbing moments. Bullseye, aka Benjamin Poindexter (Wilson Bethel) ,starts compelling, but when he engages in a tete a tetes with his former nemesis, the material quality plummets into the most inane dialogue that you will wonder if it is too high a price for his amazing reintroduction fight sequences. There is no Punisher, which feels like a misstep. Sure, the Punisher gets his own standalone one-hour TV special, “The Punisher: One Last Kill” (2026), but his absence in the second season undermines everything presented in the first season. Jacques Dufresne (Tony Dalton) resurfaces and does the work of moving forward the shows’ substantive themes. Despite my unequivocal disapproval of baby vigilantes, Angela Del Toro’s return was not as bad as I was worried that it would be, but I also need Disney+ to let vigilantes with powers be awesome when unleashed, which includes Angela’s alter ego, White Tiger, but specifically is a criticism of the latest iteration of Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), who was scaled down to fit our times, which is not a good thing.
There are some great additions to the cast. Matthew Lillard was an underutilized but welcome addition to the cast. Lili Taylor was similarly robbed of her share of the spotlight as New York Governor Marge McCaffrey. You know who gets more screentime? Some random unnamed character who is not even a priest but is the seminarian (Bartley Booz). Is the show offering a young dude to get more viewers into mop headed do gooders? Priests can be hot. Watch some movies and television mini-series!
While Season 2 is way more consistent than Season 1, if I’m being honest, it is just not the same level of quality as the Netflix seasons. The writers propose some audacious scenarios with their fingers on the pulse of the nation then clearly panic instead of confront the problem of corruption of government, and it felt as if they gave it some thought then collectively went, “Nah.” There is nothing wrong with sticking with dragon bones and more comic book friendly themes without hitting the third rail of real world politics. They want to be edgy without the stomach for it so don’t be edgy.
Quality be damned because a third season of “Daredevil: Born Again” is guaranteed, and I’ll definitely be back because I committed to the bit even if the bit has changed in terms of quality. I would like the writers to just embrace their inability to inject real world solutions to real world problems and just be more like a comic book series with villains and heroes. The fight scenes need to have an emphasis on martial arts, not these massive maximum damage crap that the season descended into. You are not Sergei Eisenstein. Keep Matt and Karen together. Stop treating Jessica Jones like shit and treat Lillard’s character like a real mover and shaker instead of an incompetent man who barely lasts a second on the island.
