Welcome, everybody! Every week, I’ll release a review corresponding to the available episode(s) of the nine-episode season of “Daredevil: Born Again” (2025). A week after the last episode airs, there will be an overall review of the season with spoilers at the end. There may be spoilers for anything that happened in prior episode(s) or the Netflix seasons. I’ve never done an episodic review before so thank you for coming along for my experiment!
“Daredevil: Born Again” is back, and Episode 6, which is forty-two minutes, is the best episode of the season to date though there were still ways it could have been better and three more episodes to come. Episode 6 is the one to beat. A nine-episode season is short, especially since the last episode felt like a filler episode. It is the Matt (Charlie Cox)/Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) show, and the supporting characters, whether villains or heroes, are not going to get as much screen time as they did in the Netflix “Daredevil” seasons. If you are current with your viewing schedule, then you know that watching “Ms. Marvel” is extra credit, but if you are new to the “Daredevil” franchise, i.e. you only came on board when Disney+ took over, you have required homework if you really want to savor Episode 6. Watch Season 1, Episode 3 of “Daredevil.” It is a Fisk childhood episode that explains how he became Kingpin, the bedrock of who he is: the story behind the ticking watch, the white painting, etc.
While doing their respective day jobs, Fisk and Matt find that their alter egos or true selves are needed to combat a threat: the masked villain is a serial killer. His street name will be familiar to comic book readers, but they should wipe their knowledge because his modus operandi is completely different. While the series did a good job of breadcrumbing his appearance from the first episode, he is a bit of a cypher and never talks. His real identity may never come into play. Two is an official pattern: take a comic book character who has not appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, diverge from his original incarnation, show him in the most quotidian way, i.e. without his supernatural powers. While it is a fine strategy, why risk the ire of comic fans? Why not just create a character with the same backstory so you still have the option to use the better-known ones? Angela Del Toro (Camila Rodriguez), Hector Ayala’s niece, could be a set up to show the White Tiger in the future since anyone with the amulet could assume the identity, but not today. After “Captain America: Civil War” (2016) and “Avengers: Infinity War” (2018), I find myself flinching at the idea of child soldiers. No comic book character introduced in this season has been crucial to anything other than the growth of the main characters. No more Punisher takeovers on Disney+’s watch!
The theme of collapsing identities is coming to fruition in this episode. Neither Matt nor Fisk seem bothered at the prospect and seem to welcome it. Fisk is a busy bee in this episode dealing with his responsibilities as mayor, crime boss and a husband. Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) appears to return to being the devoted, adoring wife, but Zurer delivers her lines with an edge that portends more. In Episode 4, the audience finally met Adam (Lou Taylor Pucci), and while I know that Adam is not the point, it felt like more should have been done to convey why Vanessa was attracted to him other than dialogue because their affair is the third most unbelievable aspect of this season of “Daredevil: Born Again.” Like the new comic book character adaptations, Adam only functions to show who Fisk really is when no one is looking. There could be so much more.
It appears that I may have underestimated Sheila Rivera (Zabryna Guevera) and proved that she may fit into Fisk’s new position in the world better than anyone else, including Vanessa and Buck (Arty Froushan). She goes with the flow even as she is clearly alarmed at the unexpected developments, but she keeps buttoned up and makes it seem like a part of the routine. Even Fisk did not anticipate her ability to maintain appearances as worlds collide. Her actions made the outer circle not suspect that anything was up, and she did not interrogate Fisk afterwards. She does not ask questions that she does not want answered, but if she continues down this track, she is walking the road of a co-conspirator. How much does she suspect and how much is she willing to put up with? Today she proved that it was not her first rodeo. Damn, what were the other mayors like!?!
Episode 6 checked off more items off my wish list, which I will wait to discuss in future recaps (hint: The Punisher PD and the Five Families) but also gave me one goofball moment that I did not know that I wanted. One of the bank hostages, Johnny Santini (Jimmy Palumbo), is back, and it turns out that he works for the sanitation department. It is so nice to have normal characters as palette cleansers, which is one reason that I miss Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson). Obviously, his friendship with Matt made him important, but he was not about that life and was just a person who suddenly had to deal with a lot of unexpected stuff, but did not take a fight class or change.
Cherry wins the idiot award. Matt was finally working, and Cherry distracts him. Hey, Cherry, if you do not want Matt to return to his vigilante life, maybe do not give him scoops about stuff that has nothing to do with him that he never asked you about! At least, when Angela does it, she is a kid and does not know about his secret identity. Kirsten Mcduffie (Nikki M James) actually appears on screen this time and discusses a case with Matt, but it sounds like gobbledygook. Just hire one attorney to consult. Make it me! No one cares about Matt as a lawyer except me. Matt’s prior case is not even referenced in passing so guess that Leroy Mancini (Charlie Hudson) is in Rikers and took the plea. Heather (Margarita Levieva) is a smart one, and maybe she played Kirsten to get set up with Matt because she may know even more about him than he expected. If she did not, Matt is sabotaging the relationship because he is officially hiding himself from her. Plus, she is seeing red flags, and it is not a parade.
Matt is praying again. My kingdom for captions because then I could google it to know what it symbolizes because it comes up a couple of times in the episode. For those unfamiliar with Matt, he gets more Catholic as he embraces the vigilante lifestyle more. That’s what you get when you pair a prize fighter with a nun. “Now that I’ve established St. Ives as a judge in the midst of his brethren, making him a friend and advocate of the poor do thou makest a wise decision steadfast in the pursuit of justice confident in that merciful goodness through Christ our lord who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit.” Do Catholics improv prayers like Protestants because I cannot find it, or I screwed up? Feedback requested! Bets on it being a “Pulp Fiction” (1994) thing where it sounds vaguely Biblical but is not. If it is Biblical, I’m losing my touch. Matt’s version of spirituality never worked for me, but still as a Christ follower, I enjoy following those threads in films and television.
We are not here for theology but fighting. Director David Boyd still cuts away more than I prefer, but like Michael Cuesta, he creates the illusion of continuity, so it feels as if you are watching a whole fight, not smoke, mirrors and CGI. You get a primal scream. You get a primal scream! Is the “clown suit” back? Not telling! Writer Thomas Wong gives Mayor Fisk some sick burns that were so good that I forgot that he was the bad guy for a minute. Broken clock rule. Boyd and Wong deserve kudos for intertwining the Netflix series seamlessly into this episode in subtle ways that the diehards would appreciate. They set the standard.
First true complaint that I am filing: no woman would go into an alley at night to talk to a masked man in New York. Please stop or add a disclaimer that they were out of towners. Episode 6 and “Scream VI” (2023) need to stop with that nonsense. I will not stand for it.
Episode 6 was a banger, and the momentum of the show keep going up. There are a lot of collisions on the horizon: Fisk and the Five Families, Punisher PD and vigilantes (another one was introduced in The BB Report), the masked villain and Daredevil/Punisher PD, Fisk and Vanessa, Matt and Heather, debt collectors and Murdock and Mcduffie. Will Frank Castle/The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) appear again or one and done? I know what I don’t want: a little girl becoming White Tiger. She’s only a baby!
