Welcome, everybody! Every week, I’ll release a review corresponding to the available episode(s) of the eight-episode, second season of “Daredevil: Born Again” (2026). After the last episode airs, there will be an overall review of the season with spoilers at the end if necessary. I’ve only done an episodic review two times before with disaster striking the second time and was honestly tempted to not bother trying again so thank you for coming along for my experiment! There will be spoilers for the prior episodes of Season 2 in this review.
Season 2 Episode 7 of “Daredevil: Born Again” is forty-four minutes long, the shortest of the second season! Newcomer Iain B. MacDonald is in the director’s chair the first time this season. Heather Bellson is back to write for the second time this season, and she wrote my favorite episode this season, Episode 3. Episode 7 is a dumb episode, but in a “Damnit, Jim, I’m a MCU comic book streaming series, not a police and law procedural show” kind of way so I’m not mad, just noting. It also does not hurt that Bellson curried favor and earned herself leeway. It does feel as if the second to last episode is required to be a little dumb. If it is not as dumb as the worst one, Season 1 Episode 8, I’ll look at it kindly.
Like an answer to prayer, Episode 6 brought back Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter). Good news: she has a daughter, Danielle (Annabelle and Isabella Ivley). Bad news: it means her strength goes in and out as a side effect because we can’t have nothing! Are you fucking kidding me!?! I’m pissed about this development, but so happy to see her that I’m willing to roll with it and see how it plays out for now before issuing judgment. In the first season, I noticed that all the comic book vigilantes got adopted without powers so no one would upstage Matt, but unfortunately, that rule seems to apply to Netflix heroes who existed before Season 1 too. This is not faithful to the comic book storyline. She revealed that she knew Mr. Charles (Matthew Lillard), and Ritter and Lillard have a scene in this episode. It is great, but Mr. Charles was just a glorified prose dumper to play Maury Povich to the audience and reveal the identity and whereabouts of Danielle’s Daddy. Seriously Mr. Charles did not get to that age being this incompetent. It is depressing. It feels as if I’m missing something: back off from what?
BB (Genneya Walton) never took the SD card out of her coat pocket for days, and Daniel (Michael Gandolfini) got it. I must bitch and moan about this development. I would not even keep that thing in my pocket longer than the drop off. It is so small. It could drop out. It could get damaged. In a series about people with powers, this development is the one that I could not buy. Suddenly BB is a shit journalist walking around with inflammatory shit in her pocket raw dogging lint and gravity. It is a nice green coat though. Anyway, BB and Daniel are letting it all hang out, and poor Daniel finally got BB to like him. Will both, either or neither be facing a curtain call?
You may have guessed at Episode 4 that Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) died, but because it was a little ambiguous, I did not want to explicitly mention it during the review for Episode 5. It was an audacious and realistic move that shakes things up because I don’t know where Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) goes from here. Fisk buys his inflammatory rhetoric, which is more disturbing than what he does if he catches someone.
I do know that people need to stop getting in arm’s reach of him. The Governor (Lili Taylor) made it clear that without Vanessa, she would stop backing Fisk, but they make it sound like she can fire him instead of talking about the charter. I am resisting temptation to research how to legally get rid of a NYC mayor because it will spoil the show for me, but basically everyone is worried that Fisk would kill her. It is the dumbest plot point of them all because you can’t just murder an elected official of that magnitude instead of staging it as an accident or an illness (right?). The only benefit of this storyline is that a character who has outlived their usefulness (not the Governor) gets to exit for now and possibly return later. Taylor is not being used enough.
Last time, Heather (Margarita Levieva) stole one of Vanessa’s pair of earrings. I do not remember if and why those particular earrings are important. Reach out if you get it. Ever the wild card, Fisk and Heather share a moment over missing Vanessa. He has the nerve to say that no one asked him how he was doing, which may be fair, but he has also killed and walked away from everyone talking to him except Daredevil (Charlie Cox), so it is less about people than Fisk. They both share a disdain for DA Ben Hochberg (John Benjamin Hickey), who still has the hots for Heather. Is the series setting up Vanessa’s successor? Not this early, but I hope not.
Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) got arrested last week, and she is behind bars. I need an Oliver Stone video essay with Kevin Costner narrating explaining how her wig got snatched. Was it deliberate because after rewinding it repeatedly, there is no way that it would get ripped off accidentally. She gets lots of visitors and starts strong with the mind games but does not have the stamina to land the plane. Baby steps. As predicted (well, hinted), Kirsten (Nikki M. James) is defending her in the vigilante trial, and the dialogue is dumb even for a kangaroo court proceeding, but probably exciting for people who do not know anything about the law and do not even watch “Law & Order” because people say faux profound things and someone makes an unexpected appearance that was predictable to me considering some developments throughout the second season. I hate when a scripted work decides to wrap things up using a trial to do it, especially when it is poorly done.
There is some more blue (NYPD) on blue (AVTF) crime that is so stupid, but to be fair, it was silly when it happened in Episode 1 and 2 though less obvious because when AVTF attacked Cherry, Cherry is retired, and in the hospital room, there was only smack talking, not a physical altercation. “Daredevil: Born Again” is bending over backwards to make sure that no one leaves the show confusing being anti-AVTF with anti-cop, but there was no danger in doing that because AVTF is clearly a parallel for a certain angular frozen water organization. Again, better job than “One Battle After Another” (2025) in using an organizational surrogate instead of just being lazy and dressing people in fatigues and being vaguely military. One development from that clash is very similar to what happened in Season 1 Episode 8, and I cannot believe that no one thought twice about doing it. This fight scene was meh because it involved cars and guns, but I’m only interested in martial arts. No fun violence in this episode.
Only one episode left. I need Mr. Charles to get his groove back or hope that his boss is more effective. How is Aunt Doris (Adriane Lenox)? How does Buck (Arty Froushan) handle the fallout of Daniel and BB’s (not) lovers quarrel? Will he get emotional or not miss a beat? Is Heather going to get therapy or embrace being a Sith? Who will die so Karen can live? Will I get a full powered Jessica Jones decent fight? Will other vigilantes join the fight? How will the Governor fight Fisk? Who is going to bring down Fisk and how?
