The finale of “Daredevil: Born Again’s” first season couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune moment. What began as a cat-and-mouse game between vigilante Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and drug-lord Wilson Fisk/Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) has escalated into a full-fledged political thriller, with New York City descending into a fascist state under its criminal mayor—a development that eerily mirrors the start of the current Trump 2.0 era. The MCU’s New York has started to unnervingly mirror our own bleak and broken American system, starting with Fisk’s establishment of an anti-vigilante task force akin to ICE, and working-class citizens attempting to expose his crimes against the city and its residents, with no prevailing hope.
“Born Again’s” sophomore season offers some catharsis in a more narratively focused, albeit weaker, follow-up that shares a closer identity with the original Netflix series, for better and for worse.
The season’s opening scene follows Matt preventing a ship that’s smuggling illegal arms for Fisk’s Anti-Vigilante Task Force (AVTF), which reignites their rivalry. He and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) have rekindled their romance and are working with a small team—NYPD officer Cherry (Clark Johnson), journalist BB Urich (Genneya Walton), and Murdock & McDuffie lawyer Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James)—to take down Fisk’s operation.
Meanwhile, an uprising grows in New York’s underworld, sparked by an anonymous video whistleblower who wears a Fisk mask in the Guy Fawkes style. Additionally, more innocent citizens beyond his anti-vigilante initiative—critics, journalists, people he had petty grievances with—are imprisoned at a secret detainment camp. When Dex/Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) has a change of heart and sets his sights on Fisk and his people, everyone is thrown off balance.
As Matt and Karen clash over moral compasses and the situation escalates, even Jessica Jones (a still commanding Krysten Ritter) gets pulled back in to help take back New York City.
In “Born Again”’s first season, showrunner Dario Scardapane struggled to reestablish the Man Without Fear within Disney’s newly minted TV-MA MCU while properly integrating him into the wider universe. The lack of connective tissue remains distracting in this sophomore season. Not due to forced Disney synergy, but a lack of acknowledgement of the expansive universe. The Mayor Fisk regime exists almost entirely in Daredevil’s self-contained world, which feels increasingly implausible given its scale, the heroes who occupy it, and the recent events that have occurred in-universe. Fisk’s NYC is too widespread to be illustrated in isolation.
That disconnect is hard to ignore, especially after the first season’s Yousef Khan-centric (Mohan Kapur) bottle episode and last year’s “Thunderbolts” climax set in the supposed Fisk-run NYC. Heck, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine gets a brief nod, and that’s the best you get of a New Avengers mention. Add to that the upcoming NYC-set “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” featuring The Punisher/Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), who is often mentioned here but has no onscreen presence, despite being a prominent player last season. While there’s value in keeping the narrative focused, this amount of negligence upon integration across its current timeline weakens the already tenuous continuity. But don’t worry, Punisher’s upcoming TV special surely will bridge the gap between events because that’s what the MCU always does.
The series continues the first season’s sins of integrating far too many dull players who hardly contribute to the overarching plot, or of once-interesting characters turning boring due to weak characterization, or of favoring new, unnecessary players. For example, Matthew Lillard’s Bugs Bunny-esque CIA power broker, Mr. Charles, is a fun, intimidating addition that taps into his current “Lillard-issance,” but he contributes nothing to the overall plot. While the wider city’s involvement adds scope, the characters themselves feel stuck, making the heightened stakes ring hollow.
There’s a positive promotion of the original series alums: Woll’s Karen takes on a more prominent role, reigniting the fierce, strong-willed passion absent last season. Bethel’s Bullseye is a star scene-stealer, as his face turn is as exciting and fun as you can imagine—like seeing the best player in the league you’ve grown to hate join your home team. Then. Though this season is keen on reestablishing the long-awaited return of Jessica Jones, it comes belatedly, and the writing doesn’t do much work to cohesively bring her back to the fold, despite Ritter’s warm return.
Stakes do escalate in “Born Again,” season 2, leading to shocking developments, well-choreographed bloody action scenes, and solid surprises. However, much of it is lackluster due to the lack of meaningful new challenges for Matt. It’s frustrating to see the writers fall back on his no-kill rule against a climate eerily reflective of our own, and at his low point. While Fisk and his ICE-like regime rack up an undeniable body count—detaining innocent citizens under the guise of realism—Matt still clings to lawfulness as his path to justice. It’s true to his character, but after over a decade of following these characters on two different streaming services, the Matt–Fisk chess match feels exhausted, spinning its wheels and only reinforcing that stagnation.
Even with Cox and D’Onofrio at the top of their game, their ongoing moral debates no longer evolve. Matt continues to project his rigid definition of justice onto other vigilantes, or even on Karen, who are arguably more effective. Despite his losses—Foggy, a city under siege—he remains the same “dastardly do-gooder,” as the Fawkes-Kingpin frames him, which feels misaligned with the story’s urgency. The repetition extends to the structure itself, with each episode relying on the same intercutting juxtaposition between Fisk’s cruel commands and Matt and Karen’s resistance during heightened story turns. Even as the series draws on one of the 2020s’ most defining real-world events to frame its finale, it rarely strays from familiar ground.
In the end, as “Daredevil: Born Again” season 2 mirrors our current fascist moment while hinting at triumph, its restrictive character writing and dull, self-contained storytelling result in a middling, slow-building season—one that feels more promising for what’s on the horizon than what it delivers now.
Whole season screened for review. Airs Tuesdays on Disney+.
