REVIEW: Daredevil: Born Again – Season 1, Episode 1, “Heaven’s Half Hour”

Television Reviews

Daredevil: Born Again may be the last straw for a lot of people when it comes to Marvel. The revival of the amazing Netflix series that introduced Matt Murdock and his street-level crime cesspool to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (don’t listen to all that “Now, Daredevil is part of the MCU” nonsense; it always was) is arriving at a moment when the once invincible MCU has been all but shattered by a seemingly endless parade of bad movies and shows. And it’s the perfect opportunity for Marvel to turn the tide; this show was so exquisitely executed, so well-received by fans, and so full of passionate writers and actors that it was a gift-wrapped success for a studio in desperate need of one. The series premiered tonight with two episodes, the first of which is called “Heaven’s Half Hour,” and if this is an indication of what we’re in for with Daredevil: Born Again, Marvel not only looked their gift horse in the mouth, they pulled out all its teeth – well, most of them, anyway.

After a tragedy, Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) hangs up his horns and gives up being Daredevil for good, attempting to move on to a new chapter in his life. But when Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) reemerges and runs for mayor of New York City, Matt feels the call to action stirring in him again, try as he might to fight it.

Daredevil: Born Again is a Disneyfied version of Daredevil, but not in the way that term is usually meant. It’s still dark and violent, with some cursing thrown in for good measure, but it doesn’t feel authentic. This is Disney trying to do what it thinks is a dark, gritty crime story, and it’s sort of like a little kid trying on his dad’s suit: it doesn’t fit right, the boy doesn’t know how to knot a tie, and everyone can see these aren’t his clothes. For Daredevil: Born Again, this means they make it violent, but they don’t know how to film it, so it never looks as good or gets your heart pumping the way the action scenes in Netflix’s Daredevil did. There’s an attempt to create energy, but the camera work is too stylized, so certain scenes feel like they’re desperate to get your attention and zip around instead of letting the camera linger on the characters the way Daredevil’s did. And there is the nagging thought that Marvel is doing what it’s been doing with its recent endeavors and mashing together different versions of a story that don’t fit… sometimes insultingly so.

***SPOILERS***

Remember how Daredevil: Born Again wasn’t going to have Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page and Elden Henson’s Foggy Nelson, two major characters who were vital to Matt’s development and personality, but fan outrage got them back? Well, they’re around at the beginning of “Heaven’s Half Hour,” and it dovetails nicely from the end of Daredevil season 3, when they resolved to reopen their law practice with the new name of Nelson, Murdock, and Page. All seems well enough; they go to Josie’s, they drink, Foggy tries to pick up a girl, Matt and Karen kinda-sorta flirt, and Foggy suddenly gets a text that springs Daredevil into action. Then, almost immediately, Foggy is killed off. Yep, that’s it; he’s dead, and Matt renounces being Daredevil because that’s the only story anyone in Hollywood can seem to tell about an established character anymore. The initial plan for Daredevil: Born Again was that Foggy and Karen would have been killed off-screen, and Matt would stop being Daredevil as a result. So, Marvel brought them back for five minutes only to do exactly what they were going to do anyway, with the difference being that Karen moves away instead of dying. I’m trying to divorce myself from this because it shouldn’t matter in terms of the story, but it really feels like Marvel is giving their fans a middle finger, and it pisses me off something fierce.

What makes it worse is how this comes about. There’s no preamble and no storytelling; Bullseye kills Foggy because he’s KUH-RAY-ZEE! It has no bearing on anything except as a device to get Matt to quit being a superhero and Karen to move to San Francisco. It also leads to what I think Daredevil: Born Again considers a hallway fight, and it’s not even in the same zip code as the ones from Daredevil. There’s also a ton of awful CGI to show Daredevil jumping across rooftops and doing gymnastics, which is another way this is a Disneyfied Daredevil – that and how it leads to Matt starting a new law firm with a new character, Kirsten McDuffie, who, by total coincidence, is a black woman. To be fair, Kirsten McDuffie is a character from the comics – she was introduced in the dreaded Mark Waid run – but knowing Disney, it’s difficult to believe this didn’t happen because Foggy wasn’t diverse enough. Speaking of that kind of thing, Matt is a lot whinier in Daredevil: Born Again, particularly when he’s begging Karen to have coffee with him; it’s completely out of character, and it makes him look pathetic, which, I’m sure, was the point. But don’t worry; the show assures us that Karen not wanting to talk to him is all Matt’s fault.

Elsewhere, Wilson Fisk emerges from being bedridden for several months, and he decides to run for mayor because… I don’t know, things and stuff, I guess. His wife Vanessa has been running his criminal enterprises while he’s been recovering from the events of Echo (which are kept vague, thankfully), and the dialogue between them has none of the heat, wit, or tenderness it did in Daredevil. It also really irks me that Daredevil: Born Again establishes that Vanessa has been cheating on Fisk; it’s like they don’t know these characters at all, or they just don’t care that Fisk and Vanessa adore each other and would never stray. (I think the latter is likely true, as this feels like another attack on devotional love from Disney, like Janet Van Dyne cheating on Hank Pym and being self-righteous about it in Quantumania.) But Fisk runs, and he wins, and he resolves to put his criminal life behind him. There is some potential here, and the parallel between Fisk and Matt is clear: they’re both trying to deny who they really are (which is the same theme as season 1 of Daredevil). They’re also trying to prevent each other from falling back on their old ways, with Matt threatening to take Fisk down if he goes evil and Fisk outlawing vigilantes to make Daredevil disappear. This could, conceivably, get better, but after sitting through “Heaven’s Half Hour,” I’m not betting on it.

The performances in “Heaven’s Half Hour” are all over the map. Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio are still great, and they do what they can with some bad material, particularly Cox, who’s clearly struggling to keep Daredevil: Born Again in line with the much better show that spawned it. D’Onofrio is more restrained, playing a version of Wilson Fisk that maintains his calm while trying to be respectable. Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson are barely in this episode, but they’re good while they’re around. Ayelet Zurer, who was fantastic in Daredevil, doesn’t have the same spark she did there, likely because the writing is failing her. As for the new characters, Nikki M. James plays Kirsten McDuffie, and she’s fine, although she doesn’t have much to do in this episode besides fill in some exposition. Margarita Levieva portrays Matt’s new love interest, a therapist named Heather Glenn (also from the comics) whom Kirsten sets him up with, and she’s actually pretty good; I figured this would be a lame character, but I like her just fine. Then, there’s Michael Gandolfini, who plays an intern on Wilson Fisk’s mayoral campaign, and he’s awful; he’s the most over-the-top Gen Z stereotype you can imagine, and while he’s only in one scene, he makes you beg for it to end.

There are plenty of plot holes if you consider this a follow-up to Daredevil – which it is – as well. Remember the end of Daredevil season 3, when Fisk agreed to stay in prison and leave Matt’s friends alone, and in return, Matt wouldn’t release evidence that would put Vanessa in jail? Well, Fisk is out of jail, there’s no explanation as to how, and Matt seems to have forgotten that he demanded Fisk stay incarcerated. The notion of him getting Vanessa arrested is never mentioned. After Foggy is killed, it never once crosses Matt’s mind that Fisk could be behind it. (A better story would have been Bullseye killing Foggy to make Matt think it was Fisk.) Daredevil: Born Again goes to greater lengths to tie itself to Echo than Daredevil, which shows you where Marvel’s priorities are. The show also never explains how Bullseye is out of prison; nobody even bothers to mention that he escaped. Daredevil: Born Again is more lazy Marvel writing from people who clearly don’t care anymore, and I dread watching how this series plays out.

Let us know what you thought of the Daredevil: Born Again premiere in the comments!

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