Daredevil: Born Again Season 2

Streaming on: Disney+

Episodes viewed: 8 of 8

The construction of Daredevil: Born Again’s first season was infamously Frankensteinian. A creative overhaul mid-production — complete with new writers and stronger ties to Daredevil’s Netflix incarnation — was the right call, but it left a patchy, incomplete residue in its wake. With its sophomore effort, returning showrunner Dario Scardapane has the benefit of presenting one unified vision from beginning to end. The result is a season that’s not only better than its immediate predecessor, but in some ways as good as Daredevil has ever been on screen.

As ever, the biggest reasons for that are Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio. As Daredevil — now clad in a black-and-red suit, with comics-accurate interlocking Ds — and Fisk, they routinely plumb the depths of their characters’ emotions, even when the writing is broadly familiar.

Speaking of hitting hard, the brutal action is a consistent highlight.

As their eternal psychological chess game continues, Scardapane interrogates some depressingly relevant political themes: whether evidence still matters, the cost of integrity, and how even the smallest act of rebellion can make an impact. When Fisk’s Anti-Vigilante Task Force sticks random New York citizens into vans for no reason at all, it’s hard not to think about what’s happening in the real world, and it makes everything hit that much harder.

Speaking of hitting hard, the brutal action is a consistent highlight. While it doesn’t aim for the ambitious long takes that helped put Daredevil on the map when it first debuted, there are multiple beautifully shot and immaculately choreographed sequences that leave their mark. Many of them involve Benjamin Poindexter, aka Bullseye (Wilson Bethel, having more fun in the role than ever before), for whom everything in his vicinity is a potentially lethal weapon.

More standout action sequences arrive when Daredevil teams up with Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter). One of the few positives in The Defenders was their fun dynamic, and it’s a geeky delight to see them share the screen again, especially as it unlocks Daredevil’s lighter side.

It all leads to a conclusion that feels much more satisfying and consequential than the cliffhanger of Born Again’s first season, shaking things up in a way that we haven’t seen before while paving the way to the future with a few familiar faces. If it’s as strong as this batch of episodes, it’s cause for excitement.