When Daredevil: Born Again begins, it seems all is well for Nelson, Murdock, and Page, laughing and joking their way from the office to a retirement party for Cherry, an old cop friend of theirs. With a familiar loud, sweeping Marvel score behind its speedy re-introduction to New York City, “Heaven’s Half Hour” settles into a place only familiar to the opening scenes of Daredevil seasons; our three old friends, laughing together and enjoying a rare moment of peace in their little corner of Hell’s Kitchen.
And then Bullseye kills Foggy Nelson.
Daredevil: Born Again‘s big story twist feels like a surprisingly brave one for a late-era Marvel reincarnation; in many ways, Foggy Nelson’s earnest pursuit of justice and happiness provided a balance to Daredevil‘s consistently grim-dark story of gangsters with ham-sized fists, ninja clans, and religious introspection, grounding the fisticuffs and mobster (or eastern crime syndicate) stories in a character simply trying to be the best human being he could be. In many ways, his death is the perfect impetus to kick off a new Daredevil story, one that immediately disrupts the status quo of the old Netflix series, while providing an appropriately emotionally charged center to whatever dark places it would lead Matt and Karen to.
However, the real surprise is what comes next; Daredevil: Born Again leaves Matt crying on a building, Karen crying over Foggy’s dead body, and Bullseye twitching on the road and immediately jumps forward a year; a choice that immediately undercuts the emotional potency of Foggy’s death, allowing the series to have a shocking moment without having to deal with its emotional fallout; those scars are hardened by the time we return to Matt and his new law firm (started with former DA Kirsten McDuffie), and we spend most of the opening hour with a slightly brooding Matt going on his first few dates with his new therapist girlfriend Heather Glenn (a deep pull from the Daredevil comics, being a character who hasn’t appeared in any significant way since the mid-1980s).
It’s an incredibly odd choice – and frankly, it makes the whole opening sequence feel like the byproduct of the creative overhaul the series has gone through since its reincarnation. The lack of time spent in the wake of Foggy’s death is a strange decision, one that makes Born Again feel like it didn’t actually have a great reason for killing Foggy, except to have a shocking event to kick the series back to life after nearly seven years since “A New Napkin”, Daredevil‘s underwhelming final Netflix chapter – and its arguable whether this twist really accomplishes that in any meaningful way. After all, we get some solemn looks from Matt when he goes to Bullseye’s sentencing a year after Foggy’s death – where he has an awkward reunion with a reluctant Karen, in her only scenes in the episode – but that’s really all there is, with an episode mostly busy trying to justify how Wilson Fisk could so quickly ascend to mayoral power.
It makes his death feel manipulative, and in the moment, incredibly hollow; though there’s eight episodes to see how Daredevil: Born Again develops its story, which may resolve some of this plot device’s cheapness, it is treated more like a show cauterizing off its old identity, rather than the catalyst for a story about Matt’s journey back to Daredevil, and all the internal conflicts that come with it, which it is clearly intended to do. However, with Matt immediately hanging up the sticks and Karen running away to San Francisco, “Heaven’s Half Hour” would rather allude to these conflicts with its characters rather than engaging with them in front of the audience’s eyes, which cheapens the impact of moments like Matt’s first smile since his best friend’s death, or Karen’s emotional journey back east to bury her friend and mentor.
It would be less disappointing to see Daredevil: Born Again just skip over the most inherently interesting, emotional parts of its own premise, if the rest of the nearly 60-minute long episode didn’t feel like an entirely unnecessary preamble. After all, the goal of this episode is to get Fisk elected (which happens incredibly easily, with no real conflict or development whatsoever; it just happens, as if season three didn’t end with Nadeem’s video about his crimes going very public) and get Murdock and Fisk in a room together for a little nod to Heat; these things are treated as inevitabilities from the moment they’re introduced, pushing Karen and any philosophical musings about vigilantes and morality to the side, for a rather straightforward, almost entirely actionless episode (except for the opening fight scene, a poor, CGI-laden imitation of the iconic scenes of Daredevil‘s first two seasons) about two men pretending things have changed, when surrounded by a world and ongoing narrative universe that wants to do anything but.
Even that idea would be interesting, if “Heaven’s Half Hour” engaged with it a bit deeper; but the descents of Murdock and Fisk both seems almost predetermined, their verbal jabbing and sneering faces laid bare against a naked backdrop. Though this episode is an hour long, there is surprisingly little meat on the bone; there are hints of conflicts with Wilson Fisk’s marriage (Vanessa has turned his illegal dealings into a “bulletproof” endeavor, while we also get a wholly unnecessary breadcrumb about some guy named Adam that Wilson “knows about”) and potential clients at Matt’s law firm, but Daredevil: Born Again both moves on quickly from Foggy’s death, while managing to be inexplicably inert whenever in its present day.
We’ll see if Daredevil: Born Again is able to find and embrace the core of whatever story it is using “Heaven’s Half Hour” to set up; unfortunately, how the first episode depicts its priorities through its scatterbrained plot is unsettlingly unclear. There are hints of the old, violent and contemplative Daredevil here in Born Again, but its mostly relegated to small pockets, while we fill our time with cringe-y scenes introducing characters like sneering campaign volunteer Daniel Blake (no doubt an allegorical character for the modern, Gen Z conservative influencer, but my god it’s bad) and whatever the fuck Vanessa is up to under Wilson’s nose (which… why he’s becoming mayor and suddenly becoming a dude who loves cops is weird – guess he really enjoyed that protective custody in season three?).
By skipping the aftermath of Foggy’s death and spending its time instead ominously (and poorly at that) teasing stories and conflicts still yet to come, “Heaven’s Half Hour” is deficient at honoring its predecessor and making a case for its own existence (there are hints of other stories, like a hero named White Tiger taking up Daredevil’s mantle) really limits the emotional and dramatic tenor of the hour. And without really introducing any of the season’s larger narratives (except that Wilson as mayor is obviously a bad thing), “Heaven’s Half Hour” is also not really a great episode to reintroduce, or acclimate, audiences to its world of broken noses, bloodstains, and the occasional rosary bead; instead, it just kind of exists, somewhere in between what it was and whatever it aspires to be, the latter of which I really hope the next few episodes painstakingly establish, or this is going to feel pointless fast.
Grade: C-
Other thoughts/observations:
- welcome to Daredevil: Born Again reviews! I’ve covered various episodes of the original series, in both review and podcast form. While I always loved the series’ most contemplative and creatively violent moments, its consistent issues with pacing and character development are something I hope this new series can improve upon.
- It is hilarious how Fisk writes off the five hours of Echo in about two sentences. Good riddance to that underwhelming miniseries!
- Though I’m encouraged to see Daredevil: Born Again keep some of the more TV-MA elements of the series, if there’s just bloodshed without any of the introspection, it’s going to feel incredibly hollow by the end of the season.
- how many episodes until Bullseye is on the loose? Four? Five?
- Fisk sees making a list of registered vigilantes is like “making a grocery list of cancers”. I have missed his bombastic dialogue, and D’Onforio clearly hasn’t lost a step.
- The leaner physicality of Fisk, which Morduck notes, makes for a very different looking version of Wilson. He’s a bit more worn down, but lean in a way that’s clearly dangerous, and it makes for an unsettling combination.
- “Protection makes them scared. Profit makes them loyal.” Vanessa, killing Business 101.
- I gotta say, I’m not loving the score or how it was deployed in this episode.
- “I will not tolerate people running around in silly costumes”. Fisk, my man – have you not seen New York in the past ten years?
- Episode two review tomorrow!