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Daredevil Born Again: The Northern Star – S02E01 - RECAP
@skiptvads
Posted 2h ago · 7 min read
There is a version of Matt Murdock that every person who spent time with the Netflix series already know back and forward, the layer of the guy who fights for people in a courtroom during the day and puts on the mask at night when the system fails them, and both sides of that equation mattered equally because without one the other just does not land the same way and often we watching stopping and redoing things because one side keeps pulling the other. Born Again Season 2 opens with that version of the character already gone, pushed offscreen in favor of a man who is essentially running on pure vigilante instinct, no law office, no civilian anchor, just Daredevil doing Daredevil things for ninety percent of the the time he is on screen and the show seems to think that is enough to carry the weight of a character this specific its just so the opposite of season 1 and its not even close. I have been a Charlie Cox fan since day one of this whole thing then Affleck did the character, yeah before Batfleck there was DareDevil, but this time its Charlie Cox who perfect the character and the way he plays Matt is so tied to that dual identity tension that stripping one side out leaves you watching a show that looks premium and feels fundamentally incomplete and I noticed that absence from the very first scene like there is something missing, as the first episode I actually felt kinda lost but not bored neither hate it, it felt rusty.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18923754/
- Platform: DISNEY+
The episode starts on the East River at night, Daredevil boarding a freighter called the Northern Star that turns out to be carrying a mountain of military grade weapons being smuggled straight into the city, and the moment the crew decides to sink the entire ship rather than risk getting caught tells you more about how deep Wilson Fisk has his hands in everything and if he gets caught his reputation falls down along with everyone next to him. Vincent D'Onofrio plays Fisk as the Mayor of New York and the show uses that political power beautifully in a scene where a new character named Mr. Charles, played by Matthew Lillard, just casually strolls into the middle of a standoff between Fisk and the Attorney General carrying fast food and proceeds to make the whole problem evaporate through connections that run higher than anything even Fisk can access and that scene right there made me sit up straight because Lillard brings this unsettling energy to the role that feels like something the show needed badly. D'Onofrio doing his thing across a dinner table from someone who clearly outranks him while barely holding the monster in check, that is the kind of scene this show does better than almost anything else on streaming atm, and it added something real to a premiere that needed more of those specific electric moments.
The part of this episode and basically ever since Season one and honestly idk nobody does anything about it or even complain is how the Punisher symbol is being used by the anti vigilante task force, these cops running around with that skull on their gear while Jon Bernthal is nowhere near the story, essentially adopting the icon of a character who would absolutely not endorse that use for more than two or ten reasons, and the show does not give anyone in a position of authority a single moment of pushback against it which makes the whole thing feel sloppy and unearned, although keep in mind Im not a comics guy so Im not sure if this is how it happens in the comics, lets keep in mind that this series are trying to stick to the lore of the comics. Karen Page is back and the chemistry between her and Charlie Cox is still one of the most underrated things in this whole series but the arguments the show gives them to have about the definition of justice and when it is acceptable to go all the way on someone feel recycled from conversations these characters already had years ago, and dressing them up with better cameras and a bigger budget does not make them feel like new territory. The Bullseye tease at the end, a knife landing near Matt with a message carved into the blade, should have me losing my mind and instead it just made me feel like the show is making promises that the season will need to work hard to actually keep, but yeah for sure I was like "YES!!!" they brought him back.
The behind the scenes chaos that reportedly happened during production, creative overhauls and a whole new team coming in as things were rolling out, you can feel some of that in the way certain threads seem to belong to a different version of the same show but dont get me wrong because it all seems for the best, like pieces that were inherited rather than built from scratch with a single clear vision behind them. The original Netflix series, had a smooth purpose across its best seasons that made the legal drama and the street level violence feel like two parts of the same conversation and what Born Again keeps bumping into is that removing the courtroom from the equation does not make the mask feel more important because Matt just keep that inner battle within himself as DareDevil loose himself into fights but also there are just split seconds when his other side tells him got to do things right, like why he didnt want Fix to be killed since it would turn him into a victim, idk at times it just makes the whole thing feel lopsided. Margarita Levieva as Heather Glenn is barely given room to exist as a full person in these early scenes and with a character named Muse apparently circling her situation as a threat, that needs to change fast because right now the writing is leaving real potential sitting on the table untouched and a show running this many threads at once cannot afford to waste that kind of resource, I mean they just got to do it, they must.
Looking at where this season is pointed, Mr. Charles as a power player who can make even Fisk flinch is the most interesting thing Born Again has going for it right now and that relationship deteriorating across ten episodes has enough potential friction to generate something worth watching if the writers know what they have on their hands. The anti vigilante law fallout and how it affects regular people in the city is handled with enough detail and character that makes it feel grounded, almost like Fisk has finally brought the city to its knees now working for him, which is where this kind of show always works best, and the ship sequence production quality is flat out impressive specially the fight scenes, nobody can say it looks cheap. A show built around a character this good needs both engines running at the same time, and right now Born Again Season 2 is flying on solo, which means it covers distance but not the kind that takes your breath away, we need more from the bad guys other than Fisk trying to take out DareDevil from his desk and everyone around him failing to accomplish their only task, take down DareDevil. This first episode its a 7 out of 10 for me, the cast is still worth your time and the new additions ar promising, but the season needs to bring Matt Murdock the attorney back into the room fast, because Daredevil without that other half is just a very well dressed action show, and this character deserves better than that.
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