Josh Reviews Daredevil: Born Again Season Two

Season one of Daredevil: Born Again wasn’t nearly as strong as I’d hoped it would be, but I think I gave it a pass, despite its failings, because of how delighted I was by the idea of fully incorporating the Netflix Daredevil show and characters into the MCU.  I also knew the show had a wild production process, in which a huge chunk of the season was entirely reworked and reshot midway.  So I think I gave the show the benefit of the doubt, even though I thought the storytelling was messy and the tone was off.  (The show was far more dour than I’d hoped it would be.  I loved seeing Matt in Spider-Man: No Way Home and then as a cheerful version of Daredevil in one episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, but Born Again felt to me like a slide into some of the less appealing aspects of the Netflix shows.)

I was hoping that season two would improve upon season one, but unfortunately for the most part I found season two of this show to be a mess.  I enjoyed it less than season one.  I thought the first four episodes of the season were very frustrating to watch.  The show failed to build upon the events of the season one finale, and I found the narrative to be almost shockingly inconsistent and incoherent.  Things got better in episode five, which contained some interesting flashbacks that helped remind me why I liked these characters.  In episodes six and seven, I was still frustrated by major aspects of the show’s storytelling, but I felt like the show had finally picked up some momentum and captured my interest.  Sadly, the episode eight season finale was disappointing to me on many levels.  So overall I’d say this season was a big miss for me.

The tone of this show is not what I want it to be.  It’s unrelentingly grim and dark, and I found it tiresome.  I like superhero stories where the heroes are truly challenged.  The Dark Knight is one of my all-time favorite superhero movies, and Batman loses over and over again in that film.  But here, the grimness just felt dull to me.

The first season had some choppy storytelling, but I assumed that was a result of the tumultuous production process.  But here in season two, I found the storytelling to be even more inconsistent.  I was really surprised by this.  It felt so sloppy to me.  Was this season also dramatically reworked in editing?  It certainly feels that way.  Over and over again I found the sequence of scenes to be confusing and inconsistent.  Early in the season, Daredevil gets access to one of Fisk’s goon’s access cards, and the guy specifically says that they change the code every day at midnight.  But then we see a full day pass (at least!) before DD breaks into their facility on the docks.  That is so sloppy!  Or here’s another example: was [redacted] buried the same day she died?  It sure seems that way, because Daniel and Buck are on a one-night adventure to bury a body that starts when she’s still in the hospital and ends the day of her funeral.  Time and again it felt like the show’s chronology was messy and needlessly confusing, rather than scenes flowing smoothly from one into the next.

The scale of the season felt too small to me.  Wilson Fisk has declared war against all vigilantes in New York City, but the only vigilante we see other than Daredevil is Tony Dalton as Jack Duquesne (the Swordsman).  But we never actually see the Swordsman in action!  I love Tony Dalton (he was magnificent as Lalo in Better Call Saul) and he’s great in every one of his scenes here, but I thought he was pretty much wasted.  The Swordsman should have been a huge part of season one, to make his incarceration and trial feel significant here.  Instead it just feels painfully small-scale, with this one guy in normal clothes supposed to represent all vigilantes.  Where’s Spider-Man?  (Matt appeared in No Way Home, and we know Frank Castle will be in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, so Marvel has been emphasizing to us that Spider-Man lives in the same NYC as these characters!)  Where’s Echo?  (It’s sort of strange that Born Again shows us that she twice tried and failed to defeat the Kingpin, as seen in the end of Hawkeye and her own show.)  Speaking of Hawkeye, where’s Kate Bishop?  Where’s Dr. Strange, who we know lives in New York?  Where are the Netflix Defenders?

Why has the Punisher totally vanished from this story, despite his being a huge part of season one??  That’s so weird and disappointing!  I really enjoyed seeing Jon Bernthal back as Frank Castle in Born Again season one, though I was terribly disappointed by the unsatisfying way they left his story in the season one finale.  That disappointment is only magnified here, because we don’t get any more of his story and just are left with that letdown of an ending from season one.  It’s wild to me that they thought audiences wouldn’t object to Frank’s disappearing from this story.  We don’t even get any scenes of anyone on the show wondering where he’s gone?  For all they know he’s still Fisk’s prisoner.  (One short exchange between Matt and Karen in episode 3 is all we get.). What a bummer.

I wasn’t wild by the season one finale’s lame tease of Daredevil assembling his own version of Dumbledore’s Army, because there were no major characters to be seen.  I thought maybe season two would find a way to give Matt & Karen some bigger-name allies, but for the whole first half of the season the show goes the other direction.  Instead of having a secret army, it seems that Matt and Karen are working all on their own.  Even the two friendly cops glimpsed for a second in the season one finale are gone, banished except for one 10-second scene knocking on Josie’s door in the middle of the season.

The Netflix Daredevil show never got Daredevil’s costume right, and as a result he spent most of those 3 seasons out of costume.  Marvel went and gave us a perfect version of DD’s yellow and red duds on She-Hulk, so I was bummed to see DD back in an all-black costume here.  We’d already seen DD all in black in season three of the Netflix show.  So it felt like “been there, done that” to me.  Why can’t we just get a great version of DD’s most famous red suit???  One positive note is  that I liked seeing, as the season continued, that some of the red started peeking through DD’s costume.  I thought we were seeing something metaphorical here, that as Matt journeyed back to the light, we’d see the black paint rubbed off of his costume to reveal the classic red underneath.  That would have been cool, but we didn’t get a moment like that in the finale.  Bummer.

We do get a lot of cool action this season, though the show is more violent than I want.  I don’t need to see Daredevil graphically break a guy’s arm, for instance, and I found it annoying that Matt was always yelling while he was fighting.  (Isn’t he a ninja??)  But I loved seeing DD use his billy club a LOT in the fights this year.  That was very cool, and an important piece from the comics that we’d never really seen depicted before.

The overall idea behind this season’s story is very cool.  Wilson Fisk has been elected Mayor of NYC and he uses his newfound authority to declare all vigilantes illegal and make life hell for Matt Murdock and his allies.  That should have been a very cool story!!  I wish the show had felt more compelling to me.

The best aspect of this season is accidental — this season was created before most of the awful actions of ICE across the United States, and the public protests that followed.  But without meaning to, this season became pointedly political, with Fisk’s armored thugs looking and acting a whole heck of a lot like ICE agents, pushing the regular police aside and using their violent, laws-be-damned tactics to enforce a fascist leader’s whims.  Time and again, watching this season, I was struck by how closely the events of this fictional superhero show seemed to echo the reality we’ve seen in the U.S. for the past year or so.  That was pretty cool, and gave the show added emotional weight.

Unfortunately, I think the show wound up on the wrong side of history.  It’s satisfying to see, in the season finale, the people of New York unite against a fascist leader and his armed goons.  But it’s strange and unsettling to see the show side with a masked mob invading a public building.  There were too many shades of January 6th in that finale for me to be comfortable.  (Not to mention all of the masked, violent pro-Hamas protestors who have been spreading Jew hatred across the U.S. in the past two years.)  This was a bizarre, somewhat tone-deaf choice for the show to take.  (While the show was produced AFTER much of the recent conflicts with ICE across the U.S., the echoes of January 6th certainly should have been something the writers should have been aware of.)

SPOILERS ahead as I did in a little deeper.  If you haven’t yet watched this season, and you want to remain unspoiled, stop reading here!!

As I wrote above, the first half of this season was very rough.  Time and again I rolled my eyes at what felt to me like sloppy storytelling and choppy editing that did a disservice to the narrative.  Here are a few examples: they structure much of the early episodes with Daredevil seeming not to care about all the awful things we’re seeing happen to civilians all over the city.  In episode two, DD spends the entire episode watching Fisk’s base on the docks, while the bodega owner and White Tiger’s mom are getting arrested and brutalized by Fisk’s goons.   DD should be helping the people of his city!  But the way the show is structured, it’s like he doesn’t even care.  DD is pretty spectacularly ineffective for most of the season, playing defense against Fisk and not able to really protect anyone – he even lets Vanessa get killed, despite his being there to try to protect her and Fisk from Bullseye.

More sloppy storytelling: Fisk is apparently hunting Matt and Karen, but he can’t figure out that they’re hiding out in Josie’s Bar, where they used to drink every night?  Vanessa even knew to send Bullseye there to shoot Foggy!  There’s a big deal made of a boxing match in episode four, but the show does a terrible job of setting that up.  It’s unclear who Fisk is fighting, why it’s happening, or what Fisk’s goal is with the event.  These are just a few examples.

I liked the continuity of seeing Matt go back to his mom’s church, but I thought it was lame that we don’t get to actually see her.  Why have Matt back in that church if they’re not going to include his mom (who was on the Netflix show) here?  Then there’s the very strange scene in episode four in which Matt walks into the church and asks the priest for help, all while wearing the horrible fascist ATV uniform with the Punisher skull on it.  Why on Earth would the priest help someone he thinks is one of Fisk’s evil goons??  Matt totally should have been in his Daredevil costume for that scene.  In that same episode, I rolled my eyes that Karen entrusts the first mate of the Northern Star — who they desperately need to protect because he has real dirt on Fisk — to some unnamed marshals.  Of course they’re all immediately killed by Buck.  Sigh.

Things picked up in episode five.  I was quite taken by the opening of the episode, and the terrific performance by Vincent D’Onofrio, showing Fisk’s rage and grief about Vanessa.  I thought the flashback structure was strong, and it really reminded me why I cared about these characters.  I liked seeing Foggy (Elden Henson) back.  (I know some online fans hate Foggy, but I always liked him and I think it’s a shame the show killed him off.  Having said that, I’m glad they brought him back via flashback, rather than a lame reversal of that death.)  I liked all the Fisk and Vanessa stuff, and I loved seeing the return of the white painting (that was such an important plot point on the Netflix show).  I liked seeing Fisk’s right-hand man Wesley back, and I liked seeing how Fisk met Buck.

Bullseye’s speech was moving, though I wish the show had done a better job at (re-)establishing Bullseye’s backstory.  I liked having Bullseye involved in Born Again, and I think Wilson Bethel is solid in the role.  But I don’t remember season 3 of the Netflix show well enough to remember much about this version of Bullseye’s backstory.  As a result, I never quite understood Bullseye’s story this season.  He wants revenge on Fisk/Vanessa, but he skips several seemingly clear chances to kill them, then he tries to even the scales with Matt… but for what?  For killing Foggy?  Why does that one innocent death bother him?  We see him kill a dude to take his scooter this season!  I never quite understood where Bullseye’s head was at, nor why Matt let him go at the end of the season.  (Not killing him doesn’t have to mean just letting him walk free!)  But anyway, I digress, I liked Bullseye’s speech in this episode, and overall I liked the theme of mercy running through all the stories.

I thought the fake-out, with Vanessa seeming to recover but then dying, was strong.  They did fool me!  I really liked this character, and Ayelet Zurer’s strong work in the role, so I’m sorry they killed her off.  It was strange how this Vanessa seemed like a very different character than the more innocent Vanessa from the Netflix seasons.  I never quite was able to square the two different versions.  But I liked this version, and I’m bummed to see her go.  Still, it definitely was a strong emotional wallop at the end of episode five.  Watching that episode, I kept thinking to myself, why weren’t all the other episodes of this show as good as this one??

Episode six FINALLY brought back Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones.  I’m thrilled to have Ms. Ritter back as Jessica.  I enjoyed every minute of her here; my complaint is I wish they’d used her more!  I like that she has a daughter Danielle (just like in the comics, as written by Brian Michael Bendis).  I liked that first shot we got of Jessica was of her black boot.  Still, I thought her reintroduction on that rooftop scene was strangely anticlimactic.  I wanted her return to feel more momentous.  I also didn’t love the choice to have her powers be on the fritz.  They never really gave an explanation for that, nor did it really ever enter into the plot in any significant way.  Writers: work harder to find ways to challenge your super-powered characters!!

We got a very interesting Matt-Karen scene in episode six that dug deep into referencing the continuity from the old show: Bullseye & Matt’s original fight, and Karen’s killing of Wesley.  On the one hand, I was pleasantly surprised to see the show embracing these storylines and character beats from the old show — but are they really expecting audiences to remember this stuff from a decade ago??  I’m a pretty hard-core fan, and I was confused at times.

We also get that absolutely bonkers scene in which Heather sneaks into the Fisk’s bedroom (an insane act) and then encourages Buck to strangle her.  Wowsers!!!  I was not expecting to see such a weird and kinky scene on the show.  Heather is yet another character who I think has potential — and I really like the actress Margarita Levieva — but I don’t think the show serviced her well.  Again, on paper, this is a cool idea: she responds to her trauma by becoming the figure who traumatized her.  That’s a wild and fascinating idea.  But for much of the season, I had trouble tracking Heather’s emotions and why she was doing any of what she was doing.  I didn’t believe the character would actually make these choices or take these actions (like slapping Karen in episode seven, which just seemed crazy to me).

I liked Matt’s attempt at the end of the episode to try to get through to Fisk and convince him to walk away.  But, again — first off, I felt Matt was again in the wrong place; he should be protecting the people marching in front of Gracie Mansion, and second, he comes off as dumb in allowing himself to get drawn into a fist-fight with Fisk, who whupps his ass.

Episode seven was also strong.  We finally get to actually see most of the characters who are working with Karen & Matt against Fisk, including Cherry and Kirsten — we even get a few shots of the friendly female cop!  The trial of Karen Page was good drama, and I loved seeing Matt back in the courtroom.  I thought the Karen-Heather scene was great; why did the show keep these characters apart until now?  They should have been bouncing off of one another all season.  The Daniel-Buck scenes were also great, with real tension.  The final scene between Daniel and Buck was very compelling; I thought for a moment Buck might actually spare him.  The ending with Daniel getting shot in the head was shocking and emotional.  I liked that, though I hate seeing the best character on the show getting written off.  Seriously, Michael Gandolfini has been terrific on this show; he’s the best character, by far!  He feels like a fully-dimensional character, with a real story arc, in the way that most of the other characters on the show don’t.  (Compare Daniel to Heather, whose arc this season feels so much thinner.  Or Kirsten or Cherry or Sheila…)  Mr Gandolfini played the role with pathos but also humor.  I loved it.  I’m sad he’s off the show.

Sadly , I thought the finale was a very mixed bag.  The courtroom stuff continued to be great.  (It’s funny that his season climaxed by turning into A Few Good Men.)  I loved Matt’s public revelation, then proving it by tossing and catching his billy club.  That was a great moment.  I wish we’d gotten some follow-up scenes exploring characters’ reaction to that revelation, especially Kirsten.  I really like Nikki M. James as this character, I wish she had much more to do.  Kirsten doesn’t seem shocked; I like to think she knew Matt’s secret already.  I wish the show had better explored this.

But then we get the whole masked mob assembling, which as I’d written above felt totally off to me, politically and morally.  And then we get that absolutely befuddling ending, with Matt and Fisk together on the stairs, crying.  What is going on here???  Why does Fisk suddenly give up in this moment?  Why does he seem to get away with zero consequences, despite our seeing him murder DOZENS of innocent people, after the protesters storm the building??  (Does no one outside know what happened?)  Seeing Fisk on some beautiful island somewhere felt like such a strange and unsatisfying ending.  (Yes, I know there was one scene of Vanessa’s talking about leaving for an island, but why is Fisk here?  What was the actual arrangement he made?)

I was glad Jessica and the new young White Tiger were involved at the end, and I was happy to finally see Mike Colter back as Luke Cage, and I was thrilled to see the “Alias Investigations” sign.  (I wish they’d involved Luke this season, as opposed to holding him for this tease at the end.)  I liked seeing the Daily Bugle reporter from the Netflix Daredevil show back at the end, when we see BB (Genneya Walton) fully stepping into her father Ben Urich’s shoes.  I liked the idea of Heather becoming Muse; I just wish they’d done a better job building this up across these two seasons.

The ending with Matt getting arrested was OK.  That could be a juicy story for season three, though does this mean we’ll never get a “normal” season of Matt as DD, fighting crime by night and being a lawyer by day?  Kevin Feige’s Marvel has generally been great at finding ways to present a classic version of their characters, but I feel they never quite hit the mark with DD.  I got excited at first by Matt’s revealing his secret identity, because Brian Michael Bendis wrote a fantastic lengthy storyline in the comics about DD getting publicly outed; I’d have loved to have seen the show adapt that.  But with Matt getting arrested, it looks like the show is jumping over all of that good stuff.  I guess we’ll see.

Other thoughts:

• I liked Matthew Lillard on the show, as Mr. Charles.  It was nice having someone funny on this show, which most of the time was so dour and super-serious!  I liked the idea that he was connected to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s character Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
• I liked that Deborah Ann Woll was fully back this season as Karen Page.  I liked that she and Matt were finally together romantically and also working together against Fisk.
• In episode five, DD says he knows a nurse who could help the injured Bullseye — was that an oblique reference to Claire?  I wonder why they haven’t brought Rosario Dawson back??  She was such a huge part of all the Netflix Marvel shows!!  She was their Nick Fury!  I really like Rosario Dawson, and I’d love to see her again.
• I loved seeing Lili Taylor as the governor of New York.  She was great!

There were moments I enjoyed this season, but overall I thought this was a letdown.  Definitely one of the weaker Marvel projects for me.  A third season is in production, apparently featuring ALL of the Netflix Defenders characters.  That could be fun, if done well… I guess we’ll see…!

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