It has been over six years since we got new episodes of Daredevil, the first and possibly still the best of the six Marvel series made for Netflix. Over six years have passed since lawyers Matt Murdock, Foggy Nelson, and Karen Page reunited to reopen their firm as a trio; since Wilson Fisk, the mob boss known as Kingpin, sacrificed his freedom to keep his new wife, Vanessa, safe from prosecution; since Matt, as the vigilante Daredevil, truly wrestled with the dark part of himself that enjoys hurting people. We’ve seen some of these characters pop up elsewhere, of course, given the interconnected nature of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Karen showed up to hang out with Frank Castle in both seasons of The Punisher. Matt had a fling with Jennifer Walters in She-Hulk and popped up in a flashback in Echo to fight Maya Lopez, who shot out the eye of her adoptive uncle (and later failed mentor), Fisk, in Hawkeye.
But now Daredevil is back in a new form with lots of new characters and some of the old ones. “Episode 1” opens with a happy image, comforting in its familiarity: Matt, Foggy, and Karen stepping out of their storefront office and goofing around on the way to Josie’s Bar. It’s the ideal intro to the new show, really, an instant reminder of the characters and friendships we love. And it continues at Josie’s, where Matt and Karen laugh and gossip as Foggy chats up Assistant District Attorney Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James). This is a retirement party for Cherry (Clark Johnson), a cop who often works with Nelson, Murdock, and Page, but it’s really just a venue to catch us up on the state of Hell’s Kitchen and the status of our characters. For example, Matt and Karen are firmly in the friend zone, to the point that they can comfortably joke about hooking up without any threat of that actually happening.
Then Matt overhears Foggy chatting to a scared client on the phone, and everything changes. Foggy stashed the client at his place to protect him after something that went down in Red Hook, but now a familiar face is after them both: Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter, or Bullseye, the former FBI agent with perfect aim from season three (and iconic villain from the comics) who briefly worked for Fisk and impersonated Daredevil until getting his spine broken for turning on his employer. Before there’s time for Matt (and us) to really process what’s going on, he’s already at Josie’s shooting Foggy in the chest.
Daredevil was known for its gnarly one-shot action sequences, and the four-minute one that follows really is a “We’re so back” moment. It’s worth noting that this first episode is directed by exec producers Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, a filmmaking team known for sci-fi horror flicks like The Endless and Synchronic (though Spring is my personal favorite), and the choice to hire them really pays off here. I’m not just talking about the fighting choreography in the Daredevil-Bullseye brawl, which is as good as ever; the chaos of bystanders milling around in the foreground is particularly immersive along with the camera smoothly dollying back to follow Dex as he flees through the building, striking and mostly killing any human being he encounters.
But Foggy is whom we’re really concerned about, and the choice to stick with him as he bleeds out and dies is pretty powerful. Sure, the camera follows Matt and Dex, but Matt’s super-hearing means that he keeps tuning in to Karen’s pleas with Foggy to stay conscious. He’s mentally in two places at once: right outside Josie’s with his dying best friend and on the rooftop with the man who killed him. When he realizes that Foggy is indeed past the point of no return — Benson and Moorhead tilt down to remind us of Matt’s friends’ relative proximity in a particularly stunning moment — he acts on instinct, on what feels good. He throws Dex off the side of the building and watches him smack the ground, an impact that would kill most people. It’s the first time Matt has actually, truly attempted murder, so it’s fitting that it would also be the moment he drops the mask off the roof and retires the Daredevil persona.
When we pick up a year later, some street interviews for The BB Report (hosted by Genneya Walton’s BB Urich, a relative of the late Ben) confirm that Daredevil is indeed retired and that the streets are suffering as a result. At least Matt’s career is thriving; he and Kirsten are partners at the head of a respected firm. But he’s still clearly messed up about what happened last year, as we can see in his emotional testimony during Dex’s trial. The killer has no remorse, and he’s sentenced to life in prison on 11 counts of first-degree murder. I have a feeling he won’t be in prison for long, but for now he’s not an immediate concern.
It’s sad to see the state of Matt’s relationship with Karen when they chat after the trial. She lives in San Francisco now, and while she’s happy to see Matt deep down, it also hurts too much — because he reminds her of Foggy, obviously, but also because he wasn’t there for her in the weeks after Foggy’s death. Matt has a habit of going dark, which we saw a lot of in seasons two and three of the original run, and he still hasn’t gotten over that. But this time, he’s not abandoning Matt Murdock to be Daredevil full time; he’s doing the opposite. “I’m not him anymore, and I won’t let myself be,” he insists.
Look, I’m sad that Foggy is dead, and I did hope we’d get more time with the trio together. But I can’t argue with the impressive execution and with the way it sets the stakes for a dark (but hopefully not excessively morose) season ahead. One easy way to inject some lightness into a glum scenario is with some romance, and the arrival of a therapist named Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva) should keep Matt from getting too emo. Heather is another famous love interest from the comics, introduced here when Kirsten sets Matt up on a client meeting that turns out to be a date. She says that Matt needs this, but I think the show might need it, too. And Benson and Moorhead bring their touch to the cute coffee-shop verbal sparring, eventually cutting out sound as the two laugh and connect.
Of course, we know from watching Daredevil that when Matt tries to be a normal guy and have normal relationships, he usually fails. Even on his dinner date with Heather, he can’t stop listening to people discussing the results of the mayoral election. It turns out someone else has a plan to deal with the city’s crime problem: Wilson Fisk, who declares his candidacy for mayor early in the episode and gets elected by the conclusion.
Fisk is really the other main character of this episode, and likely this show, a monstrous criminal rising to power by fearmongering over crime rates. (Sounds like another NYC mayor I know.) Vanessa (a returning Ayelet Zurer) had a vital role in running her husband’s criminal empire while he recovered, and she’s damn good at it, as we see from her mediating during a meeting with the Five Families. If they’re going to continue their rise to power, Fisk’s business will need to appear completely legitimate, something Vanessa has already ensured. Cherry refers to her as an “investment sorceress,” and Matt wryly suggests Fisk might even be “the mayor New York deserves.”
But there’s tension in the marriage, of both a personal and professional nature. Vanessa seems to resent Fisk for his monthslong absence from their marriage and for his ease in commanding attention the moment he walks into a room, while her gender still puts her at a disadvantage. She also seemingly strayed from their marriage at some point with a man named Adam, whom Fisk promises not to kill. Anyone taking bets on when Fisk is going to kill Adam?
Other seasons of Daredevil took a while to bring Matt and Fisk into direct contact, though it always happened before the end. But this wouldn’t feel like a proper beginning to Born Again without at least one interaction between hero and villain, and their chat is easily a highlight of the episode. There are two coffee-shop dates in this episode, but this is the really electric one.
It might seem strange that the two are so cordial and even friendly considering their history — Fisk actually chortles after Matt needles him for getting shot in the face by Maya — but it really has been a while, and both of them are in totally different states of mind (and different neighborhoods) than when they last met. That’s what makes this conversation so interesting: They’re laying their cards on the table and genuinely discussing how far they’ve each come, even if each can tell that the other is kind of lying to himself. “It’s hard to come to terms with a violent nature,” Fisk remarks, referencing Matt’s attempt to kill Dex.
Their tense discussion ends with them threatening each other: If Fisk goes back to his old ways, Matt will stop him — and vice versa. It establishes a compelling mirror relationship between hero and villain that was always there but now makes more sense than ever. All things considered, “Episode 1” is a pretty damn good start to this new similar-but-different iteration of Daredevil, even if I still haven’t fully processed the loss that kicks it all off.
Devil in the Details
• New credits sequence! I don’t have much to say about it, really, but it kicks off with the image of Matt’s discarded Daredevil mask with one horn missing — which Karen later returns to him at the courthouse.
• Dex’s “Hello, Karen” is supremely creepy.
• Another classic Daredevil fighting-scene hallmark: We get to see the exhaustion really set in with everyone involved, as when Dex and Matt pant while sluggishly chasing each other up the stairs.
• Some new characters working on the Fisk campaign: Sheila Rivera (Zabryna Guevara), Buck Cashman (Arty Froushan), and fanboy canvasser Daniel Blake (Michael Gandolfini). Of the three, only Buck appeared in the comics, though he’s best known there as Bullet.