Daredevil: Born Again is not a bad show. I want to start by making that very clear. While it certainly has its flaws, the biggest of which I’ll talk about momentarily, it’s a solid revival of the Netflix series that still differentiates itself from the original show enough to be unique and new. However, its main storytelling method and thematic elements thus far are not a good way to tell a story.
SPOILERS for episodes one through six of Daredevil: Born Again below.
Daredevil: Born Again has two protagonists, in a sense. Daredevil/Matt Murdock is the first. Kingpin/Wilson Fisk is the second. Both of them go through traumatic events that end up changing them fundamentally. In the first episode of Born Again, Matt Murdock’s best friend, Foggy Nelson, is murdered by Bullseye/Benjamin Poindexter. Why exactly Bullseye did this is unknown, but it definitely has something to do with Red Hook. Off screen and in a different show, Wilson Fisk is shot in the face, then has to spend a good bit of time recovering and, even after he was fully recovered, became a recluse of some sort doing something that hasn’t been clarified yet.
Matt Murdock decides to no longer be Daredevil and Wilson Fisk decides to no longer be Kingpin. Murdock is just a law abiding lawyer and Fisk is just a law abiding mayor. The character’s have been stripped away of their darker halves and set out to be better people.
Except, from the very first second this was even hinted at, everyone in the audience knew it wouldn’t last.
Slowly, the show has been giving us hints that the two of them never really changed with any sort of permanence. Matt keeps the horn Karen gives him. Fisk’s knuckles are bloody and bruised. Matt can’t help but physically put himself in harm’s way when someone needs saving. Fisk keeps Vanessa’s lover in a cell and eats delicious food in front of him to torture him. Matt suits up to go fight Muse. Fisk gives Vanessa’s lover an axe and forces him to fight him. Slowly, very, very slowly, they are both reverting back to who they were at the beginning of episode one.
The show is called Daredevil. Obviously, Daredevil is not going to permanently give up being Daredevil in a show called Daredevil. Wilson Fisk is the Kingpin. That’s who his character is. Obviously, he is going to return to it.
What the director and writers of the show seem to be trying to do is go along with the classic theme of “people don’t change” or “you can’t hide from who you are” or any other number of categorical phrases. Stories with those themes, even though they are extremely common, can still be told very well, but there has to be a reason for it. A character must learn something other than they are who they are. There has to at least be a lesson of self acceptance taught or learned. Otherwise, taking away what makes a character who they are or changing them at their core just to make them go back to it is pointless.
So far, the point of taking away Daredevil from Matt Murdock and Kingpin from Wilson Fisk seems solely to be to take them away from the audience as a tool to build narrative suspense. The audience is supposed to think, “Oh my goodness, Matt is going to start being Daredevil again,” and “Fisk is back to being a criminal,” throughout every episode to just be let down. The audience, or, at least me, is left thinking, “Oh well. Maybe I’ll get what I came here for in the next episode.” I came to a show called Daredevil: Born Again to see Daredevil. Of course, I want Matt Murdock too, but not basically exclusively for six episodes straight. The same goes for Kingpin, although his story is much more entertaining.
Again, Born Again is not a bad show, but there is a major flaw. There’s still three episodes left in season one, so hopefully there will be some sort of reason the characters were stripped of their defining characteristics other than to make the audience wonder when the characters they came for will actually be in the show. Taking away a character’s identity solely to just give it back without there being any sort of valuable lesson learned or development for that character is not a good way to tell stories. Once again, the show isn’t over yet, so this could still be done.
What are your thoughts on Daredevil: Born Again, so far? Let us know in the comments!