Like Season 2, Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 was a hit with fans and critics. However, the fifth episode—titled "With Interest"—proved to be the most divisive.
Tonally, it was far more jovial than the rest of the season and felt more in line with a Mark Waid-penned Daredevil comic than one by Frank Miller or Chip Zdarsky, for example. It was also quite similar in tone to what we saw from the Man Without Fear in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
In the episode, Matt Murdock finds himself caught up in a bank robbery alongside Ms. Marvel's father, Yusuf Khan. The lawyer helped take down the robbers, and it's since been confirmed that it was the only instalment of Daredevil: Born Again left untouched by the creative overhaul.
Charlie Cox has made no secret of the fact that he wasn't a fan of "With Interest," and elaborated on why he feels that way during a recent appearance at C2E2.
"I was not a fan of the bank episode in season one of Born Again," he told fans in Chicago. "I thought it was really dumb, and I really fought against doing it in a polite way. I did end up watching it because I had to know, because I was told that when they were testing the show, it was one of the highest tested episodes of Marvel Television. And I kind of get it. It’s bingey. I had problems with it, though."
The actor went on to explain that he noticed a major plot hole that he couldn't look past. "There was a point, and I can’t remember what we ended up figuring out, but there was a point where they needed a key, so the bad guys come back after the whole heist, and they have a key to get to the lockbox, and during the heist, they moved something from one lockbox to another lockbox."
"Anyway, whatever happened, I posed the question, 'If they already had both keys, why didn’t they just go to the vault and take the thing they originally wanted?' Because they had both keys, because they switched the things around," Cox added. "The answer was a very prolonged silence until someone was like, 'Uh-huh. Yes.'"
Was the episode that bad? The tonal shift was certainly jarring, and as a standalone "bottle" episode, it didn't add much to the season. The episode was directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and written by Grainne Godfree. Neither is credited on Daredevil: Born Again Season 2.
With Dario Scardapane now fully in charge of the Disney+ series, the second batch of episodes is far more cohesive. Plus, at 8 episodes instead of 9, it doesn't have room for a standalone chapter like "With Interest."
You can hear more from Cox and the Daredevil: Born Again cast in the player below.
In Daredevil: Born Again, survival, resistance and redemption collide as the battle for the soul of New York begins. In Season 2, Mayor Wilson Fisk crushes New York City underfoot as he hunts down public enemy number one, the Hell’s Kitchen vigilante known as Daredevil.
But beneath the horned mask, Matt Murdock will try to fight back from the shadows to tear down the Kingpin’s corrupt empire and redeem his home. Resist. Rebel. Rebuild.
Created by Dario Scardapane, Chris Ord and Matt Corman, Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 stars Charlie Cox as the titular masked vigilante (aka Matt Murdock) and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk.
"A brutal, relentless tour-de-force, Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 is a Marvel masterstroke that sees Charlie Cox take the Man Without Fear to unprecedented heights, delivering the definitive take on Daredevil," we said in our 8-episode review published last week.
Daredevil: Born Again is now streaming weekly on Disney+.