DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN: SEASON TWO
Starring: Charlie Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio, Deborah Ann Woll, Ayelet Zurer, Wilson Bethel, Arty Froushan, Michael Gandolfini, Genneya Walton, Tony Dalton, Hamish Allan-Headley, Krysten Ritter, and Matthew Lillard
Creator: Dario Scardapane
NICK
Season Two of Daredevil: Born Again is terrific. Although it moves away from the grittiness of the original series, it emphasizes character work and a parallel political storyline; much like The Boys, it borrows from our current climate. Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio shine once again, but it's the way creator Dario Scardapane utilitizes his secondary characters without creating a bloated story that makes this season work. Everyone from Benjamin Poindexter (Wilson Bethel) to Daniel Blake (Michael Gandolfini) gets an arc and it always works in service of the main story. Born Again has stopped trying to emulate its predecessor, and it’s better for it.
ROBERT
The mystique Daredevil: Born Again Season Two built up was because it was supposedly a more cohesive vision from the showrunner and writers. While that is true, the hype train didn’t do the show any favors as I was thinking it would be closer to its peak Netflix days. There is intention to harken back, even dedicating a whole episode to that pre-Disney era, but it doesn’t inspire quite the same feelings. The performances are still top-notch (especially for Marvel), with a special shoutout to Wilson Bethel’s Bullseye, but the Disney sheen remains, like soaked-in blood on a white canvas.
AMARÚ
Season Two delivers on a cohesively balanced vision of the “dearly missed” Netflix show with the new Disney+ iteration (hindsight has us forgetting the real-time complaints of the Netflix seasons, but I digress). This season’s biggest strength is its care for the entire ensemble, no longer placing everyone’s arc in relation to either Matt Murdock’s (Charlie Cox) or Wilson Fisk’s (Vincent D’Onofrio) perspective. So, Wilson Bethel, Margarita Levieva, and Nikki M. James stand out instead of standing beside the main duo’s brilliance. There’s still some too-glossy overtones, especially in the finale, but where we leave things off brings a grit I’m excited to continue exploring.
