Summary
Daredevil: Born Again delivers a superb all-action finale that is as much an episode of The Punisher as anything else.
If you squint a little bit, it’s kind of beautiful. Daredevil: Born Again is only vaguely what one would consider a comic book show, the same way the Netflix series was. It isn’t about aliens or magic stones or parallel universes. It’s about corruption and vigilantism and police brutality and a city’s arrhythmic heart, beating to the tune of almost ordinary people. Episode 9, “Straight to Hell”, makes the smartest decision the show could’ve made ahead of a first-season ending that has to pay off the investment in eight prior episodes and set up an already confirmed Season 2. It gets comic book-y ridiculous.
That ridiculousness comes, in large part, through shlocky uber-violence of the kind that a while ago nobody thought Disney+ dared commit to. You can thank Frank Castle for a lot of that – this is an episode of The Punisher to an equal or greater extent than it’s an episode of Daredevil – but also Wilson Fisk, who at one point tears a man’s head apart with his bare hands in a grisly practical effect the likes of which hasn’t been seen in a mainstream show since the Mountain popped the Viper’s skull in Game of Thrones. Perhaps “beautiful” isn’t the right word. But you know what I mean.
And “Straight to Hell” feels like a finale, if not necessarily an ending. After a brief flashback prologue showing how Vanessa expedited Bullseye’s release to send him after Foggy Nelson, which Matt already figured out in the previous episode, we pick up right where we left off – on the cusp of chaos. Matt is recovering in the hospital after inexplicably taking a bullet for his arch nemesis, neither Kirsten nor Heather knows what to make of his claims, and Fisk senses an opportunity to take over New York. But not as Mayor Fisk, of course. As the Kingpin.
The production woes of Daredevil: Born Again have been well-documented, and I think you can see the seams here in Heather’s odd dismissal of Matt’s claims and embrace of the Fisks. Karen Page returns for this episode – more on her soon – and it wouldn’t do to have Matt in a healthy relationship with all that sexual tension floating around. Matt even calls out Karen’s name in Heather’s face when he wakes up, just to make the point clear.
It’s hard to imagine someone like Heather taking Fisk’s side given the events of this episode, but there you go. Subtlety is out the window. Fisk uses the attempt on his life to justify an all-out war against vigilantes, push for martial law, give his task force even more powers and fewer petty restrictions like body cams and warrants, and plans to move billions rather than millions through the Red Hook port. He pretends to Vanessa for a split second that he really did run for mayor to save the city, but then smugly explains that sometimes opportunity knocks. If you say so, Mr. Mayor.
The execution of Fisk’s plans requires everyone who isn’t entirely on board to be dismissed, which includes Commissioner Gallo and Sheila, who conspire against him privately (or so they think). But everyone else is pretty up for it. The cops hit the streets, and Buck hits the hospital, with instructions to kill Matt Murdock in his bed. Given the optics of him taking a bullet for Fisk, it’s better for him to die a heroic lawyer than survive to become a problematic vigilante. When Buck gets there, though, Matt has already slipped away.
Jon Bernthal and Charlie Cox in Daredevil: Born Again | Image via Disney+
Matt heads home to find the Punisher waiting for him, having had a shave and a haircut so that you can better enjoy Jon Bernthal screaming as he kills people. And brace yourself, folks, since Frank Castle kills a lot of people in Daredevil: Born Again Episode 9. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he’s not entirely keen on his fan club. So, when they burst into Matt’s apartment, he’s more than happy to splatter them all over it. This is a bit of a callback to that scene in Daredevil Season 2 when Matt saves Frank from the Irish mob and prevents him from killing anyone. In a fun turnaround, though, Matt can barely be bothered anymore, so despite his protestations, Frank kills almost everyone, one of them specifically to annoy Matt (they continue to bicker about morality and mental health the whole time, which is hilarious.)
In the midst of this, Frank spots a bullet casing embossed with the Punisher logo, which proves that Cole North was the officer who executed Hector Ayala. With that mystery solved, they jump out of a window to avoid a grenade and land on the roof of a car parked in the street below, just in time to be picked up by Karen Page, who had called Frank to ask for the favour of getting Matt to safety.
There’s still a love triangle here. While Karen patches Matt up and Frank patches himself up, there are a ton of lingering glances this way and that. When Karen and Matt later look through Foggy’s unfiled documents looking for the reason why Vanessa had to have him killed, Matt explains that he could hear Karen and Frank’s respective heartbeats when they looked at each other. “Adrenaline, I’m sure,” she says to explain Frank’s apparent attraction to her. When she asks Matt if he heard her heartbeat when she saw him, he echoes her “adrenaline, I’m sure” excuse. Oh, my.
Anyway, about the Red Hook port. Karen discovers in one of Foggy’s documents that it’s a free port, so in other words, it is exempt from city and federal jurisdiction. That’s why Vanessa has been storing art there, to essentially launder money without fear of customs, taxes, or seizures. With Fisk’s expansion plans, he’ll essentially be developing an independent city-state where he can do basically anything without fear of reprisal. And this, needless to say, is not good news.
Ayelet Zurer and Vincent D’Onofrio in Daredevil: Born Again | Image via Disney+
It’s not good news for Frank, either, who took Karen’s claims that he secretly cares about them to heart and heads to the port when he overhears it being mentioned on the radio he took from one of Fisk’s task force goons. There, he finds Powell and a small army of corrupt cops all wearing his trademark painted skull, and in disgust, he kills a bunch of them before he’s eventually subdued and apprehended. Then they’re treated to a Frank Castle Special – a brilliant monologue about how they’re all a bunch of clowns and he wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire. See? Beautiful.
But it’s hard to argue that the ending of Daredevil: Born Again isn’t a win for Fisk. With Daniel and Buck leaning on the City Council and Fisk tearing Gallo’s head apart with his bare hands after a terrified and self-serving Sheila sells him out, the finale ends with him in complete control of New York. He offers Heather a position as mental health commissioner in his administration, which she accepts, and enjoys dinner with Vanessa in front of the bloodstained Rabbit in a Snowstorm painting. He’s keeping several people in cages, including Jack Dusquesne and a thoroughly nonplussed Frank Castle.
But the resistance is building. Matt and Karen are building an army in Josie’s bar, assembling allies behind the figurehead of Daredevil. Angie Kim is there, as is Cherry. It’s a start. And with a few nods to other ongoing threads like Angela del Toro, Kirsten looking into Foggy’s case herself, and Bullseye still on the loose, it’s clear this is a story that’s only just beginning.
Oh, and good news – in the mid-credits scene, the Punisher escapes.
