Everything You Need to Know and Remember Before Watching 'Daredevil: Born Again'
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen has returned.
After endless teases in movies such as Spider-Man: No Way Home and shows such as She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and Hawkeye, Charlie Cox is back as blind lawyer turned vigilante Daredevil, along with Vincent D’Onofrio as his nemesis Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime.
As much fun as it was to see Daredevil do the walk of shame after spending the evening with She-Hulk, or watch Fisk train his protégé Maya Lopez, the character’s Disney appearances have been very different from the way they appeared in the Netflix series Daredevil. For three seasons on Netflix, Daredevil offered rich character drama and shocking violence, as hero and villain took their clash to self-destructive extremes.
Initially, Disney planned a lighter tone for Daredevil: Born Again, more in line with She-Hulk and Hawkeye. But after shooting six episodes, the studio radically changed their approach, replacing the original showrunner and making stronger connections to the Netflix series. That includes bringing back Cox and D’Onofrio’s co-stars Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson as best friends Karen Page and Foggy Nelson, as well as Wilson Bethel as the killer Dex Pointdexer, aka Bullseye.
While all these changes will likely result in a much stronger tv show, they do give some potential viewers pause. After all, it’s been almost seven years since Daredevil's final season aired in 2018, and it will be nearly a full decade between the first season and Born Again. However, like Matt Murdock himself, you don’t need to fear, because we’re here to recap all the important information from the character's Netflix run.
Watch Original Daredevil Series Here
The Man Without Fear
Daredevil’s premiere episode needs only two scenes to tell viewers everything they need to know about the main character. We begin with down-on-his-luck boxer/single dad Jack Murdoch rushing to the side of his son Matt, who was injured while shoving an elderly man out of the pass of a rampaging truck. Jack holds his son tight as he realises that toxic waste has seeped into the boy’s eyes. The camera takes Matt’s perspective as his sight fades away. From the blackness, we hear the adult Matt in confession, telling a priest, 'Forgive me father, for I have sinned.'
Those two scenes distill the essence of Daredevil. Born in tragedy as a result of heroism, Matt Murdock loses his sight but gains other enhanced senses, including radar vision. At his father’s behest, Matt studies law and becomes a lawyer, which he practices alongside his best pal Foggy Nelson. But at night, Matt uses the martial arts training he received from the cruel teacher Stick (Scott Glenn) to fight crime.
Much of the first season finds Matt figuring out his heroic persona. He wrestles with his darker instincts, which translate his thirst for justice with a tendency toward cruelty, which results in a self-hatred he works out by brutally beating his opponents. Matt also takes more than a few beatings himself, relying on the help of nurse Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) and later his beloved priest Father Lantom (Peter McRobbie) and his mother, Sister Maggie (Joanne Whalley).
By the end of the first season, Matt has found his calling. Instead of running from the devil inside of him, he embraces it and uses it to help others. In a red costume designed by former criminal Melvin Potter (Matt Gerald), Matt patrols Hell’s Kitchen as Daredevil.
The Kingpin of Crime
Daredevil begins his crusade just as Wilson Fisk makes his play for control of New York City’s underworld. Although Daredevil’s contingent relationship to the MCU means that it can only make vague references to the Battle of New York in The Avengers or Hulk’s destruction of Harlem in The Incredible Hulk, the show acknowledges that some disaster has recently occurred, allowing space for Fisk to make his play.
Despite his massive frame and incredible strength – so great that he can behead an underling with nothing but a car door – Fisk is incredibly sensitive and emotional. D’Onofrio plays Fisk as a frightened child in the body of a brute, which fits his origin as the son of an abusive father. Fisk sees his ascent to kingpin of crime as the only escape from his unglamorous past.
Fisk relies on the help of others to achieve his goal, first through his right-hand man Wesley (Toby Leonard Moore) and then through idealistic FBI agent Ray Nadeem (Jay Ali). But his greatest ally is Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer), the alluring art dealer who later becomes his wife. Vanessa respects Fisk’s power and does not turn from the horrible things he does to achieve his goals.
By the end of season 1, Daredevil has destroyed Fisk’s criminal empire and placed the Kingpin in jail, reducing him to the squalor he so desperately wants to transcend. Yet, Fisk remains a threat throughout seasons two and three, thanks to his knowledge of Matt Murdock’s double life. In season 2, Fisk manages to manipulate the troubled veteran Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) into doing his dirty work. In season 3, Fisk uses his friendship with Nadeem to gain access to agent Dex Pointdexter, teaching him to use his perfect aim to assassinate Matt’s friends.
At some point after Daredevil’s third season, Fisk went free, but he continued his criminal operations. As seen in the Disney+ shows Hawkeye and Echo, Fisk now works through his adopted daughter Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), aka Echo, and Russian mobsters.
Murdock, Nelson, and Page
Dex’s attack on Murdock’s friends troubles Matt because he always worries for the ones that he loves. Although Murdock never misses the chance to woo a beautiful woman, he reserves his deepest feelings for Foggy and Karen.
Matt and Foggy met while at law school and immediately formed a practice as defense attorneys. Despite occasional bouts of jealousy, tempting him to stop defending the innocent and become rich at some corporate firm, Foggy shares Matt’s core values. That said, he does often have to call out Matt’s self-destructive behavior. Upon learning about Matt’s double-life as Daredevil, Foggy cut his friend out of his life, no longer willing to watch his friend kill himself.
Matt and Foggy’s work as public defenders brings them to Karen Page, who gets framed for murder by Fisk’s associates. After they beat her charges, Karen joins the firm as an assistant. Later, Karen becomes a reporter for the New York Bulletin, where she befriends Frank Castle and helps him find his better nature.
After Matt’s apparent death in the series The Defenders, Karen and Foggy drift apart. Foggy devotes himself to keeping Fisk in prison, while Karen believes that Matt is still alive. The revelation infuriates Foggy, but only inspires Karen to continue working on her case against Fisk. But when Fisk convinces Dex to attack the Bulletin headquarters while dressed as Daredevil, she has to go on the run, where she faces her past mistakes – including a drug problem and killing one of Fisk’s men in self-defense.
Dex’s attack forces Matt to come out of hiding and fight as Daredevil again, a battle that leaves the former with a broken spine. Daredevil plans to do the same to Fisk and nearly beats him to death, but stays his hand at the last minute. Instead, he makes a deal with Fisk before sending the criminal back to prison. Matt will destroy all evidence of Vanessa’s involvement, allowing her to go free, if Fisk agrees to never threaten Karen or Foggy again.
In the final moments of season three, Matt reunites with Karen and Foggy and the trio agrees to work together again.
Assassins and Vigilantes
Although the conflict between Daredevil and Fisk – with Foggy, Karen, and Vanessa caught in between – takes up most of the show’s first and third seasons, season 2 branched out in surprising directions.
In season 2, Matt reunites with Elektra Natchios (Élodie Yung), his college girlfriend and the daughter of a Greek ambassador. Elektra’s return complicates the romantic tension between Matt and Karen and makes things bad for Daredevil, as she’s much more than a former fling. Elektra secretly learned ninjitsu from Daredevil’s mentor Stick and, after his death, became a deadly assassin.
Elektra’s hired killings bring her into conflict with Daredevil, but Stick forces them to work together against the Hand, a ninja cult obsessed with discovering a doomsday weapon. Elektra dies fighting the Hand, but they resurrect her as the Black Sky, the embodiment of the doomsday weapon. As seen on the series The Defenders, Daredevil stops the Hand with the help of fellow heroes Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Danny Rand aka Iron Fist. However, he loses Elektra again in the process.
At the same time that Elektra returned to Matt’s life, Daredevil encounters the Punisher, a vigilante named Frank Castle. Broken by the murder of his wife and children by mob enforcers, Castle devotes his life to punishing the guilty in murderous ways. Karen befriends Frank as part of her journalism, but she cannot turn him from his mission. Nor can Daredevil, who the Punisher rejects for going too easy on criminals.
The Punisher spun off into his own Netflix show, which lasted two seasons. Where the first season saw Frank investigating the conspiracy that led to the death of his family, he begins the second season with his vigilante days behind him. But when a young woman becomes the victim of the Russian mob, Frank realises that the need for justice goes beyond his own personal concerns and devotes himself to being the Punisher.
Born Again
Thus far, Disney has been cagey about the relationship between the Netflix series and Daredevil: Born Again, suggesting that not everything from the show will carry over. That may mean room for fan-favorites who died in the original series to return, including Wesley, the grouchy underboss Leland Owlsley (Bob Gunton), and crusading reporter Ben Urich (Vondie Curtis-Hall).
More likely, however, Born Again will simply use some of the plot points from the Netflix show to set up the next stage in Matt’s life, one that sees him paired with District Attorney Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James) and defending Kamala Khan’s father Yusuf (Mohan Kapur), while dealing with a new mysterious killer called Muse.
Whatever happens, we know that Daredevil will face the challenges as he always has: full of guilt, thirsty for excitement, and utterly without fear.
Daredevil: Born Again premieres on 4 March, 2025 on Disney+.
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