Let’s Talk about Daredevil Episode 1-1

Almost exactly ten years ago, Marvel and Netflix created some of the most daring television ever.

Netflix licensed the various Defenders to star as face characters in several new series, starting with Daredevil.

The tale of Matt Murdock and his rogues’ gallery electrified audiences everywhere.

Nobody had ever seen these street-level Marvel characters get their hands dirty in such a gritty, realistic way.

Daredevil ran for three seasons and featured two spinoffs, The Punisher and The Defenders.

Alas, When The Walt Disney Company created its streaming service, Disney+, the writing was on the wall.

Netflix became a competitor, leading to the end of all the various Marvel projects.

Now, after several starts, stops, and reboots, a new Daredevil series has arrived.

Can the series possibly stand up to the lofty standards established by the Netflix series?

Let’s discuss the series premiere of Daredevil: Born Again, which gets the band back together…for a very little while.

Editor’s note: There will obviously be spoilers everywhere. PLEASE don’t read this until you’ve watched the first episode.

Class Reunion

In case you didn’t hear, the production of Daredevil: Born Again started in disastrous fashion.

Marvel eventually fired several people, scrapped already-filmed scripts, and basically started from scratch.

I mention this first because you would NEVER guess it from the pilot. And I’m about to gush praise for a brilliant hour of TV.

I should note that I didn’t watch the first two episodes consecutively, even though Disney+ debuted both on day one.

This recap is solely about Heaven’s Half-Hour, the first episode.

So, if anything I say quickly grows outdated, that’s on me. I wanted to get the first recap live quickly.

Keeping that in mind, we start at a bar where we quickly reunite with old friends and meet several new ones.

Foggy Nelson flirts with a former attorney in the DA’s office named Kirsten. She’ll soon prove important.

For now, I’ll warmly encourage you to enjoy Foggy while you can. He’s dead meat.

At a table, Matt Murdock, the Daredevil, is flirting with Karen Page, as they’re apparently still a couple. For now.

Everyone is hanging out at the bar in honor of the retirement of Cherry, a new character for this series.

Everyone’s one big happy family…until the Bullseye appears. Yes, Wilson Bethel returns as psychopath Ben Poindexter.

You can call him Dex if you survive the encounter. But you won’t. Bullseye never misses.

Foggy No More

In a matter of four minutes, the mood turns from euphoric to horrific when Foggy gets a call.

Foggy has inexplicably used his home as a safe house for someone who hears sounds in the building. It’s Bullseye.

Notably, the person who needs a safe house isn’t the target here, though. It’s Foggy and Karen.

Murdoch’s super-hearing allows him to hear the phone call’s details, and he quickly heads to where he thinks the danger is.

Moments later, Bullseye takes aim from the rooftop and fires three bullets. The first hits Foggy in the chest.

Two other bullets take out two people standing behind Karen, who ducks.

At this point, Bullseye comes into sight. Well, he throws smoke bombs first, but you can tell it’s him when he says, “Hello, Karen.”

She doesn’t die now. Murdoch arrives in the nick of time to save his girlfriend, but he’s too late for Foggy.

The other attorney slowly bleeds out in the street. Inside the bar, a brutal fight ensues in smoke and, later, darkness.

Daredevil’s brutal swing misses Bullseye but knocks out a breaker.

The two continue to fight as some residents of the bar hide in the pool room.

Moments later, the two vigilantes unintentionally knock down the doors in this area.

Dex grabs two pool balls. Seconds later, two of the bystanders are killed by thrown pool balls, one of them on a ricochet.

Bullseye never misses. To wit, we quickly realize he has impaled Murdoch multiple times.

During the later portions of this brutal fight that takes place over multiple floors, Murdoch is sporting at least six different knives.

Bullseye has turned Daredevil into a human pincushion.

Is This Justice?

Somehow, Bullseye gets the worst of it, though. He frantically crawls up the stairs past the pool room, casually murdering randos along the way.

Eventually, Bullseye makes it back to the roof where he sniped Foggy.

Daredevil jumps into a position behind him, causing Dex to deflate. He knows he’s pushed Matt Murdoch too far.

Down below, Foggy exhales and experiences his final heartbeats as Karen pleads for him not to die.

Once Foggy becomes Bullseye’s 11^th murder victim of the scene, an enraged Daredevil throws him off the roof to his death.

First, Daredevil asks why, which brings a smile to Bullseye’s face. He simply wanted to hurt Murdoch.

So, Daredevil arguably brings him to justice or vindictively murders Dex. You be the judge.

As a reminder, all this happens on Disney+, whose main characters are a friendly mouse and seven hard-working Dwarfs.

The show does something powerful with Karen’s perspective. She isn’t facing the way that the body lands.

From her perspective, she has Foggy’s blood caked on her face and hands, and she hears a thump. It may be her boyfriend.

Karen is momentarily relieved when she realizes it’s the homicidal maniac instead, but she pieces together that she may be dating a homicidal maniac.

Because this is a television show, Dex awakens and breathes semi-alertly, indicating that he’ll live. Just go with it.

On the roof, the retiring police officer sees an unmasked Matt Murdoch and realizes that he’s Daredevil.

For his part, Murdoch cries rather than pulling the knives from his body. He looks like he was attacked by the entire cast of Top Chef.

Symbolically, the Daredevil mask slowly floats down from the sky.

It’s over. The law firm of Nelson, Murdoch, and Page has died on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen.

An Eventful Year

Eleven people are dead (including Foggy), Matt Murdoch has lost everything, Karen Page has moved to San Francisco, and life is pain.

The season is merely 17 minutes old, yet Daredevil: Born Again has already stripped the protagonist of everything.

There’s a bit of parallelism at play here in that the same thing has recently happened to Murdoch’s greatest foe, Wilson Fisk.

The Kingpin tracked down his protégé, Maya Lopez, in rural Oklahoma, and she promptly shot him in the face.

Before that, a teen vigilante flipped a pop top onto some explosive arrows and knocked him into next week.

So, both characters have suffered mightily and faced a hard reset in life.

That’s how Daredevil: Born Again sets the stage for a new day for Murdoch and Fisk.

We flash forward a year where Murdoch sits in his lovely NYC home and sips coffee.

He has obviously moved up in the world, yet he carries Foggy’s memorial service card with him wherever he goes.

As Murdoch drives to his new office, we see the Kingpin for the first time.

The man in the white suit goes into his closet and picks out a new suit. He’s changing his wardrobe so that he can run for Mayor.

Immediately afterward, we cut to his wife, Vanessa, lording over a meeting of the Five Families. She’s deftly diplomatic but in command.

Vanessa tells two hotheads the terms of the deal…but politely. She then discusses everyone’s cut.

Before the representatives can celebrate, the door opens, and Kingpin enters. Vanessa hadn’t expected him.

The couple separated, and she’s been sleeping with someone new.

Kingpin’s appearance changes the tenure of the conversation, with everyone else fleeing.

The Fisks confer about his plan to run for Mayor. She doesn’t look thrilled, but how could she or anyone else stop him?

The bb Report

Ben Urich appeared in the original Daredevil series, but he doesn’t in this episode.

However, something called The bb Report starring BB Urich flashes on camera a couple of times.

This appears to be some sort of social media channel with a political bent. BB is asking people on the streets about Fisk.

Then, we see Murdoch in the office, where we learn that Kirsten is his new partner.

She wants her co-worker and friend to get out into the world, but he makes it clear he’s not there yet.

Sure enough, Murdoch appears at the trial of Dex, who is soon to be convicted of 11 murders.

While Murdoch testifies, Karen enters the courtroom. She has traveled from San Francisco to NYC to show her support.

The two chat after the trial, with Matt offering to take her to coffee and catch up. She declines.

Instead, Karen places a broken Daredevil mask horn beside Matt and leaves her ex to brood.

Things go from bad to worse for Matt when he learns that Fisk has the votes needed to run for Mayor and is doing well.

We also briefly meet the three people leading his campaign, one of whom is his expert and one of whom is clearly evil.

Then, another person injects himself into the conversation, and I’m pretty sure he’s important because it’s James Gandolfini’s son.

The character’s name is Daniel Blake, and I’m confident he’ll become important soon.

Awkward First Date

Kirsten asks Matt to meet a client for lunch. During their introduction, Matt learns it’s a trick.

The “client” is Heather Glenn, a famous Daredevil romantic partner from the comics. You do the math.

Obviously, they hate each other, and she has told Kirsten she would never date a lawyer. They argue about everything.

Heather took the meeting because she’s a therapist and thought Matt needed help.

They bond over resenting Kirsten for this awkward blind date, and laughter ensues. There’s gonna be a second date.

Kirsten is stubbornly unapologetic about wanting two lonely friends to be happy.

Meanwhile, Matt takes a more useful meeting with the person who knows his secret identity, Cherry. He works with Matt now.

So, Kirsten and Cherry appear to be Temu Karen and Foggy.

At the episode’s 42-minute mark, we finally reach the real relationship of the show, though.

Kingpin, who is running an exceptional campaign exits a building to see his handler trying to push back someone.

Matt Murdoch has come to Kingpin to ask him to lunch. That’s the real date in this episode. Heather and Matt will never last.

Showdown

Actors Charlie Cox and Vince D’Onofrio adore one another and realize that the onscreen chemistry they have is otherworldly.

Both individuals tirelessly championed the return of Daredevil for scenes like this. It’s akin to Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Heat.

Fisk and Murdoch sit down for lunch, with the Kingpin acknowledging “it’s not entirely unpleasant” to see his enemy.

They briefly make small talk, with Fisk mentioning he had briefly mentored someone.

Murdoch jokes, “Didn’t she shoot you in the face?” Kingpin’s face flashes brief pain before he breaks out into laughter.

The two people formerly in a blood feud are joking as old friends. But we all know it won’t last.

Still, there are fascinating character moments here. Murdoch shows respect for Kingpin’s recent hot streak.

Fisk gives himself away with a pleased grin. He craves his counterpart’s respect.

In this moment, Kingpin finds it important to clarify, “I had nothing to do with (Foggy’s) death. I kept that promise.”

Since Murdoch can tell when someone is lying, he realizes this statement is sincere.

More importantly, Kingpin wants to know whether Murdoch will ever cape again.

The attorney claims that he’s done with his mask. Without missing a beat, Kingpin offers a direct warning.

His mayoral campaign is predicated upon stopping vigilantism. So, we’ve reached an inflection point.

As Daredevil: Born Again’s season premiere winds down, Wilson Fisk is squarely on the side of justice.

Should Daredevil return – and we all know he will – his actions will be unlawful, placing Kingpin in the right, morally speaking.

“When Will People Learn? Democracy Just Doesn’t Work.”

The conversation ends with Daredevil flatly telling Kingpin, “I was also raised to believe in retribution.”

He adds that should Kingpin step out of line, the Daredevil will be there.

Kingpin sagely comments that Matt Murdoch liked being on the rooftop, “dispensing justice.” I think he’s right.

The Daredevil calmly requests that Kingpin stay out of his life. If he does that, Murdoch will reciprocate.

Fisk makes his point about the “rule of law” on this point, his ire increasing. The meal ends here.

Each individual realizes that the other may have come up in the world yet neither one has really changed. And they hate each other.

Murdoch ends election night by going out on a date. It’s going well with Heather until he overhears the election results.

The therapist intuits that the two men have a complicated history and that Murdoch views the new Mayor as a monster.

Of course, Murdoch also states just that. So, it’s not exactly a mystery.

The Daredevil walks his date to her doorstop, but he’s not coming in tonight.

We cut to Kingpin’s celebration. He walks outside to an outdoor skyrise area where his wife is standing.

Fisk calmly informs her that he’s aware of her relationship with another man, Adam.

Equally calmly, she responds, “Do not kill him.” And she says it almost commandingly. She knows she has power over him.

Still, she fears this man and requests a promise from him. So, Fisk makes the same promise about Adam that he did about Foggy.

The Kingpin honored the latter request, but I still wouldn’t want to be Adam.

Daredevil Is Back, Bay-Bee!

Finally, the episode ends with a lonely Daredevil looking up into the sky.

Even though he’s blind, the implication appears to be that he’s locking eyes, literally or metaphorically, with Kingpin.

The latter gentleman holds all the power now as the Mayor of New York.

As a ground-level hero, Matt Murdoch has never looked or felt smaller than he does in this moment.

Despite rebuilding his life, he has still lost his best friend, his girlfriend, and his moral compass.

Daredevil is born again, and we don’t know this new guy at all.

Folks, that episode was absolutely phenomenal and rivaled anything from the first three seasons of Daredevil in quality.

After all the false starts and misfires, I’m blown away that Marvel produced an episode of television this phenomenal.

And I am so, so happy that I can start another episode of the series right now.

 

Thanks for visiting MarvelBlog.com! Want to go to Disney? For a FREE quote on your next Disney vacation, please fill out the form below. One of the agents from MickeyTravels, a Diamond-level Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, will be in touch soon! Also, Thanks for reading!