The notions of justice, heroism and even happy endings are subjects that Daredevil: Born Again have taken great glee in dismantling and putting back together since Marvel finally conceded to fan demand and officially greenlit the players of the Defenders Saga to come and play in the larger sandpit of the MCU. After some understandable wobbles during that first season as all involved tried to spot weld the darkness, blood and bad language words of the Netflix series with the interconnected gloss of a cinematic universe that now stretches across entire realities, season two finally got that tone down pat. With such grandiose plotlines that saw Wilson Fisk’s Kingpin of crime go full dictator after winning the race to be Mayor, the show frequently expanded its reach by holding up a frequently uncomfortable mirror to things we were seeing on the news every day. But with arguably Marvel’s most ambitious show to date closing out its sophomore season (quite the boast considering Loki was set in multiple realities), can it stick the landing and offer a finale that hits harder than Fisk on a rampage? I’ll see you in court.
With the trial of the century ramping up and Matt Murdock back in court as he and his law partner McDuffie strive to defend Karen Page from multiple criminal charges, all of New York (except Spider-Man, apparently) have their eye on the court house as matters build to exploding point. After a deeply uncomfortable exchange between Matt and therapist ex Heather Glenn, Matt shows that he’s going for all the apples when he calls his next witness – Wilson Fisk. With the Mayor’s grip on the city loosening, Matt figures that if he can shed light on the truth behind the scuttled ship The Northern Star and the load it carried, he can finally compromise Fisk enough to verbally torpedo his own administration.
However, with the AVTF lined up along the back of the court room and a potential counter plan in operation with a sniper disguised as Bullseye ready to take a kill shot if things go wrong, how exactly can Murdock prove anything he has on Fisk unless he does the unthinkable – call the only witness who can corroborate any of this? Well, the short answer is he can’t; and so in order to make his accusations stick, Matt Murdock finally outs himself as Daredevil to both the court and the world as a last ditch attempt to out maneuver his long-time foe.
This, unsurprisingly, causes a chain reaction that soon gathers pace when other elements are added to fuel the flames. Bullseye murders his imposter and decides to take another potshot at Fisk and hits Buck, leading to everyone taking refuge from the mad gunman back in the courthouse, but matters finally explode when BB outs herself as the one behind the City Without Fear vlog. With crowds of angry New Yorkers storming the courthouse to vent their anger at Fisk, Murdock has to suit up and try and difuse everything while still convincing his murderous arch enemy to take a plea deal to leave the city. Blood flows, bones break and sacrifices are made, but what will the status quo be once the dust settles?
Jesus Christ – now that’s a finale. I’d mentioned a few reviews ago that the most effective tool in Born Again S2’s arsenal is that it was so good at weaponizing the accumulated history of three previous seasons of Murdock and Fisk utterly fucking despising each other – but with ” The Southern Cross” that rivalry somehow reaches new, almost mythic heights. Cheekily revealing their brawl back in episode 6 to be merely be something of a preamble, their latest and arguably most desperate battle takes place in a location that’s just too perfect for words – a goddamn court of law.
For a season that’s mostly gone out of its way to keep Murdock away from his day job, the fact that Born Again can build as much tension and anticipation for our leads to verbally spar in court as it does for when they trade physical blows proves how far Season 2 has come when it comes to lining up its characters and piling on the symbolism. In fact, it may not be subtle, but when it comes to emotional stakes, the show refuses to hold back, especially when a losing Kingpin finally snaps under the pressure and brawls his way through angry protesters like a skull-cracking, spine-snapping animal. The violence, the lighting, the music, it forgoes conventional logic to strip both Murdock and Fisk down to pure emotion and their final stare down carries so much heft, it feels less like a desperate plea for peace and more like a breakup between some very tempestuous lovers, or even a particularly vicious divorce.
Once it eventually calms down, we then move on to the other thing the MCU does best – sowing those all-important future seeds (to the strains of Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song”, no less) that draws a tantalising line under proceeding until sometime next March. Yes, the return of Jessica Jones felt more like a glorified cameo as Krysten Ritter’s boozy private eye played sidekick duties, but at the end of the show, we get a return for Luke Cage who has been released from his shadowy duties from the duplicitous Mr. Charles who it’s revealed has hired Bullseye instead. After taking that plea deal, Fisk is exiled from his beloved New York to suffer alone on a beach without Vanessa around to comfort him and Heather slips even further into madness as the trauma of her experience with Muse burrows even deeper. However, it’s Murdock’s fate that hits the hardest as his admission to being Daredevil may have freed New York and finally disbanded the AVTF, but it lands him a one way ticket to jail. While it’s hardly surprising that a Catholic would base their endgame so heavily on a gargantuan sacrifice, watching him willfully turn himself over to the police after one, last, final meal with Karen hits just as hard as watching him give out his secret identity in the first place and it sits with the all time great tragic Marvel endings, such as the final scenes of Avengers: Infinity War and the soul-hollowing denouement of Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Still, the bright side is we should only have a year to wait before we see what happens next (and if you’re truly hankering for more, dirty, street level MCU, the Punisher Special Presentation is out next week), but even with the Defenders due for a reunion tour, I’m really hoping that season 3 allows us to stay with the enormity of Matt’s decision and focus with him still in prison and not simply start with him finishing his sentence. After all, it’s hardly a sacrifice if you skip the toughest parts, right?
While some may complain the finale may trade some legal realism for raw, sweaty emotion, the fact that Born Again is willing to wade so deeply into such deep, symbolic waters and take such gargantuan swings means that this union between the Netflix and MCU sensibilities may actually the best television Marvel Studios has ever put out. The Man Without Fear may now be the man without freedom, but with so many places for a third season still to go (hopefully gen pop), Daredevil has never been quite so daring.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 