When I previously wrote about the show, I was three episodes in and we'd just seen the culmination of the White Tiger storyline, along with a tease of things to come in the shape of the assailant's Punisher logo-bearing shirt. Since then we've gotten the real thing, and in a fairly prominent role, as well as hints of the wider Defenders and/or MCU continuity. I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out, but if you haven't seen it yet, be warned of spoilers ahead.
The fourth episode features Matt Murdock (still not donning the red suit) as he investigates the scene of Hector Ayala's murder and turns up a bullet-casing with the Punisher logo on it. From there he goes to confront Frank Castle himself, played once again by Jon Bernthal, who seems to be hiding out as a caretaker or something. They have the usual back-and-forth about whether Daredevil's and the Punisher's methods are really that different, and that looked to be that, which would have been disappointing.
So I'm glad that they got Frank back in for the finale, where he teams up with Daredevil (in costume!) to wreak some havoc in Matt's apartment. Broadly, the show has done what I expected it to do: it gave us some superhero shenanigans, remained strikingly topical with its "Kingpin = Trump" storyline and hinted at the wider universe.
As far as the wider universe, I was pleased to see Jack Duquesne from Hawkeye playing a relatively notable role here as one of the rich folks with whom Kingpin is hoping to curry favor and who end up chained up in the basement of his compound on Red Hook. We get some shots of him stepping out as the Swordsman, who's portrayed as a vigilante here even though he was traditionally a bad guy in the comics, so I'm hoping for some sword-related action from him in season 2.
Matt also makes a reference to raising an army, which seems to indicate that he'll be enlisting Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Iron Fist to help fight Wilson Fisk's goons. This is something that I've seen teased here and there, and while I'm not clamoring for more Iron Fist, I do want to see how Kingpin's takeover affects Luke's position as the new ruler of Harlem, as well as Misty Knight's reaction to her fellow cops turning into Fisk's private army. It'd also be fun to see Echo, and for a real stretch goal, Spider-Man, show up. Spidey is more integrated into the big, cosmic super-stuff than he is in the comics, but given that Matt showed up in Spider-Man: No Way Home, a Peter Parker cameo in season 2 would be great to see.
Honestly, while I doubt it'll happen, it'd be interesting to see if the MCU movies take any notice of the happenings in Born Again. If you think about it, Fisk has instigated his own January 6th-style coup, using a blackout (which he himself ordered) to institute martial law on New York City. Given that Thunderbolts comes out next week and takes place in NYC, you'd expect that movie to at least acknowledge these happenings - though I have complained about MCU films making viewers do too much homework before. Either way, I'll be a little disappointed if there's not at least a mention of Fisk as the mayor in Thunderbolts.
By the way, that storyline with Fisk taking control of the city was well-handled. You see various characters falling in line, some more willingly than others, and then betraying characters who don't fall in line. Michael Gandolfini's character, as I predicted in my earlier post, plays his arc of Trumpy insurgent to person with real power in the administration chillingly well, and I'll be really interested to see where his character goes in season 2.
More chilling was Margarita Levieva, who plays Matt's love interest Heather and seems to be going fully in-the-tank for Fisk by the end of the season. You can understand her arc, because she gets to see super-violence first-hand when Daredevil fights Muse in her office, and also because Matt's so up his own ass that he pushes her away. But I found myself chilled, as I say, by the way she seems to be supporting Fisk by the end.
As far as Matt himself, it was good to see him back in the suit in the Muse arc, even if that particular storyline was a little disappointing. I say it's disappointing because the revelation that Muse is Heather's patient felt pretty contrived and like it came out of nowhere. I'm not an expert, but is it common for a therapist to do both couples counseling and see extremely disturbed individual patients? I get that they had to bring home Daredevil's violence to her doorstep, but it felt clumsy.
Speaking of needing therapists, Matt seems to be even more toxic than he was in the Netflix show. The fact that he's blinded with rage and pretty toxic, particularly to women, is unspoken here, but feels like it could yield some rich material in subsequent seasons. One presumes that when Heather inevitably finds out that Matt is Daredevil, she'll shrug and understand why he's so awful to her in season 1. I do hope that when that happens, they'll also have shown us why she liked him in the first place.
My one other quibble was with how the Punisher's storyline plays out after Matt goes off to do his own thing. Frank attempts to assault Red Hook by himself, getting captured by Fisk's Task Force in the process. These guys all turn out to be Punisher Stans, which Frank roundly mocks in a scene that should have felt more satisfying.
What makes it less satisfying is that when he rejects their offer to join in the extrajudicial murder that Fisk is sanctioning, they beat him up and then chain him in the same basement as Jack and the other rich folks. I feel like any sensible crooked, violent cop in that situation would have just killed Frank, and if they hadn't taken that initiative, I expect Fisk would have ordered it himself. He then escapes by taking advantage of a guard's plot-convenient stupidity, which also fell a little flat for me.
I call this a quibble because none of the characters behaves sensibly; but on the positive side, Frank will be on the loose in season 2, so we'll get more mayhem, and that's broadly a good thing. He also wasn't part of the Defenders crossover, so it'll be interesting to see him interact with them (if that's on the cards, of course).
Overall, the show lived up to its promise, even if these last few paragraphs don't give that impression. But I was genuinely happy to see all the beats that were hit, from Bullseye escaping again to MCU cameos and references here and there. And the topical nature of the overall plot was nice to see as a cathartic thing, rather than experiencing it on the news as I normally do. I'm really excited to see how season 2 plays out, and can't wait for next year to watch it.
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