Born Again season 2 is finally getting good

Daredevil: Born Again season 2 started with a bang. In a thrilling opening scene, the Man Without Fear sneaks onto a cargo ship full of military-grade weapons as it’s about to dock in Brooklyn. Once our hero is discovered, a claustrophobic fight ensues in the belly of the boat. Ultimately, the captain sinks his own ship under order from New York’s villainous new mayor. Daredevil just barely escapes the wreckage.

Right after that scene, however, Daredevil: Born Again slowed to a crawl. Despite the fact that Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) is leading a vigilante movement against Kingpin/Mayor Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) — and that the entire show is named after him — he’s felt sidelined in favor of storylines starring Born Again’s newer, and generally less interesting, side characters. (All the time spent on therapist Heather Glenn makes me wish that Muse had gotten her last season.) That came to an end with episode 5, “The Grand Design,” which finally kicks the show into high gear.

Image: Marvel Studios

Episode 4, “Gloves Off” ends with Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) attacking Fisk and his wife Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) at a boxing exhibition match Fisk arranged. The last thing we saw was the shocking image of Vanessa with glass in her temple. “The Grand Design” opens with her in a hospital bed; Fisk by her side. Meanwhile Daredevil is dragging a critically injured Bullseye to safety at a nearby church.

Both Fisk’s and Daredevil’s stories are also intercut with flashbacks that complement the current action. For Kingpin, that’s the story of why he was in the art gallery when he met his wife in season 1 of the Netflix show. Meanwhile, Daredevil’s flashback features the much welcome return of Elden Henson as Matt’s deceased law partner and best pal Foggy Nelson. In it, Matt and Foggy are assigned a case where they’re defending a mobster who bullied Foggy as a child. Despite his obvious discomfort, Foggy agrees to represent him and even finds a legal loophole that could get his client off entirely. Matt argues they should ignore it so the mobster can pay for his crimes, but Foggy wants to give the guy a chance to start over.

In the present, Foggy’s mercy inspires Daredevil to act similarly. In Daredevil: Born Again season 1, Bullseye killed Foggy and in turn, Matt tried to kill Bullseye and nearly succeeded. Now, while Bullseye is tells Matt to leave him behind, Matt remembers Foggy’s heroic compassion and decides to save Bullseye from Fisk’s anti-vigilante forces.

MAtt Murdock and Foggy discuss a case at their desks

Matt’s past and present stories weave together nicely, but they also serve to underline just how much Henson is missed in Daredevil: Born Again after playing a tremendous role in the Netflix series. The writers of Born Again have tried to recreate that dynamic with Matt’s new law partner, Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James), but it’s simply not working. Turns out, we never cared that much about the legal procedural plotlines, we just liked the BFF chemistry between Matt and Foggy. In contrast, the chemistry with Matt and Kirsten is merely fine, but our investment in Kirsten certainly isn’t enough to support a story without Matt, which is what this season has given us so far.

Also interesting is the episode’s C-story starring Michael Gandolfini, who plays Born Again’s best new character, eager young Deputy Mayor Daniel Blake. Daniel has been leaking info from the mayor’s office to a reporter he’s got a crush on and he’s worried Fisk’s enforcer, Buck Cashman (Arty Froushan), has found out. In “The Grand Design,” Buck takes Daniel for a ride where Daniel is pretty sure he’s going to be killed. The storyline has huge echoes of the famous episode of The Sopranos where Sylvio Dante takes Adriana La Cerva for a ride to the New Jersey Pine Barrens and kills her for talking to the FBI. What’s weird about the Born Again story is that they would do it with the character played by the son of James Gandolfini. There’s just no way it’s a coincidence, and it makes it incredibly fun to watch.

The episode ends with (spoiler alert!) the death of Vanessa Fisk and Kingpin having a major meltdown. Most likely, her death will cause Kingpin to become even more cruel and unhinged. Hopefully that will up the stakes enough to keep the rest of the season as exciting as “The Grand Design.”