Daredevil: Born Again
Marvel
It’s hard to understate just how much better the last two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again were compared to the ones became before. Finally free of a semi-aborted original draft storyline, the new showrunners got to do whatever they wanted in full, and what they wanted, apparently, was to make the best MCU season finale since the Loki season 2 finale, which is a high bar.
The finale also delivered on a promise that was previously broken with Moon Knight, this idea that Marvel would finally let its heroes be “unleashed” with brutal fights we hadn’t seen before, as stated by the man himself, Kevin Feige. That in no way happened in Moon Knight, with the biggest fight scenes skipped over entirely as Marc Spector blacked out. But now? Daredevil: Born Again kept that promise. Boy, did they keep that promise. Spoilers follow.
Before release, there was a lot of hype about just how far Daredevil would go. The most memorable quote was from Kingpin’s Vincent D’Onofrio, “There’s one thing in particular that my character does that I can’t believe made it into the cut.”
Well uh, I think we certainly know what that was now. And that was no exaggeration.
In easily the most violent moment in the MCU (no Deadpool comedy here), Kingpin crushes the police commissioner’s head with his bare hands in front of his loyalists. Just absolutely R-rated Jason Voorhees-type stuff. After the fact, we got a look at the prosthetic head that was used to make this happen:
The rest of the episode also let loose The Punisher in a couple of sequences where he’s murdering corrupt cops left and right in brutal ways (that teeth smashing, ow) as Daredevil yells at him to stop killing people, which is pretty funny.
The violence isn’t just what made the finale great. It was just a stellar episode in general, giving fans what they finally wanted in terms of character moments, including the (non-violent) return of Karen Page which the season has been missing 90% of the time. Thankfully, we know she’s coming back in a big way for season 2.
There is now a lot of debate about what Matt’s “We need an army” line meant when it comes to taking down Kingpin. I certainly hope it’s more than a few cops and a bartender in the final scene, and of course everyone is speculating about his old Defenders crew, plus new additions like Echo, and maybe the return of Elektra, even.
Daredevil: Born Again
Marvel
Just amazing work here. I hope the rest of Marvel’s shows going forward can channel this level of quality, but if not, the upcoming Punisher special and Daredevil season 2 are almost certain to be great at this point.
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