It took the better part of the show’s first six episodes, but the Man Without Fear has finally returned in Daredevil: Born Again.
Aside from the thrilling, tragic cold open of the series premiere, in which Daredevil failed to save his best friend, Foggy Nelson, from being killed by Bullseye, Matt Murdock hadn’t suited up in his iconic red armor this season. That hasn’t stopped the attorney from letting out his pent-up aggression in the occasional fight since then. But Murdock made himself a promise in the premiere to move on from his alter ego after he tried to kill Bullseye. He would always carry a piece of his old mask—one of its two devil horns—that had broken off on the night that Foggy was killed, a memento of the life he had left behind. Except that in Episode 6, when Murdock discovers that Hector Ayala’s niece, Angela, has gone missing while a serial killer is at large, he decides against calling the police, sets down his devil’s horn, and says, “Fuck it.”
On Tuesday night, Born Again dropped two episodes at once for the second time this season, following the double feature that kicked off the series. The fifth episode, a mostly self-contained story that follows Murdock as he stops a bank heist on St. Patrick’s Day, is the shortest of the season, with a running time of 42 minutes (including the credits and “previously on”). Episode 6 returns the show’s focus to both Murdock and Wilson Fisk as they continue to navigate the recent changes in their lifestyles and as Muse—the serial killer street artist—pushes them to finally unleash their inner demons.
Just as we did for the two-episode premiere, we’ll cover both installments in one supersized recap.
The Brief
Episode 5, “With Interest,” comes a little more than a week after the real-world St. Patrick’s Day. And Murdock, an Irishman himself, celebrates the holiday in just about the most boring way imaginable: by visiting a bank to take out a loan for Murdock & McDuffie. At least, until an attempted robbery at New York Mutual makes Murdock’s trip to the bank a bit more exciting.
“With Interest” is a departure from what has become Born Again’s regularly scheduled programming. It has the feel of a bottle episode, set almost entirely within the singular location of the bank itself—never straying more than a few blocks beyond its entrance. And instead of switching between Murdock’s and Fisk’s story lines, it centers on Murdock alone as he attempts to stop a crime without any of his Daredevil gear to help him.
This episode is also unusual in that it features a surprise guest star from the MCU who isn’t a superhero, or even a supervillain, but a character who is largely known for being a dad: Yusuf Khan (Mohan Kapur).
Khan is the father of Kamala Khan, the superhero better known as Ms. Marvel. He previously appeared in both 2022’s Ms. Marvel and 2023’s The Marvels. Although Yusuf is always a fun source of comedic relief, as well as the anchor of some tender family moments in Ms. Marvel, his inclusion feels a bit at odds with a series that has otherwise mostly chosen to isolate itself from the wider outlandish cinematic universe that it’s nominally a part of.
More on the Man Without Fear
Khan, an assistant bank manager at New York Mutual, just so happens to be the one who meets with Murdock about his loan request. Naturally, their small talk turns to Ms. Marvel, the protector of Jersey City, where the Khans live. Yusuf even shows off a Funko Pop vinyl figure of Ms. Marvel that can actually be purchased online. The interaction feels contrived in a way that reeks of Disney and Marvel Studios’ tendency to reference other Marvel products—quite literally in the case of the Funko figurine—in a way that disrupts the tone and rhythm of a given project.
As distracting as parts of this initial scene between Khan and Murdock might feel for anyone who’s already familiar with Khan from Ms. Marvel or The Marvels, the brief confab eventually concludes as Murdock, Khan, and the episode at large get down to business. And everything that follows makes for a fun, suspenseful installment of Born Again that might be the best of the season since the premiere.
Khan informs Murdock that his loan request is being denied, as the bank is unwilling to take on the risk that his law firm poses. As Murdock tells his legal partner, Kirsten, the bad news over the phone while he walks down the street away from the bank, he overhears a group of armed men starting to rob New York Mutual. The bank robbers—fittingly, all Irishmen—are there to steal a diamond worth $1.8 million on behalf of their boss, Luca, who was previously ordered by the Fisks to pay Viktor precisely the same amount as hefty restitution for the truck hijacking in Episode 3. Although Matt is already safely out of harm’s way, his hero complex gets the better of him, and he soon throws himself right into the action.
The bank robbery at the heart of “With Interest” takes a familiar setup and puts a superhero spin on it, as Murdock uses his heightened sense of hearing to keep himself one step ahead of the bank bandits. Without his mask to hide his identity or any of his weapons to help him fight, Murdock is forced to rely on little more than his sensory skills and his critical thinking to save a room full of hostages from their armed captors. Born Again uses cinematography and sound to depict Matt’s aural focus by blurring the edges of the screen and amplifying the volume of each noise he’s listening to, including the pulse of each heartbeat surrounding him. With Khan’s assistance, Murdock is able to stealthily neutralize multiple bank robbers, break into the vault, acquire the coveted diamond, and distract Luca’s crew long enough for the police and SWAT team to intervene. Not all heroes wear costumes.
At the end of Episode 5, however, Murdock dons a red mask—not part of his Daredevil armor, but a ski mask he borrows from an incapacitated robber—and brutally beats the leader of the attempted robbery just as he thinks he’s fled the scene undetected. Although “With Interest” does almost nothing to develop the main story lines of the season, it brings Murdock one step closer to fully embracing his return as Daredevil, as he continues to put himself in situations where he’s willing to bend the law to dispense justice personally.
Meanwhile, Episode 6, “Excessive Force,” significantly advances several plotlines that have been brewing since the start of the season. After being teased at the beginning and end of Episode 4, Muse finally emerges as a central antagonist, while Murdock’s and Fisk’s secretive pasts begin to bleed into the present.
Muse’s body count grows large enough that Murdock and Fisk learn about his handiwork—the disturbed artist uses his victims’ blood to paint murals across the city—in quick succession. The emergence of this serial killer serves as a call for both Murdock and the new mayor of New York City to change their methods by reverting to their old ways.
Murdock is approached by Angela while he’s having a meeting with Kirsten at their office. Angela has discovered that her uncle—the White Tiger—had been investigating a number of disappearances around the city before his death, and she asks for Matt’s help in finishing his work. Murdock refuses, much to Angela’s frustration, rightfully claiming that there isn’t much he can do in his capacity as a lawyer for Murdock & McDuffie. But when Cherry later informs him that he’s received word of a serial killer who’s claimed upward of 60 victims, Murdock begins to look into Angela’s findings on his own.
Fisk learns of Muse when the sanitation department informs him that it’s been unable to wash away the massive murals painted across the city due to the nature of their chemical composition, which includes human blood. The mayor sees the masked killer as a political opportunity to make good on his campaign’s promise to combat the rise of vigilantes and masked individuals. Fisk assembles an anti-vigilante task force of handpicked crooked cops and empowers them with unchecked authority and benefits, letting them shed their body cams and giving them the overtime pay that Fisk had previously stripped them of. In essence, Fisk transforms the NYPD’s subculture of Punisher wannabes (such as Officer Powell), who are quick to abuse their power to achieve their desired results, into an organized group under his control.
Muse isn’t the only contributing factor in Fisk’s sudden change of tactics. Earlier in Episode 6, he receives an impromptu visit from Luca at his office, and Luca shows no fear in standing up to the once notorious Kingpin to tell him he won’t be paying his $1.8 million in restitution. Luca even goes so far as to threaten Fisk and call him an “old man” to his face. Fisk also has to bear the disrespect of New York City’s elite at a black-tie fundraiser; he’s being forced to suck up to the wealthy Gothamites to curry favor—and, more importantly, raise money—for his pet project at the Red Hook port. Throughout the season, Fisk has had to endure the public-facing responsibilities (and limitations) that have come with his lofty new job. But in “Excessive Force,” he finally reaches his breaking point.
Near the end of the episode, Murdock and Fisk allow themselves to reach that point at the same time, as they both tap into that “violent nature” that Fisk previously told Murdock they share. When Matt receives a phone call from Hector Ayala’s widow, Soledad, telling him that Angela has gone missing, he retrieves his Daredevil suit from his roof at last and reenters the night as his alter ego.
For such a pivotal scene in a season that has been building toward Daredevil’s return, the moment falls a little flat. As Daredevil leaps across rooftops in a blur, using his billy club as a grappling hook, Born Again focuses on him in slow motion in midair. And when he finds Muse in his subway lair, Daredevil uses his billy club again to rapidly propel himself forward. The visuals in both instances look uncanny in a way that’s similar to the shaky use of CGI in the series premiere. Neither instance seems to align with the more grounded action that Born Again has deployed in the fight scenes starring an uncostumed Matt.
The ensuing brawl between Daredevil and Muse works much better, especially because it occurs at the same time as a different fight featuring Fisk. As Daredevil confronts Muse, who was in the process of siphoning Angela’s blood for his next art project, Fisk pays Adam—the man whom Vanessa had an affair with and who remains Fisk’s captive—a visit. Fisk provides Adam with an ax to level the playing field against Fisk, who has a much larger stature, and he lets him out of his cage for a chance to win back his freedom. Born Again seamlessly transitions between the two battles, drawing parallels in the combat just as it draws thematic parallels between Murdock’s and Fisk’s shared reawakenings.
The action in Born Again still lacks the juice of the original Netflix series, but the show employs some nifty camerawork and dials up the degree of violence to distinguish it from past MCU series on Disney+. And each fight sequence serves the story, with this particular dual duel tightening the season’s efforts to highlight the similarities in Murdock’s and Fisk’s journeys. The longtime rivals both win their individual bouts against their foes: Murdock stops just short of killing Muse to focus on saving Angela, while Fisk sits beside Adam’s body as he lies unconscious on the floor. It’s unclear whether Daredevil would’ve ever stopped strangling Muse with the rope of his billy club if Angela hadn’t been there.
As the episode comes to a close, Matt resuscitates Angela, but Muse escapes. When Angela sees the familiar costumed figure standing before her as she wakes up, she asks, “Daredevil?” And in what serves as a larger statement of the hero’s triumphant return to the series, Daredevil replies, “It’s OK, I’m here. Yeah, I’m here.”
“Excessive Force” isn’t as strong as the preceding episode, but it serves its purpose, delivering breakthrough moments for Murdock and Fisk. After their conversation at the diner in Episode 1, in which they both claimed that they would operate only within the confines of the law and the city’s systems of power, Murdock and Fisk have both broken their promises. Murdock’s girlfriend, Heather, is starting to wonder why he’s always getting himself into dire situations, and she’s growing curious about his past experience working with vigilantes—such as Frank Castle and Daredevil—as she prepares to write her next book about the psyches behind masked personas. Meanwhile, Fisk is starting to get visitors at his new office from his old line of work, and he’s growing bolder about the ways he uses his mayoral power. Consequences may soon await them both.
Supervillain Spotlight: Muse
Throughout the season, Muse’s blood murals have appeared across the city. But “Excessive Force” marks the first time the villain has been at the forefront of a Born Again episode. As such, let’s dive a little deeper into the character’s comic book origins.
Created by writer Charles Soule and artist Ron Garney, Muse first appeared in Daredevil (2015) no. 11. Initially known by the media as Vincent van Gore (which, thankfully, appears to have been forgotten in the MCU), Muse is a street artist and serial killer who uses his victims as part of his artwork. He has creepy red eyes that look like spirals of blood, along with superhuman reflexes and strength. And crucially, Muse has the ability “to pull in sensory information around him” to create a “vortex” of “information including scents and sounds,” as Marvel.com describes it. This, of course, makes him a formidable opponent for Daredevil, who relies on his senses of hearing and smell.
In the comics—much like the Disney+ series—Muse’s first attraction is a mural made from the blood of his victims:
However, his next “piece” displays the corpses of six Inhumans, whose bodies are posed in the act of performing regular human activities like watching TV or ironing a shirt. The Daredevil comic book story line heavily features the superhuman race, who have yet to appear in the MCU outside of a cameo by the Inhuman leader Black Bolt in an alternate universe in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. After being captured and sent to an Inhuman prison, Muse returns several issues later in an arc that more closely resembles the events on Born Again, as Fisk attempts to use Muse for his own political agenda against vigilantes.
‘Daredevil’ (2015) no. 598
In Born Again, Muse’s origins have yet to be revealed. (Hell, the masked villain hasn’t even spoken a single word.) And he hasn’t shown any discernible superhuman abilities, even though he’s certainly skilled enough in combat to hold his own against Daredevil. This decision from the show’s creators falls in line with their preference for grounding the series in realism; it seems safe to say that we won’t be seeing any Inhumans this time around. Muse escapes at the end of Episode 6, so we’ll learn more about the MCU’s take on the character soon enough.
Easter Eggs
For this week’s closing Easter eggs section, we’ll focus on one egg from each episode.
In Episode 5, there are a lot of references to Kamala Khan, but one in particular stands out from the rest. As Yusuf checks his phone near the start of his meeting with Murdock, he says, “Ah, my daughter, Kamala, she’s in California visiting some friends.” This could be a throwaway line to reintroduce Yusuf’s relationship with his superhero daughter. But it seems more likely that it’s a reference to what should be Kamala’s next project in the MCU, centered on the Young Avengers.
At the end of The Marvels, Kamala does her best Nick Fury impression and visits Kate Bishop—the MCU’s new Hawkeye—at her New York City apartment to invite her to join her prospective team of fledgling superheroes. Kamala acknowledges that Kate is the only person she’s actually met with so far, but she also says that she’s put out some “feelers,” asking Kate, “Did you know Ant-Man had a daughter?” Given that Cassie Lang, like her father, is based in San Francisco, Kamala and Kate could be in California paying their next recruit a visit. And there’s always the chance that they’re using this (hypothetical) cross-country recruitment tour to meet in Los Angeles with Hulk’s son, Skaar, from She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
The Easter egg from “Excessive Force” is more definitive and harder to miss. In a BB Report segment near the start of the episode, BB Urich is listening to New Yorkers’ opinions on the emergence of vigilantes across the city, and one interview subject cites a video that features a masked (or hooded) figure fighting off a group of men with a sword, referring to him as “Swordsman.”
In the comics, Jacques Duquesne—the so-called Swordsman—is a criminal turned vigilante with connections to Clint Barton and the Avengers. Duquesne first appeared in Hawkeye as the love interest of Kate Bishop’s mother, and although he doesn’t formally take on the role of Swordsman in the Disney+ series, he shows off his swordsmanship in a sparring match with Kate. In Born Again, Tony Dalton reprises his role as Duquesne, later appearing on-screen sans mask (or sword) as he speaks to Fisk at the fundraiser about how he doesn’t believe the mayor’s obsession with taking down vigilantes—and the changes he’s enacting in the NYPD—will work out for him.
Between the appearances of Yusuf Khan and Jacques Duquesne, Born Again seems to be making a concerted effort to incorporate only minor crossover characters from the MCU. Thus far, the series has reserved its biggest guest spots for the likes of returning Netflix Marvel heroes, such as Frank Castle in Episode 4. With three episodes left in the first season, and production on Season 2 already underway, we’ll see whether that trend continues.
