“Daredevil: Born Again” brings Charlie Cox back as Matt Murdock and Vincent D’Onofrio back as Wilson Fisk, the roles they first played in the 2015–2018 Netflix series. The Disney+ show is the 13th television series in the Marvel Cinematic Universe from Marvel Studios, produced under the Marvel Television label. Dario Scardapane is showrunner, with Matt Corman and Chris Ord credited as creators and Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead as lead directors.
The premise picks up several years after the original series, and a year after Murdock stopped working as the masked vigilante. He is practicing law again. Fisk is elected mayor of New York City. Scardapane has called the series a “two-hander,” and that is the right frame for what it attempts.
Trailer, via Marvel Entertainment.
A Year After the Mask Comes Off
The first season puts Fisk in office. The second turns him loose. After Fisk consolidates power, declares martial law, and begins targeting vigilantes, he hunts Daredevil directly. Murdock goes underground and gathers allies to resist Fisk’s corruption and his Anti-Vigilante Task Force.
The show does not adapt the “Born Again” comics storyline, or any other, directly. It also leaves out the planned material for the fourth season of the Netflix series. What it carries forward is the wound. At the start of the series, Murdock has not been Daredevil for a year because a line was crossed. Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter, Bullseye, kills Foggy Nelson, and Murdock tries to kill Dex in return.
Wilson Bethel returns as Poindexter. Deborah Ann Woll is back as Karen Page. Margarita Levieva plays Heather Glenn, a therapist. Matthew Lillard joins as Mr. Charles, Lili Taylor as Governor Marge McCaffrey, Michael Gandolfini as Daniel Blake, Nikki M. James as Kirsten McDuffie, Arty Froushan as Buck Cashman, Genneya Walton as BB Urich, and Zabryna Guevara as Sheila Rivera. Jon Bernthal, Mohan Kapur, and Kamar de los Reyes also appear in the first season. Lillard, Taylor, Toby Leonard Moore, and Krysten Ritter join for the second, with Mike Colter, Finn Jones, and Élodie Yung set for the third.
Fisk in City Hall Is the Best Idea Here
Scardapane has said the Mayor Fisk storyline was fun to explore but became too topical, and that it moved the series away from “the large, mythological genre stuff” from the comics. He has also said the storyline would end with the second season, and that future seasons would return to the tone and street-level storytelling of Frank Miller’s Daredevil comics.
That admission explains both the show’s strength and its drag. Fisk as an elected official is the sharpest thing “Daredevil: Born Again” does. D’Onofrio plays him as a man who has decided the machinery of the city is just another body to break. He has said the character’s size at the end of the first season would be “more specific and more detailed” for reasons tied to the second.
Cox has said he appreciated reprising the role first in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law,” because he could have “a bit of fun” and see Murdock interact with characters the original series could not feature. He began training in October 2022, focusing on mixed martial arts so Murdock would read as someone trained in various fight styles rather than an all-around brawler.
The Release Schedule
| Run | Episodes | First Aired | Last Aired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full series | 17 | 2025-03-04 | 2026-05-05 |
The series runs 17 episodes across two seasons, first airing on 2025-03-04 and last airing on 2026-05-05. Its genres are drama, action and adventure, and crime. Metacritic scores it 69 out of 100.
Nelson’s Death Is the Right Door
Amanat has said killing Nelson, Murdock’s moral compass, was “the only thing that made sense” for a story about Murdock starting a new life without being Daredevil. Cox has said the death was an appropriate way to start, because the new story needed to be “big, brave, and bold” and to “shake things up” from the original.
Both are right about the setup and wrong about the follow-through. The death gives the series a real cost in its first hour. What the show does with that cost is uneven. Murdock’s grief is the spine of the first season, but the series keeps reaching for the larger mythological material it says it wants to leave behind.
The result is a show that cannot decide whether it is a legal drama, a political thriller, or a superhero story with a body count.
A Strong Two-Hander With a Third Act Problem
The third season begins with Murdock in jail after publicly revealing that he is Daredevil at the end of the second season. Scardapane has described the first two seasons as “Part 1” and “Part 2” of the same story, with a “Part 3” to the Murdock and Fisk story that could be explored later. Amanat has said the Murdock and Fisk storyline would “always be the heartbeat of this franchise,” while noting there are many other characters and storylines to explore.
“Daredevil: Born Again” is at its best when it stays in the room with Cox and D’Onofrio. Their scenes carry the weight the premise promises, and treating the series as a two-hander rather than a solo vehicle is the smartest creative call in it. The supporting cast is deep, and the returns of Woll and Bethel land as continuations rather than fan service.
The problem is that the show’s ambition runs ahead of its structure. The Anti-Vigilante Task Force and the martial law turn give the second season stakes, but they push the series toward the topical material Scardapane himself has said he wants to move past. A show that announces its intention to return to street-level storytelling has to earn that return.
Two seasons in, “Daredevil: Born Again” has not yet shown it can hold that ground without the bigger plot machinery holding it up. It respects the original without being trapped by it, and it gives Cox and D’Onofrio material worth their time. What it lacks is the discipline to stay small when small is what works.
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