TV review
Last year’s excellent “Daredevil: Born Again” took its time establishing the stakes. Through its slow-burn pacing, the first season of the Disney+ series served as a reintroduction to characters and storylines we hadn’t seen since the Marvel Television series was on (and then canceled by) Netflix in the mid-2010s. It was, in a word, the setup. There’s nothing slow about Season 2, though, which begins to capitalize on that setup by diving in fists first. From its beat-’em-up opener to its chaotic finale, this new season amps up … well, everything, to greatly entertaining effect.
Season 2, the first episode of which premieres Tuesday on Disney+, continues shortly after the events of the first season: New York City is in a state of emergency, thanks to Mayor Wilson Fisk / Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) and his Safer Streets Initiative, which bans vigilantism. Enforcing his edict is his own private, taxpayer-funded militia, the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, which has been given carte blanche to make the city “safer.” If that means sadistically spitting in the face of constitutional liberties and protections to terrorize and disappear anyone who gets in their way — the immigrant restaurateur, the overworked defense lawyer, a fellow law enforcement officer — so be it. It’s for the good of the city, obviously. (The parallels to the Trump administration and its use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement aren’t exactly subtle.)
Meanwhile, Matt Murdock / Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) are in hiding, trying to take down Wilson from the shadows. Karen is taking a cloak-and-dagger approach, finding and sharing evidence that Wilson is up to his old criminal ways, while Matt is rocking a new Daredevil suit (finally with the “DD” logo!) and generally being a thorn in the task force’s side. Their goal: to create a resistance movement against the mayor, and break his autocratic rule over the city by showing everyone just who he really is (which, you know, is a crime overlord).
Whereas the first season was defined by suffocating guilt born of loss and regret, the second season is more about penance, of seeking redemption and second chances. It leans into the philosophical — What is a vigilante? What is a hero? — and the religious. (Matt’s Catholicism plays a much heavier role this season.) It asks questions that don’t have easy answers: Who deserves forgiveness, and who can grant it? Who gets to make the call between life or death, and when does it cross the line from justice to vengeance? It also wonders — best shown in a clever sequence of interwoven flashbacks in a midseason episode — if people are capable of change, or if the past is the only thing that defines us.
But it’s not all weighty discussions of morality and philosophy; the action packs just as much of a punch this season. It only takes a few minutes into the first episode before Daredevil is throwing bodies around in viscerally kinetic fisticuffs. The fight choreography remains stellar, particularly when two secondary characters — superhero Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter, who reprises her role from the “Jessica Jones” series) and assassin Bullseye (a standout Wilson Bethel) — are teaming up or duking it out with Daredevil. A particular gem: a prison break-style sequence that’s so well done it rivals the famed one-shot hallway fight scene from the first season of the original series. (This season also seems to remember that Matt has supernatural hearing, a skill he honed after becoming blind in his youth and one that saves him more than once this time around.)
Speaking of standouts, Cox and D’Onofrio again nail their performances. D’Onofrio this season brings an enormous range of emotion to Wilson, who’s generally known for stoicism or rage. Watching him watch his world fall apart is a pure delight. And Cox brings his trademark witty charm and rueful grin, adding depth and nuance to the superhero. (And kudos to Matthew Lillard’s gleefully unhinged Mr. Charles, a mysterious CIA operative who seems to be playing a much bigger game than Wilson.)
What didn’t stand out (or did, depending on how you look at it) is the lighting. Lens flares are everywhere, and more than a few scenes were so blindingly backlit that it was difficult to tell what was happening on screen. Thankfully that tended to happen during slower moments, so none of the action was missed, but it was distracting all the same.
Suffice to say, all that Season 1 setup has paid off quite nicely in Season 2. Across eight tightly paced episodes full of narrative momentum, we watch as Matt and his friends try to balance the scales of justice, no matter how futile it may seem. (It’s apt that Matt finds himself praying to St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes and desperate situations.) It’s classic David versus Goliath, and there’s something powerful in Matt’s act of resistance, of saying no when everyone else says yes, of standing up to injustice even when it’s unpopular — maybe especially then. It’s an important message, one we should remember, even if the deliverer is wearing a devil suit.
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