If the early reactions to the first two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again are anything to go by, it is set to be one of the best things Marvel has put on television and perhaps even on screen. Screenrant’s Liam Crowley said on X that it “has the best pilot of any MCU series thus far, and it’s not close.” Sean O’Connell of Cinema Blend labeled it “just as brutal” as its predecessor, the show Daredevil on Netflix, which ran for three seasons before getting cancelled. Now it's been Born Again.
Helmed by Dario Scardapane, who previously worked as an executive producer on The Punisher, the new series almost entirely brings back the old cast. Charlie Cox returns as the lead character 10 years after he first appeared as the lawyer by day and masked vigilante by night, Matt Murdock, a.k.a. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, a.k.a. The Daredevil. However, this won’t be Cox’s first return to the MCU. He appeared in Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and briefly in Echo.
Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page), Elden Henson (Foggy Nelson), Vincent D’Onofrio (Wilson Fisk/Kingpin), and Jon Bernthal (Frank Castle) also return.
Released in April 2015, it is technically the first MCU television show now to be considered canon. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter predate it, but those shows now get a Star Wars: Legends-esque treatment; they're not technically part of the current MCU.
Without further ado, let’s dive into the list of the best scenes from the series.
10. The hallway fight scene (Season 1, Episode 2 - "Cut Man")
A tribute to the iconic corridor sequence from Oldboy, this one-take hallway fight scene sets the tone for what fans could expect from the series, action-wise. This is the first of several long-form sequences where Matt fights off one group of bad guys or another in a continuous shot.
In the scene, Matt responds to a blatantly obvious trap set for him by Russian mobsters by using a young boy as bait. The action ebbs and flows for nearly three minutes down the hallway as our masked hero’s exhaustion becomes a palpable anxiety for the audience. The grunge lighting, fluidity of the fight choreography, and the alarming reality of seeing the protagonist get overwhelmed and fatigued by the second episode all fight for dominance in the scene as hard as Matt was fighting those Russian mobsters.
9. Daredevil vs. Bullseye at Clinton Church (Season 3, Episode 10 - “Karen”)
Agent Poindexter/Bullseye (Wilson Bethel), steady in his mission to defame the Daredevil, finds Karen Page hiding in Father Lantom’s church and immediately goes for the kill. The real Matt Murdock shows up in his black gear and eye mask, and the two lock horns in the middle of the aisle. At one point, Matt fails to get back up fast enough, and Dex throws a billy club at Karen. Lantom steps in front of her and sacrifices his life. Matt, enraged, pummels down on Dex. In the end, he manages to escape after taking a fall to the ground, thanks to Karen.
Father Lantom had been Matt’s friend, guide, and confidante throughout all three seasons, popping up here and there whenever he needed to soothe his soul about all the bloodshed. However, Matt abandons Lantom in season 3 after learning he knew about Maggie Grace being his mother and said nothing. But the Father’s death — the demise of a guiding guardian figure — may put an even bigger distance between Matt and his Catholic faith. It could be one of the contributing factors that will make the new series “even darker” than its predecessor, according to Charlie Cox himself.
8. Matt Murdock tells Foggy Nelson about his alter ego (Season 1, Episode 10 - “Nelson vs. Murdock”)
After getting gravely injured in his battle with Nobu, Matt decides to tell Foggy about his masked vigilante persona, not that he has much of an option, given his state. In multiple flashback scenes, we learn about their early days as lawyers and how their former employer, Landman & Zack, representing Roxxon Energy Corporation, led them to start their law firm. Their back-and-forth lasts almost the entire episode, with Matt answering all of Foggy’s questions.
But the moment that sticks the most is when Matt reveals the crime that finally set him on the path of being a superhero. After spending months listening to the police sirens across Hell’s Kitchen, thanks to his heightened senses, one day, Matt heard a little girl crying in a building down the block. “Her father liked to go to her room late at night when his wife was asleep,” Matt tells Foggy. When the law failed to protect the child, Matt took it into his own hands and sent the man to the hospital for a month. Foggy is still not convinced Matt is doing it for the right reasons, but viewers were certainly sold.
7. Matt Murdock catches a brick (Spider-Man: No Way Home)
In a movie chock-full of cameos, Easter eggs, and nostalgic throwbacks, Matt Murdock still got all the hoots and cheers he deserves in the theater when he showed up in Spider-Man: No Way Home. In the movie, Matt serves as Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) lawyer after Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) reveals his superhero identity.
As Matt informs Peter that the charges against him in connection with Mysterio’s death won’t stick, but he may still have to tackle public blowback, a brick flies through the window, thrown by one of Mysterio’s supporters. Both Peter and Matt put their hands up at the same time. Matt catches the brick before it can even reach Peter’s hand. It raised some questions about whether Matt has a quicker reaction time than Peter, but the scene makes it clear that while Matt is seemingly just as fast, he is simply seated closer to the window.
6. Daredevil and Elektra vs. The Hand and Nobu Yoshioka (Season 2, Episode 13 – "A Cold Day in Hell’s Kitchen")
Matt Murdock has fought his fair share of battles, but very few of his opponents came as close to decimating him as Nobu. The notorious Japanese ninja and member of The Hand literally drags Matt around with his kyoketsu-shoge, his razor-sharp chained weapon, in their first encounter in season 1, episode 9. Matt leaves him to burn to death eventually, Obi-Wan Kenobi style, but Nobu is resurrected by The Hand. This whole mystery is explained in The Defenders.
Nobu returns to haunt him as Matt teams up with former lover turned enemy turned ally, Elektra Natchios (Elodie Yung). They engage in a fierce rooftop battle with Nobu and his goons. Midway through the fight, which raises the stakes with each move, Elektra sacrifices her life to take the fatal blow meant for Matt and tells him that loving him made her better with her dying breath.
Enraged, Matt engages in a hate-fueled one-on-one battle with Nobu and throws him off the roof while Frank Castle takes care of his goons from another rooftop. “See you around, Red,” Frank bids him farewell, and Matt, having heard it due to his enhanced hearing, gives a brief nod. I always thought this was a brilliant way of ending the bloody and brutal sequence, where the two men of opposing ideologies take a step closer to acknowledging each other’s vigilante work.
5. Daredevil vs. Kingpin showdown (Season 1, Episode 13 - "Daredevil")
The intense story of the first season culminates in a showdown between Daredevil and Wilson Fisk in an alleyway. Matt’s refined hand-to-hand combat skills clash against Fisk’s big and bellowing moves. Fisk is then mourning the loss of his grip over New York City. The Kingpin’s rage eventually paves the way for his downfall in the fight.
Matt leaves him for the cops to find, but one could tell this was only the beginning of a long-running rivalry that will boil over in the streets and rooftops of Hell’s Kitchen. Ten years later, the sworn rivals are still at it, with Fisk now the mayor of the city that Matt wants to protect more than anything. This iconic fight also marked the first time Matt is seen in the red, horned Daredevil suit and embraces the moniker, truly turning into the Daredevil.
4. Daredevil and Punisher vs. Kitchen Irish (Season 2, Episode 4 - "Penny and Dime")
If you can’t tell by now, this author loves the inclusion of Frank Castle in the series and is only too giddy about the Punisher special in which Jon Bernthal will star after an initial appearance in Daredevil: Born Again. In season 2 of the Netflix series, we learn more about Frank’s backstory and how his family was killed in a shootout between the Kitchen Irish and the Dogs of Hell. Frank gets captured by the Irish mob but eventually breaks free after some perfectly violent torture and shoots away at whoever is around.
This is where Matt Murdock steps in. The Daredevil finds Frank cornered in a room after fighting off a few goons and helps him escape. Matt fights his way through more strings of Irish gangsters and, at the same time, physically stops Frank from killing some of them. While the fight itself is as delicious as ever, it is the part where Frank slightly gives in and lets Matt’s no-kill approach take the lead that makes the scene special to me. Later on, Frank tells Matt about his family and allows himself to be arrested.
3. Daredevil vs. Bullseye vs. Kingpin (Season 3, Episode 13 - "A New Napkin")
The three-way match between Daredevil, Dex, and Wilson Fisk is the last time we see Matt Murdock fight; and what a grand farewell it is to the beloved Netflix series. Dex crashes Fisk and Vanessa’s wedding, seething with fury after learning that Fisk ordered Julie’s death. Matt intervenes, and the three fight it out Battle Royale-style, skin splitting, furniture breaking, and bone crunching every other second.
Fisk manages to end Dex’s rampage by breaking his spine but is then overpowered by Matt. The masked crusader had initially intended to kill Fisk. However, he leaves him to be arrested by the police once again, but not before warning him to stay away from Karen and Foggy. At the time it aired, it felt like a reasonable ending to the series, especially with Matt, Foggy, and Karen restarting their law firm.
2. Daredevil’s conversation with Frank Castle (Season 2, Episode 3 - “New York’s Finest”)
While most of Matt’s top-notch scenes include him beating people up (and getting beaten up in return) in stairwells and dark alleyways, some of the best-written ones in the show are just two people talking. The best takes place between Matt Murdock and Frank Castle on a rooftop. Matt is Frank’s captive here, tied up in chains but alive, and uses this opportunity to condemn the Punisher’s murderous ways of cleaning up the city.
Frank kills criminals without mercy, while Matt batters and bruises them and sends them to jail but does not cross the line of ending their lives. Frank believes what Matt does is not enough as the criminals find their way back to the streets. Matt argues that Frank’s method snuffs out any remaining shred of goodness there might be in those he kills. The conversation is incredibly poignant as two men who want to keep their city safe are forced to face a mirror, take note of the consequences of their actions, and come away with some much-needed doubts about their ideals.
1. Matt Murdock’s prison escape (Season 3, Episode 4 - "Blindsided")
Almost unanimously considered the best action sequence in the series, Matt Murdock’s prison escape in the third season is an incredible feat of fight choreography with no cuts and no breaks. Matt impersonates Foggy to gain access to the prison to speak with Jasper Evans, who shares vital information about the Kingpin. Prison guards and inmates on Fisk’s payroll attack Matt. It is one of the rarer moments where we see Matt fight in his “abogados” gear.
The 12-minute sequence plays out as Matt fights his way through a barrage of men from the prison’s sickbay, down a corridor (again), and manages to get some help from the Albanian mob, who are also hoping to destroy Fisk. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as they say. We see Matt get pushed to his absolute limit, bloodied and battered, and also somewhat confused in the full-blown prison riot. When he finally manages to escape, he is driven off a dock by a taxi. He survives the fall, of course.
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