Born Again’ Misled Everyone In Its Marketing

While it has certainly been nice to see Matt Murdock back in action as Daredevil in the resurrected Born Again series, as time has gone on, this show has felt increasingly disjointed, and in many ways, entirely misleading based on the marketing and promotion for the series we thought we were getting.

We are seven episodes in now, and things have been…strange. Spoilers follow:

• After much hype that Karen Page and Foggy Nelson would be back for the series after reports they wouldn’t be in an earlier draft of the show, Foggy died immediately. While that may have been expected, Page has now only had a few minutes of meaningful screen time and has disappeared for the last six episodes.

• The Punisher was promoted as a big part of this season, even narrating one of the trailers, and frequently featured in many of them. Instead, again, in seven episodes, we’ve gotten a single scene with Frank. A powerful one, but no more than five minutes total and one that very much feels like it was cut into the existing episode in an awkward way.
• Muse was largely absent from the first six episodes, his storyline finally becoming relevant at the end of episode 6 and now in episode 7 where he was…promptly killed. The return of villain Bullseye was much-anticipated, but he got a single fight scene (the show sort of peaked with that fight scene in the opener, to be honest) and brief trial sequence before being banished from the rest of the show.
• Overall, it feels like the idea that the original Daredevil show everyone did not like that was supposedly totally scrapped still very much lives on in large chunks of the series so far. A lack of Foggy and Karen, Bernthal not wanting to return as Punisher in the old draft, and barely showing up here. And Matt being out of the suit for a huge portion of the series. In seven episodes he’s only been in the suit for parts of three of them. All of this is very, very similar to what was originally supposed to be the problems with the first draft.

There is promising news, however, and I know many fans will bring this up shortly after reading this list. Karen and The Punisher are supposed to be back in the next episode. Muse is supposed to return in season 2, possibly being resurrected in some form similar to what happened to him in the comics (he has actual superpowers in the comics, goes to hell, find a new tortured artist to attach himself to, etc.).

The report of what has happened here is that the final two episodes of season 1 were developed completely after the reboot, meaning they do not contain large chunks of the original storylines that were clearly not entirely scrapped. And those who have seen those episodes have glowing things to say.

This also applies to season 2 of Born Again, which seems entirely divorced from the original series concept. We’re already seeing Karen Page filming on set, and it seems she will actually be back from there. Actress Deborah Ann Woll has said Foggy will be back too, somehow, whether that’s in flashbacks or the fan-theory idea that he’s faked his death (which has also happened in the comics before).

This has been a weird season. There have been great moments, but the way this has been spliced together with the original draft so clearly has been somewhat uncomfortable. Now, it’s supposed to change in a big way from here, and I can only hope that’s actually true.

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