'Daredevil: Born Again' Season 2’s Explosive Finale Will Knock You Off Your Feet

The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen is back, but now he’s on the run as newly-elected Mayor of New York, Wilson Fisk a.k.a. the Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), who is most definitely no Zohran Mamdani, has declared war on vigilantes. In the first season of the Disney+ series, Fisk runs a successful mayoral campaign and gets elected into office, which isn’t the first time a comic book villain has gone into politics. Twenty-six years ago, in the pages of Superman, similarly bald billionaire Lex Luthor won the Presidency, a ludicrous storyline at the time because the world was a saner place. Life imitated art years later when convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Donald J. Trump was elected into office twice, and now art imitates life as convicted felon Wilson Fisk sends armed, masked goons, dubbed the Anti-Vigilate Task Force or ATVF, to terrorize the citizens of New York the same way ICE has been ravaging the streets of America.

Wilson Fisk is a horrible man capable of terrible things and is one of the best and scariest villains in the MCU, whose layered complexity owes to being the main antagonist for practically the entirety of the show, both during its three-season run on Netflix and now two seasons on Disney+ (plus the underrated Echo and a cameo in Hawkeye). But as great a character as Kingpin is, there comes a time when enough is enough. After all, how long should a criminal be allowed to run an empire? The second season of Daredevil: Born Again dares to answer that question definitively, as the rivalry between Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and his arch nemesis comes to an explosive boiling point that changes everything for the Man Without Fear.

After the events of the first season, Murdock has gone into hiding with his off-again, on-again paramour Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), who works behind the scenes to undermine Fisk’s unopposed rule. Much of the season dispenses with the legal drama, which was part of the older seasons’ appeal as Matt Murdock bumbled his way through courtrooms with his boyish charm and disarming smile. That Murdock is gone, replaced by an angry and bitter man who almost broke his moral code of not killing when Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) murdered his best friend, Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), in cold blood. It’s purely by accident that Daredevil still hadn’t crossed that line as Bullseye miraculously survived the fall after being thrown off a four-story building. But what we, the audience, lost in charm, we gained in thirsty shirtless shots — Cox got swole for Season 2, packing on a ton of muscle, and he isn’t afraid to show it. Thank goodness for that because affable Matt Murdock, Attorney-at-Law, is sorely missed, but jacked Daredevil, Vigilante-at-Large, more than makes up for it.

For most of the season, Matt Murdock doesn’t make an appearance, presumed dead or missing after placing himself in the line of fire to protect his worst enemy from his second worst enemy’s assassination attempt. Instead, Daredevil goes on a brutal crusade, thrashing Fisk’s goons to within an inch of their lives. He doesn’t kill them, but he doesn’t bother to save them, either. Matt and Karen try to find evidence of Kingpin’s criminal activity to bring him down through the system, and just like in the real world, it’s an uphill battle when the good guys try to play by the rules and the bad guys don’t. Good thing Daredevil: Born Again is fiction, because at least in MCU America, some elected officials can see right through Wilson Fisk, such as Governor Marge McCaffrey (Lili Taylor), and are ready to do something about it.

Complicating things, at least for the Kingpin, is the arrival of the mysterious Mr. Charles (Matthew Lillard), who happens to work for Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, the actual villain of last year’s Thunderbolts* and a government appointee. Mr. Charles doesn’t figure much into the storyline other than to ruffle the Kingpin’s feathers and remind audiences who really don’t need any more reminding that there are shady figures in the government committing all sorts of crimes.

All good things must come to an end, and Daredevil: Born Again seems to understand that New York is simply not big enough a place for both the Kingpin and Daredevil, and its ending makes sure that things will change. At least until the next MCU film, which might shake things up again and return everything to the status quo. Daredevil: Born Again ends with a bloody bang as an untethered Kingpin who’s basically lost his entire reason for living with the death of Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) unleashes a new level of violence on his own constituents. Wilson Fisk has always been terrifying, mostly because viewers know what he’s capable of doing with his considerable resources and influence, a criminal mastermind who can make people meet gruesome ends on a whim. While the Kingpin has shown his menace through his sheer physicality, the season finale delivers an otherworldly level of physical devastation, an unforgettable sequence of violence that mirrors the now-iconic hallway oner from the Netflix series, and it’s equal parts glorious and horrific.

Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 features a Matt Murdock who has lost his moral core, his best friend and voice of reason, Foggy Nelson, and his long journey back to the light. Daredevil has always been a study in contrasts and irony, the horned devil of Hell’s Kitchen clad in black and red, saving the poor and downtrodden, fighting from the shadows, while his arch nemesis is a prominent figure often clad in white who undermines and oppresses the people from behind closed doors. It’s comic book fiction that all too often feels familiar these days, when the people who enjoy popular support are the ones committing the crimes. All we need now is for the daredevils in our midst to stand up to the Kingpins of the world.

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