How Daredevil: Born Again Deals With The Events Of Marvel's Hawkeye & Echo
This article contains spoilers for "Daredevil: Born Again" season 1, episode 1.
"Daredevil: Born Again" continues the story of the Defenders Saga-era "Daredevil" show, but there's an unusual hiccup — its two key characters haven't exactly been absent from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as of late. Matt "Daredevil" Murdock (Charlie Cox) made his MCU entrance with a quick "Spider-Man: No Way Home" cameo in 2021 before being part of a controversial storyline on "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" (2022) and turning up for a quick but impressive fight scene in the first episode of "Echo" (2024), titled "Chafa." As a key antagonist of both "Echo" and the 2021 show "Hawkeye" (where the character was very different), Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) has had a rougher path. The end of "Hawkeye" sees his protégé Maya "Echo" Lopez (Alaqua Cox) put a bullet in the crime lord's head, and the events of "Echo" show that Kingpin has been busy healing and figuring out how to deal with his relationship with Maya.
If that wasn't enough, "Daredevil: Born Again" also has to deal with certain lingering threads from "Daredevil." The fact that so many major characters from the old show carry over to the new one — namely, Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), and Benjamin "Bullseye" Poindexter (Wilson Bethel) — also risks leaving "Born Again" with partially tied hands, potentially preventing the show from updating the Man Without Fear in a way that befits his new role in the MCU.
Fortunately, "Daredevil: Born Again" has a solution. With a shocking character death, a handy time skip, and some tactically deployed dialogue, the very first episode of the show manages to fully reset Daredevil's whole status quo while still keeping the events of "Daredevil" completely in canon.
Daredevil: Born Again resets the playing field quickly and painfully
Rest in peace, Foggy Nelson.
The opening of "Daredevil: Born Again" chooses violence. Matt, Foggy, and Karen's fun night out is interrupted by Bullseye, who assassinates Foggy before Matt, as Daredevil, is able to catch and defeat him. In one fell swoop, this traumatizing event changes the game. After a year-long time skip, we find that the incident has driven Karen away from Matt and put the captured Bullseye firmly on the shelf. (Bullseye's Cogmium steel-reinforced spine enabled him to survive Matt dropping him from a rooftop in retaliation.) Most importantly, it has caused Matt himself to hang up the horned cowl and work exclusively as a lawyer.
The events of "Hawkeye" and especially "Echo" already set up "Daredevil: Born Again" by dealing Kingpin a similar shock to the system. As such, his character reboot arc is communicated even more efficiently than the protagonist's. We first meet Wilson Fisk after the time skip, and learn that he's been out of action for that entire time. His somewhat estranged wife Vanessa Marianna-Fisk (Ayelet Zurer) has been running the criminal empire in his absence, and as the ending of "Echo" strongly suggested, Fisk further disrupts the status quo by abandoning his crime activities and running for the Mayor of New York City.
While the show rolls out Daredevil's (and Foggy's) fall in excruciating detail, the vastness of the MCU allows an exception to the "show, don't tell" rule with Kingpin. Since "Hawkeye" and "Echo" have already showed us plenty of Fisk's recent activities, "Daredevil: Born Again" can afford to recap the character's situation through dialogue alone, which gives the show the luxury of a reset that takes very little screen time.
The first two episodes are available now on Disney+, and new episodes premiere weekly.