The following story contains spoilers for the entirety of Daredevil: Born Again season 1.
WHILE THE FIRST season of Daredevil: Born Again may have felt like a bit of a bumpy ride—some of the threads and storylines throughout the first season, like the serial killer Muse, feel a bit disconnected from everything else going on, and while Poindexter/Bullseye was great, he was also greatly underutilized—the show ended on a major high, with a lot that had been bubbling all season long finally coming to a sinister, troubling head. To put it lightly, the shit hit the fan.
While Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) was busy establishing his new law firm, building his new relationship, fighting for those who needed his help in court, and mourning his friend Foggy Nelson, the newly-elected mayor of New York City, a little-known stand-up guy by the name of Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), was busy planting the roots for his fascist plan to take over the city. That involved instituting what he called the Anti-Vigilante Task Force (AVTF), a violent militia made up entirely of corrupt cops brandishing The Punisher’s skull insignia as a tattoo—something the actual Punisher (Jon Bernthal) doesn’t support at all.
By the end of the messy first season (something that can likely be attributed to the fact that two entirely different creative teams worked on the first season after the initial group was fired; The new team will have full control for all future episodes), we have something of a real set-up on our hands. Fisk, going full Evil Kingpin mode, has a violent militia carrying out his agenda and has officially declared martial law in New York City. He’s got vigilantes (including The Punisher and Swordsman (Tony Dalton)) being held prisoner, and, in general, is just the villain we’ve always known him to be.
Matt, meanwhile, knows he’s got to fight him from the shadows. Kingpin can kill people with his bare hands, and he can kill people through the use of the system. He’s got all the power. It’s terrifying for our hero, but that’s the way the dynamic of these two has always been set up: the underdog hero who is just pesky enough, for just long enough, to take down the overwhelmingly strong villain.
This is Daredevil and Kingpin at their finest, and season 2 seems to be ready to dive directly into all of it.
Will there be a season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again?
Yes! An eight-episode Season 2 is already in the works, and filming in New York City has been underway since March. Daredevil: Born Again was originally supposed to be an 18-episode event (it was announced as such during San Diego Comic Con in 2022), but lots has changed inside Marvel Studios in the time since, and so the season was split.
While season 2 will continue the story that season 1 set up, it also might not be the end; in an interview with Collider, series executive producer Sana Amanat and showrunner Dario Scardapane said that “the future is unwritten”—meaning the story of Daredevil (and Kingpin) could very possibly continue.
When will Daredevil: Born Again season 2 come out?
We don’t have a date for that just yet. But with season 2 already in production, it seems like a fairly safe bet that the show could return to air once again by March 2026 at the very latest.
What will Daredevil: Born Again season 2 be about?
We don’t have much official word on what Daredevil: Born Again season 2 is all about, but it’s clear as day to see what’s being set up at the end of season 1. In what’s looking to be a fairly loyal adaptation of writer Chip Zdarsky’s “Devil’s Reign” run, Kingpin has instituted martial law in New York City and is running the city like the fascist he is.
Matt, fully embracing his Daredevil persona, is building “an army” to take him on. And to be honest, the army looked pretty weak, made up of his private investigator, Cherry, and some of the other detectives and characters we’ve met over the course of the season. But he’s got one major reinforcement coming: Frank Castle/The Punisher, who escaped from Kingpin’s clutches in the show’s post-credits sequence. And you know he’s not afraid to go HAM on some corrupt cops, bad guys, and even the Kingpin himself. As far as villains go, though, we do know that Poindexter/Bullseye will be returning—actor Wilson Bethel was spotted in costume on set recently. We’ll also be meeting new characters played by Matthew Lillard, and Lili Taylor (in addition to most of the vital characters from season 1).
Late in the first season, we also met a character named Cole North. Readers of Chip Zdarsky’s run on Daredevil know that North is a skeptical cop who is, at first, hunting Daredevil, but eventually becomes his ally; Think of the comics version of Cole North as basically Daredevil’s version of Batman’s Jim Gordon. But the show handles him a bit differently, putting him on Fisk’s AVTF and revealing him in the finale as the corrupt cop who murdered Hector Ayala earlier in the season. But Matt spares his life in the finale, and perhaps that gets him on some kind of road to redemption in season 2, where he winds up more closely resembling the character from the comics.
If we were able to make some hopes for season 2, it would just be for everything to align more neatly with the world we’ve established this is a part of. If Kingpin is making vigilantism illegal, shouldn’t that be affecting more than just Daredevil and The Punisher? We know that Spider-Man is still a superhero in NYC (even though the whole world forgot about Peter Parker). We know that Doctor Strange is still there, though he could be universe/dimension-jumping at any given moment. We haven’t seen them in the proper MCU, but we know that Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are in the mix too—and it sure would be nice for Matt to see a couple familiar faces.
Hell, Ms. Marvel spends her time across the river in Jersey City, but Matt already met her dad—it feels very likely that she would (and perhaps could) get involved with this fight against our big, bad, bald villain.
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Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
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