What ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Hits and Misses About Catholic Teaching
Editor’s note": This review contains spoilers.
(REVIEW) “Your review was wrong,” my Catholic friend told me. He was referring to my review of the “Daredevil: Born Again” second season premiere.
In it, I said the series substituted the Netflix “Daredevil” show’s emphasis on the titular character’s faith with an emphasis on politics.
I pointed out that I was only reviewing the premiere in that last piece. It was a response he accepted as long as I was going to write a follow-up, because — as we both knew — the rest of the show had a lot more faith in it. There was way too much in the series for a religious superhero fan not to do a follow-up on.
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The full second season of “Daredevil: Born Again” has a lot more of Daredevil/Matt Murdock’s religion than the season premiere — or even the entire last season of the show — though still not quite as much as the Netflix series.
“Daredevil Born Again” (2025-present) is a sequel series to the classic “Daredevil” TV show that ran from 2015 to 2018. It functions as a continuation of the characters and storylines of that previous show, with all the same actors reprising their roles.
Season 2 of “Born Again” follows Daredevil (played by Charlie Cox) and his girlfriend Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) in their underground rebellion against Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), who’s using his new status as mayor to illegally amass power and punish his enemies without due process.
As both sides become more desperate and the city starts to tear itself apart, Daredevil and Fisk realize something has to change or the city they both love will pay the price.
Artistically, this season of “Born Again” is nearly as good as the original Netflix series, and far better than its own first season. In some ways, it even pushes the aesthetics forward. The dialogue is good. The storytelling is largely satisfying. The fight scenes are strong. The needle drops hit. And the narrative and thematic payoffs mostly land — even if they sometimes feel unearned or rushed.
The first way faith is present in the series is in this aesthetic sense. It makes great use of familiar Catholic visuals and tropes for drama. We have a new priest who gives counsel to those who come seeking counsel and redemption. This includes Bullseye and Daredevil. Murdock enters the church to pray, priest or not, when he needs help. The church architecture, candles and ambiance are used to add weight to scenes where people are suffering, needing redemption or mourning the dead.
What makes the difference is that Murdock is a genuine believing Catholic — something the show takes seriously. This is particularly easy to see in the attention to detail toward Catholicism. Twice, we see Murdock talk to saints in church when he’s at a low point. In one of the latter episodes, Murdock asks St. Jude, “Patron of Difficult cases … of things almost despaired of, pray for me.”
It’s noteworthy that he specifically asks for the saint to pray for him, rather than implying he’s praying to the saint. It’s a common misconception among Protestants, and too many Catholics in my experience, that Catholicism involves praying to the saints rather than asking for prayer from them, something known as intercession.
The overt themes of redemption, forgiveness and grace are also expressly tied to Christian teaching. At least somewhat. In the series, Daredevil and Karen both struggle with how to treat their enemies. Daredevil is committed to acting with mercy toward them, which eventually ends (we are given to hope) the cycle of violence.
There are storytelling problems. First, the series rehashes arguments and themes that it already dealt with rather than building off them. Many of the arguments that Murdock and Page have over the morality of killing are just thinner replays of earlier debates from the second season. Second, it makes Murdock feel like a shallower character when he’s just milking cliches rather than digging deeper and wrestling with the issues.
But the bigger problem is that it shortchanges the audience on the resources Catholicism has to solve the real-world issues that “Born Again” brings up. Resources that fit perfectly with how the series solves these tensions, only without highlighting them.
The series has Page accuse Murdock of caring more about his enemies than his loved ones because he keeps showing them mercy, which causes his loved ones (like Foggy) to die. Page’s despair and New York’s slide into both authoritarianism and anarchy parallel the disillusionment many articulate in modern-day America.
It begs two questions: If the system doesn’t work, do we need to tear down the system? Then how do we stop ourselves from slipping further and further into a cycle of chaos and violence where whoever has power — whether the tyrant or the mob — imposes their will without accountability?
Pope Pius XI articulated a Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity. This posits that God has given hierarchical authority to places like the church, government and family. When a lower authority breaks down and commits injustices, the higher authorities have a right — and even an obligation — to step in to correct these injustices.
But (and this is a key part) this always has to be oriented toward the restoration of these lower authorities, not toward the elimination of them. The goal of the bishop, for example, is to restore the corrupt local church to health, not destroy it and subsume it permanently. The goal of the federal government is to restore the corrupt or tyrannical local authorities to justice, not destroy them and take all power to itself.
In this way, Daredevil as a character functions as a mythic articulation of this principle. He’s a lawyer who works outside the law. But he does it to restore the law. When he defeats Punisher, he gives him over to the police and tells the a police officer to say that the cops caught him so that the law is reinforced rather than undermined.
Likewise, killing a person like Fisk or Bullseye, particularly outside of the legal due process, would not help restore the rule of law and the systems that Daredevil believes in. In many ways, it would validate lawlessness. The only way for the justice system to be fixed after someone like Fisk perverts it is if Daredevil’s efforts to stop him end with the justice system determining his ultimate fate.
The Daredevil character still has tension built into him. After all, who gave him the “higher authority” to determine when the system isn’t working and that he can step in to fix it? This tension is at the heart of many of the conversations he had with his priest in the Netflix show.
But part of this might show how deeply embedded Daredevil is in the American Christian tradition that sees “the people” as having the authority to defy the government when it’s not doing its job. Martin Luther King, Jr. explicitly argued for his ideas of “civil disobedience” on the Christian tradition of a hierarchy of authority and the right and duty to disobey unjust laws. But this civil disobedience still involved “restoring” the law. Which often meant peacefully going to jail for it.
We see this pay off beautifully in the “Daredevil: Born Again” season finale. In order to beat Fisk, Murdock reveals his identity as Daredevil so that he can be a legal witness against Fisk’s crimes. This gives the judges and the government the basis they need to exile Fisk — an example of subsidiarity in action. But this also goes both ways. When the police come for Murdock, he gives himself up without a fight. The only way for the system to be restored by Daredevil’s fight against Fisk is if it applies equally to him, too.
These events happen without the filmmakers articulating the (explicitly religious) framework that justifies them. So I don’t know how many people watching the series will see how it’s a useful framework for our own cultural struggles.
“Daredevil: Born Again” Season 2 is remarkable in how it unifies faith aesthetics and principles with religious sincerity. If it had been able to go deeper in building the connection between these things, it would have easily matched the original show in being one of the best dramas portraying faith on TV — and given us real wisdom on how to navigate our present time.
“Daredevil: Born Again” Season 2, as well as the original Netflix-created “Daredevil” series, can be streamed on Disney+
Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at josephholmesstudios.com.