‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Is Using New York in a Smart and Poignant Way
New York City is always a character in any bit of media it is a part of. It is the fabric that makes Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) who he is in Daredevil and Daredevil: Born Again, and in season 2, we’re seeing how New York is willing to fight back.
Many times in superhero stories, New York becomes a caricature of itself. “You mess with him, you mess with all of us,” kind of mentality. But Daredevil: Born Again does something smart with the way it shows New York City throughout season 2. At the start of the season, I was confused. New Yorkers would not put up with a mayor like Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio). He gives Eric Adams energy and we all saw how New York treated him.
But to watch the BB Report feature New Yorkers happy with Fisk felt wrong and weird. It took until the end of the first episode to really understand what Born Again was doing with mine and Matt Murdock’s beloved city: They were showing that New Yorkers will always find a way to fight back.
Often, it is captured as an aggressive sort of resistance. But that’s not exactly true of the city. We find ways to push back and often it is by helping our fellow neighbor. In episode 2, we saw that on display in the incredibly tense bodega scene. Angela (Camila Rodriguez) and her aunt are in the store when the owner is mad at the teenagers in the back. He pulls a gun on them to stop them from stealing and Angela and her aunt try to de-escalate the situation. Then the Anti-Vigilante Task Force steps in.
The AVTF almost instantly makes the entire situation worse and it results in Angela’s aunt being taken to Red Hook.
New York is strong and loyal to each other
While the scene in question was hard to watch, it is also true of how New Yorkers are. Even when we’re fighting with each other, we don’t take those trying to oppress us and our neighbors lightly. Everyone in that store suddenly ended up on the same side and that was the Anti-AVTF side. When the officer said the store owner “took the law into his own hands,” it was made abduntantly clear that he went into that store with an agenda.
The parallels to ICE officers and the AVTF have already been made and this scene helped show just how deep those parallels run. But even though the scene made me uncomfortable to watch, it made me proud of my city. That store in those terrifying moments turned their anger on each other onto the AVTF officer and yes, it all happened incredibly quickly but I do think the show is doing an incredible job of highlighting how New York would react to the martial law of Wilson Fisk.
It wouldn’t be the puff your chest out fights that the media wants you to believe. It’d be in the moments that count, like Angela and her aunt trying to mediate a situation and then doing their best to free innocent people from Red Hook.
The New Yorker in Matt Murdock is showing
When Matt goes to Red Hook, he can’t just leave. He tells Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) in the getaway car that he couldn’t leave the “prisoners” and had to free them. While that is morally what Matt Murdock always would do, it is also very New York of him. He’s the kind of man who can’t see a fellow New Yorker down and if that means helping people escape the AVTF, he’s going to do it.
And on the flip of that, Wilson Fisk is a New Yorker himself but he’s a different kind than Matt. Matt grew up with the idea of fighting for yourself, protecting others, and that Catholic guilt really will have you feeling bad for things completely out of your control. Fisk is the kind of New Yorker who only cares about himself and will do whatever it takes to find the success he thinks he so rightfully deserves. Huh, weird. Kind of sounds like the kind of New Yorker who his own city refuses to vote for and hates (who runs the White House).
But through it all, the show is using New York in a very smart and interesting way. It isn’t just making the city a caricature of itself but rather understands how New Yorkers operate and it is amazing to see.
Daredevil: Born Again airs on Disney+ every Tuesday.
(featured image: Jojo Whilden/Disney+)
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