On one hand, it’s surprising that Born Again still feels like it lives in two different worlds. Even when overstuffed with Punisher, Elektra, and the Hand, the Netflix series always felt like a show about Matt Murdock, lawyer by day and crime fighter by night. However, Born Again was split not just between Murdock and Fisk, the latter of whom only became a more compelling character in the years since the Netflix series ended, but between the world of superheroes, lawyers, and politics.
Most viewers assumed that Born Again‘s fractured nature stemmed from its odd production cycle, in which the original showrunners, who imagined the show as a political and legal thriller, were replaced by current guide Dario Scardapane, who brought superheroics back to the fore. Yet, three episodes into a season that Scardapane built from scratch, no reusing footage from the previous regime, Born Again still remains a show about regular people just as much as it is Daredevil and the Kingpin.
Throughout these episodes, we get glorious fight scenes, shot with fluid style and verve by episode two’s directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead and episode three’s Solvan “Slick” Naim. But we also get strong character beats, most surprisingly evident in the relationship between Daniel Blake, the up-and-comer in the Fisk organization played by Michael Gandolfini, and young journalist BB Urich, played by Genneya Walton.
BB hosts The BB Report, a man-on-the-street news show that provides Born Again with a Greek Chorus, even if it appears to resemble long-form interviews common to nightly news of times past and not the rapid-fire, TikTok-ready segments that someone of BB’s age would make. Worse, BB carried the weight of being the successor to Ben Urich, a longtime staple in the pages of Marvel Comics (you might remember that Joe Pantoliano portrayed the character in the little-loved 2003 movie), perfectly performed by Vondie Curtis-Hall in the Netflix series.
Urich’s death at the hands of the Kingpin left a hole in the Netflix series that BB could not fill, but season two is finding something different to do with her. As we found in the premiere, BB has been forced to produce PR pieces sympathetic to the Fisk campaign, an act that both fills her with guilt and draws the attention of secret internet raconteurs, who produce the counter-program City Without Fear, critiquing BB’s reports via a figure in a ridiculous Fisk mask. By the end of episode two, we learn that BB is the woman behind the Fisk mask, an echo of the classic superhero secret identity motif.
As we see in these two episodes, the BB Report and City Without Fear are less used to describe the state of New York City’s politics and more to explore BB’s internal struggle. In that way, she serves as a foil to Blake, a true believer in Fisk’s policies who doesn’t understand why is good friend BB doesn’t get on board. As Daniel realizes that BB has been leaking material from the Fisk administration to City Without Fear—and as Fisk himself starts to realize that Daniel is the leak within his organization—the political becomes personal quickly.
