Yet, in the finale, Fisk is just a witness on the stand, Bullseye gets whisked away to go on black ops missions with Mr. Charles, and Daredevil limits his superpowers to a demonstration in front of the judge. Jessica Jones goes back home to Danielle, where she gets to reunite with the heretofore missing Luke Cage. So does the finale, “The Southern Cross,” directed by Iain B. MacDonald and written by Scardapane & Jesse Wigutow, deliver a satisfying end?
Yes, but only if you understand Born Again as the story of Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk trying, and failing, to go straight.
We saw in the penultimate episode Matt Murdock emerge from hiding to take his place as co-councillor with Kirsten McDuffie, defending Karen Page’s against charges that she’s a vigilante. Fisk observed those proceedings from his office, but now he’s ready to face his enemy in the open.
The tension of the episode comes from the way Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio play off of each other. By this point, the two actors have not only honed their characters and established a rapport with one another, but they feel a certain ownership over the show. During the Born Again press tour, they’ve both been vocal about their concerns with the previous showrunners and have claimed that they drove Disney to change the direction of the series.
Thus, it falls on the two actors to make the climax of “The Southern Cross” worthwhile as a piece of superhero television, and they mostly succeed. D’Onofrio’s “baby in a big man’s body” approach means that Fisk initially seems bored by Murdock’s questions, even though he thinks he holds sway over his opponent. He allows a spark of excitement to enter Fisk’s eyes when it becomes clear that Murdock may implicate himself in his interrogation. When Fisk tells Murdock that he’s willing “to go down that road” with him, D’Onofrio plays the character as if he’s finally shaking off the pretense of mayor, and getting to be his true self, the Kingpin, once again, and he loves it.
Cox imbues Matt with the same energy. Matt Murdock has always been a guy so mired in guilt that he cannot make a good, smart decision. His interrogation of Fisk offers him the greatest chance to indulge that tendency. He gets to make himself a martyr by revealing to everyone that he’s Daredevil, utterly destroying his life and endangering the lives of his friends, and he gets to feel like he’s doing the right thing because he takes down Fisk with him. Cox’s charming grin turns dangerous in these moments, his blood rising as he and Fisk egg each other on.
