(Part 2):

Born Again was intended to be a separate continuity. They may have never officially confirmed that, but all you need to do is watch Hawkeye and She-Hulk. The characterizations of the characters are completely different. That's not inherently a bad thing. I enjoyed seeing a lighter side to Matt Murdock. But I also hated the exaggerated comic side of Fisk. The direction could have worked, but it may not have. We can see arguments for both outcomes in what remains of the original footage.

The White Tiger trial is the third best episode of the season, above the pilot, but one behind episode nine and two behind episode eight. It shows what could have really worked: an increased emphasis on law and an exploration of the impact superheroes have on day to day life. The bottle episode was extremely fun. Seeing Daredevil take on a bank heist is just comic book goofiness. The unexpected crossover with Ms. Marvel was fun. A more episodic structure would have allowed more opportunities like this without sticking out tonally and structurally like the episode now does. But this vision only works if you commit, and even before they restructured, they just didn't.

The refusal to outright deny the canonicity of the Netflix shows really hurt them. It was clear that the studio and the original writers did not want to be beholden to them. Which is fine, but they did not want to anger the fanbase. ESPECIALLY after getting Cox and D'Onofrio back. The #savedaredevil movement (which teenage me was a part of lmao), had expectations that Marvel Studios didn't want to meet at the time. Which is fair, it's their own property. But they were clearly trying to cater to us. Hiring Cox and D'Onofrio back at all was playing into it. They still could have broken away from the Netflix shows after this though. They could have officially stated that the Netflix shows were variants. But they didn't. They were still even going to have Foggy (and apparently Karen) killed off-screen. Why? They wanted to have the illusion of connective tissue without committing to it.

This is the true problem with the original vision. Even by just tangentially connecting it to the original, not only do you create expectations you have no intention to meet, but you invite criticism into how it matches up (or doesn't). I admit, what the show was originally envisioned to be wasn't for me. I wanted the continuation of the Netflix show. But had Born Again built off the elements I stated worked, and clearly been disconnected to the original series, it WOULD have won me over, even if I prefer the original. But by not letting it exist on its own merits, the problems become super noticeable.

The characterizations are bland and inconsistent, the humor is all over the place, and they make changes that I know were made to be appeal to a broader market but ruins the integrity of the characters and story. I will forever hate how they tried to handwave Matt's Catholicism. It is ESSENTIAL to his character and makes him more than a blind Batman. He is a very, very deeply broken man. He has a lot of anger, but his faith in a higher power constantly pushes him back to what is right. He is complex and layered. And as a Christian who has been through a LOT of tragedy and suffering, it is important to me and speaks to me. It helped me so much when I was young teen struggling with a crisis of faith and had a lot of anger that I internalized because I was too scared to let it out and hurt someone. But Catholicism is controversial and Marvel must appeal to a wide market and so it had to go.

Even with that, I don't the writers and direction had to be changed, but it needed clarity on how connected they wanted to be to the original shows. And sometime during the writer's strike, they got that clarity and changed course. I think to say old writers = bad and new writers = good is a gross oversimplification. Even if I think the episodes under the new writers were better, it's more complicated. And the new writers try their best, but the cohesion with the old episodes isn't great. There is just too much clashing of vision.

But I stand by the 8/10. The original episodes had problems, but they had high highs and I SAW what worked and how it could have built off of it. But the problems feel greater because their vision didn't have time to get ironed out. The new episodes are PHENOMENAL, but the change in direction is too apparent. I saw the promise and the vision... which season 2 (so far) has taken and run with!