Daredevil Born Again: Heaven’s Half Hour review S1 E1

Heaven’s Half Hour marks an immediately exhilarating and surprising kick off to Daredevil: Born Again. Any concerns about the first Disney+ episode of the series that frequently dabbled into bloody and violent storylines being neutered are quickly dismissed in the opening act.

Heaven’s Half Hour features one of the bloodiest, intense and brutal fight scenes in the entirety of the series. And that’s just in the first 15 minutes.

In any other season, this clash in Heaven’s Half Hour would mark an immensely satisfying wild closing payoff to an amazing season. Yes, it’s that memorable — for more ways than one.

Foggy, Matt and Karen stroll to Josie’s after concluding another successful case. A group of police are also there celebrating the retirement of one of their own, Jerry (Clark Johnson). Josie gives him the infamous may you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows you’re dead toast. Heaven’s Half Hour certainly makes that a fitting cheer. Foggy is flirting with Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James), a fellow attorney who can’t understand why Murdock and Nelson specialize in catering to such small-scale clients. Meanwhile, Karen and Matt continue their will they?/won’t they? dynamic from Season 3.

A news report shows footage of another vigilante, The White Tiger, stopping an attempted robbery at a bodega. This is the first sign of a larger Marvel Cinematic Universe just in the sense that White Tiger is the kind of character that probably wouldn’t have made the cut in the Netflix era version of the show. Especially in a mostly comic accurate costume. Or at least one that gets the point across of the look. One of their clients calls him worried that someone is coming to kill him. Those fears prove well founded as a fly just outside his place gets killed by a paper clip — a fun nod to the first Daredevil movie.

Matt questions why Foggy didn’t tell him and Foggy says it was to avoid giving him an excuse suggesting Matt hasn’t donned the red leather Daredevil gear often if at all. That streak ends pretty quickly. The biggest change from the Netflix era of Daredevil was the dramatic, comic book-inspired CGI work of Daredevil using his wire pool and hopping along rooftops. Marvel Netflix didn’t make that a priority no matter how rarely Matt suited up.

Bullseye is back, but he wasn’t gunning for Foggy’s client. That was just a distraction. By the time Daredevil returns to the bar, Bullseye shot Foggy and made several quick kill shots on the responding police officers. Daredevil does manage to stop him from killing Karen at least.

Heaven’s Half Hour is going to prove a very high bar to clear for Born Again’s best fight scene. The fight choreography is tight equaling if not surpassing some of the best in the series. Bullseye is just randomly finding objects to skewer Daredevil and oh so casually kill innocent victims in the bar. After hearing Foggy’s final heartbeats, Daredevil just pushes Bullseye off the roof. It’s a brutal moment symbolizing how distraught Matt is over his best friend’s senseless murder. Naturally, Bullseye survives.

Jerry runs up to the rooftop and sees a grieving Daredevil with his mask off, which he lets crash down to the pavement. And that’s how you open a season!

A year has passed, and the mayoral election is underway. Vanessa Fisk is conducting a meeting of the five families including the new leader of the Tracksuit Mafia when Kingpin arrives looking decidedly slimmer. I liked the more imposing size he had in Hawkeye. It made him look far more formidable. Fisk has a grander idea than lording over the streets as the Kingpin and it’s for the top seat at City Hall.

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One of the staples of Born Again is the random cuts with a segment of The BB Report with BB Urich (Genneya Walton, Candy Cane Lane) the niece of Ben Urich. These man on the street interviews are like temperature gauges of what’s currently playing out in the series and underlined pressure points that could rise up at any moment.

Matt has also undergone a reinvention of sorts. He stops by his firm, Murdock & McDuffie for some banter with Kirsten as the two have clearly become very tight (professionally) in the past year. She tried to get him emotionally prepared for this big moment — the trial of Bullseye. Matt is on the stand when Karen arrives. The two are elated to hear Bullseye gets life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Karen’s relocated to San Francisco and it’s the first time she’s talked to Matt in months. Crime has gotten bad in certain areas of New York, but Matt states he’s not Daredevil anymore. Karen questions if that will actually help, clearly indicating a shift in her stance on Daredevil’s usefulness. The feelings between the two are still raw based on their shared trauma of losing Foggy. Karen can’t stay in Matt’s presence for long and leaves him with the broken horn from his Daredevil mask.

Matt learns the news from the post credit of Echo — Wilson Fisk is running for mayor. His slogan, Fisk can Fix it, is pretty catchy. While Matt questions the sanity of anyone who would vote for a known criminal and thug in Fisk, Kirsten has him meet up with a potential client — her therapist friend, Heather (Margarita Levieva, The Acolyte). Heather thought she was seeing Kirsten’s friend for an initial meetup before he started therapy and they both realize they’ve been set up. This was a good move on Kirsten’s part as Heather and Matt have immediate chemistry that seems so much more natural than the forced Matt/Karen dynamic.

Though Matt is rightfully suspicious, Jerry — who’s now operating as his special investigator — couldn’t come up with any dirt on Fisk. That leaves Matt with one course of action. Talking one on one with the Kingpin. This scene definitely feels like the Daredevil homage to the Heat diner scene. Not surprisingly, Cox and D’Onfrio pull it off easily.

Fisk vows to outlaw vigilantes and warns Matt not to put the costume back on. While on a date with Heather, Matt hears that Fisk has won the election. Fisk isn’t fully in the mood to celebrate as he tells Vanessa he knows about Adam. Vanessa calmly asks him not to kill Adam. Vanessa knows denying the affair is a waste of her time.

Heaven’s Half Hour has a spectacular closing sequence. Fisk looks over a rooftop gazing out above the city with bright white spotlights swirling around him while Matt wades through a crowd of Fisk voters reveling in the victory with dark red and orange lighting peering through. It’s a tremendous means of symbolizing the reversal of their place — Kingpin is with the angels while Matt has descended to his own personal hell.

Heaven’s Half Hour proved a stellar episode of TV. It’s probably not a completely fair contest since this isn’t the first season of Daredevil, but Born Again looks like it could be an even better crime saga than The Penguin. Fortunately, there’s another episode to help make that case right away.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Disney

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