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Wednesday, 25 March 2026

Daredevil: Born Again "The Northern Star" SPOILER FILLED Review

 

It is a very rare thing for a show set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be given a season 2 as all of them end after there first season. Which is something that does make this show kind of special as it was greenlit with a two season order with each season being really around nine or eight episodes each and will second season has just started and since I loved the first season it really only made sense that I check out this episode and so then join me as I give you my SPOILER FILLED review of the episode that sees Matt get a new suit with the episode in question being called simply just "The Northern Star" enjoy.

The plot of this episode is sometime after the events of the last season New York is still truly under Fisk's thumb and Matt has to try and find any kind of evidence that can be linked to Fisk in order to help to bring him down. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. With the episodes plot doing a good job of not only catching us up with where the characters are now but also in carrying on the plot for the first season with that plot still being as gripping as it was back in season one yet just based off of this episode it does look like that this season won't add anything to the shows overall plot which is something that does somewhat make sense as this shows plot was devised mostly with that two season order in mind and yet the plot of this episode still does feel like it's own unique thing as you don't really have to have watched the previous season to get the plot of this episode. Yet the thing that does let down this episodes plot is the fact that it's not the strongest plot to start the season out with and with any TV show you always want to start with your best foot forward with this episodes plot feeling very weak and like it was thought up very quickly as alot of what was said in this episode does appear to be nothing all that major with the plot of this episode being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least


Starring in this episode is Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock / Daredevil and Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk. Also starring in this episode is Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page , Margarita Levieva as Heather Glenn , Matthew Lillard as Mr. Charles , Tony Dalton as Jack Duquesne , Michael Gandolfini as Daniel Blake , Nikki M. James as Kirsten McDuffie , Arty Froushan as Buck Cashman , Genneya Walton as BB Urich , Zabryna Guevara as Sheila Rivera , Clark Johnson as Cherry , Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa Fisk , Hamish Allan-Headley as Connor Powell , Ty Jones as Steverud , John Benjamin Hickey as Benjamin Hochberg , Thomas Cokenias as Achilleo Kyriaco , Yorgos Karamihos as Christofi Savva , Annie Parisse as Ariana , Lenny Platt as Juan Gomez and Michael Anthony Cruz as Longshoreman.

Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. With all of this shows main actors giving us some really good performances which given just whom is starring in this episode is something that was quite frankly to be expected where te acting does somewhat start to faulter is with it's guest actors as alot of them either overact in every scene that there in or show next to no emotion in scenes that do require emotion with the best example of this being in the episodes opening where a ships captain and his possibly second in command are talking while Daredevil is attacking there ship and yet they both don't show any kind of urgency as they play it off as being just another day at the office for them when this is something that would require alot of emotion. With the best actor in this episode being Matthew Lillard as Mr. Charles as not only does Matthew Lillard prove once again why he's a good actor and why he's having some really good few years acting wise but he does come across as being a less cocky version of Fisk himself with him and Vincent D'Onofrio really having some really good chemistry together which is something that does make all of there scenes together all the mor fun to watch. With the acting that's in this episode really being helped by the fact that this episodes script is just so good that all this episodes actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturally which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very episode.
 

Doing the CGI for this episode is Ingenuity Studios and the legends and the greats that are currently over at RISE Visual Effects Studios. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual CGI that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. With this episode mainly using CGI in the way that it should be used as it's only used to extend sets and that's really it so no need to to fear there is no CGI smoke in this episode with the episode very much like the show on the whole preferring to us practical effects over CGI effects with the episodes practical effects working really well and blending it well with the episodes CGI. The episode does even manage to gave some fairly convincing looking water effects which is impressive on it's own as water is one of the most difficult things to get right on a feature film budget let alone on a streaming show budget and while they don't quite get it right here given that the scene that it appears in as at night it is forgivable even taking into account that this is a Disney show while there are some kind of bad looking green screen effects done on certain characters it's not really all that distracting it's just something that you will notice and that's really it but to be fair to this episode tho this show isn't an effects heavy show it never was in the first season and it looks like that's going to be true for this season as well and therefor for them to have good looking effects that blend in really well with what filmed for real is still something that's truly special to be hold.

SPOILERS START HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




To be blunt Fisk in this episode doesn't really have that much on an impact on the episode as a whole as the only thing that he does is tell his task force officers to track down the two people on the ship and have a meeting with Mr. Charles. Which fair enough is still a solid enough way to use the character but when you bare in mind that season one of this show used the character so well by showing him being this manipulative person who is really willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals it makes what they do with him in this episode feel less impactful as they could have shown him and his wife filming fake videos to release to the public which is something that does get shown quite alot in this episode and they could have shown him getting mad when he finds out that one of his boats was attacked just something that would let us the audience know that Daredevil is starting to get to him and that he's starting to loose it. Yet at the same time tho the fact that they don't do any of that does make you wonder what he's really thinking as we all know from both the Netflix show and this shows first season that Wilson Fisk is a character who is always thinking two or three moves ahead of everyone else and therefor when he discovers that one of his boats was attacked he would already be thinking of ways to hurt or persons responsible for the attack in the first place and heck it could even be argued that this character is more scary when we don't see him react to it as we know just how evil that this character really is in the first place and while it is of course far two early to work out just what his grand scheme is for New York we know that it is something that is going to be scary just due to the fact that he is a creepy and scary character.

Much like how in the first episode of the previous season where they killed of Foggy Nelson here in this episode they hint at the fact that Cherry might be dead. Due to the fact that at the end of the episode when members of the task force come to interrogate him they give him a beating which his heart can't handle and starts to suffer a heart attack right there as Matt as Daredevil is trying to fight them off. With it being that very incident that made this review got from a SPOILER FREE review to a SPOILER FILLED review as while Cherry isn't as beloved of a character as Foggy was he was still a core member of Matt's inner circle of friends and having the episode eve hint at him dying was something that will be shocking thing to see but it is one that could have been handled more better due to the fact that they have it be the episodes cliff hanger which don't get wrong is a great cliff hanger to have as it makes you want to watch episode two of this show. On the flip side of that tho is the fact that it's pretty obvious that there not going to kill him off as then they would risk repeating everything that they did in the first season with Foggy's death and even then his death only worked due to the fact that the character appeared on the Netflix show and therefor the fans of that show already have that connection to his character where as here with Cherry he's a newly introduced character and therefor having him be killed of in a way that granted is still quite shocking to see just wouldn't have the same effect as when Foggy was killed of. However tho having Cherry be the one to possibly die would be a great way to rise the stakes a little bit as it would still tell us the audience that if this character can die then maybe Matt himself can die.


Also in that ending scene we do get a hint that Bullseye is going to be playing a big part in either the rest of the season or the next episode. As we see a knife come into Cherry's apartment and take out all of the task force agents which if so is going to make for an interesting next few episodes as it was him that killed of Foggy so having him and Matt sort of form a team even tho that both don't like each other is something that will make it interesting to see if they both can get along for the greater good and heck even the tease of him coming back in the next episode is a solid way to end the episode as now we the audience get to make theories on if he's going to be working with Matt or not or if he's saving Matt so that he can take him down himself. All of which are things that would work well for his character as while I never saw that much of the Netflix show based on his few appearances in the previous season of this show he does seem like the kind of character who would want to save the man that did try to kill him just so that he could be the one to deliver the killing blow himself but of course there could be another reason as to why he was teased at the end of this episode all of which do make this show fun to watch as there are so many theories that we all could come up with and the best part of all is that until any of them are confirmed by the show itself they could all be true and yet knowing the makers of this show there going to do the one thing that none of us would have thought of what it ends up being. While yes it would have worked just as well if they did show us the character even if it's just quickly very early on in the episode the fact that they didn't do that makes his possible return at the end of the episode all the more exciting.

Now then this film has / had an exact gran total running time of exactly fifty minuets and forty two seconds. Which to be fair to this episode is pretty much the bogstandard running time for this shows episodes to have in the first place with this episode having just about the right amount of plot there to cover that amount of running time in the first place. Yet this episode really doesn't use it's running time all that wisely as the episode doesn't take the time to fully develop it's plot with the plot of the episode feeling like it's playing second fiddle to everything else that's going on in the episode and yet when you compare it to the plot of the first episode of the previous season that episodes plot was as well developed as it was going to be given the fact that it was the first episode of a new show and yet here in this episode it felt like the makers of this show forgot how to make a good first episode as everything just felt very by the numbers with very little of what the episodes plot does do feeling earned. With the same thing being true for the episodes characters as well altho here you could make the argument that all of them don't really need there character development as alot of the older characters would of course have had the Netflix show and the first season of this show to get there character development which is fair enough and for the new characters you could make the case that they are going to be getting there character development in future episodes of this season but either way it still would have been nice if we got to find something literally anything about this episodes new characters as we find out nothing about Mr. Charles outside of possibly where was born and we get to find out nothing about Ariana this is despite the fact that she's technically a major character in this episode but I really will admit that this episode really does have some really good pacing to it tho.


So now then as this is an action show that really does mean that I gave to actually talk about the action action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. With the episode having all of the really good action that you have come to expect from this show not only from the previous season but also from the Netflix show as well with the episodes action looking as impressive as you'd want it to be given the fact that it's Daredevil and to the episodes credit it doesn't shy away from showing the hero getting beaten up something which they very easily could have done but the fact that they didn't do that does oddly make Matt Murdock seem more human. With the best action scene un the whole entire episode being the episodes opening scene as we get to see Matt as daredevil take on several guys basically at once in the cargo area of a ship with him flipping them into boxes and knocking them all out in really creative ways all which does make that action really fun to watch as much like how the action in the opening of James Bond film gets you excited for the rest of the film it could be argued that that's what that opening action scene does. The episode does even somewhat contrast that by having a more smaller action scene at the end of the episode where daredevil now has to take about four task force agents in Cherry's home with Daredevil winning the fight until he hears Cherry's heart and realizes what's going on which does give those agents the moment that they need to go in for the kill with them only being stopped by Bullseye's knife attacking and killing all four of them with the rest of the action in this episode being really good in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.

SPOILERS END HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Overall for an episode that was barely promoted as there's only really been one trailer and three posters released for this new season this episode is still a really good as it does a good job of setting up the rest of the season whilst doing the one thing that all good first episodes should do and that's make you want to watch episode two as that's just how good that this episode really is in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well a all of the bad thigs that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very episode really does ern itself a grand old score of exactly a 7.5 out of 10 from me.

Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys an girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very post being the really great Google Images really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very episode with alot of them really being really better quality then what you'd really think of and all of the images are really of course up and really on Google Images really are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.

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