Rewatching All 34 Hours Of The Original Daredevil Show Makes Daredevil: Born Again’s Opening Death So, So Much Worse

By Zoe Miskelly

Published Mar 7, 2025

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Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for Daredevil: Born Again season 1, episodes 1 & 2.Having rewatched all of Daredevil's original 34-hour and 48-minute-long runtime, I can confirm that revisiting the original The Defenders timeline is still one of the most popular corners of the on-screen superhero world, it's arguably best for those who're happy to watch a fair amount of television. Every show bar The Defenders itself has multiple seasons, and Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Daredevil all have runtimes that are close to or over a full 24-hour-day of doing nothing but watching TV.

With that said, there's a reason shows like Daredevil have remained as critically lauded as they still are, and that makes them well worth hunkering down to watch - or rewatch - even several years later, especially since Daredevil: Born Again ties the Netflix shows more than ever into Daredevil: Born Again episode 1 & 2 more painful than it otherwise might have been.

The 7 Years Between Daredevil's Ending & Daredevil: Born Again Makes A Rewatch Useful (But Not Necessary)

While Daredevil: Born Again is made in a way to ensure totally new viewers can watch the show from the start without needing to know about the events of the original Daredevil or the characters therein, the final version of the MCU show is also made to provide long-time viewers with a follow-up on a lot of old moments and plot threads. This means that, while you can absolutely still enjoy the series having never seen Charlie Cox's Daredevil before in your life, there's a lot more dimension and nuance to the story off the bat for those who've seen all of its predecessor.

Though it initially seemed Daredevil: Born Again would avoid any connective tissue to the Netflix series, the increasing suggestions that the show would tie in close to the original - such as the confirmations that Elden Henson's Foggy Nelson, Deborah Ann Woll's Karen Page, and Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle would all be returning in the story - convinced me it'd be a wise move to take a trip down superhero memory lane and rewatch the entire of Daredevil. Happily, this has already paid off in a major way even after the release of just Daredevil: Born Again episode 1 & 2.

Rewatching Daredevil and Kingpin's history in Daredevil really amps the tension and stakes in Born Again, as getting a refresher on just how violent and ruthless their prior confrontations tended to be makes their terse diner meeting all the more striking. Fisk and Murdock's personal histories also make storylines like Wilson's marriage with Vanessa taking a seeming hit and Matt starting a different law firm all the more poignant due to the road that led there. However, while most of the ways the shows connect make them more exciting, one element of the original makes Born Again emotionally devastating.

I Rewatched Daredevil Just In Time For Daredevil: Born Again, & It Makes Foggy's Death So Much Harder To Watch

Daredevil isn't a quick rewatch even by the often very long standards of superhero shows, with the series having a 34-hour-long runtime and episodes that tend to come in close to an hour each. That said, I find the show uses its runtime very well, since the timespan of these episodes means the Netflix show is effectively able to balance its action-packed superhero stakes with fleshing out three-dimensional characters. Among these characters, Foggy Nelson is easily a fan-favorite - and was indeed one of my personal favorite characters, which only solidified more and more over the course of over thirty hours of Daredevil.

While Matt initially struggles to hide his secret identity from Foggy - and then struggles to justify himself when Nelson finds out - the strength of the duo's long-lasting friendship is evident from the get-go, and Henson and Cox really sell an authentic bond between the characters. Indeed, Foggy is loyal to Matt even when he's actively furious at him, and is the hero's main system, making their relationship truly key.

Rewatching all of Daredevil really shows what a rollercoaster the two best friends go on throughout the story, and seeing them finally be able to enjoy the much-earned rewards of the trials and tribulations of Daredevil and start a law firm with the equally wonderful Karen Page makes the ending of Daredevil season 3 feel like a happy one despite everything every single character went through. Because of this exact setup, though, seeing Foggy be shot and slowly bleed out in the opening scenes of Daredevil: Born Again feels so much worse with all of this prior context fresh in the mind.

Not only do the many, many hours of Daredevil relentlessly drive home how much the three main characters have grown together, it also shows just how much they've gotten through solely because they all had one another's backs through thick and thin. Karen and Foggy end up in harm's way so many times that the series can't help but remind the viewer of just how awful and unbearable it would be if they had ed - only for this exact situation to happen in Daredevil: Born Again, making the nightmare scenario a reality of the MCU release.

I'm Glad I Rewatched Daredevil Before Born Again's Release, Even If It Made Episode 1 Even Sadder

Foggy's death happens early enough in Daredevil: Born Again that show-only viewers don't really get time to bond with him in the same kind of meaningful way those of us who watched (or rewatched) the Netflix series automatically have. This means that, while I found myself genuinely emotional that an entirely fictional character was no more, I was also glad I'd rewatched Daredevil so that the full significance of what this means was as clear to me as possible, and the emotional stakes bigger than they would have been otherwise.

Similarly, Bullseye's story I think works much better with Daredevil fresh in my mind. This is not only because the Daredevil season 3 ending closes with him finishing an origin story of sorts, leading directly into him donning his own supervillain suit in Born Again, but also because he's a consistent character throughout the entirety of season 3, with the series spending a lot of time showing us what his life up until the present day has been like, and what's led him to be such a brutal and vengeful figure.

Daredevil: Born Again season 1, episode 3 is set to release on March 11, 2025.

Though I'm sad enough about Foggy's death that I'm almost definitely going to hope - seemingly against reason - that the theories he's somehow not dead despite it all will come to fruition, rewatching Daredevil definitely wasn't a mistake. The rich narrative and world-building throughout the Netflix show - and The Defenders, which fleshes out Matt's story more between Daredevil season 2 and 3 - really help Daredevil: Born Again feel all the more vibrant and emotive, even if that emotion is sometimes sadness all the same.