Daredevil: Born Again Season 2’s Big Villain Redemption Story Feels Like a Mistake to Me

The second season of Daredevil: Born Again has started a redemption story for a villain that feels undeserved. The big story throughout the new Disney+ MCU series has Wilson Fisk becoming the Mayor of New York City, running on a platform at cleaning up the streets and then targeting the vigilantes as his way of achieving these campaign promises. However, the series has also shown that Fisk is not above breaking the law himself, as he murdered the police commissioner in the first season and his own wife, Vanessa Fisk, ordered Bullseye to murder Foggy Nelson before betraying the hired assassin.

That betrayal has set Bullseye on a mission to kill Wilson Fisk, and also target Vanessa Fisk. Last season, Matt Murdock saved Fisk’s life when Bullseye tried to kill him. This season has Bullseye now in an apparant redemption arc, as he saved Daredevil’s life in the first episode of the season, “The Northern Star.”

Bullseye Doesn’t Deserve Redemption

There is a huge problem with this storyline, as Bullseye in no way deserves a redemption arc. Moving past Daredevil: Born Again for a moment, Daredevil doesn’t have a deadlier villain in comics than Bullseye. Yes, Wilson Fisk has ruined Daredevil’s life and has been one of his most persistent antagonists over his life, including destroying everything for him in the Born Again comic book storyline. However, at the same time, Bullseye was deadlier and more violent of a villain than even the Kingpin was.

It was Bullseye who murdered Elektra in front of Daredevil. It was Bullseye who killed Karen Page when he attacked Daredevil in the comic book Born Again storyline. Bullseye even murdered Daredevil himself in the alternate future Daredevil: End of Days storyline. He is a mass murderer and a sociopath who has no problem killing anyone and everyone, and there is no way that he should ever be a hero, or even an antihero. Seeing him with a redemption story in Daredevil: Born Again makes no sense.

The biggest thing here is that Bullseye murdered Foggy Nelson in the Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 premiere. The murder of a beloved Marvel character, and Matt Murdock’s best friend, is unforgivable, and Bullseye deserves to be punished to the greatest extent of the law. Just because he wants to kill Kingpin and Vanessa doesn’t mean that he is anything close to being the Punisher, and those two characters are not even on level ground. Bullseye killing bad cops who were trying to kill Daredevil doesn’t mean he has done anything to achieve redemption. He is still a killer, and the show should treat him as one.

While it looks like Bullseye might be getting a redemption arc, don’t be fooled. Dex Poindexter has done way too much wrong to ever find redemption or forgiveness. On top of Foggy Nelson, he also killed Reverend Paul Lantom in the Netflix version of the series, as well as several FBI agents and numerous civilians. Even actor Wilson Bethel said that the “redemption” arc for Bullseye is only in his own mind, and it likely won’t end up where he thinks it will.

Read Next

The MCU Finally Confirms What Happened To 1 Missing Marvel Character After 7 Years

Daredevil: Born Again Has Blurred The Lines of Good and Bad

The idea of Bullseye possibly getting a redemption arc is par for the course for Daredevil: Born Again. The first season saw the citizens of New York City choosing to elect Wilson Fisk as the Mayor of New York City. Even after becoming the mayor, there are still numerous people on the streets who praise the work that Fisk is doing “cleaning up the streets.” There are even plenty of people who see Fisk ordering the destruction and deaths of countless people and still believing him when he says it is the vigilantes responsible. These people are not bad, they are just easily fooled by a bad man.

However, the idea of the redemption arc for Bullseye can easily be paralleled with the movement of Karen Page to become a little more violent and vindictive herself. The episode after Bullseye murdered cops to save Daredevil, Karen abducted a member of the Vigilante Task Force and showed she was willing to get down and dirty, more than Matt might have felt comfortable with. When Daredevil went to rescue all the prisoners in the third episode, “The Scales & the Sword,” he was brutally violent himself, and he has been getting more so as Kingpin has pushed him in the corner.

Furthermore, it seems that there are parts of the public that might be standing up against Wilson Fisk. B.B. Urich has posted plenty of videos with people openly praising what Fisk has done, although she is also working with Karen Page. When BB and Karen spoke, Page said they are both manipulators as a warning that it is easy to manipulate manipulators. There was also the fact that Sheila Rivera has been betraying Fisk behind the scenes by posting videos mocking him. Add in Heather Glenn, Matt’s ex-girlfriend who is faking psychiatric examinations to ruin vigilantes’ lives after almost getting killed by Muse last season. Daredevil: Born Again has more characters riding the line between good and bad than ever, and it is almost impossible to make any redemption arc make sense.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!