7 Daredevil Episodes You Need to Rewatch Before Born Again Premieres

Daredevil: Born Again will continue The Man Without Fear’s adventures, and there are a collection of episodes from Netflix’s Daredevil that are particularly relevant to it. Daredevil first began on Netflix in 2015 as the first of Marvel’s street level heroes showcased on the platform. Daredevil ran for three seasons, as well as The Defenders crossover, and while it has been a long time coming, Charlie Cox’s Daredevil will finally return to headline his own show again after cameos in Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk, and Echo.

While the Marvel-Netflix shows were originally a bit distant from the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, Daredevil: Born Again itself underwent a rather significant reworking mid-production to bring it closer to Daredevil on Netflix. With that retooling of the show, for all intents and purposes, Born Again has effectively become Daredevil Season 4. With the relationship between the two shows that much more direct, here are seven Daredevil episodes fans should rewatch before the debut of Daredevil: Born Again.

“Cut Man” (Season 1, Episode 2)

The second episode of Daredevil‘s first season, “Cut Man,” is arguably the episode that really made the series the hit that it became. “Cut Man” focuses on Matt going on a mission to rescue a kidnapped child, placing great emphasis on the physical toll he puts himself through night after night as he pushes on through his mission after taking a stab wound and nursing several cracked ribs. It all comes to a head in the episode’s epic one-shot hallway fight that drew inspiration from fight scenes in Oldboy and The Raid, and by itself made Daredevil an instant superhero hit.

“Cut Man” proved so influential that single-take fight scenes became a staple of the series in its subsequent second and third seasons. The raw grit and determination of the wounded Matt battling his way through half a dozen opponents while writhing in pain under his mask also established Daredevil, and Marvel-Netflix as a whole, as the tonal inverse of the MCU on the big-screen, and made clear that its fight scenes were like nothing being seen anywhere else in the MCU. Another one-shot fight sequence seemingly goes without saying for Daredevil: Born Again, and fans of The Man Without Fear would do well to go back and enjoy where it all started.

“Daredevil” (Season 1, Episode 13)

The Season 1 finale of Daredevil finally puts Matt Murdock in his classic horned red suit, with the episode’s title also bestowing Matt’s proper superhero name to him. Directed by Season 1 showrunner Steven S. DeKnight, Daredevil‘s Season 1 finale sees Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk finally busted by Matt Murdock and taken into custody. Of course, the Kingpin would never go down without a fight, and fight he does in his and Daredevil’s climactic showdown on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen.

While the Daredevil suit itself is better designed in subsequent seasons, it is nonetheless a tremendous pay-off to see Matt finally don his red suit and horns right out of the comics to face off with the Kingpin. Indeed, the fact that the suit is saved until Season 1’s finale is also testimony to how much of a worthy alternative Matt’s black ninja suit is. Add in D’Onofrio’s enthralling villain monologue in the back on the armored police van and the sheer captivating power of the final Daredevil vs. Kingpin fight scene, and Daredevil Season 1 most certainly ends on a high note well worth revisiting before Daredevil: Born Again.

“New York’s Finest” (Season 2, Episode 3)

Aside from telling the next chapter of Matt Murdock’s story, Daredevil Season 2 also served as a backdoor pilot for The Punisher series on Netflix, and Season 2 made Matt Murdock and Frank Castle’s opposing ideologies of crime-fighting the very center of its story. Nowhere is that better captured than in Season 2’s third episode “New York’s Finest,” which largely acts as a philosophical debate between Daredevil and Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), with the former chained up and trying to talk Frank out of his mindset that killing criminals is the only effective way to fight crime.

For as action-packed a show as Daredevil is, its down-to-earth human drama is just as essential to its success. “New York’s Finest” sells Daredevil and The Punisher as Marvel’s ultimate yin and yang, one a hero who believes in the possibility of redemption for even the darkest of villains and the other a vigilante who believes such optimism is a lost cause that also endangers the lives of the innocent. To top it off, “New York’s Finest” also concludes on Daredevil Season 2’s showstopping one-shot fight scene, an even more souped-up brawl of Matt battling over a dozen adversaries in a stairwell.

“A Cold Day in Hell’s Kitchen” (Season 2, Episode 13)

Daredevil Season 2 brings Matt Murdock’s old flame Elektra Natchios (Elodie Yung) back into his life, with Matt reluctantly teaming up with her and his old mentor Stick (Scott Glenn) to take down the sinister ninja army known as The Hand. Daredevil Season 2 reaches its climax with Matt and Elektra’s last stand against The Hand in its season finale “A Cold Day in Hell’s Kitchen,” which ends in tragedy with Elektra dying in their final rooftop confrontation against their ninja adversaries.

“A Cold Day in Hell’s Kitchen” is one of the most pivotal episodes of Daredevil on multiple levels. As a highlight of Daredevil and Elektra’s relationship as both partners and lovers, it also showcases how much both mean to Matt on a personal level, as well as his mix of distrust and respect for Stick as his martial arts mentor. “A Cold Day in Hell’s Kitchen” also concludes with Matt revealing himself as Daredevil to Karen Page, and is also Daredevil and The Punisher’s last canonical meeting in the MCU pre-Born Again. Frank Castle bids Matt farewell with “See you around, Red,” making “A Cold Day in Hell’s Kitchen” another Daredevil episode fans should pull up again before Matt and Frank do indeed meet again in Daredevil: Born Again.

[RELATED: How Daredevil: Born Again Will Fix the Netflix Show’s Biggest Problem]

“Resurrection” (Season 3, Episode 1)

Picking up right where Marvel-Netflix’s crossover series The Defenders left off, Daredevil Season 3 begins with the fittingly titled “Resurrection.” Emerging from his apparent death as a man with a wounded body and a broken heart after witnessing Elektra’s descent into villainy, “Resurrection” sees Matt gradually regain his heroic resolve and fighting spirit while being nursed back to his feet in a local Catholic Church.

Daredevil Season 3 took perhaps the deepest dive of the show into The Man Without Fear’s comic book mythology, with the season adapting Frank Miller’s acclaimed story Daredevil: Born Again and introducing Sister Maggie (Joanne Whalley) as Matt’s mother. Even with the standards of its first two seasons to build upon, Daredevil Season 3 started off extremely strong with “Resurrection,” focusing upon the season’s internal conflict of Matt overcoming his internal despondency through hard work and determination, even if Matt doesn’t truly come back into the light until much later in the season.

“The Devil You Know” (Season 3, Episode 6)

Daredevil Season 3 finally brought in The Man Without Fear’s other great enemy, the mysterious and frighteningly accurate assassin Bullseye (Wilson Bethel). In Daredevil Season 3’s adaptation of Born Again, Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter as an FBI agent who becomes Wilson Fisk’s right-hand man, and who also dons a replica of Matt’s red Daredevil suit in order to frame him as a villain. Daredevil Season 3’s sixth episode “The Devil You Know” brings Matt and Bullseye head-to-head for the first of many epic fight scenes throughout the season, with the two battling in an office of the New York Bulletin.

With Daredevil‘s exceptional martial arts fight choreography dialed up to 11, “The Devil You Know” also plays like a horror movie cat-and-mouse game in the darkened office setting. Bullseye’s ability to pick up any object and turn it into a projectile instrument of death also ramps up the stakes of Daredevil fight scenes like never before. Wilson Bethel will return as Bullseye in Daredevil: Born Again, and to prepare for Daredevil’s upcoming showdown with Bullseye, fans just might want to go back and check out their first again.

“A New Napkin” (Season 3, Episode 13)

Daredevil Season 3 ends with another confrontation between The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and the Kingpin in the season finale “A New Napkin,” and it is their most epic showdown yet. In “A New Napkin,” Fisk’s wedding to Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer) comes crashing down with not only Daredevil arriving to finally put a stop to him, but Bullseye turning on the Kingpin, culminating in a three-way smackdown between them. As a martial arts fight sequence, Daredevil’s battle with the Kingpin and Bullseye ranks among the show’s best and most impactful, but it is also the fight scene and overall episode that leads the most directly into Daredevil: Born Again.

Fisk seemingly leaves Dex immobilized with a spinal injury in the fight, but the season’s final scene sets up Bullseye as undergoing the surgery from the comics to augment his abilities and make him a threat to both of his sworn enemies again. That will now see its long-awaited payoff in Born Again. Meanwhile, Matt’s decision not to kill Fisk, the uneasy truce they strike as Fisk heads to prison, and Matt’s declaration at the top of his lungs that “This city rejected you, it beat you! I BEAT YOU!” will all undoubtedly play into their meeting in Daredevil: Born Again, especially with Fisk becoming mayor of New York City in the time jump between Daredevil and Born Again. If there’s just one episode for Daredevil fans to rewatch before the arrival of Daredevil: Born Again, “A New Napkin” is definitely the one.

Daredevil: Born Again arrives on Disney+ on March 4th, and all three seasons of Daredevil can also be streamed on Disney+.