Jessica Jones's return is better late than never – but Daredevil: Born Again's reveal lacks punch

Daredevil: Born Again season 2 kept fans waiting weeks to see Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) return to the MCU, but the reveal in this week’s sixth episode simply doesn’t live up to its full potential.

Showrunner Dario Scardapane told Radio Times in March that the Disney+ drama needed to get to “a certain part” of its story for the long-absent character’s inclusion to “make perfect sense”.

That point was reached, apparently, with last week’s death of Vanessa Fisk (Ayelet Zurer), which left her Kingpin-turned-Mayor husband Wilson (Vincent D’Onofrio) more unstable than ever before – and that’s saying something.

In this manic state, Mayor Fisk sends members of his Anti-Vigilante Task Force (AVTF) to Jessica’s suburban home, where she lives with her daughter Danielle and, presumably, super-powered love interest Luke Cage (Mike Colter, as-yet-unseen).

The initial reveal is charming enough, showing comical takedowns of the crooked squad in the periphery of Danielle’s vision, who is much too distracted to take notice. But it also, quite frankly, comes out of nowhere.

Despite allocating five episodes to supposedly lay the groundwork for this beloved hero’s return, the writers simply dump her in the final few episodes with little indication as to why she’s here.

Kingpin hasn’t mentioned Jessica, nor her former teammates Cage and Danny Rand (Finn Jones), even once during his clampdown on New York City vigilantes, which seems to have been a ploy to lock up ordinary dissenting civilians instead.

So why, at his lowest ebb, would he suddenly turn to Jessica alone with such hostility? She holds disdain for vigilantism herself due to her traumatic past and works primarily as a private investigator.

Adding to the abruptness of it all is Jessica’s next scene, where she just shows up on a rooftop with Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), donning his full Daredevil kit in broad daylight, with no indication of how she contacted or located him.

I’m not proposing that the writers obsess over mundane minutiae, but these details would be useful for establishing the nature of Matt and Jessica’s relationship, given that they haven’t appeared on screen together in a full decade.

Netflix crossover The Defenders even ended with Jessica and her teammates believing Matt to have died in a building collapse. As far as we know, they haven’t spoken since – until now – yet that plot thread is tossed to the wayside.

Has their once-tepid friendship warmed since his near-sacrifice? Do they often check in with each other? If so, why hasn’t she been in touch since Fisk took over? There’s no attempt to answer any of these questions and it leaves us flailing for a foothold.

Of course, The Defenders is an old show now – one that not every Born Again viewer will remember or have seen at all – so it’s understandable that Scardapane’s writers’ room wants to brush over its specifics and hit the ground running.

But the result is a flat reunion that feels crowbarred into the show for no other reason than fan service. It also probably helped that Ritter happened to be in New York City at the right time – filming Dexter: Resurrection.

To make her return appear less like an afterthought, there’s an obvious point in Born Again season 2 where Jessica Jones could have been organically woven into the plot, perhaps with great emotional heft.

Back in the third episode, Daredevil and his allies led an attack on Kingpin’s illegal makeshift prison, where ‘vigilantes’ (but mostly just random nameless extras) were being held captive in inhumane conditions.

I can’t have been the only one expecting Jessica to be found and liberated here, setting her up to join Daredevil’s resistance with a clear motive for bringing down Kingpin’s regime; having been torn away from her daughter and unjustly incarcerated.

Instead, it’s unclear whether Fisk’s so-called ‘war on vigilantes’ has adversely affected any costumed crime-fighter, besides White Tiger (murdered by an AVTF officer in season 1) and Hawkeye guest star Swordsman (seen in action barely once).

On the other hand, Daredevil himself remains defiantly active (albeit covertly), The Punisher swiftly escaped capture (to lead his own spin-off special) and Spider-Man doesn’t seem to have been affected at all, if the Brand New Day trailer is any indication.

Had Fisk managed to detain an ex-Defender, like Jessica, Luke or Danny, then it would have given his flagship mayoral policy an ounce of credibility. As it stands, his political tyranny is becoming increasingly difficult to take seriously.

Daredevil and Jessica Jones proceed to easily puncture another hole in his operation, which gives Ritter arguably her first proper action sequence as the character.

With that in mind, it’s a bitter pill to swallow that this very same set-piece also shows, for the first time, that Jessica’s powers have become unreliable since she gave birth to Danielle.

The heroine’s super-strength and durability – which should allow her to mow through AVTF goons – is now prone to disappear for extended periods without warning.

The move plays like a desperate attempt to create threat from thin air for a poorly-realised scenario, while also conveniently preventing Daredevil from being outperformed in his own show’s fight scenes.

With any luck, this bizarre choice will be reversed in season 3, which on-set photo leaks suggest Ritter, Colter and Jones will all appear in – hopefully, giving this under-utilised Marvel team a chance to fully flex their muscles.

Daredevil: Born Again is available to stream on Disney+.

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