Episode Review: Daredevil: Born Again 1x7 - "Art for Art's Sake"

Welcome back to the blog readers. Not sure you have been paying close attention to the matter at hand, but I am head over heels in love with Daredevil: Born Again (2025-) right now. From the character work to the little action we have gotten to the performances, everything is firing on all cylinders. And being that I have not seen a single frame of Daredevil (2015-18), I do not feel lost at all. Would the momentum continue in this episode, titled "Art for Art's Sake," written by Jill Blankenship, and directed by David Boyd? Stick around to find out.

NOTE: I will be using spoilers for my thoughts, so DO NOT read ahead if you have not seen the episode.

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In all honesty, I was a bit nervous with this episode because I thought we were going to lose a lot of steam really quick, especially since Muse was first mentioned. With three episodes left, were we going to get his identity and what he is really after? Not only did the fan-favorite name get announced for Muse, this was by far the darkest episode of the series yet. And that is absolutely a good thing. The performance of recurring guest Hunter Doohan was stellar and haunting at the same time. And I love where we are going with the story of this episode.

Hunter Doolan has been someone we have not seen in a whole lot of this season of Daredevil: Born Again as he plays the troubled young man Bastian Cooper. Doohan's real claim to fame was his appearance in Tim Burton's series Wednesday (2022-) (a show I did not and do not plan on watching), so seeing him play this character feels like a real departure from that. There is a lot of darkness in that character that was even hinted at in previous episode, and I find it interesting we never got any more than teases. And I am also surprised he was able to pull it off. Plus, the fighting that (I am certain) he did was stellar in its own regard.

I next want to talk about the story of this episode because it definitely is going to lead to a highly explosive conclusion. The episode begins with Detective Kim going to Wilson Fisk and explaining that Angela was taken by Muse and has survived, despite losing a lot of blood. She also tells him Angela was saying Daredevil's name, which angers Fisk because he knows what this means. She also tells him that the main suspect for Muse's identity is a troubled young man named Bastian Cooper. Meanwhile, Angela tells Matt that Daredevil saved her and he assures her if the police will not bring Muse to justice, somebody will. Matt later showers and has sex with Heather, who afterwards presses him on the trauma he is dealing with. He tries to hide his involvement as Daredevil but Heather surmises it has to do with his old friends Foggy and Karen. Meanwhile, Cherry learns of Matt's involvement with Muse and refuses to use his connections to help him.

Heather begins a therapy session with Bastian, who had asked for her help at a book signing she was hosting earlier in the season. Bastian begins saying some disturbing things, interjected with Detective Kim's description of him to Fisk. When he begins to talk about the world seeing who he truly is, she surmises he is Muse and he knocks her out after thanking her for inspiring him. He begins to mutilate her by cutting her arm deep with a scalpel and she tells him only cowards wear a mask. Meanwhile, Fisk's Anti-Vigilante Task Force (AVTF) and Matt separately investigate Muse's hideout and discover Heather is his next victim, before one of the dirty cops sees Daredevil and is knocked out by him. Matt then finds himself racing to get to Heather's clinic before the AVTF does and he is able to, smashing the window and engaging Muse in a brawl that wrecks the clinic. Heather then uses the gun Bastian brought into the room to fatally shoot him before she faints. Matt is able to secure Heather and escape before the AVTF is able to infiltrate the clinic.

In the aftermath, Matt consoles Heather in the ICU and she tells him she heard Daredevil say her name, leading to something I will talk about in a minute. Fisk puts the credit for the death of Muse on the AVTF and holds a press conference calling them heroes, while Daniel is able to threaten BB Ulrich into removing any mention of Daredevil being at the scene. While all this has been happening, Buck had gone to Wilson and was told to think outside the box in handling the Luca problem. Luca went to Vanessa to get him to betray her husband, in which she asked if he was looking for her permission or her help. She eventually gives Luca an address where Wilson is alone and he goes there preparing to kill Fisk, but ends up dead by Buck's hand in an apparent trap.

There are two points of contention that I would like to talk about here. The first is when Heather is in the hospital bed and says something along the lines of "you came for me" to herself. This is all the confirmation I need to conclude Heather knows Matt is Daredevil. I think she had been curious by the bruises she saw on him in the shower at the start of the episode, but it clicked for her when he said her name at her clinic after she had just killed Muse. It will be interesting to see if this gets concluded at some point in the final two episodes.

The second point of contention revolves around the end of the episode, in which Luca is killed in an apparent trap. When Buck told Fisk that he was hired because he can "think asymmetrically," I knew a plan was brewing. I think the plan was Buck went to Luca to see if Vanessa would actually betray her husband. But Vanessa, knowing her husband, knew Luca would be walking into a trap set by him. So she sent Luca to that restaurant knowing damn well he would take the bait and go there thinking he was going to actually kill Fisk. This was a genius idea that shows just how in-sync the Fisks are.

Daredevil: Born Again is ramping up the drama in its third-to-last episode, with incredible drama and amazing character work by everyone involved. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.