With seven episodes down, Daredevil: Born Again is finally circling its major conflicts. While the long-simmering tension between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk builds toward an inevitable explosion, the serial killer known as Muse has taken center stage. Episode 7 sees Muse emerge from the shadows in full force—but just as quickly, his mystery is stripped away, leaving behind an underwhelming twist that undercuts what could have been a standout villain arc for the season.
Daredevil: Born Again
At this point in the story, Matt (Charlie Cox) has fully embraced his role as Daredevil once more, bruises and all. Following a brutal skirmish with Muse, he’s left nursing physical injuries and emotional weight—both of which he tries to hide from his girlfriend, Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva). While their chemistry remains intact, Heather’s suspicions about Matt’s double life are growing harder to ignore. Still, her concern gets momentarily brushed aside in favor of intimacy and routine. That doesn’t last.
Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), now fully stepping back into his Kingpin persona, begins connecting the dots. Evidence recovered from Muse’s lair points directly to Daredevil’s return, and while Fisk could expose Matt’s secret identity, doing so might damage his public image and political leverage. Instead, he mobilizes a task force of corrupt NYPD officers—men who idolize the Punisher and operate with little regard for due process. His goal? Eliminate Muse and Daredevil in one sweep, while consolidating power under the guise of law and order.
As Daredevil searches for fresh clues in the remnants of Muse’s hideout, a disturbing revelation surfaces: Muse isn’t just a distant threat—he’s been within Matt’s orbit all along. The reveal comes during a therapy session between Heather and her new client, Bastian (Hunter Doohan), a character briefly introduced earlier in the season. What begins as a routine appointment quickly devolves into a chilling monologue as Bastian unpacks violent fantasies masked as self-reflection. By the time Heather (and viewers) piece it together, the twist has landed—Bastian is Muse.
Unfortunately, this reveal falls flat. The series had been carefully building Muse as a dark artistic force, a killer with a twisted vision reminiscent of a blood-soaked Banksy. The decision to make him a minimally developed character from earlier in the show feels both rushed and uninspired. The mystique surrounding Muse evaporates, and what should be a spine-chilling reveal instead feels like a missed opportunity to deliver something more narratively satisfying.
Still, the episode doesn’t slow down. Once Muse sets his sights on Heather as the “final canvas” for his next masterpiece, the tension spikes again. The climax sees Daredevil burst in for another intense fight with Muse, but it’s Heather—resourceful and terrified—who ultimately ends the killer’s reign with a gunshot. While it’s thematically appropriate to give Heather some agency, the scene is executed awkwardly, and Muse’s death ends the character’s arc with a whimper rather than a bang.
The fallout is immediate. Fisk and his hand-picked enforcers arrive too late to stop the violence but just in time to find Muse’s body and enough evidence to confirm Daredevil’s involvement. It’s the final piece Fisk needed to justify a full crackdown on vigilantes, setting the stage for a confrontation that’s been brewing since the series began. The real takeaway here isn’t Muse’s death—it’s that both Matt and Fisk are reverting to who they truly are: one a street-level guardian, the other a calculating warlord cloaked in legitimacy.
Muse’s removal from the narrative may simplify the plot going forward, but it also robs the season of one of its more intriguing storylines. The character had the potential to be a long-lasting threat, and his comic book counterpart remained enigmatic specifically because of his undefined identity. Revealing and dispatching him in one fell swoop removes any lingering tension and makes Episode 7 feel like a turning point that loses some of its intended impact.
Still, the larger arc between Daredevil and Kingpin continues to evolve, and with Muse gone, all eyes are on what comes next. As Matt dives deeper into his double life and Fisk tightens his grip on New York’s institutions, Born Again seems poised to deliver a much darker, more morally complex showdown in its final stretch.
