Born Again’s Bank Heist Episode
“Daredevil: Born Again” season 1 is an admirable salvage job that has its good and bad moments, but ultimately manages to do the thing it sets out to do: Bringing Matt “Daredevil” Murdock (Charlie Cox), Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), Frank “The Punisher” Castle (Jon Bernthal), and what few people are left of their innermost circles fully into the Marvel Cinematic Universe without compromising the street-level intensity of the “Daredevil” series from the Defenders Saga era. This is a show where Kingpin crushes heads “Game of Thrones”-style, serial killers make art from the blood of their victims, and a major “Daredevil” character dies during the opening minutes of episode 1, “Heaven’s Half Hour.”
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Still, due to its long and storied development process, “Daredevil: Born Again” is also a show that was cobbled together from bits and pieces. Few people know this better than Cox, who utterly disliked one of the show’s older components and attempted to get it axed, only to witness it making its way into the finished product. The target of Cox’s ire was episode 5, titled “With Interest.” The show’s star used to utterly hate the bank heist episode, and in an interview with The Playlist, he explained why:
That [episode] was part of the original [shoot], and just for my money, I wasn’t into it. I didn’t like it. It was my least favorite of the episodes, and I kind of pushed back against it as much as I felt was possible. I said, ‘I don’t believe in a bank heist in 2025. That feels like a 1970s game. Too much technology these days for that to work.’ And also, I didn’t think the actual device used for the theft was sophisticated enough.”
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The episode Cox hated became a fan favorite
Regardless of Cox’s apprehension, the standalone nature of “Daredevil: Born Again” episode 5 is something Marvel’s streaming shows rarely do, and it’s a pretty fun representative of the bottle episode genre at that. A large part of this comes from the surprisingly wonderful chemistry between Matt Murdock and the episode’s guest star, assistant bank manager Yusuf Khan (Mohan Kapur), aka the father of Kamala “Ms. Marvel” Khan (Iman Vellani).
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“Daredevil: Born Again” is a show with heavy, heavy themes, and the heist episode is not only an entertaining watch in its own right, but its comparative levity also arrives at the perfect moment to offer a breather from the grim details of the larger story arcs. To his credit, Cox was perfectly willing to admit in the interview that he severely misjudged the impact the episode would make:
“I really pushed back on the episode, and yet I hear from so many people that they love that episode. So, it just goes to show you just don’t know. It’s so subjective. Everyone’s taste is different. And I’ve heard that that episode is one of the highest-rated. Internally, when they do their ratings, it’s one of the highest-rated Disney shows that they’ve had.”
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“Daredevil: Born Again” season 1 is now streaming on Disney+, with season 2 slated to arrive in 2026.
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