This story includes spoilers for Episode 8 of \u201cDaredevil: Born Again\u201d Season 2.<\/i><\/p>\n
By the end of \u201cDaredevil: Born Again\u2019s\u201d first season, showrunner Dario Scardapane knew they were heading toward Matt Murdock\u2019s big reveal in Season 2.<\/p>\n
The second season finale of the Marvel series, out now on Disney+, sees Murdock (played by Charlie Cox) declare to the world that he\u2019s the vigilante Daredevil.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing in with Season 1, I wish I could say I knew exactly where we were going,\u201d says Scardapane during a recent video call. \u201cBut I knew that moment in the courtroom where Daredevil outs himself, we were definitely heading towards that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iain B. MacDonald, who directed Episodes 7 and 8, said that everybody involved understood that it \u201cwas going to be a super significant moment\u201d while they were filming the scene.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen that\u2019s out, that\u2019s out,\u201d MacDonald says. \u201cThat moment clearly has a domino effect for the rest of the episode. \u2026 I\u2019m super excited to just to see how that\u2019s received by the fans \u2026 because as a director, you want to deal with big moments in what you direct, and that is, for me, one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
A continuation of Netflix\u2019s \u201cDaredevil<\/a>,\u201d which initially concluded in 2018<\/a>, \u201cBorn Again\u201d has followed Wilson Fisk\u2019s (Vincent D\u2019Onofrio)<\/a> rise from criminal kingpin to the supposedly reformed mayor of New York. Fisk\u2019s authoritarian tactics and campaign targeting vigilantes pushes Daredevil underground to try to assemble allies in order to bring the Kingpin down.<\/p>\n Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) returned to the courtroom to make his case. <\/p>\n (JoJo Whilden \/ Marvel)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n Their much anticipated showdown occurs in a courtroom in the season finale during the trial of Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll).<\/p>\n \u201cMyself and my DP [director of photography], Jeffrey Waldron, looked at a lot of courtroom dramas, just to really think about how we can tell those courtroom stories really well, and do it creatively and imaginatively \u2026 and in the language of \u2018Daredevil,\u2019 \u201d said MacDonald. \u201cIt was a challenge, for sure, [but] I really, really enjoyed shooting them.\u201d<\/p>\n While Murdock may have triumphed in the courtroom, his revelation has consequences as teased in the episode. Scardapane says those consequences will be explored in Season 3.<\/p>\n \u201cThat last scene in Season 2 tells you where we\u2019re going,\u201d says Scardapane. \u201cIf the question is, are we doing a specific comic book run that is beloved by all, including me, I think that it\u2019s pretty obvious what we\u2019re doing in that last scene.\u201d<\/p>\n The fallout for Murdock, as seen in the episode, is his arrest and imprisonment. In the final moments of the finale, the Man Without Fear is shown getting locked up at Rikers Island. Murdock appears to have accepted his fate, but a glimmer of smile hints that this is not the end of his story.<\/p>\n \u201cCharlie and I talked about [the scene], and we knew that we wanted to end on that close-up of his face,\u201d MacDonald says. \u201cHe said we can do two things here, one which is like acceptance of circumstances, like he\u2019s resigned. He has made the sacrifice of outing himself to the world about who he really is [and] he has put himself away in service of the greater good \u2026 as well as have that little moment of a hint of a smile to say, this is a beginning. This is a new adventure. This is a new challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n In a conversation edited for clarity and length, Scardapane discussed Murdock and Fisk\u2019s arcs in Season 2, \u201cDaredevil: Born Again\u2019s\u201d timely political themes and what to expect in Season 3.<\/p>\n Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) get a chance to celebrate in the \u201cDaredevil: Born Again\u201d Season 2 finale. <\/p>\n (JoJo Whilden \/ Marvel)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n At what point did you know that what you were building toward in Season 2 would end with Matt Murdock in jail?<\/b><\/p>\n It\u2019s kind of a process that snowballs. They had started before me. They were doing the Mayor Fisk run. It was much more procedural, much different tone. They did six episodes, and I came in, and we moved it more in line as a continuation of the Netflix series. When Fisk becomes the mayor of New York, you put the villain at a really, really elevated place. So, Season 1 was the rise of Fisk. Season 2 has got to be the rise of that which takes him down \u2014 the resistance.<\/p>\n That moment that Matt stands up in court and says, \u201cI am Daredevil,\u201d that\u2019s like the record scratch. Everything has changed from this moment on. At the end of Season 1, beginning of Season 2, we knew we were heading toward that moment. That moment\u2019s consequences, for Matt and for Fisk, are kind of the fodder for Season 3.<\/p>\n There are comic book runs that I shall not name \u2014 although they\u2019ve been named \u2014 that take that dilemma that Matt put himself in and go to really great places with it. Coming in with Season 1, I wish I could say I knew exactly where we were going. But I knew at the very beginning, that moment in the courtroom where Daredevil outs himself, we were definitely heading toward that.<\/p>\n It felt significant that Matt and Fisk\u2019s big showdown this season happened in a courtroom.<\/b><\/p>\n The fun of Daredevil since the comics started is here you have a lawyer who really believes in the justice system who goes out and breaks bones at night. He\u2019s a vigilante lawyer. That\u2019s such a dichotomy. When the villain takes power, when the villain is the police \u2014 this situation, the villain is the Anti-Vigilante Task Force \u2014 the villain has now become the power structure of New York and has become the justice system. How does Matt fight back? He fights back as a vigilante until it gets to a crucial moment where Karen is pulled into this flawed justice system. Now there\u2019s nowhere he could go. He\u2019s put in this place where both his personas have to integrate, have to kind of collide, for him to beat Fisk. I think that Charlie\u2019s performance in that courtroom scene is his best courtroom performance in any episode of \u201cDaredevil\u201d ever. Building to that moment of Fisk and Matt facing off in court, it was pretty important because all four of them are in court there: Wilson Fisk, Kingpin, Matt Murdock and Daredevil are all there in that scene.<\/p>\n Wilson Fisk\u2019s (Vincent D\u2019Onofrio) ambitions are thwarted in \u201cDaredevil: Born Again\u201d Season 2. <\/p>\n (JoJo Whilden \/ Marvel)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n Fisk, the villain, ultimately loses this battle. Can you speak a bit about his arc this season?<\/b><\/p>\n One of the joys of this job is working with Vincent D\u2019Onofrio, full stop. He\u2019s done such a good job of humanizing a monster. I don\u2019t write Fisk as a villain. I don\u2019t think Vincent plays him as a villain. And that\u2019s where the fun comes in.<\/p>\n Building up a man whose appetite, whose isolation, whose just general hunger to dominate, making that character and then giving him this one lifeline to humanity in Vanessa \u2014 that\u2019s all calculated. We knew in Season 1 when Foggy was killed that Vanessa was going to be the cost for Fisk. The idea that Vanessa set up Foggy to die using Bullseye, and Bullseye ended up inadvertently killing Vanessa, that was 100% in the DNA from jump. Vanessa passed away in the comic books in two different ways, but that takes Fisk now into a place where, for me, all bets are off. I think that the Fisk that Vincent is playing in Episode 6, 7 and 8 and beyond are a different animal entirely. We just finished a very special episode that is pretty much all Fisk in this new incarnation and it was pretty exciting. Vincent\u2019s in rare form in Season 3.<\/p>\n I understand that the Anti-Vigilante Task Force stuff was shot before the the story and imagery became extremely timely.<\/b><\/p>\n It\u2019s really strange because there\u2019s footage in the finale that\u2019s intentionally supposed to reflect certain events<\/a>. One of the things that I really wanted to do with this story, when you\u2019re dealing with politics and everything, is we\u2019re living in a time where these values of mutual respect, mutual listening, mutual live and let live … what I would say, democratic values are being thrown out the window when you\u2019re dealing with the other side. If somebody doesn\u2019t share your beliefs, it\u2019s free game. And I\u2019ve never really seen a time like that. So we took that story, where the mayor\u2019s side has no quarter for the vigilante side and the vigilante side has no quarter for the mayor\u2019s side. When they storm the rotunda, it looks very familiar. That is intentional. I\u2019m not going to dodge that. Because it\u2019s the idea that everybody sees themselves as a hero of this story, where they\u2019re treating the people on the other side horribly. There\u2019s no lesson there. It\u2019s just the idea that when mobs get involved, when large groups of people get involved, the higher morals and higher sense of humanity falls apart.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve mentioned that in writing and filming this show, you were looking at history. But what was it like when the present star<\/b>t<\/b>ed mirroring what you already made based on the past?<\/b><\/p>\n The sequence in Episode 2, when the bodega is raided and people are dragged away by the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, that was filmed before Los Angeles<\/a>, before Minnesota<\/a> \u2014 before all of it. The whole thing got really strange in that the real world started to feel cartoony, and I don\u2019t mean that in a positive way.<\/p>\n I think we were, as writers and directors, tapping into an unease and a malaise that\u2019s just out there. Having it look exactly like things that then happened on the news, that was chilling. It was really hard to get my head around it. It was hard for the people involved, the directors, the fact that some of those sequences in our show, of people being dragged away and thrown into vans, looked exactly like what we were seeing on the news.<\/p>\n There have been other touch points, like the affinity some Task Force officers have for the Punisher logo, that crosses from the fictional into reality.<\/b><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been wrestling with this since working on \u201cThe Punisher.\u201d The map of what you do when you want to be an autocrat: You form a militia, you empower them beyond, you target a group that you want to make scapegoats, you round them up. When Charles Soule<\/a> was doing the Mayor Fisk run in the comic books, that\u2019s what he was thinking about. S\u2014, Tony Gilroy<\/a> did it in \u201cAndor<\/a>.\u201d When you build any kind of story about an autocrat, it follows the same script. Weirdly, the script\u2019s now playing out outside our door, and that\u2019s become really hard to deal with. The funny thing about this show in these times is, no matter what I say, somebody\u2019s gonna get all like, \u201cOh, they put politics in our comics\u201d and \u201cthey\u2019re trying to teach us a lesson.\u201d Nobody\u2019s trying to teach you a lesson. We\u2019re just laying out a story about a guy who\u2019s a criminal who becomes a mayor and a guy who\u2019s a lawyer who tries to take him down. But does that have echoes in what\u2019s going on outside our window? Yes, it does.<\/p>\n There is a sect of the audience that gets very vocal about the MCU getting <\/b>\u201d<\/b>too woke<\/b>\u201d<\/b> or comic books and superheroes <\/b>\u201d<\/b>becoming political.<\/b>\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n One thing that just broke me when we started Season 3, I posted a picture of our writers room, and it\u2019s just some of the best genre writers in the television business. I posted it [on Instagram<\/a>] and I said \u201cso stoked to get into it with these guys.\u201d The first comment was, \u201cLooks like a pretty woke room. Don\u2019t ruin the show.\u201d How does a room look woke? Oh, so you\u2019re looking at the makeup of the people in that room, and you\u2019re saying that that is something you don\u2019t like? I can\u2019t help you [with that]. I\u2019ve just got to go into that room and write stories.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also not like superhero comic books haven\u2019t had storylines about marginalized communities or interrogating people in power.<\/b><\/p>\n Guys, comic books are political. They\u2019ve always been political. The first graphic novel that ever won a Pulitzer Prize was \u201cMaus<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) gets in on the action. <\/p>\n (JoJo Whilden \/ Marvel)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n I think I\u2019ve waited long enough to ask about Luke Cage, played by <\/b>Mike Colter<\/b>, showing up in the finale. How did all of that come together?<\/b><\/p>\n One of the things that I\u2019ve said a bunch about this show is we lean into the idea that these characters have grown up. The time that has passed between the end of the Netflix shows and the beginning of this show, we acknowledge and we lean into. Their lives have matured. As anybody knows, in the comics, Luke and Jessica had a child, Danielle. Now for me, as a writer, that\u2019s just great story. We have a family of two very interesting people who were made iconic by the performances of Krysten Ritter<\/a> and Mike Colter<\/a>. What does that little family look like moving forward? So that tease at the end has seeds for acres and acres of stories. There\u2019s a world that I\u2019m super interested in, that a lot of the characters from the Netflix shows live in, that I\u2019d love to see go forward. A lot of that\u2019s out of my hands. But Mike and Jessica and that family are important to these stories.<\/p>\n Can you say anything more about what Luke has been up to since audiences last saw him?<\/b><\/p>\n Luke went to do some work for Mr. Charles. That\u2019s a little bit of an Easter egg, a storyline that will play out in the future. Mr. Charles\u2019s interest in alternatively abled people, or people who can do special things, that interest has long tentacles. It touched Luke and Jessica. It touches Bullseye at the end of the season, and that moves forward.<\/p>\n I think everybody\u2019s been curious since Charlie Cox\u2019s return. Matt\u2019s back. Now Jessica and Luke are back. Are we going to see all of the Netflix era heroes assembled?<\/b><\/p>\n The best way I can answer that question is that we take comic book runs, fan desires and unfinished business. On \u201cPunisher,\u201d we were planning for a Season 3. I know [\u201cDaredevil\u201d showrunner] Erik Oleson was getting ready to work on a Season 4. That all ended very abruptly. None of the shows really got an ending that brought it all together. I wouldn\u2019t say that \u201cDefenders\u201d was an ending that brought it all together. There\u2019s so much unfinished business in those Netflix shows. We definitely, definitely knew from way back, how the ending of the Mayor Fisk rise and fall, where that was going to go next. And it\u2019s funny because I\u2019m talking to you as we\u2019re trying to end where it goes next, and we\u2019re thinking about, \u201cOK, now what happens after that?\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m just going to throw it out there that I\u2019d like to see Misty Knight and Colleen Wing back also.<\/b><\/p>\n [Jessica Henwick<\/a>, who plays] Colleen has already said<\/a> that she is not in Season 3, and that\u2019s a real sad thing for us. It was not for lack of trying. I want to do Daughters of the Dragon, come on! That was teed up in \u201cThe Defenders<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n I wish I could be more forthright, but I have to save some some secrets for Season 3. But I do believe that we set a launching pad at the end of Season 2 that takes us into some pretty fun places that we\u2019re in right now, and I gotta go finish that.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"Karen](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/9ac5bb8\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/6000x4000+0+0\/resize\/320x213!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F2c%2Fce%2Fa032cc91477b9b798183b7899547%2Fotk-208-32229-r.jpg)
<\/picture>\n![\"Wilson](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/b74ecb6\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/8256x5504+0+0\/resize\/320x213!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fcb%2F6d%2F423741aa4b12857850aca7117385%2Fotk-201-01966-r.jpg)
<\/picture>\n![\"Jessica](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/c931a24\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/6000x4000+0+0\/resize\/320x213!\/format\/webp\/quality\/75\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fd3%2Faf%2F2463835c4465ab9cc94201cb854a%2Fotk-208-38150-r.jpg)
<\/picture>\n