Where Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 Ended and a Season 3 Wish List

Full spoilers follow for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, which is streaming on Disney+ now. Oh, and we’re also going to be acknowledging some very rampant – and not unexpected – casting leaks about Season 3, given even the people involved in them have been sharing the info.

Daredevil: Born Again’s second season concluded this week, making good on the promise that we’d heard before this season began that we’d get a wrap-up to the ongoing Mayor Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) storyline that began at the series’ start. And it wrapped up in a very dramatic and exciting fashion, first with Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) revealing his identity as Daredevil to a courtroom – and to the world – in order to help exonerate Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll). Then, with Wilson Fisk’s corruption once more exposed to the world, a fully unleashed and unhinged Fisk outright maimed and killed several civilians storming the courthouse as they rebelled against him.

Ultimately, Matt Murdock saved his archenemy’s life when the mob nearly killed him, but forced Fisk to take a deal offered by the attorney general’s office where he would resign and leave the country, renouncing his citizenship but avoiding prosecution. And yeah, it feels pretty odd that that deal was even still on the table after Fisk straight up massacred a bunch of people in full view of tons of witnesses. But hey, that’s just how it went!

So Fisk was indeed forced to leave town, apparently exiling himself to the island he and his beloved (but now deceased) Vanessa owned, while Matt Murdock was disbarred, locked up, and sent to jail, taking Kingpin and Daredevil off the board as far as New York City is concerned… for now at least.

Season 3 of Daredevil: Born Again is already filming, and we actually have a pretty good idea of many of the main plot points that will at least kick off the season. Here’s a wish list for avenues worth exploring as the show goes into its post-Mayor Fisk era!

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Build Up Daredevil’s Rogues’ Gallery

Across the combined five seasons of Netflix’s Daredevil and Disney+’s Daredevil: Born Again, our hero’s primary antagonists have tended to be Kingpin, the ninja clan known as the Hand, and anyone who works for them. Bullseye? Began working for Kingpin. Elektra? Ended up working for the Hand. Nobu? Hand. Marvel Comics Daredevil and Spider-Man villain, the Owl, was a part of Daredevil Season 1, albeit in a very toned down, non-physical threat form, but also… working for Kingpin! There were a handful of exceptions if you count, say, the Punisher when he first showed up.

The point is that it’s time to have Daredevil fight more people who are true free agents. Muse in Season 1 was a much appreciated example of that, and though he’s dead, it’s clear Heather Glenn is poised to follow in his masked footsteps. That’s good… but let’s not stop there! Matt Murdock’s costume-maker in the Netflix series, Melvin Potter, was constantly teased to take on his Gladiator alter ego from the comics. With the ability to go bigger and embrace more comic book elements in the Marvel Studios-produced DD era, how about getting Melvin out of jail and finally into that armor, complete with those rad spinning buzzsaws on his wrists?

Another major Daredevil comic book villain, Typhoid Mary, was – somewhat oddly – introduced not on Daredevil’s own series but rather prominently in Netflix’s Iron Fist Season 2, though once more, she never really took on her more dramatic comics persona. Alice Eve was great casting in the role – and Iron Fist Season 2 was actually pretty solid, especially compared to Season 1 – so how about we get her back, put some white makeup on her, and set her toe to toe with Daredevil?

Hell, let’s just finally go crazy and have a Stilt-Man episode! The people demand Stilt-Man! Well, I do at least, and the best way to do something wild like that is…

Say Yes to Occasional Stand-Alone Episodes

An amusingly divisive episode of Born Again is Season 1’s “With Interest,” in which Matt Murdock must foil a bank robbery. This episode is a notably fun, well-constructed adventure that really gets to show off Matt’s skill set (with the added tension of him not being in costume), while also giving him some crowd-pleasing fights along the way. Yet, some weren’t so into its stand-alone nature, which includes Charlie Cox himself, though he did firmly acknowledge that many fans loved the episode. But with all respect to the very talented Mr. Cox, who so beautifully plays Matt Murdock: Good sir, you’re wrong on this one! Not only was that a very entertaining episode, we could use more like it.

Even if we just got one or two more “villain of the week” episodes a season, that would be something.

Since the Netflix era, Daredevil has been hyper-serialized, and that serialization and the ongoing stories it provides are a vital part of the show, but it doesn’t mean there can’t be some one-off adventures along the way too. Stand-alones are a great way to build up Daredevil’s world without making it feel like every single element has to be a piece of a larger puzzle. And yeah, I know, some will always jump to calling any stand-alone episode of TV “filler” (instead of “TV”) because they want every single episode to “further the story” in a hyper-specific way – character studies and action spotlights be damned – but that’s their loss on some incredibly satisfying stories. Imagine dismissing all of the monster-of-the-week episodes of The X-Files?! A travesty.

The bigger pushback on doing stand-alone episodes on Born Again is that the show is only doing eight episodes a season (well, Season 1 had nine), which is somewhat valid but still not a complete obstacle. Even if we just got one or two more “villain of the week” episodes a season, that would be something. Of course, a better solution is to give us more like 12 or 13 episodes a season, and let four or five of them be stand-alones. But that may be a pipe dream when it comes to wishing upon Marvel Studios and Disney+ accounting these days.

Last Seen In: Hawkeye




One of the biggest questions many had after the finale of Marvel's Hawkeye was whether Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin was actually dead. While Maya seemingly shot and killed him, we don't actually see him die as the camera pans away from the violence. While Marvel may just not want to show a point-blank shot on Disney+, this also may be a chance for Kingpin to return. After all, why bring back D'Onofrio after Daredevil's cancellation for such a short appearance?
In a comics story we won't spoil here, Kingpin did survive Maya's attack - but at a great cost. As in the comics, anything is possible in the MCU so we may very well see Kingpin in the future.">

Give Us a Kingpin Breather

The Kingpin is a fantastic villain, and Vincent D’Onofrio is an amazing actor giving an all-time great performance as Wilson Fisk, but it also feels like we’ve reached a point where they should significantly diminish the amount of time we spend with this character, even if just for a while. Yes, he’s Daredevil’s archnemesis, and we know that eventually he and Matt are always destined to collide again. To date, though, four of the five seasons of Daredevil TV have used him as the main enemy. Only Season 2 of the Netflix series put him on a shelf for its majority, making it all the more powerful when he made his surprise return for a bit in the middle of the season during the Punisher’s own prison storyline.

But now, after Born Again’s Mayor Fisk story, this definitely feels like the time to take a step back from the character and use a “less is more” approach to make it all the more impactful the next time he strikes, and to give the “build up DD’s rogues’ gallery” idea some breathing room. This might be wishful thinking though, since we already know D’Onofrio is back as a series regular in Season 3. We’re likely to still be getting a ton of Fisk, but fingers crossed that he’s not quite so prevalent at first with a slower build to his return, allowing other storylines to benefit from some focus.

We know Matt is in prison when Season 3 begins, and that all of his Defenders buddies – Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron First – are going to be in play in some capacity. That allows for plenty of exciting potential ideas, including following Matt’s presumably very tough time behind bars, as well as the comic book storyline where Matt was locked up in prison and Iron Fist/Danny Rand was out on the streets dressed in a Daredevil costume. Heather is likely going to be causing mayhem as the new Muse, and there’s plenty to be mined from how the city is picking up the pieces after Fisk’s reign. But for all that to feel significant, it feels like having Fisk actually not looming large would be for the best. And eventually, down the line… hey, who doesn’t like to see D’Onofrio rocking that white suit?