Daredevil: Born Again Directors on Foggy Theory, S02 "Resistance Tale"

Posted in: Disney+, Marvel, TV | Tagged: daredevil: born again

Daredevil: Born Again Directors on Foggy Theory, S02 "Resistance Tale"

Daredevil: Born Again directors address Foggy Nelson and the fan theories surrounding him, Season 2 being a "resistance tale," and more.

Published Fri, 18 Apr 2025 07:37:06 -0500
by Tom Chang
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Article Summary

• Directors discuss Foggy Nelson's shocking death and its impact on Daredevil's future actions.
• Explored the emotional challenge of filming a major character's death in the first episode.
• Addressed fan theories about Foggy's possible survival, maintaining mystery.
• Season 2 set to focus on a resistance tale against Kingpin's control of New York.

Whenever there are reports of creative overhauls during production, it's natural to feel a sense of panic, given how underwhelming a lot of the MCU has recently felt. With season one of Daredevil: Born Again in the books, there's probably a bit of melancholic feeling since not only did it retain much of the grit of the 2015 Drew Goddard Netflix series, but it also sets the series up in the way the ups the stakes even further in an organic manner, setting the stage for even bigger surprises from the cliffhanger from showrunner Dario Scardapane and co-creators Matt Corman and Chris Ord as Matt (Charlie Cox) reluctantly agrees with Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) about needing "a bigger army" to combat Kingpin's (Vincent D'Onofrio) strangehold on the city with his anti-vigilante task force. Directors Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, Michael Cuesta, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, and David Boyd spoke to The Hollywood Reporter on the meticulous planning and execution to make season one land as it did. This is your spoiler warning.

Daredevil: Born Again Directors on Foggy's Future and Season One Cliffhanger

The first big shock of the series was hands down the premiere episode, "Heaven's Half Hour," during the opening arc at Matt, Karen, and Foggy's (Elden Hanson) favorite bar, Josie's. As Foggy decides to take a call outside, he's suddenly gunned down by Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) as Matt thrusts himself into action as Daredevil and fights Dex up to the roof to minimize casualties. As Matt's enhanced hearing makes him aware of Foggy's dissipated heartbeat, he wails in pain in front of his beaten rival before throwing him off the roof. Authorities subsequently arrest Dex as he survived the fall from a few stories up.

When it came to reuniting the three before killing Foggy, "Oh my God, without a doubt, especially with Elden, in particular. I remember we were having a conversation about exactly how he would die and what happens in his final moments," Moorhead said. "There's a lot to think about; it's not just lying down on the ground and slowly stopping breathing. What's his relationship with the afterlife, especially with his best friend being Catholic? We then had to make his death protracted over the course of [Daredevil and Bullseye's] fight. And truly, when we were talking about it, there was a moment where we went a little quiet and made long eye contact, as it sunk in that we were responsible for photographing the killing of one of our favorite characters from one of our favorite shows. We then felt like interlopers in a way. We were looking at Elden, who was only on set for those couple of days, and we started to think, "What right do we have?" But he gave us his blessing as long as we took it very seriously, and it wasn't just meant to be something shocking. If it resonated out through the whole series and was the reason that Matt did the things that he did for the rest of the show, then we'd have permission to do it."

"You feel like you have this obligation to the prior Netflix show, which is a masterpiece. You've got to get it right for yourself, for the fans, for everything, because that show is amazing," Benson added. "To use a different example, it's like if someone came along and said, 'You get to direct your very own episode of 'Breaking Bad!'' And we're like, 'Yes, we're in! What are we doing?' And they're like, 'You've got to kill Jesse in the first five minutes.' And then we're like, 'Is everyone going to hate us?' And they're like, 'Maybe! But you'll also get to work with Vincent D'Onofrio, Charlie Cox, and Jon Bernthal. So, good luck killing Jesse!'

As far as those theories about Foggy possibly faking his death, "I've heard this theory, you eagle-eyed geniuses. I would love to tell you, however, Marvel will snipe me if I say anything else," Moorhead said. "But what is really nice about Daredevil being a street-level superhero is that, generally, the supernatural doesn't really interact with this universe as much, even though it is within the MCU. So that often gives much stronger consequences where punches hurt more, and blood means more, and getting hurt means more, and dying very often does mean that you're actually dead. But that's all I can say."

As we close in the final moments of the season one finale, Matt and Karen escape to regroup after Frank (Jon Bernthal) tries to make his own last stand against Fisk's task force, only to get captured…not to mention delivering one hell of a mid-credits scene, the two reconvene at Josie's along with Josie (Susan Varon), Det Angie Kim (Ruibo Qian) and Cherry (Clark Johnson) seeing Karen, and Matt in costume and mask.

"The end of season one is a tragedy of some kind. And while it's not exactly a full-blown stand-up-and-cheer moment as there's very mixed emotions in those final seconds, you get the sense that there's a building of a resistance," Moorhead said. "So that is the kernel of where season two is going to go. The board is completely set in which Mayor Fisk has now become Kingpin again, but with New York in his grasp, and then there's this vigilante thing that now has to go completely underground. So that's where we start, and we're going to unfold all of that very, very quickly. It's a resistance tale."

For more, including coordination between the directors, getting Bernthal back into the fold, refilming Vanessa Fisk scenes with original Netflix series actress Ayelet Zurer, the idea behind the BB Report segments of BB Urich (Genneya Walton), working with existing footage, and more, you can check out the entire roundtable. All of season one of Daredevil: Born Again is available to stream on Disney+.

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