Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again is back for its second season on Disney+.
The question of whether vigilantes are necessary or inevitable is ultimately left up to viewers, according to showrunner and executive producer Dario Scardapane and executive producer Sana Amanat.
“The central question, when the laws are wrong, are the outlaws right? When the system is corrupt, is an outlaw on the side of the angels? The question is answered at the final scene of this season,” Scardapane told Blavity’s Shadow and Act.
Amanat added, “I think it’s better that we posit those questions for the audience to investigate and come to their own conclusions.”
Exploring the evolution of Daredevil and Kingpin
Viewers meet both characters fighting for what they believe is right. However, once that fight takes over, it becomes the very thing that poisons everyone, causing their ideologies to fade, Scardapane explained.
“At the end, who’s right, who’s wrong, it’s a blur,” he said. “You just have these two extreme viewpoints smashing up against each other, both of them crossing lines, both of them sympathetic, both of them motivated by a love of the city. It was one of those times that, the closer we get to them, it’s almost like more tragic and intense, so it was very intentional to make them start to feel similar.”
A blurred line between good and evil
Throughout the second installment, viewers follow Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), who are torn between the ideologies that separate them and the ideals that make them more alike than they realize.
“I think there are presentations that are happening both on the side of Fisk’s empire, if you will, on the side of Matt Murdock’s resistance, and ultimately realizing, it’s not necessarily about what you’re selling to your audiences,” Amanat explained. “It is ultimately about what you believe and who you represent. And I think that is the story that we’re trying to tell for the course of the season. The struggle for both of them is the unmasking one hundred percent, you know, and they’re constantly unmasking and veiling and unmasking and unveiling.”
“More than anything, he believes in the preservation of life, and that comes from his Christian upbringing and his devotion,” said Cox. “And the truth is, if you believe that as wholeheartedly as he does, that the idea doesn’t discriminate. That doesn’t mean that there are people who deserve to live more than others. And so if he believes that wholeheartedly, and he’s in a position where he has the opportunity to save a life, it doesn’t matter if it’s Mother Teresa or William Fisk. He has to take that opportunity.”
A shift in Wilson Fisk’s motivation
Without giving too much away, there is a shift in Wilson Fisk’s motivation in Episode 4 of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2.
“I think the pressure that the resistance puts on him makes him take steps that he didn’t know he was going to have to take,” said D’Onofrio. “He kind of has to think on his feet. He makes a decision. You actually get to see him make a decision in the scene with Buck (Arty Frouchan) that carries on until the end of the season.”
Daredevil: Born Again is now streaming on Disney+