A round up of the showrunner of Daredevil: Born Again on the Season 2 finale (SPOILERS) and set ups for Season 3. The cast and crew have been hitting the trades and other outlets since the Season 2 finale aired yesterday on Disney+. This article tries to take those comments from multiple sources into one read.
As said above folks, this is designed to be read after you have finished Season 2 of Born Again. If you have not, don’t blame me if you get spoiled big time. I do have a spoiler free review you can catch in the related section below if you are wondering whether to jump in.
Let’s begin with EW’s coverage.
Season 3 Leaks and Progress
Showrunner Dario Scardapane spoke with EW and now that Season 2 was over he was wiling to discuss (kinda) the recent set leak images for Season 3. It’s no surprise now that Mike Colter is back as Luke Cage, he appeared in the finale of Season 2. However, we do know from those pics that Finn Jones also returns as Iron Fist.
“I can’t comment on them, but wow, right? Gee whiz, heavy-duty security there. I was there that day and I was just watching it all happen. I don’t really know what to say other than, yeah, that happened. [With] this particular season, I have to say, the spoilers, the leaks, and everything have been a little hard to deal with. The last 5 or 10 minutes of season 2 is a treat; the super fans are gonna know exactly where we’re going. Having telegraphed that through the paparazzi and through the media is kind of a bummer. I don’t understand why people wanna know everything before it happens.”
He also gave an update on where production stands with Season 3, which is still filming now.
“I’m writing the finale right now. We wrap in early July at this point. So we’re right about the halfway mark. All the scripts except the last one are written. We’re shooting episode block 2, so we’re just wrapping up episode 4 right now. We’re heading into block 5 and 6, and then June-July will be the end.”
He also explained Luke Cage will have a bigger role in Season 3,
“Yeah. I think that’s something that you could say. It’s funny, [Marvel is] on me not to say anything, and then there’s pictures all over the place, but I understand it. The relationship between Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, we start that picture of those three people, that family, at the end of episode 8 in this season. The questions and the story that starts there play into season 3, absolutely.”
Mike Colter’s Return In Season 2
As said, the finale did show Mike Colter’s return as Luke Cage already. A small scene of him returning home to Jessica and his daughter Danielle as a small tease. The series hints that Luke has been off doing work for Mr. Charles (Matthew Lillard), though he now has a new vigilante working for him, Bullseye.
“One of the things we really wanted to embrace with Jessica coming back was to build out her world. In the comic books, Jessica and Luke Cage are a couple and have a child. That’s huge. That’s story gold. All of these characters, since the Netflix shows ended and since we picked up, their lives have moved on, they’ve matured, they’ve got life experience. So that was a huge element from the beginning with bringing back Jessica Jones.”
“There’s the story that we worked out in the writers’ room about what Charles was doing with people like Luke and Bullseye [Wilson Bethel], and we were able to fold that story together in this reunion of Danielle and Luke and Jessica. It’s one short scene, but it holds an entire seed packet for seasons going forward. We weren’t 100 percent sure that Mike was gonna come back for a brief moment in time. Then, as soon as we started talking to him, he was all in. He’s just a very, very busy man. He’s doing, like, three other shows at this point.”
RELATED: Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 Finale Review/Season 2 Review
In a separate interview with EW, Krysten Ritter explained that they were not initially sure whether they were going to have Colter there physically in the scene. She doesn’t explain how it would have worked had he not been able to fit it into his schedule.
‘Originally, Ritter says the Born Again finale scene “was gonna be a slightly different shape.” She notes, “We didn’t know if it would be Mike or not, but I was so excited because it sets up what’s to come and gives us a little bit of a window into where their story could go.”‘
Scardapane explained they had a little time (original link above).
“We had a bit of a runway because the discussions had started…as we got into the finale and the places we wanted to land at the very end of season 2. So we’re about six weeks away from shooting [the season 3 finale], probably around the same timeline as when we started talking to Mike and seeing what we could do, what he was interested in. When it came to those, for lack of a better word, endings for a lot of the characters at the end of the season 2 finale, we had a lot of those worked out early, because they had to be. Besides doing humongous stunts in the middle of New York City, our biggest bugaboo is scheduling.”
The Devil In Cell Block D
Scardapane also lamented the leaks spoiling the ending of Season 2, as in Matt ending up in prison and revealed as Daredevil to the world. But as Daredevil fans would guess, one of the stories being pulled from in Season 3 is The Devil in Cell Block D.
“Yeah. This is what hurts about leaks: [It’s] what we all really wanted to build, and it’s there in the whole season. There’s a moment in the finale that we knew we were doing from the beginning of breaking season 2, and that was Matt in the courtroom saying the words, “I am Daredevil.” That’s an implosion for this world. We really tried to make it a decision he had to make in order to take down Fisk [Vincent D’Onofrio]. So it’s a bit of brilliant legal maneuvering, but it’s also the ultimate sacrifice. “Yay, team!” OK, what are the consequences for that?”
“Then we realized very, very quickly that it floats us right into one of my favorite runs of all time. Until the latest round of leaks, I’d always said to everybody, “Watch the last 5 minutes of episode 8, and you’ll know what we’re doing in season 3.” And I stand by that.”
“The idea of Matt, the lawyer, going into the justice system on the other end of it to pay for his crimes as a vigilante, that’s extremely rich territory. The sharp-eyed viewers will see which Fisk run we’re doing with that ending, as well… Also, because we try to be somewhat topical, the current stress and strife at Rikers Island is pretty real, and the idea of building a flawed world that neither vigilante nor a lawyer can have any effect on, yeah.”
What’s Next for Wilson Fisk?
Scardpane also teased where Fisk’s story may go next?
“The seeds are in the episode itself in that the deal that Fisk takes is exile. So you have one man in jail, one man in exile. They’re both in boxes at the end. What happens from there is really the engine of season 3. They’ve been put in their separate corners for a moment. These are two people who haven’t found a lot of peace over the years. Is there a certain level of peace in being forced to be out of the fight?”
“One of the things that I inherited that was a fun problem in a way: When your villain has become the mayor of New York City, where is there to go? You can’t elevate him much more until you’re getting into bizarro Jack Ryan territory, where Jack Ryan’s now the President of the United States. How does he react to a fall? Now we have a totally different Fisk. There is no Vanessa. There is no network of power. There is no mayor’s office. What does Fisk, at his core, climbing back into power, look like?”
Mr. Charles and Bullseye
The finale see’s Bullseye leaving in a plane with Mr. Charles, presumably to do some killing for him. It sounds like we’ll see more of this new partnership in Season 3.
“Well, everybody knows Matt [Lillard] and I are really good friends. Mr. Charles was written for him. I wanted to do something in the world of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine [Julia Louis-Dreyfus], in the world of dirty tricks and the government being involved with vigilantes. When we talked about two characters riding off into the sunset together, Bullseye and Charles — again, a million seeds for stories going forward. If you connect the dots in here, Luke has history with Charles, now Bullseye is doing what Charles has done, it’s not hard to play detective and figure out who else might be in that world. We call them Charles’ Dark Whispers. So the idea that Charles is very interested in vigilantes and now has found one…”
Lady Muse
Season 2 had a lot of set of for Heather taking in the mantle of Muse. With her donning the mask in the finale (plus those set leaks), we know she will fulfil that arc in Season 3. Scardapane explains why they went that way with the story, due to what they inherited when they came on board.
“This was a weird one because it had to do with a plot line that we inherited, that I felt we didn’t do justice to: the original Muse storyline in season 1. Because of what was filmed and what wasn’t filmed and what we could use and not use, it didn’t have the heft that I thought Muse deserved. But, again, we were limited by what we could shoot and what we had time and money for.”
“Then I was really, really interested in the psychologist who’s dealing with trauma and is in this realm of Matt and Fisk. She has all these kinds of characters that are wearing masks. She’s been brutalized by a vigilante. In her mind, she started to confuse serial killers with vigilantes and became a press mouthpiece for Fisk. What happens if she literally puts on that trauma, and that trauma solves a lot of her conflict? We talked to Margarita about that. It seems supernatural if you watch the way it’s progressing, and now we have a Muse that isn’t just dropped in. Now you have the [character] development of, why would she become this thing? Why would she go to such a dark place? And I think you understand it. I don’t think anybody’s prepared exactly for where this is going, and that’s still fun.”
In my opinion this was the weakest part of Season 2, but it may work much better with Heather in full on Muse mode in Season 3.
Daredevil Identity Reveal
Speaking with Variety, Scardapane also spoke about that moment of Daredevil exposing himself as blind lawyer Matt Murdock. Unlike Peter Parker, there appears to be no sorcerer this time to wipe everyone’s mind.
“We knew going into Season 2 that we were heading towards the “I am Daredevil” moment. One of the tricky parts of it, that actually turned out to be fun, was Matt’s “I’m the unknown witness” came late. It was super awesome because it allowed Charlie to give one of his best Matt Murdock performances as a lawyer and then literally shift into Daredevil in the middle of the scene. So that was pretty cool. We probably started talking about the end of this season while we were working on Season 1. Once we got into paying off the Mayor Fisk story, this place for both of these guys at the end was where we wanted to land.”
“One of the things we really wanted to examine, and I don’t want to get too flowery here, but the fun part of this season is that both these characters, Murdock and Fisk, Daredevil and Kingpin, have really become their true selves. Kingpin is full-blown Kingpin the entire season. Matt is full-blown Daredevil. For both of them, there are consequences of truly letting the id out. In the last five minutes of Season 2, you see what those consequences are for both of them. I’m literally watching the shoot of Season 3 in the corner of our Zoom screen while I’m talking to you. I know where they’re heading, and I think it’s pretty fun. These two have kind of an endless battle, but in a lot of ways the battle shifts at the end of this season.”
Jessica’s return
Finally for this article (this one is big enough right?) we have Scardapane talking about why Jessica only makes her return in Episode 6 of 8. This one is also from the Variety piece linked above.
“For me, I would have taken a Jessica Jones teaser in Episode 1. But story-wise we needed to get to a place with Fisk’s campaign against the vigilantes where we’ve seen Swordsman, White Tiger, we know what’s going on with Matt and there are others out there. For me, the question always was, if Fisk is going after the vigilantes, how does this particular vigilante handle that? We were plotting out the season in acts, and it definitely seemed to be the second half, third-act area to bring her in. It also had a lot of scheduling. The thing that people don’t realize when you’re bringing together these actors, everybody’s career went to big places after the Netflix shows. So scheduling Mike, Krysten, Jon and others is like herding cats.”
There’s some familiar ground covered in the Variety article that I quoted from the EW. Feel free to check the link to catch everything Scardapane had to say.
So that’s everything the showrunner of Daredevil: Born Again had to say about the Season 2 finale and the many set ups for Season 3. As always, leave any thoughts you have below.
FOR FANBOYS, BY FANBOYS
Have you checked out LRM Online’s official podcasts and videos on The Genreverse Podcast Network? Available on YouTube and all your favorite podcast apps, This multimedia empire includes The Daily CoG, Breaking Geek Radio: The Podcast, GeekScholars Movie News, Anime-Versal Review Podcast, and our Star Wars dedicated podcast The Cantina. Check it out by listening on all your favorite podcast apps, or watching on YouTube!
Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | Stitcher | Google Play
