The long wait for Daredevil: Born Again to arrive in the 2025 TV schedule finally ended in early March, and the first four episodes alone proved that leaving Netflix for fans with a Disney+ subscription didn't mean the Devil of Hell's kitchen lost his edge as some feared. As fans likely know, the first season switched directions after production resumed following the WGA writers strike and SAG-AFTRA actors strike, and Charlie Cox has opened up about filming Matt Murdock's initial scene with Frank Castle beforehand and then learning about Bullseye's deadly premiere move with the new showrunner on board.
Just days after the very first episode of Born Again featuring Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/The Punisher released on the Disney streamer, Charlie Cox spoke to a packed ballroom of fans during Fan Expo Cleveland, which I attended. The new take on Daredevil famously – or perhaps infamously – was retooled after plenty of footage had already been shot, when the original plan for Born Again was for Elden Henson's Foggy and Deborah Ann Woll's Karen Page to be left out entirely.
New showrunner Dario Scardapane, who had been a writer and producer on The Punisher prior to Netflix cancelling its slew of Marvel shows, fought for Foggy and Karen to come back when he was in the running for the job, and Charlie Cox shared what he spoke to Scardapane about when they talked for the first time. Cox said:
My first sit down with Dario [Scardapane], our showrunner who was brought in after the strikes to massage what we had. Just to be clear, a lot of what we shot pre-strikes with our original show producers who did a wonderful job, a lot of that material is in the show, including the scene that people are talking about today with Jon Bernthal.
That initial scene between Charlie Cox and Jon Bernthal was their first as Murdock and Castle since Season 2 of Netflix's Daredevil, and for me at least, it's already one of the most memorable sequences of all of Born Again. As I watched, though, my inner Punisher fan partly expected Frank to mention Karen at some point. If that scene was first planned prior to Scardapane coming on board with Foggy and Karen in tow, could that be why it unfolded without strong ties to either Daredevil or The Punisher in their original streaming runs?
Well, it won't take much to motivate me to watch it all over again after attending Cleveland Fan Expo and hearing Cox talk about that first conversation with the new showrunner! He went on to shed light on the painful opening scene with Bullseye that ended with Foggy dead just minutes into Born Again Season 1, saying:
I sat working with Dario when we were coming back to start up and he was going to write these new episodes. He pitched me that scene with Bullseye, and we were chatting about it. What came out of that conversation was the idea that all throughout the scene, he's hearing the heartbeat. That came out of our first conversation, and I remember, as we were saying goodbye to each other, [I was] like, 'Oh, that's good.'
Matt Murdock spent his years on Netflix refusing to kill, condemning Frank's eagerness to kill, and fighting off his most deadly instincts only to nearly kill Bullseye in the beginning of Born Again, but not because the move to Disney+ fundamentally shifted Daredevil to becoming a casual killer. He snapped after Foggy's heart stopped beating, and Matt hearing that heartbeat really enhanced the full fight sequence with Bullseye as he became increasingly desperate.
Charlie Cox even shared that he likes it "when Matt loses his temper," and it was only thanks to Bullseye's skeletal enhancements at the end of Netflix's Daredevil Season 3 that Matt didn't actually end his life. I've personally put off rewatching the Born Again opening over the past few weeks just because of how heavy and sad it is to lose Foggy so quickly, but I might have to do just that after hearing from Cox.
Fortunately, Daredevil: Born Again hasn't even hit the halfway mark of Season 1, so there are still plenty of episodes to go. It remains to be seen if Bullseye will be back after surviving his fall from the rooftop, and if there are any appearances from Foggy, they will presumably have to be flashbacks, dreams, or hallucinations unless he faked his death.
We can count on more of Jon Bernthal and Deborah Ann Woll, so keep checking out Disney+ on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET for the newest episodes. Since it was never clear if Matt knew exactly what Karen was up with Frank to whenever she appeared on The Punisher, my fingers are crossed for a scene between Charlie Cox, Woll, and Bernthal that could be very dramatic and/or very funny.
As of the end of Episode 4, however, Matt's most pressing issues might just concern Fisk falling back into his old Kingpin ways, the killer who seems to be painting art with the blood of murdered New Yorkers, and his own desire to return to his role as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.
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