Daredevil: Born Again season two might not quite be racking up the ratings, but fans who are turning in are now realizing the show’s slow-burn pleasures—and were rewarded this week by a jaw-dropping twist. While you’d think a plot point as important as a character’s death would be something planned with precision, it turns out it was a decision made not in the scripting process, but in the editing room after the fact.
Sorry, fans of Deputy Mayor Daniel Blake, played by Michael Gandolfini.
Buck Cashman, played by Arty Froushan, took him out of the picture in the climax of episode seven, “The Hateful Darkness.” Though both characters are in league with Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin, a.k.a. Mayor Wilson Fisk, Blake and Cashman clashed over the fate of journalist BB Urich (Genneya Walton); as they’re brawling, Cashman shoots Blake dead.
However, as Variety reports, that’s not how the scene was intended to play out. Instead, Cashman aimed but didn’t fire. He allowed Blake to escape but then found himself having to lie to Kingpin about what happened.
Showrunner Dario Scardapane realized, however, that storyline didn’t feel “earned.” Blake living and going back to work for Fisk was “kind of meh and a non-story… He and Buck, in their twisted friendship, both had to be true to who they were. That’s the last moment because everything afterwards seemed kind of like a weird, lame coda that didn’t pay off.”
In the editing room, team Daredevil decided to try reworking the scene. “They mocked it up really fast, and you could have heard a pin drop in the editing room after that—like it is at the end of the episode. It’s just like, holy shit,” Scardapane recalled.
Then, of course, both actors involved had to be informed that the episode had undergone a major shift from what they’d filmed. Fortunately, it sounds like they took it really well, especially Gandolfini.
When Scardapane called him, Gandolfini’s response was, “‘It’s the right choice.’”
Added Scardapane, “It was funny because there were scenes shot of him after that moment, and it really feels like we’re telling the wrong story here. I think it’s a testament to how much we all love him, that we knew this character probably should not survive but we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it.”
The Daredevil: Born Again season two finale arrives May 5 on Disney+.
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