I am at least mildly annoyed with Daredevil: Born Again after last night’s episode in a season I have otherwise loved. It took a left turn and killed off a character it shouldn’t have, and now, we hear that wasn’t even the original plan. Spoilers follow.
In the final moments of the episode, Fisk thug Buck Cashman shoots Daniel Blake in the head after he helps BB escape, even after he learns she’s behind anti-Fisk propaganda based on leaks she often stole straight from him after gaining his trust. Cashman reluctantly beats down Daniel to find out where BB is, but he purposefully doesn’t even know. He’s defiant until his last breath, and Cashman, normally a pretty cold-blooded hitman, is emotional as he shoots him dead.
This wasn’t the original plan. They actually shot an alternate scene where Buck Cashman spares Daniel, tells him to run, and then has to explain the entire thing to Fisk later, lying to him that he killed Daniel. Here’s showrunner Dario Scardapane explaining the original plan to Variety:
“The way that it would have gone is that he stayed in the Fisk administration,” he says. “He goes in to resign and the new interim mayor is like, ‘I’m not taking your resignation. I’m going to keep you close because I don’t trust you.’”
However, it was decided that it was “so wrong” and it didn’t “feel like the story was earned.” The idea was that they didn’t want to kill off Michael Gandolfini’s Daniel because they liked the character so much, but in the end, they edited in the execution gunshot in post-production to end things there and not move on with his storyline.
If you thought Gandolfini might be upset about how this went down, he isn’t. He agreed. Here he is speaking to TVLine:
“I don’t think there’s really anywhere for him, and we had talked about some ideas, but these seasons are made in a vacuum; you can’t really think about Season 3. And I was just like, “I don’t know, it feels weird, it just doesn’t really make sense.”
“So they came back to me, and they were like, “Hey, so we actually are going to kill you in [Episode 7].” And it just felt so right. It felt so freeing, and I remember saying, “Hey, if I didn’t think it was right, I’d fight it.” I love Daniel, but it’s so right. Where else is he gonna go?”
I think he should have gone somewhere, as I would argue that season 2 of Born Again had built him up into one of the most interesting characters in the show. And having him sacrifice himself in the spur of the moment for what I would argue is one of the least interesting characters in the show, BB, was not terribly satisfying. I guess if they simply had no real idea where to take the character, it makes sense, but it seemed like that should have been mapped out before all this. Like Daniel’s decision, the show reversed course and killed him even after they shot an ending where they let him live. Bizarre, and I’m not sure this was the right call, speaking as a viewer, at least.
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