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If you were shocked by the latest death in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, you’re not alone. Even the actors who played the characters in the scene didn’t initially know it would end in a death.
Warning! Spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 episode 7 follow:
A lot of TV shows play it fairly safe and keep key characters protected from any kind of significant harm, but it feels like Daredevil doesn’t abide by that. In the original show, characters dropped like flies, but Daredevil: Born Again is repeatedly upping the stakes by killing off Foggy Nelson, Vanessa Fisk, and now, Daniel Blake. At the end of Episode 7, Blake helps BB Ulrich escape the clutches of Wilson Fisk and his fixer, Buck Cashman. Unfortunately, Daniel Blake is violently interrogated by Buck before being unceremoniously shot in the head and left to bleed out in a dark, dirty room.
It’s extremely morbid, and fans hoped that Daniel Blake would worm his way out of this situation once more… and that almost happened. In a new interview with TV Insider, actor Michael Gandolfini talked about how Daniel Blake would’ve made it into Daredevil: Born Again Season 3, but a change in post-production ended his run early.
“So, the crazy part is Daniel originally lives, and we shot [some scenes for] Episode 8, and as we were going through, I was just shocked,” said Gandolfini. “I was so grateful that he had this amazing arc, not every non-superhero character gets that, and I was so lucky that they gave it to me, and after we had shot [Episode] 7 and we were shooting 8, there was this weird thing of like, ‘OK, he had this great run, this great arc, what’s next?’ 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.'”
Gandolfini noted that the creative team behind Daredevil came to him after they had wrapped filming to tell him they were going to kill Daniel, which felt right for him.
“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? And he gets this little hero’s moment, and it just felt so great, I just felt so lucky.”
So, if Daniel’s death wasn’t originally planned or even shot, how did they make it happen on-screen? In a separate interview with Variety, showrunner Dario Scardapane revealed that the decision to kill Daniel spawned out of experimenting when editing the episode together. The post-production team then added a gunshot to the final scene.
In the original script for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, Buck would have let Daniel Blake go, but eventually would have gad to own up to it when explaining the situation to Wilson Fisk later. Ultimately, everyone involved felt like they were dragging out Daniel’s arc, and that he’d been given too many chances from this cutthroat group he worked for. Not only that, but it gave Daniel a moment to be a hero and sacrifice himself for BB Ulrich.
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN’s news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
