The season 1 finale of Daredevil: Born Again aired last night, and it was a doozy. Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio) consolidated his power as mayor of New York City and became something more like a dictator, leaving Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil (Charlie Cox) to build a resistance. There were lots of blatant parallels to modern politics, and also a scene where Fisk crushes a guy's head with his bare hands.
And it wasn't just any guy; it was the police commissioner, and Fisk crushed his head in front of his own men to make the point that Fisk was in charge now. I don't even want to embed the video here, but I'll link to it; feel free to watch if you haven't eaten in a while. The scene was disgusting beyond anything I ever thought I'd see in a Disney+ show. This Redditor pretty much sums it up: "Even GAME OF THRONES cut away as soon as Pedro Pascal’s character gets his skull caved in. The Disney+ show made sure to show us everything."
In the fourth season of Game of Thrones, Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal) goes up against Gregor "the Mountain" Clegane (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson) and ends up getting his head crushed for his trouble. That kill is horrible, but not as brutal as the one on Daredevil: Born Again. They had something to prove.
Vincent D'Onofrio talked to Variety about the scene: "To be honest, my first reaction was, how are we going to do it? How are we going to make it different than other scenes that I’ve done? How can we make ours different than other violent scenes that have depicted the same kind of thing?" he said. "I immediately started discussing ways with our producers and special effects crew that we could block the scene so that it helped execute the way I was thinking about physically making it happen. We figured it out: We did do something that feels different than what people have seen before when it comes to stuff like that. It’s pretty brutal. It’s kind of crazy as an actor to have to talk about things like that, but we want this show to be different."
"He’s definitely in power all by himself. He still has to keep his position as mayor somehow. The killing of Commissioner Gallo is done in front of his task force, so he wants them to be as nasty as he is. Nobody has seen that killing, and it will, I’m sure, eventually be covered up."
Fisk ends the first season of Daredevil: Born Again firmly in control of New York City, but like any good supervillain, he has bigger plans. "His grand plan is martial law, and while he can hold the city in martial law, to complete as many crimes as he can and get rid of the vigilantes. That would be included in his mindset of being able, at some point, to expand his reach beyond New York," D'Onofrio said.
We'll find out what those plans are relatively soon. Production is already underway on the second season of Daredevil: Born Again, which is due out on Disney+ sometime in 2026. So we'll be waiting a minute, but in an age where shows often take years off between new seasons, it's pretty reasonable. In the meantime, all nine episodes from Daredevil: Born Again season 1 are available to stream on Disney+.
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