How the ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Team Crafted that Explosive Season 2 Premiere

The cast and filmmakers break down that opening ship sequence — and tease what’s to come in the battle between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk.

BY Devan Coggan

Warning: This story contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, Episode 1: “The Northern Star.”

The Daredevil: Born Again team wanted to kick off Season 2 with a “titanic” event — literally.

The second season of Marvel Television’s drama series finds Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox) fighting for the future of New York City, as he faces off against Mayor Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) and his oppressive Anti-Vigilante Task Force. The first episode takes the fight to the middle of the East River, where Matt investigates a container ship named the Northern Star. After sneaking aboard, Matt discovers that it’s being used to smuggle weapons into the city, and rather than risk exposure, the crew chooses to sink their own ship — a major blow against Fisk’s regime.

Season 1 filmmakers Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson return to direct the Season 2 premiere, and they told Marvel.com they wanted to kick off this next chapter with a major action sequence, setting the tone for Matt’s battles to come.

“It feels like it’s ripped straight out of the comics,” Moorhead said of the Northern Star. “It’s an extraordinarily memorable image. There’s this middle finger to Mayor Fisk sitting in the East River.”

The Northern Star scene is packed with complicated stunts and fight choreography, which meant Cox had to train hard to prepare. “Coming out of the East River in that suit was a rough night,” Cox told the Daredevil: Born Again Official Podcast. “That was cold.”

But the actor admits that his biggest challenge was verbal, not physical. As a native New Yorker, Matt Murdock has an American accent, but Cox himself was born in England, and he struggled with pronouncing the name “Northern Star.”

“When you’re an Englishman and you’re putting on an American accent, one of the hardest things to do — especially if you’re speaking fast or frantically or with energy or whatever — is to have the ‘R’ in the middle of a word,” Cox explained. “‘Yesterday’ is a nightmare. Or ‘cheeseburger.’”

Tricky pronunciations aside, Cox was particularly interested in how the episode probes Matt’s emotional state. When the season begins, Matt has been driven into hiding, and he now faces some of the biggest challenges of his life as his nemesis consolidates power. But at the same time, he’s living happily with his ally and romantic partner Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), fully embracing his status as a vigilante. “It’s like he’s happier now because every day, he gets to just fight rather than try to use the system,” Moorhead explained. “He’s kind of let the devil out, and that’s where we start him.”

The result is a darker version of Daredevil, unlike any we’ve seen before.

“Matt and Karen have felt completely impotent in terms of how they can influence public opinion and the state of the city,” Cox said. “I remember someone likening it to death by a thousand cuts. They’re just trying to make very small, incremental jabs at the Fisk regime and hope that something gives and allows a shift in momentum. And the season begins with their first big victory, which is the Northern Star.”

The Daredevil: Born Again season premiere also brings new challenges for Wilson and Vanessa Fisk (Ayelet Zurer), as they fight to tighten their grip on New York City. Both have risen to unprecedented heights, with Wilson amassing political power and Vanessa running their criminal empire. But any true Kingpin knows that achieving power is one thing; maintaining it is another.

“Everybody starts the season basically being given everything that they ever wanted,” Moorhead said. “Especially Fisk and Vanessa, they run New York. You realize just how messed up and dark their personalities are because they’re still not happy, and they will never be happy. The one thing that does seem to make them happy is each other.”

But even as Fisk leans more and more into villainy this season, D’Onofrio and the filmmakers wanted to keep him somewhat sympathetic. There are still moments of humanity and tenderness between Wilson and Vanessa — proof that even a ruthless Kingpin has a heart.

“If you think about the entire legacy of the Daredevil TV show, one of the primary things that makes it stand out is how human Fisk and Vanessa are,” Benson said. “When you think about the first season of the [original] show, you don’t even know Fisk is a bad guy ‘til several episodes in, with the famous door-slamming-head scene. But up to that point, he seems like a powerful guy with some secrets who’s falling in love. We’re really proud of being able to continue the tradition of that.”

The first episode also introduces a new figure to the mix: the mysterious Mr. Charles, played by Matthew Lillard. Charles’ background is still shrouded in mystery, but he arrives in New York and immediately sets himself up as a power player, forcing his way into the Fisks’ inner circle.

“I’ve known Matthew for a long time,” D’Onofrio said. “We did a film together back in like the ‘90s or something. My character Fisk dislikes him so much that it bled into the way I feel about Matthew. It’s never happened before on this show… My character finds him so annoying!”

Those feelings extended to scenes between Charles and Vanessa, with D’Onofrio wanting to jump in and defend his on-screen spouse. “I felt completely protective,” he said with a laugh. “Every time he would look at her and say a line, I wanted to punch him in the face!”