Daredevil: Born Again star says his character death almost didn't happen

Charlie Cox as Daredevil in Daredevil: Born Again season 2 — (Image credit: Marvel Studios)

Daredevil: Born Again season 2's shock character deaths didn't stop with the murder of Vanessa Fisk. Episode 7 saw another person from Fisk's inner circle meet an untimely end – so now's the time for our obligatory spoiler warning. Click away now if you haven't seen Daredevil: Born Again season 2 episode 7 and don't want to know what happens!

If you're still here, you'll know that Daniel Blake, played by Michael Gandolfini, was killed by Buck Cashman at the end of the episode. Wilson Fisk's Deputy Mayor of Communications met his end because he released City Hall mole BB Urich and refused to hand her over to Buck – an honorable way to go out. However, the real twist is that Daniel originally made it to the end of the season, until the creative team realized there was nowhere further for the character to go.

"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," Gandolfini told TV Insider. "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.'"

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He continued, "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.

"Again it's hard, you've got Bullseye, Fisk, Karen Page, Matt Murdock, and other people from the comics, so sometimes characters that don't have superpowers don't have the longest arcs, and they're there to support the superheroes, which is great, but the fact that Daniel got to have this, I just felt so touched and that they trusted me… there's only so much screen time that you get every episode, and so the fact that they gave me a real journey to go on, I was very lucky."