Born Again’ Kills Off [Spoiler] in Premiere, Plus Charlie Cox & Vincent D’Onofrio on Matt Murdock & Wilson Fisk Changing

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 Episodes 1 and 2.]

Daredevil: Born Again is staying true to the title as the first two episodes of Disney+’s rebirth for the former Netflix series pave a new path for returning adversaries Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio).

One major event that forces Matt to put his Daredevil mask away is his best friend and fellow lawyer Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) is fatally shot by former foe Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) in the premiere’s opening moments. The fateful moment pushes Matt to an extreme we’ve never seen before as he rampages and nearly kills Bullseye in retaliation, throwing the man from the roof of Josie’s bar.

When the episode jumps forward in time by a year, Matt is working at a firm alongside Kirsten McDuffie (Nikki M. James) just as Bullseye, a.k.a., Benjamin Poindexter, is about to be sentenced for Foggy’s murder. Meanwhile, Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) has moved to California in the intervening year, with her and Matt’s bond unraveling in the wake of Foggy’s death.

But as viewers see in the second episode, Matt’s Daredevil side is hard to stifle when he uses his heightened senses to protect a witness in his case involving vigilante White Tiger, a.k.a. Hector Ayala (Kamar de los Reyes). Just as Matt tries putting his Daredevil nature aside, Wilson Fisk attempts to do the same with his Kingpin reputation after running for and winning the office of mayor.

Wilson even goes so far as to attempt couples therapy with his wife Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer), sitting down for a session with Matt’s new girlfriend of sorts, Heather Glenn (Margarita Levieva). But the big question from these first two installments is, can they really change? “I think change is possible. I think it’s really hard,” Cox tells TV Insider.

“The things about oneself that can be changed are normally the ones you don’t want to change or there’s great resistance to change,” he adds. “I think with Matt, speaking for him… he gets confused with what he can change and what he needs to deny about himself. And there’s elements that can’t be denied.”

Viewers saw Matt pull out his Daredevil moves when dirty cops tried seizing his witness and he opted to take the physical route rather than the verbal one. Will he give into that true nature of his as the season goes on? Fans will have to tune in to find out.

As for Wilson Fisk, D’Onofrio points out that these characters’ inability to change is “the only thing that makes us similar really.”

“It’s a struggle for this character to have a spotlight on him, to be in the daylight rather than in the dark where he prefers,” D’Onofrio admits of his big bad criminal character with new political power. “And so it’s a struggle.”

The actors dive deeper into their evolutions this season, as well as reveal what they imagine a Matt Murdock-Wilson Fisk therapy session might look like in the full video interview, above.

Daredevil: Born Again, Tuesdays, 9/8c, Disney+