Just like Matt Murdock going fisticuffs with Wilson Fisk, Daredevil: Born Again season two has been pulling no punches. Only two episodes after the surprisingly tragic and moving death of Vanessa Fisk, the Marvel Studios series has delivered yet another shocking departure of a main character. Whether it’s tragic or not, I’ll leave that to you to decide. In either case, with just one episode left, the battle between vigilantes and corrupt mayoral thugs hits another tipping point.
Episode seven finally forced Fisk’s protege and media specialist, Daniel Black (Michael Gandolfini), to pick a side. Most of this season has dealt with Daniel’s maybe-more-than-friendship with BB Urich (Genneya Walton), the journalist who has reported unfavorably on Fisk. He knows she’s behind the pirate broadcasts but hasn’t wanted to face that. Unfortunately, just as BB herself had decided to choose Daniel over reporting on the latest scandal, Buck Cashman (Arty Froushan) sends Daniel the truth. Not only does Daniel know what BB’s been doing, now Cashman knows.
So what’s Daniel to do? After fearing for his own life only a few episodes ago—with Cashman instead making him bury a dead witness—Daniel has another big decision: Allow Buck to kill BB or not. Buck wants Daniel to bring BB to a specific location and he’ll handle the rest. Under the guise of getting her to safety, at first it looks like Daniel will do just that. But at the last moment, he has a crisis of conscience and tells her to go.
Now, what I find really interesting here is that I don’t know that Daniel’s refusal to allow BB to die has anything to do with him finding what the mayor’s office is doing objectionable. It’s not like he ever seemed to care if Fisk did illegal things. He was a true believer all the way through. But when it came to BB, he couldn’t do it. I doubt the two of them really could have lasted, given her predilection toward muckraking. Still, it’s interesting to me that Daniel did the right thing for once, just not for any greater good.
That said, Daniel at least takes it like a champ. He walks into the location to a confused Buck Cashman and defiantly says BB isn’t coming. Cashman then begins beating him mercilessly, trying to force him to give up BB’s location. He never budges. For a half a second it seemed like Buck might not kill Daniel after all. Perhaps he saw he error of his own ways. But no, with a final shot from his pistol, Buck kills Daniel.
When Buck later tells Fisk that it was Daniel, not BB, who died in that apartment, the mayor seems both surprised and legitimately saddened. Not sad enough to do anything else, but for Fisk, showing feeling toward someone not Vanessa is plenty.
I was never the biggest Daniel Blake fan. I always found his bootlicking more annoying than anything else. But I really appreciate this final arc with the character. He’s yet another flunky who falls under the Wilson Fisk bootheel, another casualty of the man’s egomania. That egomania will surely only get worse in next week’s finale to Daredevil: Born Again.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.