Loki and Daredevil: Born Again's Season 2 finales have a rather deep narrative and visual connection. There's no denying that the MCU has had its highs and lows since launching its Disney+ venture with the start of Phase 4. Still, Marvel Studios has landed some big wins with Loki and Daredevil: Born Again, each of which has two seasons thus far and pulls from vastly different corners of the MCU, from the furthest reaches of the Multiverse to the streets of Earth-616's New York.
While Loki concluded its Season 2, Episode 6, "Glorious Purpose," in 2023, Daredevil: Born Again just recently wrapped its own second season with Episode 8, "The Southern Cross." The finale left off with Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock behind bars after outing himself as Daredevil, leaving his story on a cliffhanger with an up-close shot of the titular hero in prison that feels eerily familiar for Loki fans.
Loki Season 2's final glimpse at its titular character was almost identical, albeit while trading out a New York prison for a throne at the End of Time, where he became the living anchor that holds the Multiverse together. That is where fans expect to find Loki as he begins his pivotal role in this year's Avengers: Doomsday.
Beyond Loki and Born Again's shot composition, the Season 2 cliffhangers have a major narrative similarity. Just as Loki committed himself to purgatory for the good of others by committing to holding the Multiverse's branches together forever, Matt Murdock did the same on a street-level scale, exposing his superhero alter ego in court to free New York of Kingpin's reign, knowing it would doom him to prison.
The same can be said for the last glimpses of Vincent D'Onofrio's Kingpin and Owen Wilson's Mobius, who are shown from behind, wearing suits, in a rather peaceful locale, in a single long, wide shot.
For Kingpin, he was forced to leave New York as part of a deal with Daredevil to conclude their never-ending conflict. While the Man Without Fear's army dethroned Wilson Fisk from the mayor's office, that won't stop Kingpin from returning to New York with a striking new design in next year's Born Again Season 3.
When fans last saw Mobius, he had just exited the TVA to finally experience life on the timeline that he had spent so long protecting under the command of the "Time-Keepers." While Owen Wilson's Mobius departed the TVA after Loki Season 2, the analyst is reportedly expected to return in Avengers: Doomsday.
The secondary leads' final shots also have more than just shot composition in common, as both Kingpin and Mobius had just given up their life's work and were looking out onto a more peaceful view. For Mobius, he found peace gazing upon his alternate self's happy family on the timeline after leaving the TVA, while Kingpin was far less content, having been driven out of New York and the mayor's office.
Both seasons of Loki and Daredevil: Born Again are streaming now on Disney+, while Season 3 of the latter is now in production and will premiere in 2027.
The MCU's Daredevil & Loki Are More Connected Than You Thought
Interestingly, the directors behind Loki's series finale, Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, had their hands in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2. However, the directing duo helmed the opening episodes of the street-level epic, not the finale, meaning this similarity is likely a mere coincidence or the episode's actual helmer, Iain B. MacDonald, drawing technical inspiration from his Born Again fellows.
The connections between Loki and Daredevil don't stop there; many will be aware that Tom Hiddleston and Charlie Cox are close, longtime friends who go back to their early days acting in London. In fact, the duo shared the West End and Broadway stage in 2019, co-starring in an acclaimed revival of Harold Pinter's Betrayal, where Hiddleston also met his MCU villain actress wife.
At a Halloween performance of Broadway's Betrayal in October 2019, Cox and Hiddleston surprised fans at the stage door by dressing up in each other's costumes. Funnily enough, Ashton also got involved by donning a Captain Marvel costume over a year before she was cast to play The Marvels' Kree villain Dar-Benn, in which she faced Brie Larson's Carol Danvers (via ComicBook).
There was a time when Cox and Hiddleston hoped to bring their friendship to the MCU, but not with a Daredevil/Loki crossover. Cox told Happy Sad Confused that, before a creative overhaul abandoned Born Again's plans to be an 18-episode procedural-style show, Hiddleston was expected to "direct one of the episodes," calling the casualty "one of the great losses" of the necessary shift:
"The first season of Born Again, before the strike, was going to be 18 episodes. Tom was going to direct one of the episodes. One of the great losses on the back half of that original season. Even though the changes that were made to that show were needed, necessary, and made it much better, but he was going to direct episode 12 or something."
Ultimately, with Cox's Daredevil locked away in the street-level while Hiddleston's Loki holds the Multiverse together, the two are unlikely to ever collide in the MCU. Then again, as next year's Avengers: Secret Wars has the potential to unite anyone and everyone from Marvel history, anything is possible.
