Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 was received well by critics and fans alike. The show's story didn't miss a beat, and the action also found its groove, delivering sequences that rivaled what Netflix had to offer back in the day. And Born Again really needed the win because the first season of the revival series struggled to find its footing.
The main culprit behind Born Again's uneven debut outing was a behind-the-scenes change during filming. Matt Corman and Chris Ord wanted to take the Man Without Fear in an entirely new direction and abandon a lot of what came before. Despite signing off at first, the powers that be decided a creative overhaul was necessary and brought in The Punisher showrunner, Dario Scardapane, to steer the ship.
Scardapane and his collaborators did all they could to salvage the season. Unfortunately, while some characters benefited from the switch, others did not. The serial killer Muse certainly got the short end of the stick, coming out of the gates swinging before losing steam completely and dying at the hands of therapist Heather Glenn. Well, Scardapane is finally ready to address the red and white elephant in the room.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Born Again's showrunner explained that he didn't think the crew did "justice" to the Muse storyline, revealing that time and budget constraints led to the character's lackluster conclusion.
"This was a weird one because it had to do with a plot line that we inherited, that I felt we didn't do justice to: the original Muse storyline in Season 1. Because of what was filmed and what wasn't filmed and what we could use and not use, it didn't have the heft that I thought Muse deserved. But, again, we were limited by what we could shoot and what we had time and money for."
A show can always learn from its mistakes, though, and Scardapane is ready to give Muse another shot. Born Again Season 2 featured Heather facing the trauma the villain left her with head-on. By the end of the season, she put on Muse's mask and revealed she was ready to retrieve her agency by any means necessary.
In the same interview, Scardapane explained why he and the rest of the writing team took Heather down that dark road, touching on the lines that were blurring in her mind.
"Then I was really, really interested in the psychologist who's dealing with trauma and is in this realm of Matt and Fisk. She has all these kinds of characters that are wearing masks. She's been brutalized by a vigilante. In her mind, she started to confuse serial killers with vigilantes and became a press mouthpiece for Fisk. What happens if she literally puts on that trauma, and that trauma solves a lot of her conflict? We talked to Margarita [Levieva] about that. It seems supernatural if you watch the way it's progressing, and now we have a Muse that isn't just dropped in. Now you have the development of, why would she become this thing? Why would she go to such a dark place? And I think you understand it. I don't think anybody's prepared exactly for where this is going, and that's still fun."
The New Muse Can Fill A Major Void In Daredevil: Born Again Season 3
When Marvel Studios makes a mistake on the big screen, it's hard to run from it. Two recent MCU movies, The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World, suffered from behind-the-scenes issues, which mostly boiled down to scripts that felt more like Frankenstein's monster than the next The Dark Knight. And those problems led to lackluster box office returns, as fans could tell their favorite franchise wasn't firing on all cylinders.
Where TV gets a leg up in that situation is that even if a season gets bad press, there might already be another one in the pipeline that can address all the concerns. Born Again certainly took its second chance and ran with it, and it will continue to build momentum in Season 3.
Of course, the climax of the show's sophomore outing saw the titular hero and Mayor Wilson Fisk put all of their cards on the table and battle it out in front of New York City's residents. Matt Murdock claimed victory, forcing Kingpin to leave the only place he ever loved, but it came at a cost. Daredevil's identity is public, and he's locked up with so many criminals he helped put away.
With Daredevil dealing with all that in prison, the criminal underworld will be searching for a new leader. The new Muse, who spent time with Fisk and embraced his ways, has as good a claim as anyone. It might not be her angle, as she could be looking to follow in her predecessor's footsteps. However, it would be a wasted opportunity to make her just another solo act for the good guys to deal with in an episode or two.
That's not to say she should be the final big bad who gets the last few licks in on the Man Without Fear. After all, Vincent D'Onofrio has already been spotted on the set of Season 3, meaning Kingpin will have more to say before the credits roll on the final episode of the show. But placing another character with a personal vendetta against Matt in the middle of the action certainly won't hurt Born Again's chances of once again significantly improving its quality between outings.
