The second season of Daredevil: Born Again is set to premiere on March 24, and while the first 9 episodes were largely self-contained (a few nods and references aside), some of the social media reactions noted that season 2 will have more connections to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Spoilers follow.
Without giving every little detail away, Born Again Season 2 features a nod to Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who played a prominent role in Thunderbolts*, aka The New Avengers. A recent rumor claimed that Matthew Lillard's mysterious "Mr. Charles" will have some kind of connection to the CIA Director, which showrunner Dario Scardapane has now confirmed.
"So, building Mr. Charles as somebody who lives in the Val world, we wanted to make that connection," Scardapane tells Movieweb. "So, that's why that's on the other end of the phone call. For me, personally, away from everything MCU, I would love her to be part of our world. There's a story in the back of my head I would love to tell you, but I don't know, those choices aren't mine."
Executive producer Sana Amanat added: "Yeah, it's always nice to have that connective tissue, because you never know. So yes, as fans, we would love it."
We're not counting on Val actually showing up in season 2 (that's information the scoopers would surely have gotten wind of), but season 3 is certainly a possibility if Scardapane has his way. Val is a very powerful figure with her fingers in a lot of pies in pretty much every corner of the MCU, so bringing her into the Man Without Fear's world could lay the groundwork for these characters to make the jump to the big screen down the line.
During another recent interview, Scardapane explained why fans shouldn't expect to see characters from Marvel Studios' movies pay a visit to Hell's Kitchen.
"I’d be into it, because I dig the comics! But no. That’s been kind of a fun and challenging thing. We know there’s that huge world out there of the MCU. This corner of it has crossovers. We’ve seen Daredevil in other shows."
"There are other characters that are going to be popping up in movies and stuff, and that all goes into the larger MCU of it all," Scardapane went on. "The joke we make is, 'Oh, those guys are uptown – we’re downtown!' We kind of have a pocket that’s in this world of Hell’s Kitchen, in this world of New York." "I always think that maybe these characters take little vacations into the larger world, but the story that we’re focusing on is really granular."
Across eight gripping episodes, survival, resistance and redemption collide as the battle for the soul of New York begins," reads the season 2 synopsis. "In Season 2, Mayor Wilson Fisk crushes New York City underfoot as he hunts down public enemy number one, the Hell’s Kitchen vigilante known as Daredevil. But beneath the horned mask, Matt Murdock will try to fight back from the shadows to tear down the Kingpin’s corrupt empire and redeem his home. Resist. Rebel. Rebuild."