Daredevil: Born Again begins with a literal bang as Bullseye returns and shoots Foggy Nelson dead. That was the plan for the character even before the creative overhaul, though Dex's fate is every bit as shocking in many ways.
Having been brutally beaten by the Man Without Fear, Bullseye is thrown off the roof of Josie's by the vigilante. Daredevil intended to kill him, though the villain manages to survive (perhaps as a result of the procedure he underwent at the end of Daredevil season 3).
Talking to The Wrap, Charlie Cox called that "massive" and explained, "Obviously there’s something else that happens in that scene that is hugely traumatic and is going to change Matt Murdock for the rest of his life. But that cannot - what you reference, the almost attempted murder, is huge for a person like Matt."
"I mean, that goes against everything that he is, that he believes," the actor said, referring to Matt's Catholicism. "Any thread of faith that he has, that challenges it. That endangers it so much. And I think that going forward, he will spend a lifetime trying to reconcile that moment and try and and pull himself further away from it as possible."
Cox has been playing Daredevil since the mid-2010s and Marvel Studios allowed him to have a voice when it came to constructing that standout one-shot fight sequence with Bullseye.
In an interview with Variety, showrunner Dario Scardapane credited the actor with the decision to have Matt hear Foggy's fading heartbeat during his clash with the assassin who never misses. "Charlie came in and was like, 'What if I can hear his heartbeat the entire time?' 'Done' - I went back home, and busted that out, because that was a brilliant idea."
The trade also caught up with Cox who described Foggy's death as "really hard." He added, "The good news is that it’s got to be iconic. We’re back with a new show, so you’ve got to be big, brave and bold. You’ve got to do something different and shake things up. So, likely, there has to be a casualty, and sadly it is Foggy. "
"It’s devastating on a personal level and for the characters. I always think about Foggy Nelson as being kind of the heartbeat of the MCU. We lose a lot."
Back to the fight that ensues after Foggy is shot, Cox said, "It’s so complex. The way the camera was moving in that specific scene, relative to how we shot other scenes, was less frenetic and more on a track pushing in. It was a sense of impending doom,” Cox said. “Every department has to be impeccable for it to make it onto the screen. The scene in Episode 1 is long; it’s a big one."
"It’s also a very emotional scene, because of the nature of what’s just happened," Cox continued. "It was really fun to shoot, and we had lots of rehearsal. I think we had a whole day, maybe even more than that, to do it. It was hard, but we knew what we were doing was worth it."
A year after Foggy's death, Bullseye is sentenced to multiple life sentences and Matt finds a new problem to deal with after Wilson Fisk is elected New York's new Mayor. It's hard to believe we've seen the last of Dex and, for that matter, Foggy's story isn't necessarily over either.
Daredevil: Born Again's first two episodes are now streaming on Disney+.