In yesterday evening's episode of Daredevil: Born Again, Muse targeted Heather Glenn in a bid to make her his next work of art. The Man Without Fear intervenes, though it's the therapist who takes the serial killer down by unloading several shots from her gun into him.
It's a big moment and a shocking ending to Muse's story in the MCU. This version of the character was neither an Inhuman nor superpowered, and his story looks to have reached a definitive conclusion after "Art For Art's Sake."
Talking to Screen Rant about working with Muse actor Hunter Doohan, Margarita Levieva explored the complexity of Bastian's relationship with Heather and how things escalate during their therapy session.
"Their relationship began during the book signing, when I meet the character eventually, who is playing Muse. And Hunter Doohan is such an extraordinary actor, and from the moment he walked up to me, there was just so much coming off of him, and so much energy and vulnerability."
"I really felt him deeply immediately, and he's a really terrifying character, because he is so sympathetic in the beginning, and because he's so vulnerable, and because he's so earnest, I think that's also why Heather really kind of falls for him, because she believes she can really help him and sees the goodness in him."
"That's why it's so jarring and just unfathomable when whatever unfolds unfolds. He was just such an extraordinary actor. That therapy session was a very, very long scene on the page, and it was one of those where [it] both felt like it was a huge mountain to climb, but once we got into the dance, it was so fluid and felt so real. It was terrifying, but it felt very real, which was really helpful for the show."
Asked about the fallout from Heather being the one to kill Muse, Levieva explained that, while it was in self-defence, it's a moment that will greatly affect her moving forward and perhaps even change the doctor's perception of New York's vigilantes.
Discussing the "big themes and this idea of vigilante and violence and what is done in the service of serving the greater good," the actor pondered, "How far can we actually take that sort of violence into our own hands? Where does it all end?"
The Daredevil: Born Again star went on to suggest there are different ways to interpret Heather's willingness to shoot Muse during this "extremely traumatic" incident for the character.
"It's extremely traumatic. It's life-changing, I think, for someone who's in the service of helping others to then take someone else's life is just too much to even understand at first and the moment that she does shoot him, we talked about it a lot. Is it a conscious [decision]? Is it full-on revenge, hunger, kill? Is it sort of like a blackout kind of kill because so much physical violence is inflicted upon her up until then."
"There are a few moments where she actually hits her head. So we were wondering if there was a version of it where she's almost unaware of what she's doing, and it's kind of like automatic. So I don't know, I don't want to really reveal what I decided for myself it was."
"It'll be interesting to see how people interpret it, but the effects are evident right away, even in the hospital scene, when she wakes up from the concussion and realizes what she had done, it's so unbearable for her to process, because taking someone's life is not something that she ever thought, obviously, that she would ever do in her lifetime. [It] really rocks her."
The fallout from this altercation will either bring Heather closer to Matt Murdock's vigilante alter ego or drive an even bigger wedge between them. Either way, we expect Levieva's character to be a big part of where the story goes as we head into the final two instalments.
Seven episodes of Daredevil: Born Again are now streaming on Disney+.