Vincent D’Onofrio’s turn as the elusive, power-mongering Wilson Fisk was a true highlight of Daredevil‘s inaugural season, though longtime fans of Matt Murdock are chomping at the bit to see how the creative team introduce Punisher and Elektra, the two heavy-hitters making their way into Hell’s Kitchen.
Having already cast two fine talents in the form of Jon Bernthal and Elodie Yung, respectively, the responsibility now rests in the hands of series showrunners Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez to build a compelling story the show’s new kids on the grimy, neon-drenched block.
Talking to Collider about all things Daredevil season 2, Petrie and Ramirez shed some light on the nature of each character, their respective arc, and how each antagonist ultimately crosses paths with Charlie Cox’s returning Man Without Fear. Firstly, Petrie explained the process of securing both Punisher/Frank Castle and Elektra Natchios for the show’s sophomore outing.
We were given those two characters and we eagerly embraced it. We asked ourselves, how do we avoid antagonist glut and icon glut in one season? What made Season 1 so successful was the slow burn and the build of exploring Wilson Fisk and Matt Murdock completely. But, Jeph [Loeb] really helped us with that. He was intrigued with the question, what is it to be a hero? In Season 1, we built the hero, but now we have these new characters coming in and testing Matt Murdock. They’re saying, “Oh, okay, you’re going to put on this suit and beat people up that you feel deserve it. We do that, too, except there’s a difference. We kill them.” They don’t feel like it’s that big of a difference, but he does.
Bouncing off that, Ramirez focused on the flimsy moral divide that distinguishes Bernthal and Cox’s vigilantes, and how the Punisher’s mere presence is enough for Daredevil to question his nightly ritual of beating bad guys to a pulp with his bare hands.
Because we knew, early on, that we had The Punisher and Elektra, we knew we didn’t want to repeat Season 1. It was Daredevil: Year One and Wilson Fisk: Year One. By the end of the season, he was a completely different person than he was at the beginning. We knew we had 13 episodes, so we wanted to find the coolest story we could do with these three characters and make the story feel really vibrant and alive in ways that are exciting to us. Most importantly, we wanted to make sure everything runs through Matt because it could easily become The Punisher story or the Elektra story that Matt cameos in, and not vice versa. So, we built it like a Matt story, in terms of what we wanted to put him through, where we wanted to get him, by the end of the season, and what we wanted to have him learn about himself, and we used an Elektra and Frank story throughout, to get him there.
Daredevil season 2 will premiere all 13 episodes when it returns to Netflix on March 18. Brace yourself, because it’s setting out to top that brutal, expertly shot corridor fight sequence from season 1.
