Season 2 of Daredevil and the first seasons of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage all ended on fairly major cliffhangers. In the case of the Man Without Fear, he had just lost Elektra and revealed his secret identity to Karen Page the last time we saw him, so how exactly is The Defenders going to handle that?
We still don’t know too much about that just yet, but star Charlie Cox has now revealed when exactly the eight-part spinoff series picks up and what Matt Murdock’s state of mind is going into this team-up.
“Well, it’s been a few months since the end of season 2. I think it’s been quite a challenging few months for him. He took the death of Elektra very badly —I think he feels responsible for that. One of Matt’s big things is trying to protect the people he loves, which is why he keeps his identity hidden, and he’s failed. He’s left holding the dead body of a loved one, and so I think he’s tried to turn a corner. It’s almost like quitting an addiction in the hope that it will get easier.
He’s perhaps a little bit lost, and the best he can do for now is to not engage in his vigilante activities. When we meet him at the beginning of The Defenders, I’m not sure he’s completely found peace with that idea. I think he’s doing the best with what he can at the time. He finds himself between a rock and a hard place, which is the crux of his issue really from the beginning of season 1. ‘Should I or shouldn’t I? What is more beneficial to society?'”
Daredevil‘s second season teased an adaptation of “Born Again” somewhere down the line, and it was in that storyline we saw Wilson Fisk mentally break Matt by destroying his life. The fact that his life is already in disarray when The Defenders kicks off could very well be a precursor to this, but could the blind hero’s new teammates help get him through that?
Asked what it was like to find himself standing alongside the likes of Luke, Jessica, and Iron Fist, Cox – the first of The Defenders to be cast – went on to describe the surreal experience.
“From what we’ve shot so far, they want to genuinely make a difference and help people out. I’m not convinced that Jessica Jones feels quite as earnestly about that [laughs], but in some ways paradoxically, these great powers are also our great shame. These characters are living with a shame and a loneliness and have felt kind of ostracized. I think they felt like freaks and have been misunderstood. And as sad as that sounds, there’s also something quite beautiful about that. There’s something quite human about that.”
Set to premiere this summer, Marvel and Netflix have finally started pulling back the curtain on The Defenders, so expect more to be revealed shortly. For now though, feel free to weigh in with your thoughts on these remarks from Cox in the comments section down below.
