Executive producer Dario Scardapane answers EW’s burning questions.

Daredevil: Born Again showrunner addresses season 2 finale reveals, set leaks, and season 3 setup

Executive producer Dario Scardapane answers EW's burning questions.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in Vanity Fair, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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May 6, 2026 12:00 p.m. ET

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Cherry (Clark Johnson), Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), Brett Mahoney (Royce Johnson), Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), and Angela Del Toro (Camila Rodriguez) on 'Daredevil: Born Again' season 2. Credit:

Jojo Whilden/Marvel

- *Daredevil: Born Again* showrunner Dario Scardapane breaks down the big reveals in the season 2 finale.

- Scardapane addresses those set leaks and confirms his big comic book inspirations for season 3.

- The executive producer also teases the future of Mr. Charles and that Muse surprise.

**Warning: This article contains spoilers from the *Daredevil: Born Again* season 2 finale, "The Southern Cross."**

Showrunner Dario Scardapane is in the midst of shooting *Daredevil: Born Again* season 3, and more so than with prior seasons, he's having a uniquely difficult time preserving spoilers.

Weeks ahead of the season 2 finale, various photos — including an accidental Instagram post from one of the actors and multiple paparazzi trailing the production — revealed major plot points that would eventually unfold in this week's episode, titled "The Southern Cross."

When it comes to the pap pics, specifically, Scardapane remarks during a late April interview, "I can't comment on them, but wow, right? Gee whiz, heavy-duty security there. I was there that day and I was just watching it all happen. I don't really know what to say other than, yeah, that happened."

Now that the season 2 finale is out in the world via Disney+, the executive producer sits down with ** to dig into it all: Mike Colter's surprise return as Luke Cage, those pap photos teasing a Defenders reunion in season 3, the transformation of Margarita Levieva's Helen Glenn into Lady Muse, the upcoming *Devil in Cell-Block D* storyline, and more.

Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil on 'Daredevil: Born Again' season 3.

Jojo Whilden/Marvel

**: I know you're super busy these days ****filming season 3****. Where are you in that process right now? How much longer do you have left?**

**DARIO SCARDAPANE:** I'm writing the finale right now. We wrap in early July at this point. So we're right about the halfway mark. All the scripts except the last one are written. We're shooting episode block 2, so we're just wrapping up episode 4 right now. We're heading into block 5 and 6, and then June-July will be the end.

**I have to ask about ****the paparazzi photos**** that came out recently.**

I can't comment on them, but wow, right? Gee whiz, heavy-duty security there. I was there that day and I was just watching it all happen. I don't really know what to say other than, yeah, that happened. [With] this particular season, I have to say, the spoilers, the leaks, and everything have been a little hard to deal with. The last 5 or 10 minutes of season 2 is a treat; the super fans are gonna know exactly where we're going. Having telegraphed that through the paparazzi and through the media is kind of a bummer. I don't understand why people wanna know everything before it happens.

Krysten Ritter on 'Daredevil: Born Again' return and Jessica Jones' life off screen

'Daredevil: Born Again' signals Luke Cage return ahead of season 3 with new character

**This show in particular, just because you film all around New York City...**

It's impossible.

**I know you can't really talk about this...**

I think everybody kinda knows who's coming!

Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones in 'Daredevil: Born Again' season 2.

Jojo Whilden/Marvel

**Let's talk about, at the very least, this really wonderful scene with Mike Colter and ****Krysten Ritter**** at the end of season 2. Walk me through how that happened.**

One of the things we really wanted to embrace with Jessica coming back was to build out her world. In the comic books, Jessica and Luke Cage are a couple and have a child. That's huge. That's story gold. All of these characters, since the Netflix shows ended and since we picked up, their lives have moved on, they've matured, they've got life experience. So that was a huge element from the beginning with bringing back Jessica Jones.

There's the story that we worked out in the writers' room about what Charles was doing with people like Luke and Bullseye [Wilson Bethel], and we were able to fold that story together in this reunion of Danielle and Luke and Jessica. It's one short scene, but it holds an entire seed packet for seasons going forward. We weren't 100 percent sure that Mike was gonna come back for a brief moment in time. Then, as soon as we started talking to him, he was all in. He's just a very, very busy man. He's doing, like, three other shows at this point.

**Was he a very last-minute edition, or did you have a little bit of a runway?**

We had a bit of a runway because the discussions had started...as we got into the finale and the places we wanted to land at the very end of season 2. So we're about six weeks away from shooting [the season 3 finale], probably around the same timeline as when we started talking to Mike and seeing what we could do, what he was interested in. When it came to those, for lack of a better word, endings for a lot of the characters at the end of the season 2 finale, we had a lot of those worked out early, because they had to be. Besides doing humongous stunts in the middle of New York City, our biggest bugaboo is scheduling.

**Is it fair to say that Luke is going to have a larger role to play in season 3?**

Yeah. I think that's something that you could say. It's funny, [Marvel is] on me not to say anything, and then there's pictures all over the place, but I understand it. The relationship between Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, we start that picture of those three people, that family, at the end of episode 8 in this season. The questions and the story that starts there play into season 3, absolutely.

Mike Colter in Netflix and Marvel's 'Luke Cage'.

**This lingering shot that we have with Matt Murdock [Charlie Cox] in the jail cell. The first thing that comes to mind is *The Devil in Cell-Block D*. Is that top of mind for you?**

Yeah. This is what hurts about leaks: [It's] what we all really wanted to build, and it's there in the whole season. There's a moment in the finale that we knew we were doing from the beginning of breaking season 2, and that was Matt in the courtroom saying the words, "I am Daredevil." That's an implosion for this world. We really tried to make it a decision he had to make in order to take down Fisk [Vincent D'Onofrio]. So it's a bit of brilliant legal maneuvering, but it's also the ultimate sacrifice. "Yay, team!" OK, what are the consequences for that?

Then we realized very, very quickly that it floats us right into one of my favorite runs of all time. Until the latest round of leaks, I'd always said to everybody, "Watch the last 5 minutes of episode 8, and you'll know what we're doing in season 3." And I stand by that.

**What about *The Devil in Cell-Block D* continues to resonate with you all these years later?**

The idea of Matt, the lawyer, going into the justice system on the other end of it to pay for his crimes as a vigilante, that's extremely rich territory. The sharp-eyed viewers will see which Fisk run we're doing with that ending, as well... Also, because we try to be somewhat topical, the current stress and strife at Rikers Island is pretty real, and the idea of building a flawed world that neither vigilante nor a lawyer can have any effect on, yeah.

'The Devil in Cell-Block D' comic book cover.

**With the final shot of Fisk on that beach, I might just be having a brain fart at the moment, but I can't think of the specific comic book arc you're talking about. Is that something you wanna talk about?**

The seeds are in the episode itself in that the deal that Fisk takes is exile. So you have one man in jail, one man in exile. They're both in boxes at the end. What happens from there is really the engine of season 3. They've been put in their separate corners for a moment. These are two people who haven't found a lot of peace over the years. Is there a certain level of peace in being forced to be out of the fight?

One of the things that I inherited that was a fun problem in a way: When your villain has become the mayor of New York City, where is there to go? You can't elevate him much more until you're getting into bizarro Jack Ryan territory, where Jack Ryan's now the President of the United States. How does he react to a fall? Now we have a totally different Fisk. There is no Vanessa. There is no network of power. There is no mayor's office. What does Fisk, at his core, climbing back into power, look like?

Mr. Charles (Matthew Lillard) on 'Daredevil: Born Again' season 2.

Jojo Whilden/Marvel

**There are so many great little bits at the end of this finale. One is this scene with Mr. Charles and Bullseye on the plane. The stewardess gives us a little bit more about Mr. Charles' backstory. Is it fair to say that Matthew Lillard is coming back in season 3? Is this a character that you really want to dig into more?**

Well, everybody knows Matt and I are really good friends. Mr. Charles was written for him. I wanted to do something in the world of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine [Julia Louis-Dreyfus], in the world of dirty tricks and the government being involved with vigilantes. When we talked about two characters riding off into the sunset together, Bullseye and Charles — again, a million seeds for stories going forward. If you connect the dots in here, Luke has history with Charles, now Bullseye is doing what Charles has done, it's not hard to play detective and figure out who else might be in that world. We call them Charles' Dark Whispers. So the idea that Charles is very interested in vigilantes and now has found one...

**There was another reveal in the finale. You've been stringing out this plot line with Heather Glenn [Margarita Levieva] being haunted by Muse. Now the big implication is she's going to become the new Muse. What felt like the meatiest material in that character development?**

This was a weird one because it had to do with a plot line that we inherited, that I felt we didn't do justice to: the original Muse storyline in season 1. Because of what was filmed and what wasn't filmed and what we could use and not use, it didn't have the heft that I thought Muse deserved. But, again, we were limited by what we could shoot and what we had time and money for.

Then I was really, really interested in the psychologist who's dealing with trauma and is in this realm of Matt and Fisk. She has all these kinds of characters that are wearing masks. She's been brutalized by a vigilante. In her mind, she started to confuse serial killers with vigilantes and became a press mouthpiece for Fisk. What happens if she literally puts on that trauma, and that trauma solves a lot of her conflict? We talked to Margarita about that. It seems supernatural if you watch the way it's progressing, and now we have a Muse that isn't just dropped in. Now you have the [character] development of, why would she become this thing? Why would she go to such a dark place? And I think you understand it. I don't think anybody's prepared exactly for where this is going, and that's still fun.

Lady Muse on a 'Daredevil' comic book cover.

**With season 1, you came in after a few episodes had been shot. That was a very unique challenge. Now that you're in the thick of season 3 — Mike Colter's back, Krysten Ritter's back — has the endgame or the larger picture of the show changed since season 1?**

The best way I can answer that is that my introduction to all of this was working on *The Punisher* and the Netflix shows. All of those shows were sharing sound stages over in New York and in LA. All of the writers' rooms were really close to each other in the same building. It all felt like a world. Jessica's over here, Mike's over here, Finn's over here, Jon [Bernthal]'s over here, Charlie and Vincent are over here, but they all felt like a portion of a city.

Along the way, particularly in [*Daredevil: Born Again*] season 2, we're touching on the larger New York — the New York that is not quite near Avengers Tower but in the same city. And there are characters, storylines; we have the *Punisher* special coming out, which is part of that same world. So as it's progressed, it just feels like you're opening doors or going down streets to a neighborhood that existed 10 years ago.

The establishment of the street-level characters in Netflix's *Daredevil*, *Jessica Jones*, *Luke Cage*, *Iron Fist*, *Defenders*, *Punisher*, that's the world that this is all heading towards, in my opinion. That's just the way I'm looking at it creatively. Now that we brought in a couple of our neighbors, in a way, yeah, it's definitely expanding.

*This article has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.*

*Daredevil: Born Again* seasons 1 and 2 are streaming on Disney+.

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