SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again. If you have not seen the show, proceed at your own risk!
I always imagine that there is a degree of sadness that is felt behind the scenes of a long-running television show when a character is killed off. With exceptions, it means that a production is saying goodbye to one of its actors, and that's surely a bummer for the coworkers with whom they've become friendly. That being said, such a development can also be artistically beneficial, and that's exactly how Charlie Cox felt when he learned that Elden Henson's Foggy Nelson was going to die in the first episode of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again.
Through three seasons of Netflix's Daredevil, Cox's Matt Murdock and Foggy are depicted as very close friends and partners, and their relationship features a number of ups and downs. When it came to the former reprising his part as The Man Without Fear for the revival series, however, he was grateful to have the narrative bombshell of Foggy's death to work with emotionally. The show said farewell to a key character, and Cox explained during an event at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation that it provided him opportunity for his performance:
It's the same character, it's the same human, but we are so radically changed by our circumstances and by our experiences. And you put that into the world of the superhero genre, if such a thing exists, and everything is exaggerated a little bit, you know? The awful thing that happens in Born Again that was the gift for me as the actor was the death of Foggy.
The experience of losing someone close to you always has a deep effect, and for Charlie Cox, the death of Foggy allowed him to explore new dimensions of the Matt Murdock character that he previously haven't witnessed. The blind hero has always has some extreme rage boiling under the surface, but the aftermath of Foggy's death takes him to a darker place than ever previously seen before from the character in the canon.
Cox added that he recognized the friendship between Matt and Foggy as being a core component of Daredevil – but that made it all the more important to dramatically change things up for Daredevil: Born Again. When characters in thrillers feel safe, the drama gets boring... and that is definitely not what happens in the Disney+ show. The actor continued,
[It’s] tragic in terms of the show loses an element that I think was like the heartbeat of Daredevil in the world. But if you’re gonna come back and you’re gonna make a new show, having already done three seasons, you’ve already had a lot of material, you do need to shake things up a bit. You need to come back with a bang. And with our show in particular, I always say that you need to make sure the audience feels unsafe – that nothing is sacred, anything can happen at anytime. Otherwise the stakes don't really mean anything.
It's a classic dilemma in franchise building: filmmakers always want to expand on the popularity of characters, but that popularity can't end up feeling like a force field that protects them from serious harm and/or change. Ultimately, Daredevil: Born Again makes a smart move killing Foggy.
The first season of Daredevil: Born Again started its run back in March, and all nine episodes are available to stream with a Disney+ subscription. A second season is on the way as well, estimated to arrive at some point in 2026, so be sure to be on the lookout for more news and updates about the show in the coming weeks/months here on CinemaBlend.
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