Netflix and Marvel’s latest project, Daredevil proved to be an instant success. As fans across the world binge-watched the 13-episode series, we were all desperately holding our tongues till our friends caught up. Now, we’ve given some of the slowpokes time to catch-up, and we can start getting down to the nitty gritty of things. Here’s your spoiler alert for those that haven’t clued in there will be some major details about the Daredevil series divulged below.
Because now’s our chance to get into why the series chose to kill off everyone’s favorite journalist.
Steven DeKnight, Daredevil showrunner, discussed some of the show’s major decisions with The Hollywood Reporter and shed some light on why they chose to kill off Ben Urich, especially since nobody saw it coming.
They really wanted to show that toward the end of the season because we knew we’d get some sympathy for Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), to have him do something truly terrible that would propel Matt into that final endgame in the confrontation with Fisk. And to let the audience know that the gloves were off: just because he was a beloved character in the comics, doesn’t mean he’s safe.
DeKnight explained that the idea was actual Marvel’s and was decided long before he had even signed on. It made sense that Fisk had to push viewers over the edge, there was a sympathetic quality to the character, who was just so desperate to find and hold on to true love. And DeKnight went on to discuss that the killing of Urich was necessary for this interpretation of the story:
It’s like writers doing a new run of the comic. It felt right for the story. Much like episode four where Fisk kills Anatoly, not because he did something to cross him in the criminal world, but because he embarrassed him on a date. Urich gets murdered because he committed the unforgivable sin in Fisk’s mind: he went to Fisk’s mother. The last thing you want to do with Fisk is at all involve, insult, drag through the mud the women in his life he loves. That will be a serious trigger for him.
Those who hurt his women will not be given any mercy. That’s one definite realization the characters who were killed off learned from Fisk as he beat them to a pulp. And while Anatoly and Leland were both villainous characters that we were a bit more prepared to see come to their demise, with Urich we had grown attached. He was a likable, empathetic character, with a sick wife, and a difficult life. We may have not seen it coming and may have not wanted it to happen, but DeKnight’s revelation into why Daredevil needed to kill Ben Urich off, does (unfortunately) make total sense.
Daredevil most definitely made a mark on the way we view superheroes. With a dark and gritty character like Matt Murdock the show was able to explore much more graphic and deeper storylines than the movies arguably ever have. The show also gave viewers the opportunity to get to know the antagonist to a much greater extent, expanding the villain in ways that almost made us sympathize with him. And it is because of that exploration into the big bad, that some deaths were necessary to the complete the story.
Season 2 of Daredevil will premiere sometime in 2016 with two new showrunners on board.
