Dario Scardapane changes Daniel Blake death in Daredevil Born Again Season 2
Dario Scardapane changed daredevil born again season 2 after filming, and the seventh episode now ends with Deputy Mayor Daniel Blake dead instead of spared. The finished version, now streaming on Disney+, replaces the filmed ending where Buck Cashman aimed at Blake on the ground and then let him live.
Buck Cashman and Daniel Blake
Arty Froushan said Buck Cashman’s order from Wilson Fisk’s world was simple: protect the mayor’s public image by silencing BB Urich, even if that meant a murder. In the scene that aired, Daniel Blake chooses to defy Cashman and protect her, which turns him from a political aide into the episode’s casualty.
Froushan described the character’s position bluntly: “Buck had to face up to Fisk, but he doesn’t admit it,” and added, “He lies to Fisk’s face, basically, and says, ‘I killed him,’ but obviously he doesn’t.” That lie keeps Buck inside Fisk’s orbit while the on-screen death shifts the burden onto Blake, who had been standing between Cashman and BB.
Scardapane’s edit
Scardapane said the first cut left Blake alive and still inside the Fisk administration. “The way that it would have gone is that he stayed in the Fisk administration,” he said, describing a version where “the new interim mayor is like, ‘I’m not taking your resignation. I’m going to keep you close because I don’t trust you.’”
That ending did not survive the edit. Scardapane said Blake had been “given chance after chance after chance, and because he defended BB, he paid — and that stains Buck’s soul,” but the alive version “this feels so wrong” and “doesn’t feel like the story was earned.” He also called it “kind of meh and a non-story… Sometimes the arc is built in and you’re extending it a little too far. Like, wait a second. He and Buck, in their twisted friendship, both had to be true to who they were. That’s the last moment because everything afterwards seemed kind of like a weird, lame coda that didn’t pay off.”
Michael Gandolfini reaction
Scardapane said he called Michael Gandolfini and opened with, “Dude, I’ve got the worst news,” before telling him the scene was changing in post-production. Gandolfini’s response was immediate: “I know exactly what you’re gonna say, and it’s the right choice.”
That exchange makes the post-production reversal the real story, not just the death itself. The episode’s ending now locks Daniel Blake out of any future turn inside the Fisk administration and leaves Buck Cashman carrying the lie that he killed him, which is a cleaner exit than the filmed version and a sharper break for the season’s power structure.
