Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, Episode 4 Finally Reveals Bullseye's Masterplan

Contains spoilers for "Daredevil: Born Again" Season 2, Episode 4 — "Gloves Off"

The fourth episode of "Daredevil: Born Again" Season 2 is a big Benjamin "Bullseye" Poindexter (Wilson Bethel) episode. We start with Dex calling in a Punisher (Jon Bernthal) alert in the diner he's having a milkshake in and almost casually murdering the incoming Anti-Vigilante Task Force squad. Later, we get a fun Bullseye-Daredevil (Charlie Cox) fight when the latter tracks Dex to his apartment. Here, Dex finally reveals why he's been running around killing people and even saving Daredevil from the AVTF guys who unmasked him in Episode 1.

Dex is doing all this because he feels bad, you see. He regrets killing Matt Murdock's friend Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) for Vanessa Fisk (Ayelet Zurer), and has come to the conclusion that he needs to even out the evil with "one good deed." His chosen good deed for his redemption arc is to do something Daredevil won't do: Bullseye has decided that he's going to kill Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio). That's his masterplan, and he intends to follow through with it, whether Matt likes it or not.

Though the nature of Bullseye's plan has been kept under wraps until now, Wilson Bethel mentioned in the "Daredevil: Born Again" Season 2 press notes that fans can expect to see Dex looking to cleanse his soul a bit. "At the end of Season 1, Dex has just tried to assassinate Fisk, but ended up shooting Matt Murdock instead," Bethel said. "He's a man on the run, he's spun out of place, and he's not doing well. And where we find him at the beginning of Season 2 is with a renewed sense of purpose. He has a guiding light and what he perceives to be a redemption arc for himself."

Bullseye's misguided plans ultimately have catastrophic consequences. His attack on Kingpin ends up killing — or at least grievously injuring — Vanessa, with every major character present becoming at least slightly complicit to the situation. Bullseye throws the glass diorama that causes the injury, aiming for Kingpin. Reflexively, Kingpin uses a boxing championship belt to block the diorama and break it into the shrapnel that hits Vanessa, which will no doubt do wonders for the volatile crime lord's temperament.

Just before the diorama tragedy strikes, Daredevil prevents Kingpin from shooting Bullseye, thus allowing Dex to throw the fateful projectile. Finally, there's the matter of Vanessa herself attending the fight specifically against Kingpin's wishes after she brokers a peace with Governor Marge McCaffrey (Lili Taylor). There are a lot of moving parts here, with fate conspiring to make Vanessa the unintended victim of Bullseye's attack.

In the comics, Bullseye is notorious for the chaos he causes, from killing Daredevil's lover Elektra to carrying out assorted assassinations as a particularly volatile member of assorted villain groups. While the Marvel Cinematic Universe Dex has been different from his comic book counterpart from the beginning thanks to his FBI background and overall character development, the disruptor aspect has very much carried over. Time and time again, Dex's actions throw a thematic curveball at the plot.

After "Daredevil" Season 3 set up Bethel's Bullseye return in the MCU, the character's first appearance in "Daredevil: Born Again" marks the game-changing death of Foggy Nelson. Now, Dex might just have executed his most chaotic plan yet. Thanks to his mission to assassinate Kingpin during the mayor's boxing exhibition, things spin out of hand so irreparably that it's easy to see the hostilities between the two and Daredevil being at an unprecedented level after this. 

Kingpin, Bullseye, and Daredevil already loathe each other, and their brutal three-way battle in the "Daredevil" Season 3 finale, "A New Napkin," is one of the more memorable Defenders Saga-era fight scenes. If all of this leads to "Daredevil: Born Again" Season 2 giving us more physical confrontations between the trio, we're not complaining.

"Daredevil: Born Again" Season 2 is streaming on Disney+.