Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 Delivers A Major Marvel Character Death

Contains spoilers for "Daredevil: Born Again" Season 2, Episode 5 – "The Grand Design"

The death of Elden Henson's Foggy Nelson in "Daredevil: Born Again" is no longer the most shocking in the series. In the already-stunning Season 2, another major character dies, changing the dynamic of the show and what's to follow. It also comes out of seemingly nowhere, since everybody presumed Vanessa Fisk (Ayelet Zurer) would survive.

In the previous episode, during Bullseye's (Wilson Bethel) assassination attempt on the Kingpin, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio), a Rube Goldberg machine-like sequence of events resulted in shards of glass from a New York City statue hitting Vanessa. Particularly concerning were the pieces of glass jammed in the side of her head. The odds didn't look good for Vanessa's survival, but the fifth episode reveals that the Kingpin rushed her to hospital in the nick of time.

Vanessa awakens from her surgery, but it's clear that something isn't right in her interactions with her husband. One could put that down to the effects of anesthesia, or the potential head trauma suffered. The reunion between Wilson and Vanessa is short-lived, though, as she dies after asking her husband to tell her the story of how they first met. The event leaves the Kingpin devastated by the loss of his beloved wife.

While Vanessa Fisk has been shown to be as ruthless as the Kingpin in "Daredevil: Born Again," especially in the previous season, she's also acted as something like his moral compass. Yes, Kingpin has already gone too far in how he keeps New York in a stranglehold as the mayor of the city, but there's always been a chance at tempering his rage with her around. In fact, even Lili Taylor's Governor Marge McCaffrey says as much in "Daredevil: Born Again: Season 2."

Now, with Vanessa gone, there's nothing holding back Wilson from becoming the worst version of himself. He's never been afraid of crossing boundaries or lines in the past, but he still tried to justify and hide the monster inside of him. Even in the way he presents himself to New York, he carefully wears a mask, though a lot of people know the truth about what he can really be.

Since Vanessa is no longer around, there's no longer a need — or perhaps, even a desire — to keep up appearances. Wilson Fisk doesn't need to shy away from becoming the Kingpin in plain sight; he can embrace the darkness and display it to the world. This is bad news for heroes like Daredevil (Charlie Cox), since a Kingpin with nothing to lose is more dangerous than ever.