Daredevil: Born Again S2 gives us a darker, grittier canvas

S2 also preserves the crucial central dynamic of Murdock and Fisk as two sides of the same coin, darkness and light. For the first season, Fyfe Spera translated that into two distinct camera languages. Last year, as Fisk trended back toward his Kingpin persona, she lit him with more white light, representing institutional oppression; Murdock, by contrast, was typically filmed in a warmer, red-lit environment. That visual vocabulary has been extended to the second season, augmented by a new black Daredevil suit with a red double D emblem on the chest—straight out of the 2010 Shadowland comic storyline. The second season kicked off with a big set piece on a cargo ship in Red Hook’s free port. Fyfe Spera confessed to being a bit intimidated at first by the unique challenges of filming at that location, with no blue screen, despite living near the site and being familiar with the local waterways. “We’re going to do stunts on the deck, bring cameras there, a crane, and that entails [dealing with] tides, wind, currents, fog, cold—it’s a whole force of nature,” she said. Fyfe Spera credits stunt coordinator Phil Silvera and gaffer Charlie Grubbs with helping her capture the many action sequences and fast-paced fight choreography, such as Bullseye’s (Wilson Bethel) brutally efficient attack on Fisk’s anti-vigilante task force (AVTF) goons in a diner, or Fisk’s equally brutal beatdown of his opponent in a public boxing match. “We want to show cause and effect, always,” she said. “There’s an A side and a B side but instead of cutting from A to B, we show [the transition] by panning with the camera or otherwise revealing it in some way. The violence is not sensationalized, where nothing comes of it. You are forced to see the result of the violence and you see the characters struggle with that. We were able to make the camera athletic enough to [capture] that. Showing it in a longer take makes it feel more authentic. It plays out so you can watch the whole arc of it.” There were two sequences that Fyfe Spera is particularly fond of. The first is the episode 2 altercation in a bodega, which quickly escalates into an outright riot, culminating with Angela del Toro/White Tiger’s (Camila Rodriguez) Aunt Soledad (Ashley Marie Ortiz) being arrested by Fisk’s AVTF goons on a trumped-up charge. “It’s a scene that mirrors a lot of events that are unfortunately happening right now, so it meant a lot to me to get it right,” said Fyfe Spera. “We used a lot of practical lighting, like flashlights and headlights, to make the scene feel disorienting and hard to watch.” The relationship between Matt and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) this season is a mirror image of Fisk and Vanessa. Fyfe Spera described the pairings as “two power couples who need each other in desperate ways. It’s like those relationships during wartime that you know are probably doomed, ultimately, but they’re the only safe harbor.” So when a shard of glass pierces Vanessa’s skull in the chaos that erupts when Bullseye tries to take out Fisk after the mayor’s brutal victory in the ring, and she collapses, the stakes are suddenly very high indeed for the mayor. Initially, it seems as if Vanessa will survive, but she finally succumbs to her injuries, and we watch Fisk’s tough, controlled facade crumble to pieces as she dies. It’s a powerful, heartbreaking scene, anchoring one of the single best episodes of television you’re likely to see this year. “He’s completely broken down and all his defenses are gone,” said Fyfe Spera. “He can’t do anything to bring back the woman he loves. So our camera language changes. We used handheld cameras and longer lenses to make it feel really human and intimate—the last calm before the storm, because Vanessa is his anchor and he loses that. It was an emotional beat. You could have heard a pin drop on that set, everyone was keyed in on being there for the actors. And Vincent and Ayelet just nailed it.” All episodes of Daredevil: Born Again S2 are now streaming on Disney+.