Daredevil: Born Again reveals why Matt Murdock decides to stop being Daredevil

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for Daredevil: Born Again episodes 1 and 2

For a while, fans were dreading a certain traumatic event that was teased by the people involved in the show a week ago. Turns out they weren't kidding. The opening scenes of Born Again's first episode throw a gut punch on viewers, as Foggy Nelson is shot by Wilson Bethel's Benjamin Poindexter/Bullseye, which leads to a brutal fight between Daredevil and the assassin.

As the fight happens in the stairwell of a building, we, as viewers, and Matt hear Karen trying her best to keep Foggy alive. Foggy breathes his last in the street below as Daredevil and Bullseye fight on the rooftop above. Distraught at his best friend's death, Matt throws Benjamin Poindexter from the roof to kill him, but he doesn't die and is injured.

The inability to save his best friend and the act of almost killing a man are what push Matt Murdock towards retiring his vigilante alter ego.

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Why did Matt retire his vigilante alter ego in Daredevil: Born Again?

We know that Daredevil: Born Again is a continuation of the acclaimed Netflix Marvel series Daredevil. The Netflix series ran for three seasons for the same number of years between 2015 and 2018. In that original era, Charlie Cox appeared as Daredevil four times in this order: Daredevil Season 1 (2015), Daredevil Season 2 (2016), The Defenders (2017), and Daredevil Season 3 (2018).

Netflix canceled the series a month after the third season in 2018 because of a supposed rights issue. But when the rights reverted to Marvel, Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio were incorporated into the MCU through Hawkeye, Spider-Man: No Way Home, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Echo. After making cameo appearances, Daredevil: Born Again is finally a solo series featuring all of Daredevil and his supporting characters.

Therefore, Daredevil: Born Again's first episode opens on a rather cheerful note as Foggy, Matt, and Karen are enjoying a cheery night at Josie's Bar after a hard day at night. But tragedy strikes as Foggy is killed by Benjamin Poindexter for a currently unknown reason. This results in a brutal fistfight between Daredevil and the dangerous assassin. This fight ends when Matt throws Bullseye from the roof.

Even though Poindexter survives the fall and is injured, seeing that he almost killed a man, Matt's Catholicism kicks in, and he throws off the Daredevil mask out of guilt and shame.

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Foggy Nelson's death in Daredevil: Born Again explained by showrunner:

It needs to be said that the Born Again we currently have is a retooled version. There was another version of the show that was canceled and reworked into the version we saw on March 4, 2025. It was rumored back in 2023 before Marvel pulled the plug on the original version of Born Again that Foggy's death occurred off-screen, and probably the same thing happened to Karen too.

Dario Scardapane, in an interview with Yahoo UK, confirmed that Foggy's death was alluded to in the original version of the show off-screen. It needs to be said that he just confirmed Foggy's fate in the original version and not Karen's. Here's what Scardapane said:

"In the original iteration, before I came on, that event occurred off-screen and I felt pretty strongly that if we're going to have something that earth-shattering happen in our world we needed to see it, and we needed to feel it."

He explained this major change by saying:

"That was one of the reasons why we put it inside this kind of crazy one shot action sequence, so that you were pulled into a moment of absolute trauma. And in terms of why? Sana [Amanat, executive producer] has said that in many ways this is an origin story and something has to kind of be broken before it can be rebuilt."

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The third episode of Daredevil: Born Again will stream on March 11, 2025.