If the new Daredevil season 2 trailer didn’t get your blood pumping, then we may need to have a chat. Check out our breakdown so you don’t miss a single detail.
Daredevil season 2 will premiere on Netflix come March 18. That’s still a whole month away, so in the meantime, we’re overanalyzing the new trailer to see if we can glean any additional details about the plot from the new footage.
The official synopsis for Daredevil season 2 reads, “Just when Matt thinks he is bringing order back to the city, new forces are rising in Hell’s Kitchen. Now the Man Without Fear must take on a new adversary in Frank Castle and face an old flame — Elektra Natchios.
“Bigger problems emerge when Frank Castle, a man looking for vengeance, is reborn as The Punisher, a man who takes justice into his own hands in Matt’s neighborhood. Meanwhile, Matt must balance his duty to his community as a lawyer and his dangerous life as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, facing a life-altering choice that forces him to truly understand what it means to be a hero.”
It sounds intense, and this new trailer gives us the exact same sentiment. So, whether you’re a Daredevil superfan or just a fan of the Netflix series on its own, here’s a Daredevil season 2 trailer breakdown of all the new footage.
We’ve marked particularly spoilery sections in bold so you can steer clear if you don’t want speculation to ruin any potential major plot points.
Welcome to the Castle residence
The trailer opens on a mailbox with the name “Castle” on the side. Meet Frank Castle, who is none other than The Punisher. When we move on to a picture of Frank and his daughter, this is a clear callback to The Punisher’s origins. No matter the iteration, Frank is fueled by his anger over the death of his wife and child (or children), which transforms him from family man into hit man. But more on that later.
There’s also a One Batch, Two Batch book for his daughter (and made up for the show) sitting on the table, and we hear Frank repeat this phrase, following up with, “Penny and dime.” This doesn’t appear to have any significance other than just a reference to his daughter, who continues to be his motivation for everything he does along with his deceased wife, as well as the “penny and dime” trick, where you replace (kill) the dime (a crime boss) with a penny (a nobody like Frank Castle).
A connection to the past
“The guilt means your work is not yet finished,” Father Lantom says to Matt. This is an interesting sentiment, considering the priest is not 100% on board with Daredevil’s shenanigans, but he does also recognize that Matthew is trying to bring justice to the world when the legal system fails the innocent.
Spoiler alert! There’s also a shot of what appears to be a nun’s habit, with an attached crucifix and rosary. This could be in relation to Margaret Murdock, who is Matt’s mother. In the comics, she develops postpartum depression and attacks Matt as a baby. She soon leaves her family in order to serve God. It’s only after Matt becomes Daredevil that she reappears, helping him after a particularly bad run-in with Kingpin.
The Punisher has arrived
Word is getting around that there’s a new player in Hell’s Kitchen. He doesn’t work with anyone else, he tracks gangs to their own turf, and he takes them out with military precision.
This last part is particularly intriguing because, as with any comic book character, there are multiple origin stories for Frank Castle. In this instance, it looks like Marvel is adapting the story that Frank is an ex-Marine, which means he and his family were likely witness to a mafia hit. (Both the bullet hole in the skull x-ray and the carousel also give credence to this theory.) The mafia family tracks down anyone privy to what happened, and though Castle survives the encounter with them, his family doesn’t. Corruption within the police force means the killers went unpunished, so Frank decides to take matters into his own hands.
We also get a cemetery setting around this point in the trailer, which could be a callback to where Frank’s family is buried, but considering the amount of cop cars in the vicinity, it’s likely something else is going down, too.
A symbol for anything but hope
The Punisher is symbolized by a skull, usually brandished on his chest. In this case, we’re seeing Karen looking at an x-ray of someone’s head, and there’s a picture of a dead body in the background. Most likely this is Frank Castle’s file, and we’re probably seeing information either from his military days or from the murder of his family.
In the realistic world of Marvel, and Daredevil in particular, we don’t know if we’ll actually be seeing Frank sport this symbol on his chest, but it’s not out of the question. For all the mayhem he causes, Punisher is not actually a bad guy, and there’s been talk of his character getting his own spinoff series. If that were to happen, we may be looking at a slow development in the costume department, much like how Matt’s iconic red suit didn’t come about until the end of season 1.
Everyone gets involved
Throughout the trailer we also get quite a few shots of Matt talking to both Karen and Foggy independently. Karen wonders if Daredevil’s actions could have opened the door for men like The Punisher, who has taken Matt’s vigilante status to a whole new level. We also get a shot of them in the rain, with Matt gently touching her face. It’s more than plausible that Karen gets involved with Matt or, at the very least, figures out he’s actually Daredevil. She still has her own secrets left over from season 1, and it would be nice if everyone came clean during season 2.
On the other hand, Foggy continues to worry about Matt. Foggy said he’s “done his part” to help clean up the city. Does he want Matt to hang up his suit for good, or just until Frank Castle moves on from Hell’s Kitchen? Matt hasn’t come out unscathed from previous encounters, as we’re reminded when we see a shot of the scar on his shoulder, left over from his battle against Nobu in season 1. What’s more interesting is seeing Matt dressed up in a hoodie, looking like he’s up to no good. Is he going undercover or is he on the run? Foggy’s concerns seem more than founded by this point. Good thing we also get a shot of Claire Temple, since she’ll probably be stitching Matt up a couple more time before the season is out.
Frank and Matt aren’t so different after all
“I need to take care of the scum that killed my family,” Frank says, which is a feeling Matt can certainly relate to considering his father was murdered when he was a kid. Later, Frank also tells Matt, “You hit them and they get back up. I hit them and they stay down,” along with, “You know you’re one bad day away from being me.” Both of these lines work to remind us how similar these two men are and to make us sympathize with Frank Castle.
Spoilers! The shots of Punisher and Daredevil on the roof are also reminiscent of an issue of the comic called, “The Choice.” In it, Matt catches Frank about to make a hit and stops him because he wants the target, a big-time mafia boss, to be punished through the judicial system. Unfortunately, Frank overpowers Matt and chains him up with a gun in his hand, pointed right at Punisher. (Previously released stills show this same moment.) Frank tells him he’s got one bullet, so he can either choose to let Frank make the hit, or he can kill Frank himself and become a murderer in the process. Praying for forgiveness, Matt pulls the trigger prior to the hit, but there’s no firing pin. Frank gets off the shot, and kills the mafia boss he’d been aiming for, leaving Matt conflicted and devastated, but alive.
Red like the Devil
Matt’s red Daredevil costume only showed up near the end of season 1, but it doesn’t look like it’s lasting that long. We see a couple different iterations of the suit, and one where the cowl looks to have been repaired down the middle.
Did Punisher do this to him? Or maybe Elektra’s sharp blades? Either way, this could lead to bigger and better things. In other words — it’s time for a new suit! It’s possible Matt could be getting an upgrade, and if that means more time with Melvin Potter, then we’re all for it.
Give into the wild side
At the end of the trailer, it cuts from the title card to one last scene. Matt enters his apartment looking a little bedraggled and wet, meaning this could be taking place right after the scene between him and Karen in the rain. He hears something in the room, and pulls out a knife. “Elektra,” he says. “Hello, Matthew,” she replies.
Elektra is an assassin, of Greek descent, and a former flame of one Matt Murdock. Her signature weapon is a pair of sai. According to the show, they knew each other in college, so there’s already going to be some tension between the two when we meet her for the first time this year. Doug Petrie, co-showrunner of season 2, has previously stated that Elektra lets her wild side run rampant where Matt keeps it in check. This often leaves the two of them at odds. And in case you’re worried, a previous trailer shows us that Elektra will definitely be suiting up this season, one way or another.
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