In the closing moments of Daredevil: Born Again's fourth episode, "Gloves Off," Bullseye targets Wilson and Vanessa Fisk, and the latter is left with a shard of glass embedded in her temple.
That looked like the end of Vanessa's story, but she woke up in last night's fifth instalment, "The Grand Design." There are hints that she's suffered some minor brain damage, but the former "Queenpin" otherwise appears to have escaped death at the hands of the man she manipulated into murdering Foggy Nelson.
The Kingpin is overjoyed, but Vanessa takes a turn for the worse and flatlines as the episode ends. She's dead, and Daredevil, Bullseye, and New York itself will now face Wilson's wrath.
Talking to us about bidding farewell to Vanessa, Daredevil: Born Again star Ayelet Zurer revealed how she learned that the character's story would end in the stellar second season of the Disney+ series.
"Yeah, none of us [saw it coming]. I received a call from Dario [Scardapane] first, and then from Sana [Amanat] and Vincent [D'Onofrio]," the actress reveals in the video below. "They explained where the show was going—how it would be structured, the entry point and the exit point."
"With Vincent, we really just mourned the story together," Zurer continued. "But they also explained something I could understand—that they needed the 'biggest gun' to launch his explosion. So, yeah, I’m that gun."
Asked whether this was the ending that Vanessa "deserved," Zurer, who has been playing the character since debuting in Netflix's Daredevil in 2015, replied, "She’s a complicated woman, so it’s hard to say. To be honest, I don’t think she would go down unless she chose to. I think what’s happening in the second season is something deeper."
"She slowly realises that she’s being haunted, that something isn’t right. At the same time, she understands that Fisk is never going to stop, and nothing will ever be enough—not even her. That’s a heartbreaking realisation."
"Once she’s sent away for protection, she makes a conscious decision. She steps in and ensures that if someone is going down, it will be her. In a way, she’s putting herself first," she continued. "For me, the central theme of this relationship has always been loyalty versus truth. If you give me truth, I give you loyalty. And if I give you loyalty, you must give me truth."
"That’s always been the case throughout the show. If you look back at any season, that theme remains. So here, loyalty plays a huge role."
With only three episodes of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 left, the fallout from Vanessa's death will be felt in a big way in the coming weeks and likely even into Season 3. Could this be the beginning of the end for Fisk's tenure as New York Mayor? We'll have to wait and see, but what comes next promises to be unmissable.
A brutal, relentless tour-de-force, Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 is a Marvel masterstroke that sees Charlie Cox take the Man Without Fear to unprecedented heights, delivering the definitive take on Daredevil," we said in our 8-episode review published last month.
Daredevil: Born Again is now streaming weekly on Disney+.