There’s something that’s been stuck in my head since reading Daredevil: Born Again showrunner Dario Scardapane talk about how important it was to him that the upcoming Disney+ series brought back Matt Murdock’s two best friends for the new show, and I have to be honest: it’s not excitement over seeing Foggy Nelson and Karen Page again, as much as I like those characters.

For those who missed Scardapane’s comments to Empire magazine, he said that he was “willing to lose a job” over whether or not Marvel wanted to bring the characters back, saying, “You can’t do this show without Karen and Foggy.” He specifically cited the climax of the show in its Netflix incarnation, which set up a world where Nelson, Murdock & Page was its own law firm, and the three would be working together moving forward. And, yes! This feels entirely right, and entirely in keeping with the social dynamic of the characters that caught fans’ attention when the Netflix version of the show ran. We didn’t just watch for Matt and the Kingpin; we wanted to see the interactions with Karen and, sure, with Foggy too. That is the heart of the series that people were responding to.

The thing is, that’s not all Scardapane actually said. He also said, “You can’t do this show without Karen and Foggy. They’re Matt’s family. They’re the heart of his world. You can’t take them out without explaining why, and if that explanation doesn’t ring true, don’t take them out.”

…Daredevil: Born Again is doing to get rid of Karen and Foggy, isn’t it? And probably in some suitably brutal, terrible manner.

Okay, perhaps I’m jumping to conclusions for no reason, but follow my admittedly speculative three-step logic here:

1. We know that Born Again was originally envisioned without the characters, so unless it was entirely rebuilt from the bottom up when they were brought back into the show, they can’t have a significant impact on the series longterm.
2. We also know that Scardapane has already talked about the fact that Born Again is “much darker” than the Netflix show, which certainly wasn’t sunshine and roses the entire time in its own right.
3. Scardapane literally talks about “taking [Karen and Foggy] out” as long as you explain why even as he’s arguing that they’re necessary for the show.

Back in 1999, Gail Simone — at that time, a writer online, rather than the comic book, video game, animation and prose icon that she is today — came up with the idea of 'Women in refrigerators' to sum up a trend of female characters being killed to provide an inciting incident that spurred male characters into action. (There was even a website to explain the whole thing.) That, oddly enough, is the thing I keep thinking about after reading Scardapane talk about bringing Karen Page and Foggy Nelson back to Daredevil: Born Again — that they’re being brought back as the heart of Matt Murdock’s life, just so that the heart can stop, traumatize Matt, and push the character into even darker territory than he’s been in before.

It’s a bold choice, if that’s the direction the show goes in, and it might even work. The question is, simply, how paranoid am I being by expecting 2025 to be the year that Marvel brings back fridging as a plot tool?

Daredevil: Born Again begins on Disney+ March 4.

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