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Daredevil: Born Again: Jon Bernthal's Painful Punisher Backstory Tease

As filming on Daredevil: Born Again rolls on, Jon Bernthal posted a teaser image reminding us of Frank Castle's (Punisher) tragic backstory.

It would be safe to say that the level of anticipated for Marvel Studios' Charlie Cox (Matt Murdock/Daredevil) and Vincent D'Onofrio (Wilson Fisk/Kingpin)-starring Daredevil: Born Again is as high as the number of changes that the streaming series has undergone. Dario Scardapane (Netflix's The Punisher) was brought in as showrunner, with the co-directing team of Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead (Loki) set to helm the remainder of the season, and Philip Silvera (Netflix's Daredevil) serving as stunt coordinator and second unit director. If that wasn't enough to let us know that the series would be embracing its Netflix routes even further (with Echo really driving the point home), we also learned that Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead) was confirmed to be returning as Frank Castle, aka The Punisher. Then came the footage from filming that saw Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson reprising their roles as Karen Page and Franklin "Foggy" Nelson.

Since that time, we've been seeing a ton of images & video from the public filming that's been going on – and one of the things that we've seen is someone sporting the Punisher's skull, though not Bernthal. That would add fuel to the fire that the season will include a storyline about rogue cops perverting the Punisher's cause & symbol to justify their crimes. Someone definitely dropping a whole lot of fuel on our dumpster fires of speculation is none other than Bernthal – who took to Instagram to post an image of the cover to One Batch, Two Batch. Yup, Lisa Castle's favorite book before going to sleep – the one that contains "One Batch, Two Batch, Penny and Dime" (which we learn in Netflix's Daredevil S02E04: "Penny and Dime"). Could we be getting a backstory revisit as a reminder of how the Punisher came to be? Here's a look at the post:

Daredevil: Echo Post-Credits Scene Gives New Meaning to "Born Again"?

Without giving away too much, the final showdown between Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) and Kingpin finds Maya using the powers of her Choctaw ancestors to venture into Kingpin's mind to rid him of the pain & rage that's fueled him for so long. Okay, got that? Good… because that leads us to the mid-credits scene. Making a getaway to greener pastures on his private jet, a news report about the New York City mayoral race catches his attention. While the reporter discusses how the city is looking for someone who will fight for them, we see a look on Kingpin's face that says that he believes he could be the answer to NYC's problems. For those of you who are comics fans, you know that Fisk has already recently gone down that route post-"Secret Empire" in a storyline that saw Matt Murdock as deputy mayor and Luke Cage running for office (yeah, there was a lot going on).

But why is this situation so different? Because we don't know which Wilson Fisk wants to be mayor heading into Daredevil: Born Again. We knew what Kingpin we were dealing with pre-Echo, so it would be easy to write this off as just a mad power grab on Kingpin's part. But if all of that pain and rage is now gone, who are we dealing with now? Because "Born Again" takes on a totally different meaning if we're dealing with Fisk legitimately believing he can do right by NYC – that he can be his savior. Throw into that mix the possibility that what Maya did may not stick – maybe Fisk's pain and rage are just too great to stay gone forever. And now that we're thinking about it, having Matt Murdock not believing that Fisk has changed and continuing to target him could also be an interesting way to push Fisk back to his old, big-bad ways.

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