Posted in: Disney+, Marvel, TV | Tagged: daredevil: born again, Echo, punisher

Daredevil: Born Again Originally Had Echo/Punisher-Focused Episode

Daredevil: Born Again EP/writer Jesse Wigutow revealed that an Echo/Punisher episode was initially being planned for the first season.

Published Fri, 03 Oct 2025 07:37:04 -0500

by Tom Chang

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Article Summary

Daredevil: Born Again originally planned a bottle episode teaming Echo and Punisher for season one
Writer Jesse Wigutow reveals the scrapped narrative had Echo and Punisher spending a dramatic night together
Echo’s return was dropped, but future crossovers with Punisher remain possible for season two
Jon Bernthal’s Punisher will reappear in his own special and the next Spider-Man film

It turns out we could have had another return in Daredevil: Born Again, but probably not one fans from the Netflix era would have expected. While promoting the upcoming Tron: Ares, writer Jesse Wigutow, who's also an executive producer on the Matt Corman, Chris Ord and Dario Scardapane-created series, revealed that Echo star Alaqua Cox, who has ties to series stars Charlie Cox (Matt Murdock/Daredevil) and Vincent D'Onofrio (Wilson Fisk/Kingpin) would have appeared in a bottle episode, but wouldn't get involved with either character, but Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle/Punisher.

Daredevil: Born Again EP Reveals a Collaboration Between Anti-Heroes

"They were looking to do a kind of singular bottle episode around the Punisher crossing into the Daredevil space," Wigutow revealed to IGN. "This was two, three years ago, and one thing led to another, and I came in to largely focus on that. It involved the Punisher and Echo kind of spending an interesting night together — not romantically, but narratively," but plans "fell away."

As far as we'll see this play out in season two, "Who knows, maybe it comes back again," Wigutow continued. "But the story has been a little kind of crooked in terms of the development, and it was part of a former idea." Alaqua Cox, who, like her character, is deaf and communicates through American Sign Language, made her debut in the Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld-starred series Hawkeye, originally as an enforcer for Kingpin before turning over a new leaf and shooting her former boss.

Daredevil: Born Again Writer Reveals Scrapped Echo-Punisher Episode — Alaqua Cox in "Echo." Image courtesy of Marvel/Disney+

Following her story to Echo, we get a dive with the heavy-flashback driven series as we discover that she not only fought Daredevil in the first episode, but also how deep her history with Fisk goes, while she tries to make a dent in his empire in the present day. With season two of Daredevil: Born Again underway, we already have an official return of Krysten Ritter's Jessica Jones confirmed, but not much else. Alaqua Cox's future as Echo remains uncertain since she leaves her former home at the end of her series's first season, presumably to keep her loved ones safe from Kingpin, and the fate of the series is left uncertain.

Bernthal, who only appears in a few episodes, will return for his standalone special and will appear in the fourth Tom Holland-starred Spider-Man MCU film, Spider-Man: Brand New Day. For more on Wigutow talking about what worked in Daredevil: Born Again and what didn't, and how the potential the first season sets up, you can check out the entire interview.

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