Daredevil: Born Again

Disney Plus

This week's episode of Daredevil: Born Again is tied for the highest-scored episode of any MCU show in history, tied with…itself, the season 3 finale of the Netflix version of the show. But amidst the carnage, fans believe they have spotted a larger connection to the MCU, the type of connection that Daredevil has rarely had. And it’s a weird one.

Fans believe that Marvel has put in an easter egg of The Watcher near the end of the episode, the all-seeing entity voiced by Jeffrey Wright that has appeared in shows like What If…? and Marvel Zombies, though I don’t believe ever in live-action.

Now, there’s a debate about whether this was intentional or a bizarre coincidence that involved some lucky background shots. Or was it green screen they made on purpose? It often can be hard to tell these days.

Can you see him above? That’s him in the window, allegedly, though his face is made up by two fluorescent lights and his ear carved out by a piece of broken window glass. It…certainly does look like him, at least to some extent, but I’m still not convinced it’s on purpose.

I’m leaning toward accident. I watched this scene, and there’s a shot before this showing a different angle, which looks much more like a normal shot of the interior. Different lights are shown, the glass is still there. Then it transitions to the fixed shot we’re seeing above.

There’s a larger question of…why would he be there? Obviously, Bullseye killing Vanessa is a big deal in the context of this show, but The Watcher watches the entire universe, and him showing up to see some minor thing happening in Hell’s Kitchen seems odd. But who knows, maybe he really wanted to be involved with one of the MCU’s best TV episodes ever.

The Watcher will not return in What If…? as there is not going to be a season 4. There will be a Marvel Zombies season 2, but that just had an easter egg Watcher cameo; he wasn’t a fixture in the story like he was in What If…? I doubt we’ll see him in the larger MCU in upcoming projects. I don’t really think we even saw him here.

It’s hard to believe we still have half a season of Daredevil: Born Again, given how wild things have been so far, and critics that have seen those episodes say they just keep getting better and better and never let their foot off the gas, which has resulted in a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score. Great times to be a Daredevil fan.

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