Disney+’s Daredevil: Born Again may be a very deliberately street-level Marvel show, but we’ve just had official confirmation that one of the MCU‘s most powerful Cosmic beings appeared in it. In the wake of Born Again‘s excellent fourth episode in Season 2, eagle-eyed Marvel fans spotted what appeared to be the distinctive sight of the Watcher – voiced by Jeffrey Wright in What If…? – peering out of the broken window of Fogwell’s Gym. Incredulous fans and cynics claim the two strip lights claimed to be Uatu’s eyes were merely a coincidence, and others simply refused to accept that The Watcher would appear in live-action (despite appearing in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2‘s credits scene).
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Despite some surprisingly spirited debate about whether the Watcher “cameo” was legit, an Instagram post to Brad Winderbaum, head of Marvel Television has now seemingly confirmed that it was intentional. That makes Daredevil: Born Again the eighth separate MCU release The Watcher has appeared in after What If…?, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, I Am Groot, X-Men ’97, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Eyes of Wakanda, and Marvel Zombies. Winderbaum posted a story with the shot from Born Again and “always watching…” as the caption:
Why The Watcher Appearing in Daredevil: Born Again is Such a Big Deal
The Watcher may have God-like powers, but the all-seeing entity is discerning when it comes to deciding what to watch. He emphasized early in his MCU run the importance of points of divergence, where multiverse branches break off from crucial events, and his appearances in the other shows coincided with crucial interactions between major characters (not always but often linked to multiverse divergence). That suggests his appearance as Fogwell’s is an important point, but why would that be?
At this point, Vanessa Fisk’s fate is somewhat unclear. It obviously doesn’t look good, because Bullseye usually takes his targets down, but death is only ever confirmed in the MCU when we see it happen on screen. The Watcher’s silent oversight of the moments following her collapse suggests that her death or survival could be a Fixed Point in the multiverse. That absolutely fits with the idea that Kingpin would go scorched Earth if his wife was killed: we’ve actually seen just that in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, in fact. Vanessa is effectively Wilson’s anchor (as well as his point of vulnerability): she helps consolidate his power silently behind the scenes, offers reassuring guardrails for his behavior (as much as that’s possible), and gives him purpose. Take all of that away, and Kingpin suddenly looks like a berserker on a very light chain. No wonder The Watcher would be in attendance to see the trigger…
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