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With the dust having settled on Netflix’s big team-up series Marvel’s The Defenders, it’s time for the heroes to fly solo once more into new seasons of their respective shows. Second seasons of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are up next, although Netflix hasn’t given release dates for either of them yet, and Daredevil will likely follow.
And when Daredevil returns for another round of episodes, the show will include a new regular addition to the cast: Hart of Dixie alum Wilson Bethel. Variety reported the casting, noting that Bethel will play an “FBI agent who will play a critical role in the conflict between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk.” As with pretty much every Marvel casting, the news doesn’t come with a character name. Even if it did, it’s not guaranteed that the name would be accurate, as Marvel is not above releasing decoy names and character descriptions.
So, who is Bethel playing? Obviously the guy everyone’s expecting him to play is Bullseye, the A-list Daredevil villain that has yet to make an appearance in any Marvel movie or show (and that’s not counting Colin Farrell’s polarizing turn as the marksman in the 2003 movie, which is no longer canon!). But if Marvel’s not playing games with that character description and the character really is an FBI agent, then he probably won’t be Bullseye. He might be another Daredevil foe, though, and plenty of internet sleuths have called this out already: Bethel might be playing the Daredevil and Spider-Man villain Sin-Eater.
Yep, a villain named Sin-Eater! That’s comics for ya! Sin-Eater started off as a Spider-Man villain, debuting in 1985’s Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #107 and dying a few years later in issue #136. In between those two issues, though, he had a run-in with Daredevil after he murdered a friend of Matt Murdock’s. Before becoming the Sin-Eater and vowing to straight-up murder all who were lenient on criminals, the guy was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and NYPD detective named Stanley Carter. It’s easy to see the Netflix show turning Stanley into an FBI agent and presenting him as an even more unhinged version of the Punisher, with his descent from lawful good into lawful evil playing out over the season.
And then there’s the matter of exactly what Daredevil Season 3 is gonna look like. SPOILER ALERT FOR MARVEL’S THE DEFENDERS, BTW, because that mini-series concluded with a broken and bruised Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) being nursed back to health by a nun. The scene was pretty much pulled directly from the iconic Frank Miller and David Mazzzucchelli story “Born Again,” leading many (including me) to believe that the next batch of episodes will pull heavily from that comic arc. Bethel’s character description doesn’t contradict that, as “Born Again” is about a major struggle between Murdock and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio). Sin-Eater could easily factor into the story, and it would give the short-lived comic character more exposure than ever.
Or, you know, Bethel could be the new Bullseye and we won’t know he’s the psychopathic assassin until way later in the season, kinda like the slow villain reveal in Marvel’s The Punisher. Marvel loves to keep you guessing!
