Kristina Bumphrey/Variety/Getty ImagesSpoilers ahead for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 Episode 7.There are times when one can see the metaphorical writing on the wall, reading a situation for what it is and exactly how bad it could become. For Michael Gandolfini, whose swaggering Daniel Blake consistently steals the show in Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again, his fate seemed obvious from the very beginning. “You can sort of see him digging his own grave,” the actor told Inverse last year. As we watched Daniel entrench himself in the regime of the corrupt Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), we all had the same questions: “What’s going to happen to him? How deep is he going to get?” Gandolfini just asked with a little more excitement than dread — what’s been tense to watch for us has just been “really good drama” for him.Still, no one could have known how prescient Gandolfini really was. The actor predicted exactly what would happen to Daniel, give or take a few technicalities. In Season 2, he gets in deeper with Fisk and his posh enforcer, Buck Cashman (Arty Froushan) — but as his loyalties to BB Urich (Genneya Walton) spoil Fisk’s plans for New York City, he finds his life mirroring the gangster films he so idolizes. He literally has to dig a grave in Episode 6. It’s a development that called Gandolfini’s coy predictions to mind immediately, but today, the actor insists that he had no clue what would happen to Daniel then. In fact (and again, major spoilers for Episode 7 ahead), Born Again very nearly subverted his expectations, initially sparing Daniel from his final, fatal encounter with Buck.Yes, Daniel’s luck officially runs out in Episode 7. When he ultimately chooses to protect BB against the might of the Fisk administration, he becomes the liability, the loose end, that Buck is bid to cut. Their confrontation seems to end with him pulling the trigger on Daniel. Per Gandolfini, however, the original ending they shot saw Daniel living to fight another day.Daniel ends up choosing BB’s side in the war against Fisk — which ultimately seals his fate. | Disney+“I shot Episode 8. He lived,” the actor tells Inverse. “I didn’t know he was going to die until the show was over.”In fact, he filmed most of the season with the assurance that his adventures would continue in Born Again Season 3. Still, it never felt quite right: “When we were in Episode 7, there was this feeling of, ‘Where’s Daniel going to go? What’s he going to do?’ It just felt really weird,” he recalls. “The whole time I was just like, ‘This feels wrong.’”“I was really grateful that they gave Daniel such a respectful goodbye.”That reservation makes a lot of sense, as Daniel hits a major wall in Season 2. When he loses Buck’s trust, he falls from Fisk’s good graces, too. Returning to the status quo would have been out of the question, and unlike BB or the young vigilante Angela del Toro (Camila Rodriguez), “he’s not going to go to Daredevil,” Gandolfini says. “He’s going to float in the aether.”It wasn’t until Born Again showrunner Dario Scardapane started working on scripts for Season 3 that he saw what Gandolfini seemed to. As Season 2 was still in post-production, there was time to rejigger its final episodes to give Daniel a darker (but more appropriate) ending.Gandolfini recalls getting a call from Scardapane breaking the news, and it was everything he could have hoped for. “I think it’s so right,” he insists. “I think I said to them, ‘Look, if I didn’t think it was right, I’d fight you guys…’ but I was really grateful that they gave Daniel such a respectful goodbye.”The dark bromance Daniel nurtured with Buck curdles beyond repair in Born Again Episode 7. | Disney+Daniel’s demise honestly feels inevitable when watching the series beginning to end, but as the character grows from a grating minor antagonist into Born Again’s dark horse, it’s hard not to get attached — or even internally bargain for his survival. Gandolfini’s performance only adds to the irony: he “never leaned into” the concept of dying because, like Daniel, he never doubted he would.“It’s such a funny thing because it was such a good lesson in acting,” the actor says. “Every moment of filming Episode 7, I’m just like, ‘Alright, I know I make it out of here.’ That makes it so much more painful because I do think that while Daniel’s scared… you can’t play [the fear].” It does make the moments leading up to his death, like the last conversation he has with his mother (Amy Carlson), feel that much purer: “I tell my mom, ‘Everything’s fine, it’s okay.’ I meant that.”Poetic as his end was, letting go of Daniel was easier said than done. He’s become the kind of character fans want to root for, and Gandolfini himself had spent a lot of time in his head, building out his inner world. “I did really like him,” he says thoughtfully. “Dario and [producer] Sana [Amanat] and the whole Marvel team really gave Daniel quite a lovely and amazing arc. I really get to hold space in this season, and that is really rare and really cool.”Most of what we learn about Daniel comes subtly: it’s the Godfather poster in his otherwise empty apartment (a hilarious gag that went a long way to winning over skeptics), or the New York Jets merch in his childhood bedroom, that was only just beginning to chip away at his bravado.Daniel Blake might be gone, but Gandolfini remains a part of the Daredevil family. | Kristina Bumphrey/Variety/Getty Images“He’s just a kid,” Gandolfini says, echoing the sentiments of countless viewers who’ve steadily joined Team Daniel during Season 2. “It is really interesting to see people now really love him. He just has this real empathy to him, which for me was always there.” That might have been difficult to see when Daniel was under Fisk’s shadow; once he steps out of it, however, his humanity comes into focus. “That’s what this whole season was about because, as a people pleaser, how far can we push him till he has to make a choice?”Daniel’s ultimate choice hurts like a knife twisting in the gut — and not just for us watching at home. “I had to tell Arty because he didn’t know,” Gandolfini says. “I called him and said, ‘You kill me.’ He was so distraught.”D’Onofrio and Charlie Cox, who plays the eponymous Daredevil, aka Matt Murdock, called to offer their condolences in turn. Still, it’s not going to be that easy getting rid of Gandolfini. “I literally visited set the other day,” he says, a very Daniel-like grin on his face. “I got lunch with Vincent on Tuesday.”Even if he has to haunt the narrative, he’s a part of the Daredevil family now.Daredevil: Born Again is now streaming on Disney+.