The season premiere of Daredevil: Born Again picked up around six years after the Netflix series left off with all the violence, intense scenes, and superb acting it was known for. There were plenty of returning faces too, with Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, Wilson Fisk, and Vanessa Marianna-Fisk all appearing in the first two episodes.
One other returning character from the original series who has yet to appear in the Disney Plus show is The Punisher, Frank Castle, but we know that Jon Bernthal will make an appearance at some point. However, there was a clue in the second episode that he would be an important part of the series.
*** WARNING! SPOILERS FOR DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN COMING UP! ***
Wilson Fisk won the New York Mayoral race and it will likely change everything for the city; Among them is the New York Police Department. Half of the NYPD loves Fisk while the others know that he’s a crime boss willing to commit atrocious crimes to get what he wants. The others believe they have free range to terrorize people and dish out their special brand of justice.
Towards the end of the second episode, Matt Murdock is fighting two crooked cops in an apartment. When one of them, Powell, grabs Matt, you can see a Punisher Skull tattoo on his arm. It shows that Powell (and likely more cops in the show) is for the violence and deadly justice that Frank Castle dishes out. Sadly, they don’t realize he is against cops being like him - something that even The Punisher's own creative team have reinforced.
"As to the debate over whether the Punisher symbol can ever be a symbol for justice — I agree that's an open question. What it must *not* be is a symbol of oppression. I want to deny police the use of the symbol by claiming it for BLM. Call it irony. I hope the results will speak for themselves."Gerry Conway
Back in 2020, the Punisher co-creator Gerry Conway stated that the Punisher isn’t someone that police officers should look up to or emulate. He went as far as to say that police who use it to justify brutality are “a disgrace”.
During his run of The Punisher, Matthew Rosenberg wrote about Frank Castle being against it as well saying, "We're not the same. You took an oath to uphold the law. You help people. I gave that up a long time ago. You don't do what I do. Nobody does. You boys need a role model? His name is Captain America and he'd be happy to have you."
It wasn't going to be difficult to bring The Punisher into Daredevil: Born Again. All Frank Castle has to do is kill someone in New York and it would bring Matt Murdock (the lawyer or the vigilante) onto the scene. The addition of cops being pro-Punisher not only spotlights a real world conversation, it give the show the opportunity to show that brutality is wrong. Matt will likely have a talk with Frank at some point throughout the series, asking him if he knows about the tattoos or if he is okay with them. It's an easy guess that he'll be against it.
Knowing Frank, he will probably come across a cop with the tattoo or other officers who want to be like him. He'll tell them something close to what Matt Rosenberg wrote in his comic and the corrupt cops who attempt to justify their wrongdoing will likely take issue that. If that is how things go, there is quite a real possibilit that it will lead to a fight with the crooked cops of the NYPD against The Punisher and Daredevil. After that, Wilson Fisk will have the proof he needs in his crooked attempt to outlaw vigilantism, leading to a potential adaptation of the Marvel Comics storyline Devil's Reign.