Daredevil: Born Again has shocked its audience with a surprising death in the very first episode.

The first episode sees Foggy (Elden Henson) killed by Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter / Bullseye (Wilson Bethel), and he is taken out in a way that shakes Matt Murdock’s (Charlie Cox) life from the ground up.

Blavity/Shadow and Act Managing Editor Trey Mangum spoke with the executive producers of the Disney+ series about the shocking twist and fate for the character, who Henson reprised from the OG Netflix series.

As Brad Winderbaum said, the decision to kill the character was something the crew “didn’t take lightly.”

“It led to many, many sleepless nights,” he said. “But it felt like it was important to cause a morality shift in Matt. You know, Matt does something he vowed never to do.”

“Matt Murdock’s a character that’s willing to use violence in order to protect people. And I think, because he, he’s a moral person, um, he’s a Catholic, he believes he’s sacrificing his soul but he’s doing it for the greater good. But there are lines he won’t cross, and that death in the first episode causes him to cross one of those lines,” Winderbaum continued. “And because of that, he realizes he can’t have it both ways. So he chooses a life that is something he thinks that his friend would have wanted for him. But it is a lie, you know, it’s a lie. And, and, and the more he tries to convince himself it’s not a lie, the more those pressures build, the more they threaten to explode.”

Dario Scardapane also reiterated how the decision to kill a beloved character “wasn’t made lightly.” But it was made to separate this new series from the original Daredevil series.

“We had to do something absolutely earth-shattering to make Matt question picking up the mask or putting it away,” he said. “And there were only a couple of places to go if you really think about it. And one of them was what we did. It’s not just an inciting incident that kicks off the season. It’s an earthquake that has ripples into the next season. Matt will carry this for the rest of his life. And it was a way of saying we respect and love this former show, but we’re going somewhere else, and it’s going to be a little painful. But it’s also going to be satisfying—and above all, earned.”

Watch the full interviews with fellow executive producers Winderbaum, Scardapane, Sana Amanat, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorehead, as well as stars Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio, above.

The first two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again are now streaming on Disney+.