The Defenders: How does [spoiler] survive?

If you’ve made it all the way to the end of The Defenders, you’re probably left wondering how exactly that last scene came to pass. It’s time to speculate.

Warning: This has spoilers for The Defenders season 1 finale, also named “The Defenders.” Not there yet and want to be surprised? This is not the place for you.

Before The Defenders even premiered, yours truly was pretty sure that Daredevil was going to feature particularly prominently. Of course, Matt Murdock in costume is the first character we see in the opening credits, but snippets of the show featured him and him alone. And if you’ve seen the entire show, you know his lost love Elektra steps up to the side of villainy and even puts Sigourney Weaver’s Alexandra out of action.

But, most of the way through episode 8, the building hiding the cache that the Hand has pursued for literally the entire series collapses down on top of him and Elektra, and most of the rest of the episode does its very best to convince you that yup, Daredevil’s gone. Foggy, Karen, Luke Cage, Danny Rand, and Jessica Jones all seem to very much believe it …

And then boom! The last thing we see is Matt, with a nun attending him, as he starts to stir.

Practically speaking, if you’ve paid attention to the news for the past few months, you weren’t worried about his survival, because there’s a Daredevil season 3 happening, and unless the show wants to get particularly weird with its timeline, you really can’t have Daredevil without its central hero.

But that doesn’t solve the storyline question of how exactly he made it out. Daredevil isn’t Luke Cage or Jessica Jones; his power is basically being, well … a “blind ninja,” to quote Danny Rand, and using his other senses to pick up on bombs ticking several stories above his head. Did Elektra decide to do something good? It doesn’t explain how she lived, either, but she had some serious power on display after Alexandra brought her back to life.

Next: What, is Netflix still going to have some Disney?

This might have to wait until we actually see season 3 of Daredevil, unless there are a few throwaway scenes at the beginning of whichever series gets to air first. However, for a momentous thing like this, we likely won’t get the true fallout until we have the whole season to fully explore what’s going on.