[Some spoilers for Daredevil Season 1 & 2 and The Defenders and minor spoilers for Season 3]
Daredevil Season 2 and the Daredevil-led crossover series The Defenders, were both embroiled in supernatural ninja plotlines. Specifically, Daredevil’s relationship with Electra, the wealthy Greek ninja assassin loomed large. Season 2 also managed to cram in a separate plotline about The Punisher and The Defenders attached Daredevil to the broader cast of characters in the other Netflix series.
Season 3 strips things back and looks back to the original series. Matt Murdock never wears his red costume and instead largely appears in improvised disguises as he did in season 1. Vincent D’Onoforio is back as Wilson Fisk aka the Kingpin and his soft-spoken menace pervades every episode. There’s very little sense of the story having any connection with a wider stable of characters (maybe a few lines about the Punisher, a single throwaway comment about Jessica Jones) and this additional focus makes for a tighter story.
So much so, that you could probably skip Season 2 & The Defenders and follow this story line. All you need to know is that Daredevil was trapped in a huge excavation under a building which exploded, leaving his friends and allies to assume he was dead. However, a brief scene at the end of the last episode of The Defenders shows him being treated by nuns.
The storyline for season 3 is the return of Wilson Fisk. Starting with him in jail and then following a gradual return to power as he manipulates and brutalises those around him. Added to the roster of classic Daredevil characters are the nun, Maggie (Joanne Whalley) and an origin-story for supervillain Bullseye. Bullseye doesn’t get named as such but the character carries all the trademark abilities.
To round out the additions is Agent Ray Nadeem, a principled but ambitious FBI agent who gets a plotline somewhere between a Greek Tragedy and a horror story as he becomes unwittingly embroiled in Wilson Fisk’s machinations. That horror element builds slowly and remorselessly as surrounding characters slowly come to realise how completely in control Fisk is of events. Some of that is due to clever plotting and some of it depends too much on plot magic that is best not examined too closely for plausibility.
Guilt, angst and punching people, wrapped up in Catholic imagery is pretty much the aesthetic you expect Daredevil to deliver and Season 3 provides plenty including angsty hero perched atop cathedrals looking over the crime-filled city. The punching power of Daredevil remains wildly inconsistent, typically law enforcement wearing body arm falls immediately unconscious with a couple of swift punches, whereas bad guys remain resolutely awake and require lots more thumping.
Weaker aspects include some of the imagined dialogues Matt Murdock has with his father and with Fisk in his head. There’s a look at one character’s childhood drama that plays out as kind of mini-theatre re-enactment in Wilson Fisk’s apartment/head that felt corny and unnecessary. One episode is spent on Karen Page’s backstory which was well done but also felt unnecessary given how much time (and trauma) the character has already been through. I’m not sure it filled her out more as a person and, if anything, undermined a different plot point from Season 1 that became relevant and on which she had complex emotions.
Both Iron Fist and Luke Cage won’t be getting a third season and apparently Daredevil will but if anything Season 3 felt more like an effective final season. There’s a complete story now that follows the ups and downs of Daredevil as a character. As much as I’ve enjoyed Netflix’s take on Daredevil, I’d be happy if they finished the show at this point.
Camestros Felapton 