Marvel's Daredevil Netflix Original Season 3 Review

Major spoilers are included in this season review. Please read with caution.

It took me longer than I anticipated to get this season 3 review rolling, but I’m here to present my views on Daredevil’s latest attempt on what it means to be a hero and villain. After the end of the mini-series, The Defenders, Matt Murdock and Electra were presumed deceased. Luckily for us, Matt survived the building falling on him, but Electra was not so lucky.

Sadly, Matt gets over Electra’s death quickly and purely focuses on his recovery. He is under the care of Sister Maggie at the orphanage where he grew up. He has lost faith in his friends, himself, and God himself. This is the darkest we’ve seen him yet, but Sister Maggie does her best to put him back on the path of heroism.

The first two episodes are Sister Maggie and Matt trying to pick up the pieces of himself. The dynamic between them is full of dry banter and wisdom, which somewhat cracks near the end of the season when Matt overhears the truth—Sister Maggie is his mother. However, he does not let this revelation distract him from his overall goal/mission: taking down Wilson Fisk.

Wilson Fisk is the main antagonist of the season once again, but he is characterized differently from a villain to foil the darkness surrounding Matt Murdock. While Fisk may claim to want to reform his ways, we know this is far from the truth as he wishes for revenge, his power back, and for the love of his life to stand by him again.

His character is really compelling as he uses his connections and resources strategically. He orchestrates the FBI into becoming his personal army, manipulates two specific FBI Agents into doing his bidding, he is placed in his personal “prison”, a hotel suite that he owns, and then he destroys Daredevil’s reputation by having one of the agents impersonate him.

By season’s end, Wilson has become the “Kingpin”, a code name that the FBI Agents use to talk about him in Public. Let’s talk about these agents and how they were positioned in the season: Special Agents Ben Poindexter and Rahul Nadeem.

I wasn’t sure how Rahul “Ray” Nadeem factored into the season until near the end. He is an honest man swimming in debt and the perfect candidate for Fisk to manipulate. Nadeem is coerced into this opportunity to save his family and is horrified to learn everything he’s done was warped into the criminal activities.

After he figured out Fisk infiltrated the FBI and corrupted a handful of agents, he comes to his boss Tammy Hattley for help and ends up getting blackmailed into becoming one of them. This twist was amazing because Agent Hattley is a good friend to Nadeem and how she shot one of her own people was chilling… it was the only way to protect her daughter.

This line of reasoning is what kept Nadeem under Fisk’s control. Nadeem did not want his family to suffer or die for his mistakes, but when he drove Fake Daredevil to the church, he decides to work with Matt Murdock, the real Daredevil, to take Wilson Fisk down.

He was the key to Fisk gaining this much influence in the world, but he was also the key to ending his reign. The true hero of the story: he died to ensure his last words—his confession were enough to defeat Wilson Fisk.

Ben Poindexter was interesting indeed. The show took the time to show how far he had fallen since childhood and the manipulations Fisk put out to prepare him… When he finally cracked with his love Julie “disappearing”, Poindexter was at the mercy of the Kingpin, ready to don the Daredevil Suit and tarnish the reputation of Matt Murdock.

Karen Page and Foggy Nelson return.

At the beginning of this season, they struggle in their own way with Matt’s “death”, but when they learn he is alive again, that turns into full-on rage because of how he leaves them out of the fight with Wilson Fisk. I think Foggy Nelson is the weak link of the season as he wants to fight “the right way”, but Fisk has corrupted that option, and Karen Page is also put on the dark path as she deals with her inner demons and the lengths she’d go to protect the city.

The fight scenes are spectacular this season. The 11-minute one-shot prison fight scene was an incredible thrill, I couldn’t believe what I was watching until Matt got into the taxi cab. It was raw, engaging, and honestly it topped the hallway fight scene from season 1… I have no doubt if this show gets a season 4, they’re going to try for greater heights.

Season 3 is worth watching and investing in. The character motives are clear, the choices they make are not in black and white, and the last fight scene with Fisk proves that Matt Murdock is a redeemable character.

I hope a season 4 is in the cards because I think the story isn’t over yet… Nelson, Murdock, and Page has a nice ring to it.