I’d been hearing a lot of good things about Daredevil Season
3. And after watching it, I can say it definitely lives up to the hype. If you
own the DVD of the 2003 Daredevil with Ben Affleck you can throw that in the
trash. Netflix’s Daredevil Season 3 is the definitive adaptation of the
character.
Daredevil Season 3 starts off dealing the aftermath of the
events of the dreadful Defenders series. As Matt recovers from his injuries
from the building being dropped on him in that awful storyline he starts working
towards getting his life back on track with the help of the nuns and priests of
the Hell’s Kitchen orphanage who raised him. After revealing his secret
identity to Karen Page, he has decided to give up being Matt Murdock and be
Daredevil full time.
While Matt works towards rebuilding his life, Agent Ray
Nadeem is trying to get a promotion in the FBI. Denied a promotion by his
supervisor because she believes he’ll be compromised due to the medical bills
he’s paying for a family member, Nadeem pushes for Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin to
be removed from prison and put into house arrest. After Fisk is shanked in
prison, and gives up some Albanians, he’s moved from the jail he’s been
residing since the end of season 1. On the way to that new hotel, Fisk’s convoy
is ambushed by Albanians out to kill him. By the end of the first episode Agent
Ben Poindexter quickly kills the Albanians with precision and sets up the origin
for Bullseye in a brilliant fashion.
In the beginning it appears that the FBI is in charge
because Ray Nadeem thinks he’s running things. But as the series progresses we
find out that Ray is just a pawn on Wilson Fisk’s chessboard. And he’s been
manipulating people like Ben Poindexter from minute one. As Matt Murdock learns
about Wilson Fisk’s plan to become the Kingpin, we learn that how heavily
connected he is. And with Poindexter’s Daredevil as his Knight making power
moves (nice reference to Marvel Knights) he looks like he’s unbeatable. Dressed
in Black sweats Matt Murdock has to overcome his fears and insecurities along
with the fear everyone has of Fisk as he plays a game of chess to save the city
from Fisk’s reign of terror.
And that 13th Episode is WOW. Just WOW.
Netflix’s Daredevil Season 3 is a BRILLIANT adaptation of
the comic and captures the heart and spirit of the Frank miller run of the
1980s. Over the course of 13 episodes which adapt Born Again Guardian Devil
storylines. As Matt Murdock finds a new purpose as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen
he transforms into a Man Without Fear. In this adaptation we get lots of
twists, turns and suspense as Matt Murdock has to play a game of chess With
Wilson Fisk where people’s lives are in the balance. Every character in the
story represents a player on the chessboard and has their place in a very
intricate and complex story where you don’t know what’s going to happen next.
Daredevil Season 3 is well-crafted adaptation of the comics.
Not as PERFECT as Luke Cage Season 2, but it does an amazing job of translating
the characters from the comics to the screen. While things are different in the
MCU’s Daredevil’s world, they stay true to the spirit of who they were in the
comics. I loved the way Poindexter becomes Bullseye and I loved the subtle
references to Bullseye being a baseball player in the comics in one scene and
the nuanced references to Fisk becoming the Kingpin. Not to mention references
to Karen Page’s drug addiction and the nuanced reference to her giving away
Daredevil’s secret identity. Seeing those little references showed how much
love the showrunners had for Daredevil as a character and how passionate they
were in their efforts to translate the comics to the screen. I only wish Matt
had his costume on when he was perched on top of the church steeple instead of
being in those sweats, that would have been AMAZING climax to the final
episode. But maybe we’ll see Matt back in costume and that Bullseye costume in
Season 4.
If there is a season 4. Netflix and Disney are feuding.
While Daredevil
Season 3 is rock solid in it’s storytelling I did have some issues as related
to production. Like many Netflix series there were some problems with the
pacing. In many episodes there were some scenes that should have been left on
the cutting room floor like many of the scenes in the episode where Daredevil
is trying to escape the prison riot or the scene where Fisk beats a guy to
death in the car he’s riding in. And the entire expository sequence regarding
Karen Page’s origin in Karen was just 45 minutes of filler to meet the 13-episode
quota. Netflix really needs to learn how to edit their shows, if they just
tightened up their editing and their pacing on some of the episodes in
Daredevil Season 3 it could have been a CLASSIC.
My other issue with Daredevil Season 3 was the gynocentrism and
the simping that started to creep in to several episodes. I wasn’t a fan of
Pondexter’s obsession with a woman. Nor was I a fan of Fisk Simping on Vanessa.
While I understood Fisk’s love for Vanessa being his motivation for becoming
the Kingpin, putting Vanessa on a pedestal sucked a lot of energy out of the
climax of the story.
All in all I really enjoyed Daredevil Season 3. It gets my
highest recommendation and I urge you to go check it out. This is a season YOU
CANNOT MISS!
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