Shawn Reviews Netflix’s Daredevil Season 3

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 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 13^th 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!