A Devil, a Kingpin, and Relentless Fear
I finished watching the third season of Daredevil last night and wow. What an amazing season. The first two seasons were great but the third easily surpasses them. Fewer of the character conflicts and developments feel artificially forced, instead it feels like we have portraits of truly tormented and driven characters intricately blended together.
Matt Murdoch/Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) are the clear leads in this ensemble, though. Matt's struggle with morality is genuinely interesting especially coming amid a rare positive portrayal of the Catholic Church. Wilson Fisk's struggle with his own demons, and the surprising nuance in his relationship with Vanessa (Ayelet Zurer), again shows why he's the best MCU villain so far. You understand him, you even sympathise with him, and he's scary not in spite of these things but partly because of them. You know what he's holding back and you know how his skewed worldview functions. There's always a sense of foreboding about what he's capable of.
And there are amazing new characters--FBI Agent Nadeem (Jay Ali) and Ben Poindexter/Bullseye (Wilson Bethel) bring fantastic dimensions to the story. Bullseye dealing all his life with being a psychopath works really well to make him three dimensional and scary but Nadeem wins the Best New Third Season Character award for me. The way he factors into Fisk's plot, how Fisk had started manipulating him through his sister's medical bills years in advance, helped establish the effective, oppressively paranoid, atmosphere of the season's second half. In fact, it's so good, and Wilson Fisk's genius comes off as so credible, that the season's happy ending doesn't quite feel earned.
My only other complaint about the season is Foggy (Elden Henson) and, to some extent, Karen (Deborah Ann Woll). Deborah Ann Woll is great but Karen is given a backstory in this season that might have been interesting in another series about another character but proves way too much of a detour for a character we've already known for two seasons. Elden Henson, meanwhile, still can't deliver any lines believably, and seems more like he belongs on an old daytime Nickelodeon series. But even he has his moments in this season, especially when his family is drawn into Fisk's machinations.
Now, the action sequences on this show. By God. The fourth episode alone with its more than ten minute shot of solid action was surely a landmark in the history of action in motion pictures. And after that, the fight choreography never lets up. It's breathtaking.
Which is all to say, the upcoming Disney+ Daredevil series has a lot to live up to. I'm hoping for the best.