It really does seem that Daredevil’s third season is living a charmed life. Armed with Bulleye’s aim and Daredevil’s reactions, the season has managed to maintain a consistent level of thrills and spills while still ensuring that each main character not only has their needs met, but has remained directly linked to the main plot of the show. However, while the pace has been close to stumbling from time to time as the season got dangerously close to slipping into some of the usual bad habits that sometimes affects the Marvel/Netflix shows, it’s somehow managed to endure to probably be the strongest season of the entire Defenders stable. Even the somewhat unnecessary flashback episode that occured during the last installment miraculously managed to right itself thanks to a final third that hurled shock deaths, near-comic accurate happenstances and a Daredevil/Bullseye rematch at us to end on a crazy high. With only three episodes to go, can Daredevil season 3 continue to cultivate that unbroken streak?
In the aftermath of Poindexter’s attack on the church where Karen Page was taking refuge, chaos unsurprisingly reigns. The collateral damage is staggering, Father Lantom died after taking a billy club in the chest meant for Karen and duelling Daredevils Murdock and Poindexter beat the tar out of each other as they fought each other to a standstill. Before you know it, law enforcement arrives to lock the place down, but while this normally would be a good thing, Wilson Fisk’s reluctant FBI puppet, Agent Nadeem, is leading the charge flanked by a battered and frustrated Poindexter who is back in his civilian guise.
Meanwhile, in the basement of the church, Karen and a beaten Murdock try to catch their breath and are hidden by Sister Maggie, who stalls the cops even though Matt is still incredibly frosty with her after the recent revelation that she’s actually his mother.
While Matt and Karen share some long festering secrets and try and escape the scene of the massacre, Wilson Fisk continues on his comeback victory lap by holding a press conference to announce that the justice department has dropped all charges against him and denounces Daredevil as a public enemy. This means that the last obstacles keeping him from getting his beloved Vanessa back into the country have finally been swept away save one: reclaiming Rabbit In A Snowstorm, the painting that brought them together in the first place. However, upon meeting the Holocaust survivor who holds the real right to own the painting, he concedes after a rare bout of empathy.
However, there’s one last flaw in Fisk’s plan as Agent Nadeem’s conscience finally gets the better of him – however, his way out comes from a surprising reunion when Karen and Foggy convince Matt that taking one more crack at Fisk through conventional law channels is worth the risk. After rescuing Nadeem and his family from an assassination attempt, Murdock finally manages to turn the compromised agent with a single act of trust.
So we’re now firmly on the road to the finale and while it’s a little weird that that the whole fulcrum to the season has become Agent Nadeem, it also makes that you make one of the supporting players a prize in the game of legal and moral tug of war that’s now going on. Fisk is virtually at the finishing line with his ultimate goal literally within his grasp, however, there’s just too many loose ends floating around for his liking and if it isn’t Poindexter failing once again to kill Karen or Murdock, it’s the growing issue of Nadeem’s looking to escape the metaphorical cage he’s been put in. However, it’s interesting to note that the closer Vanessa gets to New York, the less time Fisk has to devote to overtly being the vicious criminal we all know him to be and it’s because he’s not only trying to put on his civilised face because the love of his life is on the way, buy he’s been newly christened a free man. Of course, I say “trying”, because we get a savage reminder just how bestial he can be when, after discovering he’s been outmaneuvered in his vendetta against Karen, he calmly asks an underling for his jacket before wrapping it over his head and pulping the dude’s face with his fists. It’s a shocking moment that strongly recalls the infamous moment when Wilson removed a man’s head with a car door way back in season 1, but it’s also balanced this episode with his scene with elderly Holocaust survivor, Esther Falb, where he makes the exceedingly rare decision to let her keep Rabbit In A Snowstorm after putting someone else’s needs and emotions before his own.
Of course; Fisk only gets wound up enough to obliterate a man’s face with his bare hands when he’s thwarted and the best group to pull that off is the team of Nelson, Murdock and Page, who suddenly snap back into their old ways in order to legally navigate the law and the FBI in order to extradite Karen from the church, hand he over to the NYPD who have actual jurisdiction and get her away from the murderous like of Poindexter who is now back in cop mode.
While the episode doesn’t quite give us the feeling that everything is now going to be OK because they’ve got suddenly got the Nelson & Murdock band back together, now that all their secrets are out and all their separate plans to trap Fisk have stalled, the trio finally come together to cook up one large, multi pronged attack on their enemy that will finally get him indicted. The weak spot is obviously Nadeem who has been positively screaming for a way out of the hole he’s in since he was framed for murder, but even though every inch of his body is aching to revolt, he simply hasn’t been given the right moment to turn until now. Essentially giving up Page to the NYPD (who naturally let her go once they’re at a safe distance) without barely putting up a fight, he’s now in the crosshairs of both Fisk and Pointdexter, but after Matt intervenes when hired killers show up at casa de Nadeem to ventilate the agent and his family, he gives him tbe only proof of trust he has. His identity.
To be honest, I’m not sure if Season 3 has overplayed it’s hand here a little because Nadeem discovering Daredevil’s true identity is undoubtedly a far bigger kiss of death then letting your dog piss on Kingpin’s wingtips, but even if this little plot point may have given the game away, it still proves that Matt still has some lingering faith in his friends to go out on such a limb to draw a line through murdering Fisk and instead follow Foggy’s plan.
As we’re now just ratcheting up the tension as we streak to the end of the season, little micro additions are given to the other plots. Poindexter’s lack of any moral compass, both right and wrong, are causing him to lash out impulsively, Sister Maggie still hasn’t had a chance to clear things with her son as she mourns of Father Lantom and Vanessa is getting ever closer to once again breathe in New York’s polluted air. However, with Daredevil’s big three finally reunited in their new roles, can they manage to do what they did before and come for the king once and for all?
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