Why Daredevil Season 3 Is The Dark Knight Of Superhero TV

Since its debut in 2015, Daredevil has been cited as one of the best superhero shows around. It marked the launch of Netflix's Marvel Universe and washed away the bad taste of the 2003 film, starring Ben Affleck and the late Michael Clarke Duncan. While the likes of Luke Cage and Iron Fist have fallen in recent weeks, it's unlikely that Daredevil will suffer the same fate – especially not after its remarkable third season. Sitting at 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critical consensus being that it's a welcome return to form, everything seems to suggest that this season's a hit. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Daredevil star Charlie Cox explained where he thinks the new run succeeds, saying: "I think we've learned that ideally, this show lives somewhere in between what we did in season one and what we did in season two. Season one was very down-to-earth and gritty, boots-on-the-ground type storytelling, and maybe a little bit broody at times, maybe the pace slowed a little too much. Season two delved into more of the mythology and the suspension of disbelief, in terms of what the character can do and achieve with his powers. It was really fun but maybe wasn't quite the show that we'd made in season one in terms of how grounded it was. So, season three lives somewhere in between those two, which is I think where it's ideally placed." That's understating its impact, though, as new showrunner Erik Oleson and his team created a seminal season that captured the atmosphere of the comic books and spliced together all its best narratives. In fact, it's oddly reminiscent of a certain Batman film released a decade ago… In 2008, Christopher Nolan turned the movie world on its head with the release of The Dark Knight. Before then, superhero films had been seen as genre movies for children and longtime fans of the characters. No one took them seriously, or even considered them to contain any real artistic value, so when Nolan's masterpiece arrived, it changed the entire landscape. Suddenly, people sat up and took notice, realizing that this transcended its genre and subject matter. And season 3 of Daredevil has done the exact same thing for superhero shows. The Villains After watching Wilson Fisk and Benjamin Poindexter, are you even interested in what Ricardo Diaz or Cicada are doing in the Arrowverse? The performances and depths of these two characters are gulfs apart from any other villain on TV today. Much like with any good narrative, they were also the heroes of their own stories. Fisk was undoubtedly the main antagonist as he schemed and plotted a master plan, turning everyone around him into willing – or unwilling – pawns. Akin to the Joker, he knew which buttons to push and how to manipulate everyone he needed to. The biggest difference between Fisk and the Clown Prince, though, is that everything was for his beloved Vanessa. His end goal was pure, even if his methods were despicable. Poindexter played the Harvey Dent role, meanwhile. While it's debatable if he ever had any real moral compass, seeing his descent into a monster was fascinating. Actor Wilson Bethel told Uproxx that it was the character's struggles with mental illness that ultimately drove him to a darker place: "It's the unraveling of all of the mechanisms that he used to have in place, the things that bolstered him against the hardness of the world. It's all coming apart for him and it leads to so many horrible things." Again, like The Dark Knight, Fisk takes advantage of Poindexter for his own devious purposes, mimicking the dynamic between the Joker and Dent after the death of Rachel Dawes. The Hero That Hell's Kitchen Deserves When we meet Matt Murdock in season 3, he's a broken man, devastated by the events of The Defenders' finale. He fights a battle within himself as he struggles with his faith and whether he'll need to cross a line to defeat Fisk. Cox explained to Collider that Matt isn't in the best state of mind, either, as he pulls himself away from everyone around him: "Somebody who begins to spend a lot of time alone and isolate themselves to the degree that Matt does in this season, madness creeps in. And that, for me, has been clearly written. He begins to lose himself." There's a parallel between Matt wondering if Daredevil is his true self and Matt is the mask, much like Bruce Wayne wonders the same about Batman. Both of them experience an identity crisis, as they realize that a life of vigilantism comes with consequences. There's no normality; it's bound to lead to flawed thought patterns. Throughout season 3, Matt's anger drives him to distrust others and believe there's only one way to end Fisk's reign of terror. Like Batman discovered in The Dark Knight, though, people are still good and he needs to let others in. Matt found another way to stop Fisk, and he didn't need to compromise his value system. He discovered the way for Matt and Daredevil to co-exist and became the hero that his city needed him to be at that moment. The True Hero Isn't The Titular Character The real star of season 3 of Daredevil was Jay Ali, who portrayed Agent Ray Nadeem. His arc was incredibly powerful, as we saw a man broken, rebuilt, and sacrificed for the betterment of his city and family. Without him, it's unlikely that Daredevil would've ever succeeded. Many fans were left devastated by Agent Nadeem's death, but Ali insisted to Den of Geek that it was entirely necessary: "If we were going to tell this particular story, we had to tell it in this tragic way. Midway through shooting the season, there was talk of not killing off Ray Nadeem, but we decided it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing for the story. It completed the arc." While Jim Gordon didn't perish in The Dark Knight, he undoubtedly was the unsung hero of the story. At the risk of his own reputation and career, he put his trust in a vigilante. Yes, he broke several laws and disappointed many people, but he did it for the greater good of the city and all its citizens. Conclusion With news that Disney's new streaming service will become the new hub for Marvel content, it'll be interesting to see if Netflix relinquishes its rights to Daredevil. If it does, it might be one of the worst decisions the platform has ever made. While it's unlikely that we'll ever see another season of superhero TV like we just did, this show broke new ground. It wasn't just a good comic book series; it was a great program. Even if you weren't a fan of the comic book character, the grounded nature and realness of the storytelling brought it all home and made it an unforgettable experience. Too often, networks and showrunners get into the nitty-gritty of these shows, worrying about canon, expectations, and forgetting the fundamental thing: to tell a good story. The world needed this exceptional season of Daredevil to realize there's still some life and creativity in the oversaturated superhero TV market – and boy, did it deliver. Tell us, do you think season 3 of Daredevil is as good as The Dark Knight? Sound off in the comments section down below.