There aren’t many shows that I really watch nowadays. Honestly, I find it pretty hard to get into shows at all. So it’s rare for me to actually find one that hooks my interest. As someone who doesn’t like the Fantasy genre normally, I was shocked to find myself enthralled by Game of Thrones, although it was pretty clear that I wasn’t the only one.
And although Marvel insists on releasing shows like WandaVision and Loki, I don’t think they’ve quite reached the remarkable feat that Daredevil pulled off. In my eyes, Daredevil is the best show Marvel has produced thus far, and it’ll be hard to top that without Disney loosening their strings a little bit to delve into the kind of symbolism that takes place in Daredevil.
This article contains spoilers for Daredevil Season 3 and the series as a whole! You have been warned!
Let’s rewind to what got us to the scene in question.
Season 3 of Daredevil begins right after the events of The Defenders, a mini-series where the heroes of Netflix’s many Marvel shows collage together into a unified force. Matt Murdock is presumed dead after a building collapse at the end of the mini-series, and we take off from his recovery.
See, Matt Murdock is different than a lot of heroes. He struggles with inner personal demons throughout the season — perhaps fittingly so with the very minor religious themes that are peppered throughout the show. He feels human. Matt gets beaten to hell and back in plenty of his engagements. By the time we see him in Season 3, he’s coated with bruises, cuts, and other battle scars from how he likes to face his problems head-on. I’m constantly reminded of how brutal his fights with Nobu were in Season 1 when I think about what Matt goes through in this series.
Matt’s senses are amplified due to being blind. He’s not super strong or powerful. He’s not much different than a normal human. That kind of humanization to a certain extent makes you pull for Matt Murdock. It makes you want to see him succeed in one way or another.
The show makes a good point to show that Matt Murdock has been abandoned by the people in his life. Matt, unfortunately, does a good job at angering both of his friends during Season 2 — Foggy Nelson and Karen Page. He loses Elektra after Season 2, and again after The Defenders. He lost his mentor Stick during that mini-series as well. Heck, even Matt’s own father left him abandoned after he was killed.
Matt is short on friends this season, and desperation begins to kick in. When he sees that Wilson Fisk has returned, living high and mighty in police custody, Matt starts becoming hell-bent on putting a stop to him. So much so that he only tells Foggy that he’s alive in order to steal his ID, in an attempt to infiltrate a prison to find a convict that Fisk paid off. Fisk paid this convict off to attack him, forcing the FBI to move Fisk to his now highrise living quarters.
The infiltration and corruption of the FBI in this season is fascinating to watch. There are twists and turns at every angle. The showrunners want to make it clear to you that Fisk rules with an iron fist and his influence stretches farther than Matt can comprehend.
However, we also note the rise and introduction of Ben Poindexter, otherwise known as “Dex” in the show. Dex is one of Daredevil’s main rivals in the comics, as the villain Bullseye. This interpretation of Bullseye was set up perfectly, and it is extremely compelling to watch the downward spiral that Dex enters throughout the course of the season — from a talented member of the FBI to a deranged killer.
The development of Dex becoming Bullseye is representative of all of Matt Murdock’s negative aspects. Like Matt, Dex has been abandoned by people in his life. He was rejected by the girl he loves, lost his parents at a young age, and loses his job at one point of the season as well. So when Fisk offers to be that person Dex needs, he gives in.
This culminates in a great fight scene between Matt and Dex at the New York Bulletin area, where Dex has since donned the Daredevil uniform Matt used in prior seasons. The symbolism here is off the charts.
Dex is donning Matt’s old outfit, and when Matt asks him who he is, Dex responds with “I’m Daredevil” — using an evil smirk that’s just so perfect at the moment. Dex is the epitome of what Matt could possibly become if he gives in to the rage inside him — to all of the lingering issues that are plaguing his mind. Throughout the season, Matt struggles with the desire to kill Wilson Fisk. He believes that unless he kills Fisk, more people will die, and more strife will befall his city.
This struggle is prominent towards the latter half of Season 3, where Matt seems hell-bent on killing Wilson Fisk. It’s a jarring downward spiral of Matt Murdock’s morals from earlier seasons. I sometimes joke that Daredevil is just what Batman would be without any of the money, and there’s plenty of similarities between the two characters. One of them is that they don’t actually kill their foes, and instead fight. So seeing Matt go into this mode where he wants to murder his penultimate foe is really harrowing to watch, and you’re really hoping Matt has a call to the light at some point.
And he almost does. After reconciling with his friends Foggy and Karen, Matt agrees to get Agent Ray Nadeem to testify against Wilson Fisk’s corruption of the FBI in court. Things go wrong quickly, though — as Fisk has bought off the jury in the court proceedings. Then, he sends Dex over to Ray Nadeem’s home to assassinate him in the backyard. Nadeem was a tragic character through the course of the season. His family alienating him, along with the corruption he has to push himself to work through in the FBI, has a few minor parallels with the death of Matt’s own father, Jack. The pride to stand up against what they felt was wrong, at the cost of their own lives being the main one.
With Matt insisting to do things “his way” with Nadeem dead, he accepts that the only way to get rid of Fisk is to murder him. And he sets out to do just that, infiltrating Fisk’s suite to clash with him. After a marvelously choreographed three-way fight between Dex, Fisk and Matt ensues that leaves Dex paralyzed, Fisk and Matt duel in a one on one brawl. Matt overpowers Fisk surprisingly easily compared to the times they engaged one another in the past, utilizing all of his rage and anger that built up through the course of the season to deal the final blows.
And as Matt has Fisk on the ground, coated in blood, he moves his hands around Fisk’s head, to snap his neck and end it all…
But he can’t do it.
Matt lurches back and lets out a cry in agony. One filled with frustration, one where his morals bubbled out from the depths that he tried to plunge them in, only to pull Matt Murdock back to the light. A scene that’s representative of all of Matt’s internal struggles throughout the series, culminating in this final scene.
Although Fisk tries to spur Matt on, to get him to actually go through with it, Matt holds his ground. This scene is the reward for watching Matt’s struggle through the whole season. It’s something we’ve been waiting to see conclude, and we’re happy to see Matt refuse to give in to his rage.
Charlie Cox’s performance as Matt Murdock cannot be understated or praised enough. We feel Matt’s emotions in this show to the point that we’re pulling for him. The raw emotion that he’s able to express in character is nothing short of remarkable. I do hope Marvel realizes what they have here, and utilizes Charlie Cox’s Daredevil again in the future.
Because what they have? Is one of the greatest scenes in the MCU.
