Daredevil Season 3 to Explore Karen Page's Backstory

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Daredevil Season 3 Will Reinvent Karen Page, and Reveal Her Origin Story

By Jason Cohen

Published Oct 17, 2018

Daredevil Season 3 is reinventing Karen Page as we know her. From a new look and mission, to finally revealing her backstory and how it got her here.

In Season 3 of Daredevil, Karen Page will be "fucking fierce," according to costume designer Liz Vastola. Comic Book Resources recently visited the show's set to learn a little bit about the season ahead.

During the visit, we spent some time with Deborah Ann Woll, the actor who plays Karen, and she promised there are major plans for her character. Not only can fans expect a reinvention of her look and role on the series, we're finally going to get a full exploration of her backstory. In short, it seems Karen is transitioning from damsel in distress into fully realized person who exists outside of Daredevil's shadow.

Since her career change in Season 2, Karen has shown she's not afraid to get her hands dirty, so it's only appropriate that she undergo a physical evolution to go along with her new role. Coming onto Daredevil after working on Jessica Jones, it was important to Vastola that Karen was "more like a woman of the city." Gone are the pencil skirts and high heel shoes that limited her movement over the first two seasons. As an investigative reporter, she's enjoying "more initiative, and a little more independence."

With regard to who her character is becoming as a person, Woll "wanted her to be tough and fierce no matter what she's wearing." She also mentioned that, though her character is not a stranger to violence, she is not a physical fighter. Because of the fact she "can't punch you and win, I have to be smarter than you, I have to be three steps ahead of you." It sounds like Karen will need to stay a few steps ahead if she hopes to survive what is coming this season.

Since the beginning of the series, many of the details that led her to Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson have remained a mystery, but that all changes in Season 3. Comic book fans will know that Karen was the daughter of a man who briefly went on to become a supervillain. Though the cast and crew stopped short of announcing their actual plans for Karen, Woll made it clear, "I could not ask for a better backstory that they have put together." However, with hints of criminal ties and domestic violence, it won't be a pleasant one.

By exploring Karen's backstory, "we'll definitely learn a little bit more about why [shooting Wesley in Season 1 was] her first instinct," instead of holding him at gunpoint until the cops arrived. "We will get a sense why shooting someone and trying to cover it up is a bit more in her wheelhouse than any other way."

Whatever it is that's lurking in Karen's shadowy past, Woll was clear about how she wanted to portray it. "Please don't say I shot someone to save a busload of kids," she said, recounting her conversation with the show's writers. "I want whatever happened to be something that was my fault. That this isn't a story about misplaced guilt, this is a story of forgiveness and acceptance. That I did something really wrong, and the rest of my life has been about atoning for it."

Through the exploration of her backstory, we might finally come to understand why she connects so strongly with dangerous vigilantes like Daredevil and the Punisher. Woll believes it is through Karen's writing about trying to redeem their actions -- though she may also be trying to make up for something she did in her past.

Arriving Friday, Oct. 19, on Netflix, Marvel’s Daredevil Season 3 stars Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Jay Ali as Rahul “Ray” Nadeem, Wilson Bethel as Benjamin Poindexter, Joanne Whalley as Sister Maggie and Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk.