Daredevil Season 3 Has a Political Message For the Trump Age

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Marvel’s Daredevil Season 3, streaming now on Netflix.

Although themes of fear and atonement drive much of the third season of Marvel's Daredevil, there's also a timely political undercurrent that bursts to the surface with the third act. When it finally does, viewers realize it's been there from the beginning, with an antagonist who gaslights the public, manipulates law enforcement, and launches attacks against public institutions.

Seemingly on the verge of getting everything he wants -- his freedom, a reunion with the love of his life, the destruction of his enemies -- Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk addresses the media and protestors outside the hotel that's been his gilded cage for much of the time he's cooperated with the FBI.

"I know most of you will find this difficult to accept," he says, referring to the overturning of his conviction. "That's only because you have been manipulated, poisoned into believing the news media's fake story, that I am evil, that I am a criminal. Quite the opposite is true. Because I challenged the system, because I've told the truth and tried to make this city a better place, the people in power decided to tear me down ... to tear me down with false allegations. They sent someone to frame me: Daredevil, the killer who's now showing his true colors, who has tried to murder people in newspaper offices and churches, attacking our sacred institutions. Believe me. Daredevil is our true public enemy."

With that, it becomes glaringly obvious what, or perhaps who, Fisk represents in this story. Surely, it's no accident that Daredevil's archenemy secretly purchased a hotel this season (the Presidential Hotel, no less), and undermined trust in the FBI and the court system.

His speech goes a long way to check off familiar boxes: "news media's fake story"; "the people in power decided to tear me down"; "they sent someone to frame me." Later, a rival reporter gets in a shot at Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and her editor Mitchel Ellison (Geoffrey Cantor) with a referenced to "the failing New York Bulletin." All that's missing in this game of Donald Trump Bingo is "witch hunt."

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Daredevils%27%20Showrunner%20Confirms%20the%20Series%27%20Obvious%20Political%20Themes']

And, no, we're not reading too much into it. Speaking with CBR last week, just ahead of Season 3s debut, new Daredevil showunner Erik Oleson explained that the writers' room operated the guiding principle, "We can only be free when we confront our fears, because our fears are what enslave us," which they used to explore the motivations of each of the characters. Essentially, everyone -- even Wilson Fisk -- is afraid of something, and that fuels their actions.

"That also allowed the show, for me, to speak for the world where we’re living in real life," Oleson said, "where you have narcissistic tyrants who are playing to people’s fears, to pit them against one another, to attack the press, to undermine democracy, and kind of speak to the devils on our shoulders, as opposed to the angels on our shoulders."

The notion of a devil on someone's shoulder manifests most literally this season in Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) imagining Fisk just behind him, whispering in his ear, antagonizing while also sowing seeds of self-doubt. But we also see it in Fisk manipulating unstable FBI Agent Benjamin Poindexter (Wilson Bethel) to look to him as his North Star, his moral compass, and in attempting to divide the residents of Hell's Kitchen by transforming their longtime guardian into an enemy of the people.

"What I also wanted this season to do was prescribe the salve, the solution to how to defeat people like that," Oleson told CBR. "The way that I saw it was the power of the free press, which is embodied by Karen Page, the power of the law, which is in a lot of ways embodied by Foggy Nelson, and then, with Matt, the power of friendship and collective action, and overcoming our fears and differences to join together to topple that would-be dictator/tyrant/fascist/narcissist who’s trying to pit us all against one another."

In the end, of course, all of those elements, and the sacrifice of FBI Agent Ray Nadeem (Jay Ali), combine to bring down Fisk, potentially once and for all.

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

KEEP READING: How Daredevil Season 3 Makes the Fight Scenes Matter