Daredevil 2015 / Tropes Q to Z

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Q

R

• Race Lift:
  • Ben Urich, normally a white guy in the comics, is now played by African-American Vondie Curtis-Hall.
  • The Night Nurse and Claire Temple, who are white and black in the comics, respectively, are consolidated into Afro-Latina Rosario Dawson.
  • Elektra, a white Greek woman in the comics, is now Greek by adoption, and played by French-Cambodian Élodie Yung.
• Railroad Plot: Wilson Fisk's master plan is to raze down Hell's Kitchen and replace it with his own building plans.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: Every leader of a major criminal faction operating in Hell's Kitchen is an extremely competent combatant including a seemingly frail Madame Gao, who is one of The Hand's founders.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The act that finally drove Matt to put on a mask and start beating criminals half to death with his bare hands was the rape of a little girl by her pedophilic father.
• Real Is Brown: Nighttime shots are typically nothing but shadows and muddy yellow lights, leaving a brown tinge to everything.
• Real Men Love Jesus: Matt is a devout Catholic as well as an ass-kicker.
• Really Gets Around: True to the comics, Matt has a way with the ladies, though this remains an Informed Ability in the first season. He hasn't actually been shown to sleep with any yet (except with Elektra in a flashback).
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Fisk's assassin Healy thinks so, as they have no chance of jamming up.
• Reconstruction: The damage from the Incident has turned Hell's Kitchen back into the crime-ridden cesspool it was in the 1960s rather than the respectable neighborhood it was in real life 2015. However, the flashbacks to Fisk's and Matt's respective childhoods show the neighborhood was much rougher than it is in the present, meaning that the 90s gentrification did happen, the alien invasion just wrecked the area pretty bad.
• Red Herring: Mitchell Ellison keeps forcing Ben off stories that could hurt Wilson Fisk, until Ben finally outright accuses him of being in Fisk's pocket, which gets him fired. Then it turns out Fisk's mole at the paper is actually M. Caldwell, Ellison's secretary. Out of guilt for not backing Ben's research, Ellison cleans up his act and does everything to back Karen's investigation into Frank Castle.
• Relationship Upgrade:
  • Fisk and Vanessa get one after Wesley takes the initiative and reaches out to Vanessa to calm Fisk down after he's intimidated by Madame Gao. Vanessa's calming influence allows Fisk to go public, painting himself as a savior and painting the Devil of Hell's Kitchen as a terrorist.
  • Matt and Karen are a bit more flirtatious around each other by the start of Season 2, and celebrate Frank Castle's arrest by having a passionate first kiss in the rain. However, this is subverted not long afterwards. They are temporarily driven apart in the second half of Season 2 by Matt's nighttime activities and Karen finding Elektra in Matt's bed, and while Matt privately meets with Karen to disclose his secret and it's later confirmed that they reconcile, they don't fully re-enter an official relationship, and still have not done so by the end of Season 3, despite their obvious care for each other.
• Retcon:
  • The "Nelson v. Murdock" flashbacks in Season 1 get slightly subjected to this in Season 2, due to the writers having to retweak things incorporate Matt's college relationship with Elektra. When they were writing Season 1, the writers had no idea if there would be a Season 2, or that it would contain Elektra, and so Foggy's "Greek girl" line was another nod for the comics fans. Additionally, in the "Nelson v. Murdock" flashbacks, Foggy suggests that this Greek girl was in Spanish classes with Matt; however, the Season 2 flashbacks of Matt and Elektra's college relationship establish that while Elektra was financially connected to the college, she wasn't actually attending classes.
  • Flashbacks in Season 3 show that Matt grew up with Father Lantom and the Clinton Church ever since her father died when he was a little boy. However, season 1 treats it as if Matt had just recently started attending the Clinton Church, with dialogue between Matt and Father Lantom presented as if they just met each other relatively recently; Matt also informs Lantom with personal details about his life in Season 1, although Season 3 would show us that Lantom was already privy to these details when Matt was a child.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • Ben suspects that Ellison is stifling his attempts to investigate Fisk because he's on Fisk's payroll. It costs him his job. Because Fisk kills Ben that night, he never gets to know that although he was wrong to suspect Ellison as being dirty, his suspicion that someone in the Bulletin was working for Fisk was quite accurate. It was actually Ellison's secretary Caldwell.
  • In the first episode of Season 2, Brett and Turk mention to Matt on separate occasions that they hear rumors of a new crew in town with military precision. It's then established that these killings are solely the work of Frank Castle. But then, towards the end of the season, Colonel Schoonover's crew turns up, made up of former soldiers who served alongside Frank in Operation Cerberus. Meaning the rumors of a new gang with military training were true, just not in the way everyone else was thinking.
• Ripped from the Headlines: In "Rabbit in a Snowstorm", Shirley Benson, the Metro-General administrator, bemoans to Ben Urich about having to deal with a serious measles outbreak due to parents not vaccinating their children.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Rosalie Carbone in Season 3 is from the Punisher comics and had previously appeared in Luke Cage Season 2.
• Romantic Rain: At the end of "Penny and Dime," a rainstorm provides the setting for Matt and Karen's first kiss.
• Ron the Death Eater: In-Universe, Matt ends up getting a case of this in Foggy's eyes in the later stages of Season 2, after the fallout from Frank Castle's trial. Yes, Matt lies, yes he isn't always the best friend he could be, and yes, he makes some pretty big mistakes. But he is, in the end, only human, and isn't alone. And Foggy is certainly justified in having a few issues with the things Matt does, in and out of costume. However, the fact that Matt isn't fully deserving of Foggy's trust does not make Matt fully deserving of Foggy's unyielding, unending condemnation, especially when these criticisms start becoming less and less about what Matt does, and more about who he is. Eventually, in "Seven Minutes in Heaven," Matt's response to getting yet another lecture from Foggy isn't to argue back, but to calmly respond, "I'm not gonna stop, Foggy. Not anytime soon. And to be honest, I'm done apologizing to you for who I am."
• Room Full of Crazy: Ben Urich keeps corkboards at work and at home outlining Wilson Fisk's operation.
• Rule of Three: Wilson Fisk kills three people for interfering with the women he loves most in the world: Anatoly (for interrupting Fisk's date with Vanessa), Owlsley (for conspiring with the Hand to poison Vanessa), and Ben (for speaking to his mother).
• Running Gag:
  • Whenever being a lawyer is getting particularly stressful, Foggy will remind you that his mom wanted him to be a butcher.
    Matt Murdock: Oh God, not the butcher story again...
    • All of which ultimately pays off in Season 3, where we're introduced to the rest of Foggy's family, and yes, the Nelsons run their own butcher shop.
  • The fact that Foggy studied Punjabi in college.
  • "Nelson and Murdock, Avocados at Law!"^note An inside joke Foggy and Matt came up with in college, after Foggy butchers the Spanish word for lawyer, "abogado", as "avocado".
  • When someone makes a gesture Matt's way, Foggy will sarcastically describe it.
    Foggy: [after the realtor curtsies at Matt] She just curtsied. It was adorable.
  • In the second season, referring to Matt's upgraded Daredevil suit as "pajamas."
  • Someone telling Matt that his costume sucks and Matt replying that he's working on it.
  • Frank Castle likes calling people he doesn't approve of (whether criminals or just low-lifes) "shitbags".
  • People criticizing Foggy for his choice of using cigars for Bess to bribe Brett.
• Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: As part of his plans to get out of prison in Season 3, Fisk snitches on a particularly violent Albanian crime syndicate. While D.A. Blake Tower is unhappy about Fisk being released from prison and moved to an FBI safehouse, Nadeem argues that Fisk is doing them a favor as the Albanian syndicate he's giving up happen to be connected to a large swath of murders including those of several cops, have several politicians and cops in their pockets, and are deeply involved in other criminal activities. The Albanians even send a hit squad to try and assassinate Fisk as the FBI are moving him to his penthouse, but Dex manages to foil the attack. That said, though, Vic Jusufi, an incarcerated Albanian boss at Riker's, proves to be a very reasonable man and Matt is able to convince Jusufi to have his men smuggle Matt out of the prison during a riot orchestrated by Fisk, after Matt agrees to let them have a turn with Fisk once he's reincarcerated and gets them to reveal Jasper Evans' name.

S

• Sacrificial Lion: Ben Urich is murdered by Wilson Fisk near the end of Season 1.
• Satellite Love Interest:
  • Elektra gets shades of this in Season 2, since a lot of her characterization is built around her relationships with the male figures in her life, namely her ex-boyfriend (Matt) and her surrogate father/sensei (Stick), and those are the two people she primarily interacts with.
  • Marci Stahl has shades of this for the first two seasons, since she only ever interacts with Foggy, and the only time she has interactions with someone who isn't Foggy is in her intro scene, where in addition to Foggy, she also gets to interact with Karen. By her own admission, though, she just doesn't want to be sucked into Foggy's drama with Matt, though not knowing what the cause of this is. This changes in Season 3, which adds much to depth to Foggy's relationship with her as well as his relationships with his own family as he mounts his D.A. campaign.
• The Scottish Trope:
  • In this show, and every one of the other Netflix shows, the alien invasion of 2012 is verbally referred to as "The Incident" ("Is that what we're calling it now?") that drove down property prices and has brought in so much construction to Hell's Kitchen. The original Season 1 scripts openly called it an alien invasion, but it didn't match the show's more realistic tone, including the lack of spandex, code names and overt superpowers. So it was switched with a nondescript moniker. However, a newspaper created for the show, depicting a dead Chitauri Leviathan with the headline "Battle of New York", was still kept in the show and was prominently shown on the wall of Ben Urich's office in multiple episodes.
  • For the first part of Season 1, Wilson Fisk is a taboo subject, and he has a reputation for ordering hits on anyone who speaks his name. In Season 3, the FBI agents under his control have a special task force dedicated to doing Fisk's bidding, and they aren't even allowed to say his name.
    Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter: That's one of the rules, Ray. We only refer to him by his codename.
    Ray Nadeem: What codename?
    Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter: Kingpin.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!:
  • Played with in Battlin' Jack Murdock's decision not to throw the fight against Creel. He knew it would cost him his life but he could not let his son down, which leaves his son with a load of money but no father.
  • Matt and Foggy were about to be offered a corner office at Landman & Zack, but after seeing their bosses seeking damages against a man who suffered terminal illness due to the shady practices of an L&Z client, they decided to start their own firm instead. Which was also a good thing in the long run since most of L&Z turns out to be in Wilson Fisk's pocket.
  • Wilson Fisk's people try to bribe Karen into silence after she leaks evidence of corruption at Union Allied to the media. James Wesley makes this clear before Karen kills him for threatening Matt's and Foggy's lives. Unfortunately, bribes don't work on someone who doesn't care about money and is determined to make those responsible for the attempts on her life pay for their wrongdoing. Karen makes this clear when Matt tries to lecture her for almost getting attacked:
    Matt Murdock: This is what I'm talking about. There are things out there. You can't be doing this. You're gonna get yourselves hurt-
    Karen Page: [angrily] No I—I have already been hurt by those bastards! You know what, I don't care what I signed or how much money they paid me to forget, I don't. And I'm not just going to stick my head in the sand and let it happen to somebody else because I am scared! Which I am. A lot.
    Foggy Nelson: [to Matt] If you could see her face, you'd know she means it.
• Secret Identity Apathy: Frank Castle doesn't care about Matt's identity beneath the mask, and passes up the chance to unmask him even when it would be at no risk to himself.
• Secret-Keeper:
  • Claire, Foggy and Father Lantom eventually become this for Matt about his Daredevil secret identity. Only Father Lantom figured it out himself; Foggy found him beaten up from his fight with Nobu and Claire after he was lured into a trap by the Russians.
  • Season 2 adds Karen to this list, becoming the first one where Matt openly admitted the secret. Elektra and Stick also know, with Stick finding out in Season 1 and Elektra in Season 2, although they're minor examples as they aren't involved with Matt's day-to-day civilian life and already knew of Matt's superhuman senses and fighting prowess for many years at that point.
  • It's also implied that Frank Castle figured it out when he interacts with Matt during his trial, and if he didn't figure it out then, he sees and nods to an unmasked Daredevil in the Season 2 finale.
  • In The Defenders, the other three Defenders (Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand) find out; Jessica figures it out when she sees Matt Murdock's acrobatic skills as well as his fighting skills, which leads to Matt then revealing it to Luke and Danny. Colleen Wing is also told about his identity as well, but these are all fairly downplayed since Matt doesn't interact with them here in his own series, as well as the fact that they all happen to be vigilantes themselves and have no issue keeping his secrets.
  • Season 3 also adds Sister Maggie, Agent Ray Nadeem, and possibly Marci, based on Foggy's conversations with her. Fisk, who finds out fairly early in the season (if not before that) is also forced to become this by the end of the season, when Matt unmasks himself to Fisk to confirm his suspicions but then promises to out Vanessa as the one who ordered Nadeem's murder if Fisk ever outs him or goes after his friends again
• Secret Secret-Keeper:
  • Father Lantom easily figures out that Matt was "the Devil of Hell's Kitchen" from their confessionals, but doesn't say anything until Matt is about to reveal the secret.
  • While he never says it out loud, it's very obvious that Frank Castle figures out Matt's secret identity as Daredevil during the trial, but he won't say a word about it because he just doesn't care about Matt's secret identity.
  • In the Season 1 finale, when Foggy finds Matt blowing off steam at Fogwell's Gym, Matt asks how he found him. Foggy admits he's known for a long time about Matt's visits for years, but never spoke up because he was under the impression that Matt went here out of sentimental attachment to the place, not knowing about his other uses of the place.
• Second Episode Introduction:
  • In Season 1, Claire Temple is introduced in the second episode. The third episode introduces Ben Urich, Mitchell Ellison, Vanessa Marianna, and the first on-screen appearance of Wilson Fisk.^note Fisk technically was in the first episode, albeit voice-only appearance during a phone call with Wesley at the end of the episode
  • In Season 2, Samantha Reyes and Blake Tower are introduced in the second episode. Subverted in Reyes' case, as she actually made her debut in the Season 1 finale of Jessica Jones in the epilogue scenes following Jessica's defeat of Kilgrave.
  • In Season 3, Dex is introduced in the second episode when he kills a team of Albanian gangsters that try to assassinate Fisk by ambushing his FBI transport.
• Self-Deprecation: Matt isn't too fond of his original black costume, describing it as a work-in-progress when someone tells him it sucks. He also has no problem with jokes about Catholics. Neither does Father Lantom.
• Sequel Hook:
  • Season 1
    • The Ancient Conspiracy between Stick's order and Nobu's, which comic fans will know are the Chaste and the Hand, respectively, is left unresolved.
    • Madame Gao leaves to go back to her homeland. When Owlsley questions if her homeland is China, she says it's "some place much further away". Given her use of the Steel Serpent symbol, it's most likely she is referring to K'un-Lun. She's back in New York in time for Iron Fist.
    • Fisk never gets a chance to find out that it was Karen who killed Wesley, as he's incarcerated mere days after the event.
    • We never found out exactly why the Hand wanted Elena's property. The Defenders reveals that they used it to build Midland Circle and dig a tunnel down to a cache of dragon bones[[/note
  • Season 2
    • Frank Castle officially embraces his Punisher persona and goes off to clean up the streets. He's last seen looking at a disc labeled "Micro", left there by David Lieberman. Before he dies, Schoonover says that something happened on that mission in Kandahar that "they won't let go" of, which The Punisher reveals to have been the execution of Ahmed Zubair..
    • Elektra dies, but says that this isn't the end. The members of the Hand later dig up her corpse and place it in the sarcophagus that was receiving devotee blood earlier in the season, so they can revive her for The Defenders.
    • Fisk says that he plans on destroying Matt and Foggy's lives when he gets out of jail in Season 3. He is last seen asking his men to bring him information on Matt, with it implied that he's recognized Matt's fighting style.
  • Season 3:
    • By the end of the season, Matt finally regains his faith and loses the anger that's been plaguing him, Foggy has grown dissatisfied with how impersonal his job is at his law firm, and Karen has left the Bulletin. The three of them then decide to go back into business together once again, this time as Nelson, Murdock, & Page.
    • Dex, who has his spine broken by Fisk during his fight with him and Daredevil, is being operated on by a couple of shady doctors (presumably giving him his metal spine from the comics), and the last shot of the season is his eyes shooting open.
• Series Fauxnale: The final episode of Season 1 leaves on a perfectly fine place to end things, albeit with a few arcs left hanging that aren't part of the greater Defenders arc (for example, Karen's past).
• Serial Killings, Specific Target:
  • When Detective Blake becomes a liability to Fisk, Fisk has a corrupt ESU sniper shoot him.^note Blake survives, forcing Fisk to send Hoffman to finish him off at the hospital. However, if only Blake gets shot, any reasonable investigator will know he was specifically targeted, and will comb through Blake's life and eventually find evidence linking him to Fisk. Thus, after shooting Blake, the sniper also fatally shoots two uniformed cops nearby. Thus, it looks like Blake was randomly targeted. The public become aware that Blake was specifically targeted when Nelson & Murdock get Hoffman to snitch on Fisk.
  • When Madame Gao and Owlsley conspire to have Vanessa poisoned, they spike not just her wine, but several other guests' wine, so that Fisk will think he miraculously survived an attempt on his life.
  • In Season 3, Dex's attack on the Bulletin functions as one. He enters the newsroom, killing several security guards and reporters, fights off Matt, then bursts into the room where Karen, Foggy, Ellison and Jasper Evans are hiding. He overpowers Foggy, disarms Karen, stabs Ellison with a pencil, and then shoots Jasper in the head with Karen's gun. The massacre before killing Jasper serves two purposes: to discredit the real Daredevil (which is why he's come in a Daredevil suit), and to hide the fact that Jasper is the main target.
• Sex with the Ex: At one point, Foggy ends up having a one-night stand with his ex-girlfriend Marci Stahl. By the end of the finale, she rediscovers her soul and helps Nelson & Murdock dismantle Wilson Fisk's organization. Her relationship with Foggy is still nebulous, but they are both working at Hogarth, Chao & Benowitz by the end of Season 2, they are back to full-time dating by the start of The Defenders, and by Season 3, have a close and loving relationship to the point that they're both thinking about marriage.
• Sexy Shirt Switch: When Matt is leading Karen into his apartment in the first episode, she asks him if he has a shirt she can borrow since the t-shirt and clothes she borrowed from Foggy got wet while they were walking over from the office. Matt laughs and says, "Well don't tell Foggy. Let me grab something for you." He disappears into his bedroom to grab her one of his dress shirts. The audience then gets treated to a moment of topless Deborah Ann Woll from behind and the front, at distance and slightly out-of-focus as Karen pulls off her T-shirt in front of Matt, and begins buttoning her new shirt. With his heightened senses, it's pretty clear Matt is thinking, "Oh great, Karen's totally naked right now, isn't she? Don't get sexual urges, Matthew..." Matt and Karen then proceed to sit down on the couch and have a very intimate conversation about Matt's blindness.
  • Season 3 features a role reversal of this same scene, when Matt changes in front of Karen into a new T-shirt supplied to him by Sister Maggie as they hide from Dex in the church basement. The camera angles are very much identical, and Karen simply mutters "Jesus, Matt..." as she sees all the scars on his chest.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • All the clues suggest Wilson Fisk is the keystone of organized crime in Hell's Kitchen, and the heroes suffer and sacrifice greatly to defeat him because they all think his removal will collapse the criminal underworld. But the Season 1 finale suggests — and the first few episodes of Season 2 confirm — that Fisk and his associate gangs are just one syndicate that stands at the center of a bunch of converging criminal agendas. With him gone, the crime rate actually goes up as new gangs move in. And Fisk is just biding his time until Season 3, when he gets released and begins plotting revenge on Nelson & Murdock.
  • It's revealed during Fisk's brief arc in Season 2 that the Castle trial was always going to be a loss. Castle would either plead guilty, and end up meeting Fisk, or plead not guilty and be coerced by Fisk into throwing his own trial. The trial was a loss from the start, even with Matt's double-life stuff causing issues for the defense.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Defied. Frank Castle sneers at the idea of exploiting the over-used cliche for his own gain, and expresses the rather progressive view that it would be unfair to those who actually suffer from PTSD. Karen clearly admires him for this stance, and the viewers are supposed to as well. No one seems aware that PTSD can result from any sufficiently traumatic experience...like, say, seeing your own family die in front of you a hail of gunfire. And it's made even more clear in his own show that this is precisely what he suffers from: vivid recall of the trauma ("reliving" the moment), hypervigilance, fixation on the event, insomnia, a dramatic change in personality—all are symptoms of PTSD.
  • Although this is more a case of Exact Words. Frank seems to have issues with them claiming it was the violence he experienced on the battlefield as a soldier that was giving him problems. Frank corrects them by saying "It wasn't on the battlefield where my life went to shit". True enough in that his own show establishes that only what he went through under Rawlins' illegal CIA program and the murder of his family seem to be what's giving him nightmares. Frank's issue is probably not wanting to go with what he sees as a lie. He is suffering PTSD, just not as a result of what Foggy and Matt were trying to pin it on.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Foggy spends most of Season 3 sporting three-piece suits by Martin Greenfield Clothiers. This leads to some noticeable contrast whenever he's having scenes with his brother Theo, who still wears his hair shaggy and disheveled.
• Shirtless Scene: Matt sleeps shirtless, showing off his sculpted pecs and abs along with a collection of scars. Claire jokes that the view is why she keeps treating his injuries.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • James Wesley is the only person who sees Fisk's relationship with Vanessa as a plus rather than a liability. He even eases his boss's anguish by bringing her over when Fisk gets upset after being threatened by Madame Gao.
  • Foggy is one for Matt and Karen. He's visibly trying to fight a smile whenever they're flirting in front of him. Even in The Defenders, he's still doing this.
    Foggy Nelson: Careful, Matt.
    Matt Murdock: What's that?
    Foggy Nelson: Keep going like this, you just might end up happy. And for a Catholic boy, that's a pretty dangerous thing.
  • Frank Castle is one for Matt and Karen as well. During the diner scene in ".380", when Karen bitterly says that she's hurt by Matt's behavior, Frank points out that the only reason why she feels so strongly is because she trusted Matt enough to open herself up to such emotions and that her anger is a sign that she truly loves Matt.
  • In Season 3, Sister Maggie is quick to realize that Matt means something to Karen and vice-versa, with her words of wisdom being enough to encourage Karen to help Matt with bringing in Jasper Evans to learn what Evans has to say about Fisk. And later, Maggie helps protect Matt and Karen when they're hiding from Dex in the crypt.
  • On a meta-level, Charlie Cox is very enthusiastic about the pairing, and hopes Season 3 of the show will give Matt / Karen room to grow:
    "I have small thoughts that I would like to see happen ... I'm invested in the Karen / Matt relationship. I'd like to see that figure itself out somehow. I feel like they could really help each other. And I think that they love each other a great deal. So I would like for that relationship to get back on track somehow..."
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Shown Their Work:
  • Charlie Cox studied with actual blind people to master Matt's habits. Ironically, Matt Murdock is also mostly acting out those same habits.
  • Father Lantom mentions that "Satan" is derived from the Hebrew word for "adversary," and is applied often to random people in the Old Testament.
  • Matt mentions in one of the "Nelson v. Murdock" flashbacks that he can still get the spins, as the condition is due to the fluid in the head being unbalanced rather than anything to do with the eyes.
  • Matt says he is seeking forgiveness for something he is about to do, and Father Lantom says it doesn't work that way. You can't seek Catholic Reconciliation for future acts because part of what makes a good confession is resolving to never repeat whatever it is you are confessing to. It could also be an oblique reference to the medieval abuses of the concept of "indulgences,": forgiveness that was frequently sold, either to fund Church projects or line the pockets of less-scrupulous authorities. Sometimes, these were sold in advance of the buyer actually doing anything wrong.
• Sickbed Slaying:
  • Fisk forces Hoffman to kill his own partner Blake in this way after Blake survives getting shot by a crooked ESU sniper. The guilt over doing so prompts him to later turn on Fisk.
  • Frank Castle's first attempt on Grotto is supposed to be this, but Karen manages to get him away in the nick of time.
• Sinister Surveillance: The first episode sees Foggy hang up his wakeup call to Matt by saying he's going to bribe a cop^note a box of cigars for Brett's mom.
  Matt Murdock: [groans] Foggy...
  Foggy Nelson: Kidding, NSA, if you're listening! But seriously. Yeah. I gotta go bribe a cop.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift:
  • Matt spends the first season fighting in an all-black ninja costume with an opaque mask over his head. In the Season 1 finale, Melvin tailors him his signature red Devil costume. Come Season 3, he's back in the black outfit, signfying his lack of concern for his personal safety, and supplementing it with muay thai ropes, indicating his willingness to dish out harsher punishments.
  • Following Nelson & Murdock's dissolution in Season 2, Foggy moves to Hogarth Chao & Benowitz and starts wearing smarter, more formal clothing, gets a haircut, and begins slicking back his hair. He sports this haircut through The Defenders, a cameo in Jessica Jones Season 2, and Season 3.
  • Karen generally wears bright print dresses when she's working at Nelson & Murdock. In moving to the Bulletin, she starts dressing more professionally in skirts and shirts, and in jeans and shirts by the time Season 3 rolls around.
  • For his first few episodes, Wilson Fisk is only ever seen wearing all-black suits and his father's cufflinks. As his relationship with Vanessa blossoms, he starts wearing lighter shades, and a new pair of cufflinks. And by Season 3, he's wearing his iconic white suits.
  • Brett Mahoney gets a promotion and transfer to a plainclothes unit for taking the credit in arresting Frank Castle. So he switches out his patrol officer uniform for a suit and tie, and that's what he's always wearing from that point forward. It's a sudden enough change that Foggy is surprised by it.
    Foggy Nelson: Brett, you're wearing a tie and it's...not a clip-on.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • Karen's late brother Kevin only appears in one episode, the flashback episode "Karen" in Season 3, and it shows how Kevin's death greatly shaped Karen.
  • She's only in four episodes, and only one or two short scenes each in those episodes, but Elena Cardenas becomes on retroactively in The Defenders as her death is what makes it possible for the Hand to go through with their plans to build Midland Circle.
  • Fisk's mother only appears thrice onscreen, in a childhood flashback and twice in the present day, but she inadvertently plays a small role in the setback of her son's empire, as her tipping off Wesley to the visit Karen and Ben made to her ends up getting Wesley killed, and that greatly destabilizes Wilson's ability to work on his criminal ventures.
  • Julie Barnes, a girl that Dex is stalking in Season 3, only appears a few times before Fisk has her unceremoniously killed. Her death ultimately proves key to Matt taking down Fisk, as Matt is able to use Felix Manning's information about the murder to get Dex to turn against Fisk.
  • Within Season 2, Fisk only appears in two full episodes, but he also plays a major role in the breakup of Nelson & Murdock by manipulating Frank Castle into throwing his trial, and is responsible for the Blacksmith's death due to arranging Castle's escape. And his scenes here are what set up his impending rivalry with Matt in Season 3.
  • John Healy only appears in one episode of Season 1, and isn't missed by anyone after biting it, save for the one detail he gives to Matt before killing himself: Fisk's name.
  • Despite only being in two episodes, Jasper Evans' death is what finally convinces Nadeem to realize that Karen is being truthful in saying that Fisk is manipulating the FBI.
  • Semyon, the Russian who Matt tortures on Claire's roof for info, only has one scene afterwards when Anatoly and Vladimir wake him from his coma to get information about his attacker. His letting slip about Claire starts a chain of events that ends with Wilson Fisk killing Anatoly, and in the long run, Fisk's own downfall.
  • Piotr is partially responsible for Anatoly's death, due to telling him and Vladimir about the restaurant where Fisk was on a date with Vanessa. Also contributes to Fisk's downfall, as Matt's interrogation of Blake over Piotr's murder leads to Blake getting shot, Hoffman being forced to kill Blake, and Hoffman turning on Fisk.
  • In Season 3, Vanessa doesn't actually return to the screen until the final two episodes, but it's Fisk's desires to protect her that end up kicking off the season as it is the reason he makes his informant deal with Ray Nadeem. She also ends up causing her fiancée/husband's downfall by being the one to order Nadeem's assassination.
• Smokescreen Crime: Prior to the events of the series, Frank Castle's wife and children were killed in a gang shooting at Central Park. Season 2 reveals that District Attorney Samantha Reyes had lured the gangs to the park with the intent of taking them down, but chose not to clear the area to avoid showing her hand. The twelfth episode of season 2 and the Punisher's series reveal that Frank's former commanding officer had taken advantage of the sting to try and kill Frank to make sure he never spoke of the atrocities his men committed in Afghanistan, hoping to make it look like Frank and his family were simply collateral damage in a gang war.
• The Smurfette Principle: There's that one girl with blue lipstick, part of the Yakuza group who attack Elektra, who is apparently the only female Mook in the entirety of Hell's Kitchen. Though given the complexity of the stunts in the show, as well as the need for the Yakuza faction of the Hand to at least appear Japanese, the showrunners likely had a limited pool to choose from.
  • Elektra has a bad case of this as her interactions with characters who aren't thugs or ninjas are all primarily with Matt and Stick. (Obviously averted in The Defenders, where she gets to interact with both Madame Gao and Alexandra, but true here in Daredevil)
  • Karen, Marci, and Vanessa are this to some extent, as their interactions with other characters are primarily with men.
• So Last Season: In Season 2, Matt faces Nobu, who has returned from the dead. While he does have trouble initially, he's not beaten as badly as he was when they first fought. By the end of the season, he is able to fight and defeat him fair and square.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: In the Season 1 finale, "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot plays as the Feds start dismantling Fisk's organization and making arrests based on Hoffman's information.
• Spectacular Spinning: One of Matt's favorite moves in the series is a spinning kick, with the number of spins varying for effect.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Once the Punisher is captured, the show seems ready to move on to The Hand's plot... which keeps being interrupted every now and then with a subplot that seemed designed to remind the audience that Castle was still relevant, dammit. However, the focus on the Punisher helps to further explore the widening rift between Matt's two lives, as Elektra and Stick are prominent in one plot while Karen and Foggy are prominent in the other, because Matt has to constantly choose between the two.
• Starter Villain:
  • The Russians start as Matt's first opponents in Season 1. After Wilson Fisk takes them out, he becomes the main antagonist for the rest of the season. Rance and Healy function as initial opponents for Matt from within Fisk's gang.
  • The Kitchen Irish and Frank Castle start off as antagonists for the first part of Season 2. After Castle is captured, he moves to anti-hero status while the Hand and the Blacksmith move into the antagonist roles.
• Start of Darkness: Fisk's was when he killed his father, and Dex's was when he killed his baseball coach, with him getting even worse when his therapist died years later. Though Frank isn't evil and later becomes more of an anti-hero, his was when his entire family was murdered, leading him to become the Punisher to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against their killers.
• The Stool Pigeon: At the start of Season 3, Fisk agrees to become an informant for the FBI in exchange for protection for Vanessa. He subsequently sells out a bunch of his potential criminal rivals so they won't be obstacles in his return to power.
• Stout Strength: Wilson Fisk is overweight, but has great strength. In fights, he relies on his brute strength to toss foes around. When Frank Castle first meets him in prison, he's seen rather casually bench-pressing several hundred pounds.
  • Leland Owlsley carries one around after Fisk kills Anatoly. He uses it to zap Matt in "Stick". In the Season 1 finale, he tries to use it against Fisk, but the prongs fail to make a good contact, and Fisk thus shrugs it off and throws Leland down an elevator shaft.
  • In "Penny and Dime," stun guns and anesthetics are used by the Kitchen Irish to subdue Frank Castle when they corner him at the carousel. They don't take him down immediately, and he's able to kill a few of them before finally being knocked out.
• Super-Senses: Matt has superhuman hearing that allows him to "see" the world through a form of echolocation and eavesdrop through walls or large crowds with ease. His other senses (other than sight) are enhanced as well. He can smell someone's cologne from two floors away and he says that cotton clothes feel like sandpaper against his skin.
• Superheroes Stay Single:
  • Played straight as of the Season 1 finale. Matt and Claire Temple start to form a connection, but they quickly realize that Matt's constant need to put himself in mortal danger would never let it progress far.
  • Matt begins dating Karen in Season 2, but his refusal to tell her about his double life takes a toll on their relationship. The final straw comes when she finds Elektra in Matt's bed (though it's Not What It Looks Like). In the finale, Matt tells her his secret identity, with everything suggesting a future reconciliation, but they do not fully get back together, as The Defenders shows.
  • Also played straight by the end of Season 3. Matt has fully reconciled his friendships with both Foggy and Karen, and it's clear that the two of them do still have feelings for each other, but have not re-entered a relationship as of yet.
  • It's also inverted with the super villains. Wilson Fisk, a megalomaniacal criminal mastermind, gets a (relatively) stable, healthy and fulfilling romantic relationship with Vanessa. Then he has to send her away because of Leland's attempt on her life. She isn't able to return until near the end of Season 3 when Fisk gets his conviction fully overturned. The season ends with their wedding.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Discussed. Wesley is unimpressed that the Russians can't deal with a lone vigilante running around in a mask:
  James Wesley: I mean, if he had an iron suit or a magic hammer, maybe that would explain why you keep getting your asses handed to you.
  • The Punisher Season 1 creates a retroactive case of this, as it's never explained in-universe why Billy Russo and Curtis Hoyle were never called upon as character witnesses to testify at Frank Castle's trial. The fact that Matt, Karen and Foggy were under pressure due to Reyes fast-tracking the trial is implied to be the reason that neither of them were brought up.
• Suspicious Missed Messages: Throughout the entire series, Matt Murdock would leave his phone at work when he was out doing his vigilante work, making his friends very worried. Some occasions that deserve particular notice are:
  • The first is in Season 1, when Fisk bombed Hell's Kitchen. It was late at night, their client Elena Cardenas and Foggy both ended up in the hospital, and Matt was not answering his phone, which his friends took as him being potentially lost and injured. Made worse by the fact that Matt's blind and his friends didn't know about his Super-Senses at that point.
  • Later in Season 1, Foggy, knowing Matt wouldn't pick his phone, sought after him in his apartment, and found him half-dead on the floor.
  • In Season 2, when Matt didn't pick his phone in the middle of the day, Foggy found him on the rooftops unconscious after being shot at the head by the Punisher.
• SWAT Team:
  • "Condemned": An ESU team shows up at the scene of the standoff with Matt and Vladimir, ostensibly to rescue a rookie police officer that Matt had taken hostage, but in reality are working for Wilson Fisk. One of them goes to a nearby rooftop and snipes Detective Blake and two other uniformed cops, while the rest of the team kills the unlucky Officer Sullivan, before gunning down Vladimir in the tunnels.
  • "Daredevil": An FBI SWAT team is responsible for escorting to Fisk for jail... except one of the officers in the truck is on Fisk's payroll, and kills his fellow agents when the convoy is ambushed and wiped out by mercenaries coming to free Fisk from custody.
  • "Dogs to a Gunfight" sees Reyes trick Grotto into being used by ESU as bait for the Punisher. Frank manages to use a semi truck with the dead body of a Dogs of Hell biker he killed earlier to distract ESU while he attempts to make another attempt to snipe Grotto. Matt interrupts this, and ESU snipers open fire on them as the fight progresses, with Matt at several times maneuvering Frank to keep him from getting shot.
  • "Regrets Only" shows that Frank Castle is considered enough of a flight risk to himself and to others that an ESU squad is assigned to guard his floor.
  • In "The Man in the Box," ESU cops are shown outside the courthouse when Reyes is killed.
  • Dex is an FBI SWAT sniper. He is introduced in this capacity as a seemingly random SWAT officer who singlehandedly takes out an Albanian hit squad trying to ambush Fisk.

T

• Tagline:
  • Season 1 has "Justice Is Blind."
  • Season 2 has "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished."
  • Season 3 has "Do Not Fear the Dark. Become It."
• Take a Third Option: In "New York's Finest", Frank Castle has Matt chained to a chimney with his hand duct taped around a gun with a single round. He gives Matt the option either to violate his moral code and shoot him, or allow him to execute Grotto. Matt shoots the chain, freeing himself and causing Frank to miss Grotto's head. It's not enough to stop Frank from fatally shooting Grotto in the heart.
• Take Over the City: Fisk's goal through most of Season 1 is to take over Hell's Kitchen and remake it in his own image.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Played for Laughs in an early Season 3 episode, where Dex decides to play a prank on Fisk while delivering him food. He takes a bite out of Fisk's burger and dumps the fries all in one tray, while a colleague takes everything but the tray off the table. Dex then puts a steel pan on top of the tray, before having the food sent in. Then he watches to see how Fisk reacts: Fisk just calmly brings the tray closer, breaks the bitten half of the burger apart with his utensils and dumps the pieces into another part of the tray one at a time with a spork. Then he starts eating the burger with the spork. Suffice to say, Dex is both disappointed and bewildered.
  Dex: ...If I'm being honest, that's not the way I thought this was gonna go. Who eats a burger with a spork?
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero:
  • In Season 1, Fisk has an assassin kill Elena Cardenas to lure Matt into a fight with Nobu, as he's aware that elderly women and children are among Matt's weaknesses.
  • In Season 3, Fisk orders the unceremonious assassination of Julie Barnes, a girl that Dex is stalking and who Dex considers to be his own Morality Chain, so that Dex will be dependent on Fisk. He stores her body and the bodies of the assassins hired to kill her, in a giant walk-in freezer, where Matt ultimately finds them after torturing Felix Manning.
• Tempting Fate: In "The Path of the Righteous", when Karen grabs Wesley's gun, he attempts to talk her down by claiming that it would be stupid to put a loaded gun on the table. She then tells him that he isn't the first person she's shot, before unloading the entire magazine into his chest.
• Technology Marches On: Heavily averted when Frank visits the pawn shop to buy police communications gear. Seeing the security cameras, he asked the pawn shop owner for the videotape since he doesn't want a record of his visit. The pawn shop owner hands the tape over. A surveillance system using VHS tape? Decades out of date. Now such a system would save all footage to hard drive. Of course, there's also no record that Frank was ever there when he kills the pawn shop owner for offering him child pornography...
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Madame Gao tells Fisk that he can't be both savior and oppressor. He has to choose. At first, Fisk genuinely believes in improving Hell's Kitchen. After his arrest, he decides that Hell's Kitchen doesn't deserve his "better tomorrow." He also recites the story of the Good Samaritan and wonders which character he is most similar to before deciding that he is the "man of ill-intent."
• This Cannot Be!:
  • The moment Matt (in his brand new Daredevil outfit) lands in front of Fisk to cut off his escape, all the stumbling gangster can manage to say is "You?!" as he realizes that the upstart meddler he thought he had left crippled and broken was responsible for his fall.
  • Karen has a silent case of this when Matt's revealing his secret to her.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: A recurring theme. In spite if his vigilantism, Matt maintains that murdering someone, even with good cause, is a mortal sin. The one time he actually goes out with the intention to kill anyone, it's a misguided attempt to murder Wilson Fisk to avenge Elena...a hit that Fisk had ordered both to allow the Hand access to their Midland Circle property and also to lure Matt into an ambush from Nobu. In the second season, Matt's belief gets contrasted with Frank Castle, who does kill people and criticizes Matt for holding back. Later he gives Matt the sadistic choice of killing him or letting him kill Grotto.
• To Absent Friends: Midway through the final episode of Season 1, after Fisk's operation has been dismantled and he's been arrested, Matt, Foggy, and Karen are celebrating at the Nelson & Murdock offices, which eventually includes a toast to Elena Cardenas, Ben Urich and all the other people who have lost their lives because of Fisk.
• Token Minority: Within each season, there are really only one or two non-white characters amongst the main characters. They would be Ben Urich in Season 1, Elektra in Season 2, and Ray Nadeem in Season 3. Amongst the six main characters of Season 3 (Matt, Karen, Foggy, Dex, Nadeem, and Fisk), only Nadeem is non-white (being Indian-American).
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Wesley, leaving a loaded gun within reach of an unrestrained Karen. She gets his gun and empties the full seven rounds into his chest. It's in character seeing as he's a bit of a Smug Snake who is very rarely not in control and he clearly is thinking that Karen is just a scared little girl who's too afraid to pull the trigger.
    • To be fair, Karen was drugged, but Wesley, not knowing that her alcoholism and history with recreational drug abuse heightened her tolerance, likely assumed Karen would not be able to react swiftly enough to grab the gun.
  • Ben Urich, who, after counseling Karen to exercise caution and restraint for a whole season, blabs about the latest information on Fisk in front of several witnesses, deliberately making a scene. This is how Fisk finds out that he talked with his mother; the mole was one of the witnesses.
  • Leland admits to culpability in Vanessa's poisoning, believing himself safe because of a complicated insurance plan involving stashing away Hoffman. This after commenting repeatedly throughout the season on Fisk's violent temper and unstable, homicidal tendencies (he did call Fisk out on killing Anatoly), and his generally unpredictable behavior when emotional, particularly where Vanessa is involved. He does all this when he is alone with Fisk in an alley and Fisk confronts him on these charges. Fisk throws him down an elevator shaft with barely a second's hesitation and then orders a hit on Hoffman.
  • The pawnbroker from whom Frank Castle acquires an NYPD communications rig. While he has no way of knowing that his customer is the Punisher, it's pretty reckless to openly admit that he deals in child porn and underaged prostitutes to someone who just walked in with a duffel bag full of weapons and bought stolen police equipment. Violent criminals, just like everyone else, take a very dim view of such matters.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Wilson Fisk is coming closer to his Kingpin persona after being in jail and losing most of his power. Like in the comics, defeat reverts him back to his brutish side instead of the Affably Evil image he has when on top, and he learns from his mistakes. By Season 3, he is a lot more influential with more hooks and pawns than previously imagined.
  • Karen gets a gun after killing Wesley, and is proactive in her self-defense through the rest of the show. She even manages to help Matt take on Dex when he comes to kill her.
• Took a Level in Kindness:
  • In Season 1, Mitchell Ellison is depicted as rather unsympathetic, to make it seem like he was Wilson Fisk's mole at the Bulletin. When Karen approaches him in Season 2 to get his backing on the Frank Castle story, she's expecting him to see her as a replacement for Ben, and is surprised when Ellison instead proves much more helpful, genuinely shows concern for her and expresses great regret over not having backed Ben's work. A freeze-frame of an assignment board in "Seven Minutes in Heaven" shows that he also has revamped the editorial priorities to focus on important events instead of fluff pieces.
  • Foggy's appealing to how Marci Stahl "used to have a soul" gets to her. Not only does she readily turn in her partners, but in both of her appearances in Season 2, we can see that since joining Hogarth Chao & Benowitz, Marci has become considerably nicer and has a more amicable relationship with Foggy. While Marci only gets one shot in The Defenders, it's clear she and Foggy are forming a healthy Office Romance at HC&B.
  • During Jessica Jones, Jeri Hogarth was incredibly amoral, even engaging in criminal behavior and trying to use Kilgrave to get Wendy to agree to lesser terms during their divorce. When she shows up in the Season 2 finale of Daredevil, it's pretty clear that she's cleaned up her act greatly, and is back to something very close to what she used to be like when she interned at Rand Enterprises, as she's impressed by Foggy's defense of Frank Castle to the point of hiring him on with the explicit promise of making him a name partner. Though Jessica Jones Season 2 suggests that any change was probably just an act put on for Foggy.
• Toplessness from the Back:
  • Is used in the first episode to show Karen from behind while she's switching into one of Matt's dress shirts.
  • Used twice in "Kinbaku", first when Matt and Elektra have sex in the boxing ring at Fogwell's in the midst of a sparring match turned sexual foreplay. And at the end of the episode, it happens again as Elektra is stripping out of a red silk dressing gown as she heads to her bedroom to change into her combat outfit in anticipation of the ninjas' arrival.
• Torture Always Works: Justified by the fact that Matt is a Living Lie Detector. He just needs the perp to answer, and he'll know whether he's telling the truth or not; more often than not, as Matt himself admits, the violence is merely a way for him to let out his anger.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Wilson Fisk has a liking for zuppa inglese, an Italian custard dessert. As "Shadows in the Glass" shows, we learn that he acquired a taste for zuppa from his mother; when she's upset that Wilson is moving her to Italy to protect her from his criminal activities, Wilson assures her "They have zuppa in Italy. The real kind."
• Tranquil Fury:
  • When a pawn shop owner unwisely tries to sell Frank Castle child porn, the former dad responds by dropping his bag, flipping the open sign to closed, walking back to the counter picking up a baseball bat along the way, and bludgeoning the owner to death. All without a single word or the slightest change of expression.
  • By Season 3, Fisk has almost conquered his notoriously uncontrollable temper, turning his moments of rage into this. When Karen taunts him about how she killed Wesley, it's almost shocking to see that he manages to keep a lid on his homicidal fury for even a few seconds whereas before he probably would have lunged at her immediately. Of course, in that case he might have been simply too paralyzed by rage to do anything. It's played straighter three episodes later, when he receives news from Agent Waller that Karen escaped Dex's assassination attempt in the church and is now in the wind; Fisk absorbs this and then calmly, even casually, asks Waller for his jacket. He waits patiently as Waller removes the jacket and hands it over. Fisk proceeds to wrap said jacket around Waller's head and beats him to death.
  • Karen's visit to Fisk in Season 3 Episode 8 has her also going into this state as soon as Fisk brings up his knowledge of Matt's secret.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The manhunt for Frank Castle makes up the sole plot for the first few episodes of Season 2. In the fifth episode, Elektra is introduced and becomes the main plot, while the Frank storyline becomes the B-plot. The two are unrelated, and rarely intersect, aside from Madame Gao (herself a member of the Hand) giving Matt a lead on the Blacksmith.

U

• Unskilled, but Strong: What Fisk brings to the table in his confrontations with Daredevil. The man can benchpress 500 pounds, but he doesn't have Matt's insane training.
• Urban Legend Love Life: At least as far as season one goes. Foggy makes several comments about Matt being a playboy, but we never see him romantically involved with anyone outside of Karen in Season 2 and his flings with Elektra and Claire. He doesn't even seem interested in a relationship as he is busy being a vigilante.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Matt and Karen. Even in their first scene, there's a clear attraction between the two, with their first scene alone being one lengthy dose of sexual tension (Matt is taking a gorgeous woman back to his apartment, Karen being reluctant to take Matt's bed until she sees the billboard, Karen changing into one of Matt's dress shirts in front of him, Matt getting vulnerable around Karen and admitting he'd do anything to see the sky one last time). Yet Matt is hesitant about her finding out about his alter ego as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. They do get close enough to begin dating partway through Season 2, but this is short-lived before Matt gets sidetracked helping Elektra and ends up neglecting Frank's trial and his relationship with Karen. They do get closer together once Matt reveals his secret to her, and even in The Defenders, the attraction between Matt and Karen is still evident in all their shared scenes, but now what gets in the way is the fact that Karen is still processing the whole matter of Matt being Daredevil and hasn't yet come clean with him about Wesley's death, followed by Matt's "death" under Midland Circle.

V

• Vagueness Is Coming: According to Stick, some sort of war is coming, and Daredevil will be a vital part of it. Season 2 reveals this war is against The Hand, but Stick continues to be vague as fuck. The Hand want to get their hands on a "Black Sky," which The Defenders reveals is meant to be a skilled fighter who assists the Hand in mining dragon bones under Midland Circle.
• Vehicular Kidnapping: The pilot ends with a little boy being pulled from his father's car and dragged off by the Russians. Getting him back kicks off the plot of the second episode.
• Victory Sex: Invoked. Anatoly agrees to make a deal with Fisk, but gets killed for interrupting his date. Wesley covers for Anatoly's absence by telling his brother Vladimir that he might "have a girl or a boy he might be celebrating with", over the deal that he thought went through.
• Vigilante Execution: When Karen kills Wesley, she heavily implies that she may have done something like this in the past, and which Deborah Ann Woll has teased has greatly influenced Karen's sympathies for Frank Castle and vigilantes in general:
  James Wesley: Come on. Do you really think I would put a loaded gun on the table where you could reach it?
  Karen Page: I don't know. [pulls back the hammer] Do you really think this is the first time I've shot someone?
• Vigilante Man: Daredevil, who heroically battles criminals. Also the Punisher, who is a far darker version. They have a long conversation about this in Season 2.
• Villain Ball:
  • In "The Path of the Righteous", Wesley decides he has to personally deal with Karen Page talking to Fisk's mom without telling anyone else. But instead of shooting her, he kidnaps her and then attempts to threaten Karen into duplicity by placing a loaded gun on the table in front of her. Despite her only being drugged, rather than restrained. Karen proceeds to grab the gun and empties seven rounds into him, calling Wesley's attempt to bluff that the weapon isn't loaded.
  • Officer Corbin, leader of the corrupt cops sent by Fisk to kill Hoffman before the FBI gets to him, manages to kill all of Hoffman's bodyguards, but when it comes to Hoffman himself, monologues for a few seconds before even beginning an attempt. This gives Matt enough time to show up and take down Corbin and his men.
• Villain Has a Point: Fisk learns that Vanessa is facing accessory charges if she returns to the United States. This prompts him to want to make a deal with Nadeem to become an informant in exchange for Vanessa's charges being dropped. His rationale is that while he should be punished for his crimes, Vanessa shouldn't have to share that punishment since she had zero participation in any of his crimes. Of course, it's all lies and such, since Vanessa's hands aren't really as clean as they seem to be.
• Villain in a White Suit: Fisk is given white Institutional Apparel upon his arrival in prison, signifying his status as a newbie. Upon his release from prison in Season 3, he dons the iconic white suits that are his signature trademark in the comics, which are symbolic of his Villain with Good Publicity status, as well as symbolizing his loneliness, what with Wesley's death and Vanessa's exile.
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: Used in Season 3 after Nadeem testifies before the grand jury against Fisk. During deliberations, one of the jurors starts reciting the names and addresses of the other jurors, implying that they will be targeted if they choose to indict.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Once Fisk decides to appear in public for the first time, he demonstrates great talent in manipulating the media.
• Villainous Breakdown: Fisk goes through one after Matt stops his attempt to escape.
  Fisk: I wanted to make this city... something better than it is. Something beautiful! YOU TOOK THAT AWAY FROM ME! YOU TOOK EVERYTHING! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!
• Villainous Friendship:
  • Fisk and Wesley are great friends. Fisk trusts Wesley with everything and Wesley goes way out of his job description to help Fisk when he's in a bad mood and risks Fisk's violent temper doing so. Fisk nearly beats Francis to death after Karen kills Wesley, with Fisk shouting "He's my friend!"
  • Detectives Blake and Hoffman have been friends for 35 years. It takes an awful lot of money, a threat to his own life, and the knowledge that Blake would be killed by someone else anyway, to get Hoffman to turn on him. Even then, Hoffman is so wracked with guilt over doing so that he goes into hiding, stashed away by Owlsley, and later gives Fisk's operation up to the FBI.
• Villains Out Shopping: Wilson Fisk's first onscreen appearance involves him browsing in an art gallery, where he meets Vanessa. He later takes her out on a date, which is interrupted by Anatoly trying to barge in to speak with him. His second date goes a bit more smoothly due to buying out the restaurant, the bombing of Hell's Kitchen notwithstanding.
  • Season 3 Episode 11 has a subplot of Fisk seeking to reacquire the "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" painting from Esther Falb, the art collector who ended up in possession of the painting after Fisk was arrested. He is persuaded to abandon his efforts after he learns about the violent past surrounding the painting (it was created by Esther's father, and he was killed by the Nazis trying to keep them from taking it).
• Violence Really Is the Answer:
  • In "Nelson v. Murdock", Matt recounts the event that made him take up vigilantism: stopping a molesting father from harming his daughter again by beating him to the point that he spent a month in the hospital eating through a straw (Matt notes that before taking this step, he had called Child Services, but there was no actionable evidence). Foggy, who's been angrily chewing Matt out for the duration of the episode about his recklessness and perceived betrayals, can only muster a single horrified curse and shudder when he hears this.
  • Then there's the season finale, where it's clear that Matt has no choice but to do this to stop Fisk from fleeing the country (and Matt similarly explains to Foggy when he goes out to rescue Hoffman from the corrupt cops sent to kill him). Most points in the show treat violence with ambiguity, but those two cases outright use it as a solution.
  • In Season 2, with Matt's non-lethal methods going up against The Punisher's methods, the question starts to be deconstructed. Less the idea that violence can be answer, but more how much violence does it take to turn you into another problem? Even Karen admits that sometimes, the Punisher's methods do work (though she's channeling memories of killing James Wesley when doing so).
• Visual Pun: On Ben Urich's corkboard, Wilson Fisk, known in the comics as "The Kingpin," is represented by... a King of Diamonds playing card, tacked on by a white pushpin.

W

• War Hero: Foggy used Frank Castle's military record as part of his defense. Technically, Foggy was arguing that Frank had PTSD, but he took every opportunity to let the jury know what a hero he was.
• We Have to Get the Bullet Out!: Defied. In "Condemned," Claire explicitly advises Matt against trying this when coaching him on how to treat Vladimir's bullet wound.
  Matt: Shouldn't we take the bullet out first?
  Claire: Remember what I said about this not being a movie? You cut him open and start digging around, you'll kill him. This way, at least, he has a chance not bleeding out before you get what you need out of him. And it'll hurt like a son of a bitch so: bonus.
  • A similar defied case happens in Season 3 when Nadeem gets shot by Dex while he and Matt are searching Dex's apartment. He can't go to the hospital to get it removed as Dex calls the police and files an incident report, meaning that the police will be checking hospitals for walk-in patients with gunshot wounds.
• Weak, but Skilled: The other half of the Fisk-Daredevil dynamic. Matt can't take a man's head off like Fisk can, but he has spent his life in Training from Hell + Super-Senses.
• Weakness Turns Her On: Upon first meeting Matt, Foggy says that women must love the "wounded duck" aspect of Matt being handsome and blind. Certainly applies to Karen, as she takes a habit of bantering and flirting with Matt on a fairly regular basis.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • A recurring theme in the series is how Matt is edging dangerously close to becoming worse than Fisk. When Foggy first finds out Matt's secret, and learns that Matt had been trying to kill Fisk in response to the hit on Elena:
    Foggy Nelson: You tried to kill him, Matt. You told me yourself. How is that any different than the way he solves his problems?
    Matt Murdock: I made a mistake. I know that.
    'Foggy Nelson: Misspelling "Hanukkah" is a mistake. Attempted murder is a little something else. You ever stop to think what would happen if you went to jail? Or worse?
  • The Punisher is an even more extreme version and plays foil to Daredevil.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In Season 3, nothing is said of what happened to Stewart Finney, the accountant that Fisk recruited to be his right-hand in prison during Season 2. He isn't even so much as mentioned. The same can be said of the Valdez brothers, Finney's friends who Fisk recruited to be his muscle by arranging for their mother to be taken care of.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • "Nelson vs Murdock" has Foggy give one to Matt after discovering Matt is the Masked Man, circumventing the law by being a vigilante and invading people's privacy using his super-senses.
  • Giving these to Matt becomes a recurring theme in Season 2, as convincing Nelson & Murdock to take the Punisher case — and then neglecting to help in favor of running around with Elektra as Daredevil — causes friction with Foggy and Karen.
• Wham Episode:
  • "The Devil You Know": The closest thing to the Red Wedding that Daredevil has ever done, making things much more difficult for the main cast in future episodes. Dex makes a serious Face–Heel Turn and uses Daredevil's suit to storm the New York Bulletin. He slaughters almost everyone there, almost kills Foggy, seriously injures Matt, stabs Ellison, and kills Jasper Evans, who was supposed to prove that Fisk has been manipulating the FBI. Even worse, Daredevil has been accused for this slaughter because Dex was wearing his suit.
• Wham Line:
  • From episode 8, "Shadows in the Glass". Fisk kills his father by striking him repeatedly with a hammer. Marlene comforts her distraught son, and then suddenly, in a flat tone of voice, tells him "Get the saw."
  • From the very first episode of Season 2, when Matt is interrogating a dying cartel member about the (he thinks) team that's been killing criminals with military efficiency:
    Matt Murdock: "Tell me who they are."
    Cartel Member: "Not they. Him. It's one man."
  • In Season 2:
    Stick: Elektra works for me.
  • From Episode 12 of Season 2.
    Matt: What is it?
    Stick: The end of the war you don't believe in. We just lost.
  • The final line of Season 2 as Matt reveals his secret identity to Karen.
    Matt: I'm Daredevil.
  • Season 3, Episode 8 — "Upstairs/Downstairs". Sister Maggie is praying to keep Matt safe while Matt is downstairs practicing with a punching bag.
    Maggie: Our son is too much like you, Jack.
  • Season 3, Episode 9 — "Revelations". Just as Nadeem is coming clean with Hattley and Agent Winn about what he and Matt uncovered about Dex, Hattley abruptly kills Winn with Nadeem's gun, and then Fisk's fixer Felix Manning comes in and bags the gun and Nadeem's fingerprints as blackmail.
  Hattley: I'm not your boss anymore. Wilson Fisk is.
• Wham Shot: A very brief moment from the first episode that makes it clear that Matt is in real danger: When Rance, the knifeman who had just been trying to assassinate Karen, easily performs a midair somersault in the middle of the ensuing fight.
  • In Season 3, the reveal that Dex is this show's version of Bullseye is when we see the bullseye logo on the back of his baseball coach's hat.
• Whole Episode Flashback: Season 3 Episode 10 "Karen". The first two thirds of the episode are made of a 30 minute long flashback to Karen's past in Fagan Corners.
• Wicked Cultured: Apart from his appreciation of art, Fisk's morning routine involves preparing a homemade omelet and donning one of his many black suits, while the prelude from Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suite 1 in G Major is playing in the background. The rest of his culture comes from others like Vanessa (the art) and Wesley (the wine). After he takes over Rikers, he's able to maintain some semblance of culture behind bars, enjoying gourmet food, wine, and classical music.
• Will They or Won't They?: Karen spends all of the first season fawning over two different versions of Matt, the lawyer and the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, and there's a lot of UST between them in both personas. However, the introduction of Claire, as well as Matt's crime fighting delay any full relationship from blossoming. In Season 2, the pair have their first date, but Elektra and more crime fighting split them apart. They're back to speaking terms in The Defenders, but Matt is presumed dead at the end. Matt spends most of Season 3 trying to flee his life as Matt Murdock and hides from Karen, causing her to be extremely angry with him when they do reunite. The season ends with them friends again, but not to the extent of having restarted their romance.
• Worf Had the Flu: For most of Season 3, Matt suffered from the injuries he endured at the end of The Defenders, which hindered his fighting throughout the season.
• Wounded Hero, Weaker Helper: In "Cut Man," Matt is badly wounded during a failed attempt to rescue a kid. Claire Temple takes care of him for most of the episode while he's convalescing.
• White Shirt of Death: Wilson Fisk begins wearing white three-piece suits upon his release from prison, symbolizing his transformation into The Kingpin. In the climatic battle of the series finale his white suit, the white wedding dress of the woman he just married, and the painting "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" which consists entirely of graduations of white, all get splattered with blood.
• Who Are You?: Matt's reaction when he intercepts Poindexter during an attempt on Karen and Ellison at the Bulletin and realizes Poindexter is impersonating his red Daredevil armor.
  Matt Murdock: Who are you?
  Benjamin Poindexter: I'm Daredevil...
• Wretched Hive: Hell's Kitchen. The producers have said they're trying to go for a gritty 1970s feel. It's Played With, deconstructed and then reconstructed. The Hell's Kitchen from Wilson Fisk's childhood of the 1970s, and Matt's in the early 90s, is much grittier than it is in present day. Even with the damage done by the Incident, it's clear the real-life gentrification of Hell's Kitchen happened in the MCU. It's just that the alien invasion undid a lot of that. Because of the real-life gentrification, Hell's Kitchen looks nothing like it did in the 1990s, so Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Greenpoint are used as shooting locations.

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• Xanatos Gambit: Wilson Fisk is a master of this trope.
  • When Nobu is becoming too much for Fisk to handle, he asks him to send a specialist to fight the Man in the Mask, who is also a problem. Nobu goes himself (Fisk knows he couldn't resist a challenge), and Fisk lets him burn when Matt sets him on fire. There is really no way that wouldn't work out in Fisk's favor.
    Wilson Fisk: In a perfect world, you'd have killed each other. But then, we don't live in a perfect world.
  • Fisk, through proxies, convinces Frank Castle to throw his own trial so he'll be sent to prison. Once there, he tells Frank that his rival, Dutton, has information about the death of his family, and gets Frank into Dutton's cell block so he can interrogate and kill him. Fisk then double-crosses Frank by locking him in and releasing Dutton's men from their cells to kill him. When Frank kills them all instead, Fisk even turns that to his advantage by arranging for Castle to be smuggled out of the prison disguised as a corrections officer. Frank even realizes exactly what Fisk is doing: he wants Castle to resume his crusade against crime, weakening Fisk's rivals enough to put Fisk in a better position to strengthen his own operation once he's finally released. It also allows Fisk to get retribution against Matt and Foggy, the two lawyers defending Frank, and whose meddling with the tenement case caused Fisk's incarceration, by destroying their firm as collateral.

Y

• Yakuza: They appear in Season 1 as allies of Wilson Fisk, led by the sinister Nobu. Later they come back in Season 2 after Matt thought he had them on the run. Ultimately Subverted when it's revealed that they are actually the Hand.
• Yoko Oh No:
  • Wilson Fisk's associates see Vanessa as this. It gets to the point that Owlsley and Madame Gao try to have her killed in a misguided attempt to get Fisk to focus more on his criminal activities.
  • Foggy sees Elektra as "bad news bears" when she pops back into Matt's life in Season 2, since Matt nearly flunked out of Civics and torts when he was dating her in law school.
• You're Insane!: Matt calls Frank insane in "New York's Finest". This angers Frank, who knocks him out.
  Matt: There is goodness in people, even in you. And you're gonna have to kill me, 'cause I'm never gonna stop coming for you, until I take you down. You wanna know why?
  Frank: Why's that?
  Matt: Because you're a nutjob!
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: Wesley tries this with Karen when she gets ahold of his gun, but she calls his bluff by shooting him to death with it.

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