YMMV / Daredevil (2015)

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• Adorkable:
  • Foggy freely admits he's an awkward guy, but it makes him no less charming.
  • Wilson Fisk, surprisingly, during every interaction he has with Vanessa.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Vanessa Marianna is a Pandora's box. Was she an average woman whose love corrupted Wilson Fisk? Is she a Manipulative Bitch who is only interested in Fisk for his violence, power and vision? A mix of all the above? Not that Fisk would mind if she was the second, considering the kind of person he is. Season 3 seems to suggest it was the "mix" type, since Fisk's desires to keep her safe are what drive him to make the deal with the FBI to snitch on the Albanians, and when Vanessa does finally return, it is she, and not Fisk, who decides that Ray Nadeem should be killed.
  • Daredevil is the first superhero in the MCU to fight crime on the streets unlike all of the Avengers (and S.H.I.E.L.D.), who face threats on a larger scale. While they fill different niches, is he a better hero than them, even the most genuine hero of them all? As the first season premiered shortly before Avengers: Age of Ultron, which has them partying in the swanky Avengers Tower far removed from the grit of the streets, one might well have asked at the time if the Avengers Tower was just an "ivory tower". It would take around a year until the MCU got a street-level hero in the movies themselves, namely Spider-Man. And even then, Spider-Man deals with "Avengers level threats" rather than the gritty, street level crime that Daredevil deals with.
  • Matt is shown to be willing to cripple and torture his enemies (though only the ones who truly show they deserve it), and characters discuss within the show whether this is a case of I Did What I Had to Do or if he's really just venting his own sadistic impulses out. It's left ultimately up to interpretation if Matt's crusade is really about justice or revenge.
    • Charlie Cox himself has gone on the record that Matt himself doesn’t even really know the answer and has probably never truly asked himself because he is afraid of the answer he’ll get. Charlie on his part believes it’s also up to the audience to decide but in his personal opinion think it’s a bit of both.
    • On the other hand, for all his brutality, Matt is also the only superhero in the MCU to weigh whether or not to kill his enemies, much less actually decide as a hard rule not to do it. Though even that raises the question of whether he refuses to do it because of his principles, or because of what he knows it would do to him and to his soul.
      Karen Page: Killing anyone, even Fisk... it will change everything that you, that you feel about yourself.
  • Wilson Fisk murdering Anatoly and then destroying the rest of the Russians' operations. Is this an act purely motivated by anger, or has Fisk always hated working with them? It's clear that the reason Fisk killed Anatoly in such a gruesome way was because he felt personally humiliated by Anatoly intruding on his privacy. But when he meets his partners and pitches his plans to eliminate Vladimir and the other Russians, he says that "We all knew that we would need to eliminate the Russians one day. They were too unpredictable," suggesting that this was a scheme he'd had in the making for a while. And in scenes leading up to Anatoly's death, it's made clear that Fisk and his partners were beginning to see the Russians as liabilities because of their inability to deal with the masked vigilante disrupting their operations. All of this raises the possibility that Fisk had been planning to kill Anatoly all along, but his rage over being humiliated led him to personally carry out the deed instead of hiring a hitman to do it.
  • The Punisher is a major character in Season 2, and all the Alternative Character Interpretation that defines his character comes with him.
  • The diner scene in ".380" makes for plenty of interpretation. Was Frank telling Karen that it's better to put up with being hurt by someone you love than not have them at all? Or was he telling Karen to understand that pain is inevitable in a relationship as people simply aren't perfect and things won't always be perfect between them?
  • Gao and Leland's disapproval of Fisk dating Vanessa is non-disputable. What's open to interpretation is their reasons: did they see Fisk being weaker because he's dating Vanessa, or were they just worried since Fisk took a more public approach and got over his shyness, making their secret agenda much more difficult to hide (especially since Gao and Nobu are members of the Hand, which operates in the shadows)?
  • Karen's nightmare of Fisk appearing in her apartment after killing James Wesley is open to interpretation. Is it Karen’s unconscious actually saying that killing Wesley was actually easier after killing someone else (given the mysterious past about her brother that's hinted at in Season 2 and finally revealed in Season 3)? Is she terrified of Fisk or is she terrified of becoming like Fisk, able to kill without any hesitation?
  • In the Season 3 finale, Matt repeatedly stops Dex from killing Vanessa, despite knowing that Vanessa was guilty of conspiring to murder Agent Nadeem. Was it simply out of his typical instincts to defend the helpless, or was he trying to keep her alive for pragmatic reasons? After all, if Vanessa dies, Matt has no real leverage on Fisk to keep him from harming Karen or Foggy as well as telling the world Daredevil's true identity.
    • Although Matt only uses her as leverage after beating Fisk and refusing to kill him when Matt came fully intending to kill Fisk. So it's likely the former or a mix of both.
• Angst? What Angst?: A retroactive example. In Season 1, Matt sets Nobu on fire during their fight. Whether or not he believes Nobu survived is left ambiguous until Season 2 confirms that he believes he killed Nobu. You'd think given the explicit focus on his Thou Shalt Not Kill rule, especially brought up in Season 3, that he would have some angst over that one time he burned a guy to death, even if it wasn't his intention.
• Ass Pull: Near the end of Season 3, Agent Nadeem is finally able to testify to everything he's seen while under Fisk's thumb to a grand jury, with the DA's backing. Despite Fisk sending a hitsquad to stop him, Matt is able to get him there in time, and unharmed. Except in a blatant writing cheat, it turns out Fisk has subverted the entire grand jury by threatening their families. He accomplishes this despite not knowing that the grand jury would be hearing any testimony against him until maybe 10 minutes before it starts and the episode making it clear he wasn't expecting this turn of events.
• Award Snub:
  • The show not being nominated for Best Drama Series at the 2015 Emmy Awards.
  • Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio were not recognized for their performances.
  • Jon Bernthal was snubbed for an Emmy nomination at the 2016 Emmys, despite the acclaim for his performance.
  • The showstopping single take prison fight from Season 3 couldn't be submitted for consideration for a Best Stunts Emmy, as the clips had to be a maximum of three minutes long.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Half the fanbase considers Karen Page to be The Scrappy, calling her subplots boring filler and citing her reckless decisions in her relentless pursuit of justice against Wilson Fisk, particularly her indirect role in Ben Urich's death. The other half finds her more likable than many other characters in the MCU, citing her kind-hearted nature in an otherwise very dark series and her bullheaded pursuit of justice. Further development in the second and third seasons, along with her parts in The Defenders (2017) and The Punisher (2017) series, also won some viewers over to the character.
  • Foggy Nelson also gets this. Some find his tendency for light-hearted jokes to be lame, that the time given to his and Karen's budding relationship is a bad mix of Romantic Plot Tumor and Give Geeks a Chance, and consider him a huge wet blanket due to his constant attempts to make Matt stop being Daredevil when the audience wants to see Matt being Daredevil. Others find him charming, and that his Plucky Comic Relief balances out the otherwise dark tones of the show. His supporters also cite his actions in "Nelson v. Murdock" to be heartbreaking, and also point to his fears for Matt's safety as legitimate reasons to want Matt to give up Daredevil. His relationship with Karen evolving closer to Platonic Life-Partners partway through the season also helps.
  • Leland Owlsley is largely well liked for being an entertaining Deadpan Snarker, but a number of fans are bugged at the changes made to his comic self. A number of fans are hoping it'll be a case of Decomposite Character, though, given the frequent mention of his son 'Lee'.
  • Elektra Natchios. While supporters point to Elodie Yung's strong performance and chemistry with Charlie Cox, detractors have a lot of complaints with the character. Her backstory and costume (even after receiving a new one from Melvin) are radically different from the comics (fortunately, she does get her comics costume in The Defenders (2017)). She also gets hate from fans of the Punisher, who feel she was pulling the attention away from him to the Hand sideplot, even barging in on Matt's life frequently to drag him out at night.
• Can't Un-Hear It: Charlie Cox's well-acclaimed portrayal of Matt Murdock has caused many to automatically imagine his voice whenever they are reading his adventures. Likewise, with Karen Page and Foggy Nelson, it's often hard to not imagine hearing Deborah Ann Woll's and Elden Henson's voices. Also, Vincent D'Onofrio as Kingpin.
• Cargo Ship: Some fans joke around with the idea that both Matt and Fisk are in love with Hell's Kitchen, each in his own way. For instance, it's often considered Mad Love for the latter.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Much like the 'death of HYDRA higher-ups' in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 2, the montage of the people on Fisk's payroll being arrested is glorious after a season of Fisk being all but untouchable.
  • Every single freakin' time the Punisher brutally kills people, really because almost all of them had it coming. Special mention goes to the pawn shop owner's death. He knowingly buys the contents of a stolen purse from an obvious junkie and sells a variety of illegal/stolen products, including child pornography and a police scanner. His punishment came in the form of a metal bat from Frank, and he deserved no less.
  • For some, seeing Matt finally land a few good punches on Stick at the end of his titular episode felt really good.
  • Finally seeing Matt get to beat up Nobu, after the ninja had butchered Matt like Swiss cheese in Season 1.
  • At the end of Season 3, seeing Matt standing over a bloodied and blackmailed Fisk, having finally beaten him for good and stuck to his code against all odds. Fisk screaming impotently as he's denied the chance to say goodbye to Vanessa as he's arrested is the icing on the cake.
• Character Rerailment: This show fulfills this for the most part compared to modern comics when it comes to Frank Castle, and moreso with his standalone show. Thanks to Garth Ennis' interpretation of the character being the best-known version in the New Tens, a lot of contemporary readers are more aware of his Sociopathic Hero side than anything else, essentially existing as a serial killer targeting criminals, sometimes including ones guilty of significantly lesser crimes. This series' version, while certainly keeping his violent and bloodthirsty side, gives him back the moral standards he'd long been known for, such as his rules of never hurting innocents and only hurting the truly deserving. It also shows a more human side of him present in the early comics, such as a grudging respect for Daredevil, genuine love for his family, and occasionally having him bond with people who understand him (like Karen). This, mixed with Jon Bernthal's spectacular performance, has led to more interest in the character, especially from those who had written him off as a one-note '90s Anti-Hero.
• Complete Monster: Nobu Yoshioka is a high-ranking and ruthless member of the Hand, directly overseeing their operations in New York under the guise of being a Yakuza underboss. Buying out land, Nobu seeks to excavate Hell's Kitchen in search for the skeleton of a dragon. Nobu and the Hand's leaders intend to harvest its immortality granting properties, leaving New York to be destroyed in the process. Nobu becomes a partner of Wilson Fisk's syndicate, pushing Fisk into having an elderly tenant murdered for her property. After Fisk's downfall, Nobu takes proxy control of the Roxxon Corporation, seeking out a new Black Sky—a human weapon groomed to serve the Hand. To this end, Nobu abducts and tortures an employee's teenage son, Daniel, and several other teenagers to drain their blood. Nobu subjects them to chemical brainwashing when rescued, with Daniel killing his father, before Nobu finishes them off. Realizing Elektra is a Black Sky, Nobu intends to push her to her "destiny", and for Daredevil's interference, Nobu has twenty people Daredevil had previously saved taken hostage, intending to execute them to draw him out.
• Continuity Lockout: One can't go straight from Season 2 to Season 3 without watching The Defenders (2017) along the way, due to Matt being "killed" in the destruction of Midland Circle, Stick's death, Elektra's resurrection, the Hand/Madame Gao being defeated, the resolution to the huge hole in Season 2, etc.
• Crack Pairing: Comic readers probably didn't expect Luke Cage's ex-girlfriend to share a kiss with Daredevil.
• Critical Dissonance: Season 2 received a more lukewarm reception from critics compared to Season 1 (RT score of 75% vs S1's 98%). Audiences were far more positive, as sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes show.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Dex's attempt to become more empathetic by responding to a call at the suicide hotline isn't funny. However, him responding to the caller in an incredibly forced and unemotional tone, saying "That's hard. That's really hard", almost borders on dark comedy. And then it becomes outright disturbing when he recommends that the caller kill his (presumedly) abusive stepfather.
• Crossover Ship: There are a number of people who ship Matt with Laurel Lance from Arrow likely because the two share a similarity in being vigilante lawyers.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Melvin Potter is brilliant at making stuff, be it technology or clothes. He also comes off as having some sort of intellectual disability.
• Ending Fatigue: The credits for the Season 2 finale roll about ten minutes after the final battle, and aside from a cheesy monologue and Matt revealing himself as Daredevil to Karen not much happens. There's a brief shot implying Elektra being brought back to life by the Hand but comic fans won't be surprised by that.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Claire Temple can be considered this due to her status as an Advertised Extra. She managed to largely avoid being a Base-Breaking Character due to Rosario Dawson's acting and chemistry with Charlie Cox, as well as being the Only Sane Man that actually offers helpful advice for Matt, both as a vigilante or as someone who cares about his happiness. Her Good Is Not Soft mentality (considered unusual for a love interest) also helped. She is even borderline on Breakout Character as of right now, as the producer confirmed that she would return for Season 2, before announcing anyone else would, excluding the titular hero. And this is also after revealing she'd also make appearances in Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. In fact, she reappeared◊ in the comics in Captain America: Sam Wilson, after over two decades of absence.
  • Melvin Potter. Being a major player in the comics, and being The Woobie of the show, play a big part in this. This was upped in Season 2, since his relationship with Matt is rather touching. Matt and Melvin talk like they're actually friends now, and Melvin seems to be the only person Matt can actually talk to about what he does, since Foggy prefers Matt not discuss it. Oh, and it helps that he improved Matt's costume and creates the iconic billy club.
  • The Russian brothers, Anatoly and Vladimir, receive distinctive characterization and backstory, turning them from Starter Villains into fully-fledged, somewhat sympathetic characters whose Villainous Friendship stands out, and whose deaths at the hands of Fisk's temper are still tragic.
  • Fisk's criminal lawyer Benjamin Donovan from Season 2, who largely serves as a replacement for the above-mentioned Wesley and goes here for all the same reasons. He even went on to have a much larger role in both seasons of Luke Cage, which happened in between Daredevil Seasons 2 and 3.
  • Stick, for being an Old Superhero Mentor Archetype to Matt, who trained him in the ways of fighting while blind. Plus his asshole personality is just hilarious.
  • Marci Stahl has a sizable fanbase due to her dialog, relationship with Foggy (especially in Season 2), and her unapologetic outlook on life that makes it clear she's out for her own well being, but still has a caring side. She's the show's poster girl for Lovable Alpha Bitch. It certainly doesn't hurt that she's played by the drop-dead gorgeous Amy Rutberg.
• Evil Is Cool: Where do we even start? The series' villains basically run on cool.
  • Wilson Fisk manages to be the personification of this trope. Despite the fact that he's somewhat awkward, vulnerable and often times childish, the man is unquestionably Affably Evil, Wicked Cultured, and a Magnificent Bastard combined. He further improves in Season 3, becoming a Crazy-Prepared Chessmaster.
  • Nobu, mainly for how absolutely brutal and badass he is. Bonus points for setting up a reason for the Hand to make an appearance.
  • Madame Gao. She manages to be a manipulator extraordinaire, a charismatic leader, and one of the most efficient antagonists of the series.
  • James Wesley. He is Fisk's most competent subordinate and very professional in his position as The Dragon. It helps that he is the most prone to being a Deadpan Snarker. Also, his relationship with Fisk is always nice to watch.
  • Dex is one of the most terrifying, most efficient professional killers in the MCU. His Genius Bruiser status and memorable lines certainly help.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Matt and Daisy were at St. Agnes together. Bring on the chibi fix!
  • Matt representing Bucky Barnes on trial.
  • What's Stick been up to these past twenty years?
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • While the Official Couple of Matt and Karen (as of Season 2) does have its share of fans, Karen Page being a Base-Breaking Character plus some criticisms of the lack of chemistry between Charlie Cox and Deborah Ann Woll have led to Matt/Foggy instead being the most popular ship in the fandom, especially since they have been friends since law school who have a fair amount of Ho Yay with one another. On most fanfiction sites, like Archive of Our Own, the pairing dominates shipping and has only continued to grow in popularity even after the show ended.
  • Shipping Karen with Frank Castle became one overnight and has a massive following on Tumblr which only grew after the release of The Punisher (2017), even though in reality there was very little chance of the pairing happening due to Karen being in mourning over Matt getting "killed" at Midland Circle during The Defenders and Frank being emotionally unavailable. It's more or less sunk by Daredevil Season 3, but it continues to be far more popular to ship Karen with Frank than Matt.
• Fight Scene Failure: While some whiffing is to be expected on a show with this many fight scenes, the fight between Fisk and Frank in "Seven Minutes in Heaven" is particularly unconvincing, with few of their blows looking like they're connecting or having any impact, and the actors way overselling their reactions.
• Fountain of Memes: Tumblr is having a field day quoting Matt Murdock and Claire Temple, either separate or together.
  • Dex's goat bleating scene in Season 3 has led to its own family of memes.
• Genius Bonus:
  • In the Season 1 finale, Wilson Fisk attempts to propose to Vanessa as FBI agents are literally kicking in his door. While it's later revealed he has a plan to escape, it's also likely that he was laying the groundwork for a backup plan: attempting to cloak Vanessa in the Spousal Testimony Privilege.
  • When Owlsley asks Melvin what the body armor is made out of, Melvin lists "silicates and polyethylene glycol", which are the components of a shear thickening fluid, specifically the type being used to develop liquid armor.
  • When Wilson Fisk is out on his first date with Vanessa, he admits to not being a wine connoisseur, and has to have Wesley make wine recommendations for him. This is shown visually: Fisk grabs his glass by the goblet, which is something wine enthusiasts avoid because it smudges the bulb of the glass and warms up the wine more quickly. The high-class and cultured Vanessa, however, holds her glass by the stem through the whole scene.
  • Early in "Bang", when Matt and Foggy show up to work, Karen informs them that one of their clients has a dog that was viciously beaten by his neighbor after the dog defiled the neighbor's statue of Saint Francis (er, humped repeatedly until completion). Saint Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of animals.
• He Really Can Act: Quite a lot of praise has been given in Season 3 to the relatively unknown Jay Ali's performance as Ray Nadeem, who is perfect at executing a man with a good heart who is forced to compromise what he stands for and is torn up the whole time about it.
  • From the same season, a lot of praise was also directed at Wilson Bethel for his performance as Dex/Bullseye, making him sadistic, unstable and frightening but also extremely sympathetic as we see his genuine efforts to overcome his nature foiled by his own behavior and Fisk's actions with Bethel perfectly capturing the balance between the two sides of Dex's nature.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • When Matt and Foggy are debating over whether or not to take a plea deal on Karen's case in Season 1, Foggy says, "You don't necessarily show the best judgement when beautiful women are involved, Matt". It seems at first like a funny line about Matt's womanizing tendencies. But Season 2 reveals that Matt had dated Elektra in college and while Foggy isn't aware of the circumstances under which they broke up, he does know that they had a very destructive relationship, so this line is actually Foggy reminding Matt about how his past fling with Elektra ended.
  • In "Into the Ring", Karen Page is nearly killed in an attempt to stage her death as a suicide in police custody. This becomes a bit harder to watch after July 2015, when a woman named Sandra Bland was found hanged in a jail cell while in police custody, with many suspecting foul play in the death even though it was ruled a suicide (it's possible this scene was a reference to the death of Ron Settles, who died while in police custody in 1982 as a result of a bogus traffic stop).
  • Any scene where Claire worries about the legal ramifications of treating Matt in her apartment, after Jessica Jones (2015) reveals that she did indeed get evicted over it.
  • Iron Fist (2017) gives a further explanation on the Hand's resurrection technique, revealing that it gradually chips further and further away at a person's humanity and identity each time. With Nobu already completely unaffected by cold at the start of the show, how far gone was he? On the bright side, the later show also confirms that he's dead for good, as it's impossible for resurrection to continue after a decapitation.
  • In "Nelson v. Murdock", Foggy says, "You're going to get yourself killed if you keep this up. You know that, right?" At the end of Season 1 of The Defenders (2017), Matt is seemingly killed when Midland Circle is imploded to destroy a Hand base (he somehow survives), confirming what Foggy was saying.
  • In "The Path of the Righteous", Karen calls Wesley's bluff by asking him "Do you think this is the first time I've shot someone?" As it turns out it wasn't.
  • In "New York's Finest", Frank tells Matt that he's one bad day away from becoming him. While Matt narrowly avoided going down that road in season 3, Avengers: Endgame saw Hawkeye lose his family in the Snap and become a vigilante not dissimilar to Frank. Worse still, Hawkeye reveals that Fisk even manipulated and used Clint to get rid of some of his rivals.
  • "The Dark at the End of the Tunnel" sees Matt rush to stop Elektra from killing Stick. That's fine. But try watching it knowing that he'll fail to talk her out of it the next time this happens.
  • "Please": When Karen talks with Neda Kazemi in the hospital, she brings up her brother's death using weaponized tears as a way to get Neda to open up to her. Karen makes it seem as though she had been wrongfully blamed for his death. It's later revealed Karen was 100% responsible for Kevin's death, and in the episode after that, when she and Matt are talking in the church basement, she fully admits she was. Indicating that the events of Season 3 between episodes 2 and 10 have pushed Karen to fully accept that kind of responsibility. Something that one could see happening, considering episode 10 ended with Father Lantom dead and Matt beaten senseless, all thanks to Karen's simple desire to do the right thing backfiring and the fallout snowballing as a result.
  • In Season 3, the woman that Dex stalks? Her name is Julie Barnes. This last name is shared with Zoey Barnes from House of Cards (US). Both women are killed off in a quick and anticlimactic way.
  • Dex's attack on the Bulletin in Season 3 can be a little uncomfortable seeing as it came just months after a shooting rampage at the Capital Gazette in Maryland.
  • The Daredevil movie had a scene where Bullseye spared a priest in a church, not out of morality, but because he's busy with Daredevil. Dex on the other hand, kills Father Lantom in the cathedral while targeting Karen.
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks!:
  • Tim Goodman of Hollywood Reporter lost credibility for many commenters when his first paragraph was basically an attack on superhero fiction in general for taking away from "complicated films about real people with real emotions" and seeming to have a misunderstanding of Daredevil as a character and how his powers worked.
  • Oliver Sava of the AV Club received a lot of negative comments with his reviews of the first season, which often made complaints of the roles and treatment of female characters. The commenters thus make accusations of coddling female characters and criticizing any character flaws they possess. He also makes the same arguments that other viewers have (such as Karen's questionable methods of bringing Ben to meet Fisk's mother), but the commenters reacted negatively to that criticism as well. Fans are not excited to see how the Season 2 reviews play out.
    He didn't help himself at all by calling Élodie Yung's portrayal of Elektra on par with Jennifer Garner's, as they had opposite strengths and weaknesses. Plus an utterly bizarre criticism of how Elektra's characterization makes little sense until you get the reveal about her true motivation later on, when that's exactly the point the show was going for.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Charlie Cox rightly receives a lot of praise for the work he puts into properly portraying a blind person. All that effort ended up costing him the role of Han Solo, however, as he'd conditioned himself to not look directly at others when speaking to them and it made him seem stand-offish and awkward during the audition.
  • Prior to being cast in the series, Deborah Ann Woll was briefly in a very different Hell's Kitchen.
  • After all the controversy over the black costume:
    Claire Temple: Your outfit kind of sucks, by the way.
    Matt Murdock: [unmasked] Yeah, it's a work in progress.
  • In "The Path of the Righteous", Melvin asks Matt if he wants a suit like Fisk's. Consider Matt's 2015 costume◊.
  • Fisk does a lot of staring at the wall in this series. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, Steve asks Natasha if she's just gonna stand there and stare at the wall.
  • A few weeks after the first season's release, Matt's former orphanage-mate Skye got to do her own take on wiping out a bunch of villains in The Oner. And then it happened again in the next season.
  • In Teen Wolf, Gideon Emery played a blind werewolf able to get around easily because of his enhanced super senses. Now he's on a show about a blind man able to get around easily because of his enhanced super senses. Not only that, but Gideon Emery's Deucalion was the Big Bad of that season, the most terrifying werewolf ever seen on the show thus far. Wilson Fisk decapitating the demon wolf with a car door was all the more epic and enjoyable for fans of both shows.
  • While balking over Wesley's idea to hire Nelson & Murdock to defend Healy, Leland likens Matt and Foggy to the magpies Heckle and Jeckle, one of whom has a British accent, the other a New York accent. Charlie Cox and Elden Henson are English and American, respectively.
  • When Matt confronts his father's killer Roscoe Sweeney in "Kinbaku", he says he's killed many people's fathers. Season 2 aired the same week as the episode of Gotham where Bruce Wayne confronts the criminal who killed his parents, getting the same reaction almost word-for-word.
  • Nikolai Nikolaeff, who played Vladmir, also portrayed Dominic, the White Ranger, in Power Rangers Jungle Fury. Eka Darville who plays Malcolm on Jessica Jones (2015), played Scott the Red Ranger, in Power Rangers RPM making it the second time these two actors have been a part of the same franchise. Furthermore, just as RPM was the season that directly followed Jungle Fury, Jessica Jones is the second Marvel Netflix show made after Daredevil.
    • Furthermore, Emma Lahana, who played Kira, the Yellow Ranger, in Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, has been cast as Brigid O'Reilly in Cloak & Dagger (2018), bringing the amount of former Power Rangers in the MCU up to three.
  • The previous Daredevil and Elektra — Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner — had a Meet Cute on camera and a messy, public divorce in real-life before the series aired. When Elektra is introduced in season 2, she and Matt are exes — and not amicable ones.
  • Man of Steel fans will get a chuckle knowing that Superman's mom is now dating Wilson Fisk.
  • Early in season 2, Brett Mahoney compares the Punisher to Paul Kersey, the protagonist of Death Wish. Fast forward to 2018, and Vincent D'Onofrio (Fisk) appears in the remake of the movie as Paul Kersey's brother Frank.
  • We're supposed to think Matt is wrong for dismissing Stick's story about the creation of the Hand and the Chaste, but then The Defenders reveals the whole thing and it turns out the version Stick told is at best highly simplified and misleading.
  • The Punisher's defeat of Schoonover becomes even more impressive given that with the actor returning to the MCU a bit later, he took out freaking Surtur!
  • The previous live-action version of Bullseye only wore ordinary clothing including a trenchcoat, rather than the outfit of his comic book counterpart and became so fixated upon Daredevil that one of his demands for being the one to kill him was "a bloody costume". In the show, Dex does begin wearing a costume at some point, but one that once again isn't like his comic book counterpart's. Whose costume is he wearing? Daredevil’s.
  • Father Lantom's repeated efforts to have coffee with Matt can take on an entirely different meaning after Luke Cage (2016) used the phrase as a euphemism for sex.
  • In Ellison's first scene in season 1, he pushes Ben Urich to cover a fluff story headlined, "Rumors Bubbling: Will Hell's Kitchen Finally Get a Subway Line?" which Ben writes off as worthless. The first season came out in April 2015, and by that September, the southern part of Hell's Kitchen received subway service with the extension of the 7 train to 34th Street-Hudson Yards.
• Ho Yay:
  • There's a smattering of jokes about the exact nature of Matt and Foggy's relationship, and their personal arc across the first season wouldn't be out of place between a hero and his love interest. This was lampshaded several times in "Nelson v. Murdock" AV Club reviewer Oliver Sava spoke at length about their romantic chemistry in the same episode.
  • Wesley and Fisk, with some even nicknaming Wesley, "Smithers". Regardless of sexuality, each one is clearly the most important guy in the other's life.
• I Knew It!:
  • For those who understood the "Get Maggie, he's awake" line and the staging of the last shot in The Defenders of Matt on a bed in a convent, it was no surprise when it was announced that Matt's mom would appear in season 3.
  • Many called Marci's return in season 3 well before any casting announcement, given Amy Rutberg going on spoiler lockdown and dropping not-so-subtle hints about it.
  • There were a number of fans who predicted Wilson Bethel would be playing Bullseye well before it was officially announced, mainly based off of how he was initially announced as being cast as "FBI Agent #2".
• Iron Woobie: Matt Murdock. As a child, he gets blinded by acid, loses his father, and endures brutal training from a Jerkass mentor. As an adult crimefighter, he get beaten up, framed for crimes he didn't commit, and is hopeless outnumbered by the criminals in Hell's Kitchen. What makes Matt's fight especially tough is how all he feels even more pain than an average human being thanks to his enhanced senses. So much so that even touching cotton sheets feel like being scraped by rough sandpaper. When taken into account how frequently he gets injured and has to constantly experience intensified pain, he's living a life of pure hellish anguish. Yet he still fights on, learns from his mistakes, and stays committed to helping others as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Wilson Fisk may be a criminal and murderer, but when you learn his backstory and how he became the way he is, you can't help but pity the poor bastard. Vincent D'Onofrio really sells this; in every scene where he isn't angry, Fisk looks perpetually sad, as if he's filled with remorse over what he's become.
  • The show turns Bullseye of all people into one. In the series, Dex is also unstable, sadistic and homicidal but it's made repeatedly clear that he's fully aware there's something seriously wrong with him and he absolutely hates and tries desperately to overcome and control it by forming attachments to people to help bring out his good side. It's heartbreaking to see his sincere efforts to resist giving in to his urges undermined by Fisk's manipulations.
• Love to Hate:
  • Wilson Fisk, thanks to Vincent D'Onofrio's brilliant and endearing performance.
  • Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter. Wilson Bethel's performance solidified him for instant fan approval.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Wilson Fisk/Kingpin, Madame Gao, and Stick. See here.
  • James Wesley is Fisk's extremely competent right-hand man, who handles the everyday affairs of his boss's criminal empire. Able to skillfully blackmail, bribe, and threaten anyone he so chooses into carrying out his dirty work, Wesley simultaneously juggles interactions with the various crime lords of New York to gain their trust and partnership with Fisk. A genuinely loyal servant of Fisk's who would risk his own life to protect the interests of his friend and employer, Wesley's charisma and micromanagement helped Fisk get his empire off the ground and maintain its power even at Fisk's most vulnerable, impulsive period.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Quoting "Bring Me to Life" in discussions, as the song was in the 2003 movie.
    "WAKE ME UP!"
  • Nelson and Murdock, Avocados at Law. ^note In a flashback, Foggy butchers "abogado", the Spanish word for attorney.
  • The fact that Matt somehow ended up in a dumpster in "Cut Man" is frequently brought up and repeated in fanfic, sometimes with Hawkeye involved.
  • "YOU EMBARRASSED ME. EMBARRASSED ME IN FRONT OF HER!!"^explanationFisk's Pre-Mortem One-Liner when he kills Anatoly for crashing Fisk's dinner date with Vanessa
  • Matt's crying face◊ as he emulates the memetic one from Dawson's Creek.
  • The Punisher's courtroom speech how he enjoyed killing criminals became a reaction video for describing usually not very common views, such as praising unpopular movies.
  • The Oh, Crap! face that Foggy makes in Season 3 upon reading on his iPhone that Fisk is out of prison is a go-to response to hearing something shocking.
  • "That's hard. That's really hard."^note A phrase that Dex uses when he attempts to fake empathy for another person.
  • "Who eats a burger with a spork?"^note Dex pulls a prank on Fisk where he takes a bite out of a burger being delivered by room service before sending it in, then watches on the monitor to wait and see how Fisk reacts.
  • Matt's use of a neti pot to clear his sinuses in the first episode of Season 3 has caused the pot to earn quite a following.
  • Comedian Dex ^note The image of Dex onstage with a microphone◊ accompanied by an a tasteless joke.
  • Bleating Dex ^note Dex bleats like a goat when he reaches out to Julie and complains that the FBI are making him a scapegoat
  • “When I was a boy...” ^note  Fisk begins one of his monologues to Dex about when he killed his father as a child
  • "So I am not here to threaten you. I'm here...to kill you!" ^note Fisk says shortly before choking Ben Urich to death. It's since been used by the fandom when imagining altercations between two parties.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Fisk crosses his whenever he hurts innocent people. He was the one who orchestrates a bombing campaign to obliterate the Russians, which cost the lives of some innocent people. He has Elena Cardenas killed purely as bait to lure Matt into ambush. He has Julie Barnes murdered because he perceives her presence as a potential threat to his use of Dex as a loyal attack dog.
  • Nobu crosses it in the second season when he abducts kids and drains their blood.
  • In the third season, Vanessa finally crosses the line upon ordering Ray Nadeem's death, eliminating any doubt of her being no better than Fisk.
  • Dex killing the old lady who had bought the "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" painting. Fisk had let her keep it and didn't order Dex to do this, but Dex does it anyway because in his warped mind he thinks that Fisk will actually be pleased with him for doing it. However Fisk did nurture Dex wanting to please him partially by killing Julie. Of course, that's if you are one who doesn't think Dex already crossed the line when he killed Father Lantom in the course of trying to kill Karen at the church.
• Narm: Has its own page.
• Narm Charm:
  • Fisk's and Matt's final battle may seem a bit cartoony, but it's still a no-holds-barred, brutal face-down between the two each of them gives as much as they take.
  • Likewise, Fisk's long-winded speech in the FBI van is still seen by many as beautifully symbolic.
  • The outrageously stereotypical Oireland mob in the Season 2 premiere, who are tolerable because they only exist to get wiped out as an introduction to the Punisher, plus serving as a fun reference to Charlie Cox's Irish hitman character Owen Sleater in Boardwalk Empire.
  • Fisk beating people up like a gorilla tends to also look like a toddler throwing a fit, especially when he's wearing a prison jumpsuit, which makes it look like he is wearing a onesie. However, his fight with the Punisher is saved because even Frank seems to think it's funny.
  • Dex's incredible aiming abilities and status as an Improbable Weapon User definitely counts as Crazy Is Cool and is what a lot of fans were looking forward to from seeing Bullseye adapted to the show. But as cool as it is, it also looks pretty ridiculous seeing him attacking other people with baseballs and rosary beads. Of particular note is during the church fight, where he hurls a church collection plate at Matt like a frisbee, with it even making a loud "BONG!" when it hits.
• Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: Odds are many fans weren't surprised that Colonel Schoonover had a bigger role to play than his one scene at Frank's trial, simply because he's played by Clancy Brown.
• Never Live It Down: A highly popular method for crossover fics with other parts of the MCU is to have the other character find Matt beaten up and tossed in a dumpster, after this only happened to him once (granted, it did serve as our introduction to MCU Netflix staple Claire Temple).
• Older Than They Think: Daredevil's black costume is actually very similar to the Daredevil costume in the second movie spinoff of the 70s Hulk TV series. And, closer in time, it is similar to the one used in Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra, a reimagination in the Ultimate Marvel imprint where Matt and Elektra are Not Wearing Tights.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Officer Sullivan, the clean cop who finds Matt and Vladimir. Being an honest cop makes him stand out, as is the fact that he tries to warn his fellow cops of his location rather than lie and say it was a false alarm. Too bad it doesn't save him.
  • Tony Curran's Finn Cooley only gets one episode to shine, "Penny and Dime", but still leaves quite a memorable impression.
  • Clancy Brown as Frank Castle's commanding officer, who Frank saved from his own incompetent orders and now speaks in glowing terms about his heroism. And then he becomes a two scene wonder when he's revealed to be the Blacksmith.
  • Jeri Hogarth in the Season 2 finale.
  • Madame Gao in Season 2, who only appears for a single scene throughout the whole season.
  • Lesley Ann Warren as Esther Falb, the Holocaust survivor who has balls of steel when it comes to Fisk's efforts to get the "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" painting back from her.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Several of the ships, including "Clairedevil" (Matt Murdock / Claire Temple), "Kastle" (Karen Page / Frank Castle), and "Karedevil" (Karen Page / Matt Murdock).
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • For many viewers who weren't too keen on spending a lot of screentime with Foggy, finding him to be a boring and pointless character who exists as a geek/nice guy trying to woo the hot girl in the office (Karen), the episode "Nelson v. Murdock" gave more depth to his character and his relationship with Matt. Most of the critics were won over.
  • The show managed to save Karen Page's character in the eyes of many people. In the comics, Karen's most well-known attribute was her role in the Born Again storyline, where she became a drug-addicted porn star that sold out Matt's identity for a heroin fix, information that eventually made its way up to Fisk, who then proceeded to dismantle Matt's life. The show gives Karen a much more proactive role, even having her take over Ben Urich's role as Daredevil's newspaper confidant and informant by the end of Season 2. Her drug addiction was relegated to her backstory in season 3.
  • Season 2 managed to save Karen in the eyes of those who felt that in season 1, she came across as someone blindly charging into things and getting people killed. Season 2 shows her meticulously researching and to be less willing to involve others. Season 3 went a step further in this regard, giving Karen an entire episode dedicated to her backstory that also adds more context to a lot of her prior behavior.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Up to twenty minutes per episode for the first several episodes of Season 1 were spent on Foggy and Karen's budding relationship. This was negatively received, with many fans calling it boring filler and a Give Geeks a Chance-type romance.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Some people prefer to cheer Wilson Fisk on, despite all the horrible things he does, both due to his adorkability and D'Onofrio's excellent performance. Most viewers prefer to root for him when it comes to Evil Versus Evil conflicts, such as his feud with Dutton, the Russians and the Albanian Mob.
  • A great number of fans found themselves rooting for Frank Castle in Season 2, as he brings up some valid points. Plus, Bernthal's performance is nothing short of amazing.
  • After everything Fisk put Dex through, up to and including killing Julie just for the sake of controlling him, and even going so far as to feign a fatherly affection for him after the fact, it's hard not to hope Dex succeeds in slaughtering both him and Vanessa, especially when she is revealed to be just as evil as he is, if not more so.
• Rewatch Bonus: Fisk wearing his father's cufflinks every day takes on a completely different meaning knowing full-well the nature of his abusive father and what Fisk did to him.
• Ship Mates: In the second season, people shipping Karen with Frank Castle became one of the more popular companion ships to Matt/Elektra or those who still ship Matt/Claire.
• Shocking Moments:
  • You just know that shit's hitting the fan when Wilson Fisk casually blows up an entire Russian mob before the season has even reached the halfway point.
  • The first time Matt takes down a room full of henchmen. While this is normal for superhero fare, especially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where being a One-Man Army is standard for everyone prominent without powers, in this show Surprisingly Realistic Outcome. Matt receives realistic injuries and the scene shows just how brutal you would have to be to really fight more than two men at the same time and win.
  • Karen grabbing the gun? Maybe. Killing James Wesley? Whoa. Flaunting about it to Fisk's face trying to get him to react? Balls of steel.
  • The Punisher being announced for Season 2. He introduces himself committing multiple massacres that everyone assumes were committed by an army, before they realize it was all just one man.
  • Wilson Fisk's return in Season 2. His absence in the first part of the season is a major plot point as it creates a vacuum for other gangs to move in. The show goes just long enough without checking in on him that many viewers just assumed they'd have to wait until Season 3 to get more Fisk, only for him to come roaring back towards the end of the season. Best part? He uses the "kingpin" name for himself after disposing of Dutton. And then in season 3, he makes the FBI agents under him use that as his codename.
  • Season 3 doesn't just bring back Wilson Fisk as the main villain, it also brings in a highly reinvented version of Bullseye, Matt's other known arch-nemesis.
  • Season 1 may have had Nobu, but Season 2 we get to see the organisation he represented: The Hand. And they are depicted gloriously.
  • Even with as much of a Magnificent Bastard as Fisk was before, the reveal of just how much of Season 3 was part of his plan three-quarters of the way through is jaw-dropping.
• Signature Scene:
  • The Hallway Fight scene in "Cut Man" is clamored by fans and critics alike as one of the show's high points for its excellent cinematography and the realistic manner Matt is exhausted after the ordeal.
  • The show's creators seem to be aware of this, as another similar fight scene occurs in Season 2's "New York's Finest".
  • Frank Castle telling his past to Daredevil in "Penny and Dime". The scene overall has been acclaimed as of the most emotional moments in MCU history, thanks in part to Jon Bernthal's amazing performance as he voices the pain and regret he's been through ever since the death of his family.
  • Season 3 has its own one-take Hallway Fight, but it's a much longer and true continuous take and involves Matt being caught in the midst of a prison riot against inmates paid by Fisk to kill him.
  • Also from Season 3 is the battle of words between Karen and Fisk, marking the first occasion where we've seen Fisk interact with one of Matt's loved ones.
  • One more for Season 3, with the Brechtian presentation of Dex's backstory being a highly unusual and thus instantly memorable style for the show. Many consider it to be Fisk's version of Misty Knight's crime scene reenactments in Luke Cage.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The first episode is very much a place setter, introducing us the main characters, giving us the idea of Wilson Fisk as He Who Must Not Be Named, and showing how Matt's powers work. However, the storyline seems a bit cliche, and dialogue isn't particularly clever. Episode 2 introduces Claire Temple, gives a healthy dose of realistic analysis to Matt's abilities and pain tolerance, and ends with a kickass fight scene. Most critics seem to agree that The Oner ending the episode is what sold them on the series. It's the third episode where Wilson Fisk is introduced properly.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • Season 2 has the awkwardly edited hallway fight in "New York's Finest", alongside Matt's fight with a Hand assassin in "Guilty as Sin", where they completely failed to conceal Charlie Cox's double.
  • Vincent D'Onofrio puts in a valiant effort to make them seem heavy, but the barbells Fisk lifts while in prison clearly don't have much weight to them.
  • The various newscasts that Fisk watches about the Bulletin attack at the beginning of "Aftermath" are all very obviously green-screened, with the actors playing reporters all standing in front of superimposed B-Roll with much different lighting. It doesn't help that all the shots have exactly the same composition, indicating they were likely all shot on the same soundstage at the same time.
• Spoiled by the Format:
  • In the first season finale, it appears that Fisk's organization has fallen apart and he is following all of his men to prison, as our heroes celebrate. Of course, with 22 minutes left, it isn't going to be that easy.
  • Season 3 takes a cue from Iron Fist (2017) and actually tries to fool us into thinking everything's going to wrap up when there's still an entire episode to go.
• Squick:
  • The newspaper sticking to Matt's bloody back after his fight with Nobu.
  • Stick biting off the ear of the Hand boss.
  • Matt uses a Neti Pot to clear his sinuses, causing all the blood that had been blocking his ear to come gushing out.
  • In a flashback to Karen's time as a Greasy Spoon waitress in Fagan Corners, the local police chief asks his food to be replaced, and she sees that she unknowingly had a nosebleed that fell into it.
• Strawman Has a Point: Mitchell Ellison was right not to print Ben's article about Fisk killing his father, because Ben admitted it was completely on the say-so of Fisk's senile mother. Unlike his article on Union Allied, all of Ben's articles up till then were completely from informant testimony with no hard evidence. Ben is trying to take down a major criminal who's got good publicity with the press, using nothing but hearsay, and wonders why no one would listen. The show itself seems to acknowledge this as Ellison was ultimately revealed to only be a Red Herring for Fisk's mole at the paper, meaning everything he said was genuine. This is further emphasized by Ellison's backing of Karen's investigation into Frank Castle's past during Season 2.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. In the comics, Leland Owlsley, AKA The Owl, is one of the Marvel Universe's big-name street-level villains, a Creepy Awesome drug lord. In the show, they turned him into an old, corrupt banker who's something of a Dirty Coward and a Smug Snake, which rubbed some fans the wrong way. With that said, Owlsley mentions his son Lee a few times, and had the show not been cancelled, Erik Oleson had planned to include Lee as the main antagonist of season 4.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Ben Urich's death, given the character's historical connections to upcoming franchises Spider-Man and Jessica Jones. According to Word of God it was a sad case of the deal with Sony for the rights to Spider-Man not quite being worked out in time, as they made the first season under the impression that this was the only time they could have used him. As a result, Karen's season 2 storyline is used to further develop her investigative side and even ends with her getting hired by Ellison to work at the Bulletin, setting her up to more or less take over Ben's role beginning in Season 3.
  • Karen killing Wesley. His actions seem unusual for him in abducting her, and his death leaves the show without its most notable character in Fisk's empire. However, it forces Fisk to become more personally active in his enterprises and the plot. And his death does eventually have payoff in season 3 when Fisk finds out about it, and tries to kill Karen as revenge.
  • Many viewers were disappointed that although Claire was marketed as one of the show's leads, she was essentially a glorified guest star who was Put on a Bus. Given that she was associated with Luke Cage in the comics rather than Daredevil, however, it's also possible this was an extended Early-Bird Cameo for his series. The producers seem to also think so, as she was confirmed to return for Season 2, and then got a bigger role in Luke Cage (2016) Season 1.
  • Nobu, despite coming Back from the Dead and being the de facto Big Bad of the second season as the leader of the Hand's New York operations (or at least one faction, as Iron Fist (2017) reveals), barely gets any more screen time or characterization than he did in the first season. The reveal of his return happens very late in the season and his rare appearances without the heroes around are never used to explore his thoughts, his past or the beliefs and workings of the organization he serves as the face of. Downplayed after seeing Iron Fist, as he was likely already little more than an empty shell devoted to the Hand after numerous resurrections destroyed his humanity. Even Peter Shinkoda, who plays Nobu, says that he thinks Nobu could have been made more compelling if we had gotten some backstory about him.
  • After the highly intriguing introduction of Stone, he's never seen again even when the Chaste reenters the picture in Season 2, and The Defenders strongly implies he was Killed Offscreen.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • After Matt is shot in the head in the Season 2 premiere, the next episode features a terrifying scene where he temporarily loses his hearing, and then his head acts up again during the climactic fight and allows the Punisher to capture him. And that's the last we see of it, with his injury seeming to be magically cured for the rest of the season. In fact, it doesn't really come back in any form until the first few episodes of Season 3, where Matt's injuries from Midland Circle have left him partially deaf in his right ear.
  • Early in season 2, Brett mentions what the police call "Devil-Worshippers," people inspired by Daredevil to go out and fight crime like he does. They are never seen, and never mentioned again.
  • Season 3 features no acknowledgement at all that the last time we saw Karen and Ellison was in The Punisher (2017), Ellison was deeply betrayed by Karen hiding that Frank was still alive, other than a remark Ellison makes to Karen about her becoming a pain in the ass in a much shorter time than Ben managed to do so.
  • Season 3 seems to set up a conflict between Fisk and the Albanians after Fisk snitches on them as part of his plans to get out of prison, but this is dropped after Matt gets information from the imprisoned Albanians at Rikers.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • The show's crew didn't even try to top Wilson Fisk as the Big Bad, with season 2 instead being composed of several mini-arcs that each have their own main villain, one of whom is even Fisk again. And then Fisk returns to being the main villain in season 3.
  • The second season in general, while still acclaimed, wasn't seen as good as the first one by critics, with a 75% rating in Rotten Tomatoes in contrast to the first one's 98%.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: Season two has a lengthy case of this. Once Elektra is introduced, Matt moves into her plot line, leaving Karen and Foggy to keep the Punisher storyline going. But there's very little interaction between the two plotlines, outside of Madame Gao (retroactively as of Iron Fist (2017)) and a retroactive one through Wilson Fisk, causing this trope.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • One does have to question if Jack Murdock ever considered the traumatizing effect his death would have on his recently blinded son when he set up his Thanatos Gambit. Enough that for Season 3, the writers had to go back and add a little more depth to his decision, to establish that Jack was a good but flawed man who made a bad decision rather than a heroic one.
  • Karen Page taking Ben to see Fisk's mother is often seen as a jerkass move on her part. Not only is it a severe Yank the Dog's Chain moment that exploits his love of his wife and makes him think there's a new option for her (when there isn't at all), it put him in Fisk's crosshairs.
  • Karen constantly tells off Matt and Foggy of lying and keeping secrets, despite keeping some pretty big secrets of her own, such as that she killed James Wesley and lying about Frank kidnapping her when she really ran off with him.
  • Foggy gets quite a bit of this himself. At first, he has quite a few legitimate criticisms about Matt's nighttime activities. But then he has the nerve to suggest that the real reason Matt wants to save Frank Castle from death row is not because saving a man's life is Matt's (and by extension Foggy's) moral and ethical obligation as a lawyer to do^note Considering that Frank's incompetent public defender was allowing Frank to go to death row, which is a blatant slap in the face to everything the law profession stands for, but because Frank is a fellow vigilante... who uses methods Matt has made perfectly clear he does not approve of.
  • In Season 2, Matt has it when he's shown to be more interested in beating up bad guys than helping out at Nelson & Murdock (which the first episode shows takes on a lot of poor and underprivileged clientele), then showing more interest in hunting down the Punisher (who the audience knows only goes after criminals) than general purpose super heroics, then outright abandoning his law firm and friends for the rest of the season to help out his crazy and manipulative ex-girlfriend. While Matt does try to dissuade Elektra's attempts to invade his life, it's clear he's not trying as hard as he could and that she's very easily roping him into things with little prodding. He also doesn't find some way to tell Karen about Elektra, leading to him looking like a dumbass when Karen walks in and sees Elektra in Matt's bed, with no idea what was going on.
  • Charlie Cox has said in interviews that this trope is one of his favorite things about playing Matt:
    "I think my favorite thing about this character is what the writers have done with him, which is they've made him someone who hopefully — we've made — we've found in a superhero who's relatable. We meet someone who is — of course — he's a superhero, and of course, he's a force for good. He's incredibly brave, and incredibly generous of spirit, and kind, and is trying to help the city. He's trying to help people. He's selfless in that way. But, at the same time, we also meet someone who suffers from very human character flaws. He's very stubborn. He's got a temper. He takes things too far sometimes. He's deeply arrogant at times, and he believes he has a childlike belief of his invincibility. And at times — hopefully as an audience — at times, you look at Matt, and think to yourself, 'Dude, what are you doing!? Like, be more sensible' or 'Take it easy.' Hopefully, you relate to him, but you relate to him because he kind of make the same mistakes that we make. And for a superhero, that's very exciting to me. That's fun."
  • Matt's decision to intimidate Wilson Fisk by threatening to write a letter to the State Department requesting Vanessa's visa be declined is completely asinine, immediately leading to Fisk literally beating some sense into him.
  • DA Reyes. Her mistakes during a sting got Frank Castle's family killed, and while it is implied she regrets this, afterwards she tries repeatedly to kill Frank simply to save her own career, acts like a complete bitch, and threatens to ruin the careers of three innocent, well meaning people, plus her assistant. And yet we're supposed to feel sorry for her simply because her daughter was threatened. Few tears were shed at her death.
  • Ray Nadeem. All of the elements are there to show he was supposed to be a sympathetic character... the relative with cancer (which has financially impacted him heavily thanks to Fisk's machinations), the difficulties at work, his family being terrified of the latest developments, and the fact that all of these situations are a result of Fisk manipulating him. The problem is that the character comes off sort of shallow and bland, rendering these just a collection of cliches that have less impact than they would if he seemed a deeper or more thoughtful person; so when he makes arguments to get Fisk things he wants, or goes around hassling Karen and Foggy because Fisk fingered Matt, he more comes off as just a jerk and a pest than a principled FBI agent doing his best in trying circumstances.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Despite it being a Marvel brand, the TV-MA rating is warranted. The blood and language is enough to scare most parents away. When it was confirmed that the Defenders franchise would stream on Disney+ in March 2022, the Parents Television Council took issue with this despite the fact that the move would come with the addition of parental controls for the service.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: A lot of Fisk's actions in season 3 seem very influenced by the election of Donald Trump as President, with Erik Oleson even making remarks in interviews that hinted that Trump's presidency was influential in writing the season. As one Redditor pointed out, there are lots of parallels, like the fake news comment Nadeem makes to Karen when she's trying to ask him how Fisk got out, to the way Fisk manipulates the media to create smokescreens to hide his actions, or the idea that law is circumvented through control, and the FBI is run by a deep state (or criminal organization). Hell, the hotel he's under house arrest in is known as the Presidential Hotel.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • It's safe to say that the series has erased any ill feelings that people still had over the 2003 film. As Rifftrax put it: "'Marvel presents'? Shouldn't that be 'Marvel takes a mulligan'?"
  • Elektra also proved popular among fans, and after being one of the most contentious parts of the Affleck film and her spin-off receiving mixed reviews.
  • The third season, which saw the return of Fisk to his rightful place as the main villain and also introduced a highly reinvented version of Bullseye, was seen as a significant improvement over Season 2 with a 93% rating by Rotten Tomatoes, with many reviews considering it to be the best season of Marvel's Netflix shows to date.
• The Woobie:
  • Melvin Potter. The poor guy gets forced into assisting Wilson Fisk because Fisk threatened his girlfriend Betsy Beatty, just because he happens to be a pretty skilled tinkerer.
  • Ben Urich. He's treated like a washout and is disrespected, he's reluctant to aid the investigation team on multiple occasions, loses his job just after his wife misses out on another extension and after Karen misleads him into thinking he was being shown a good facility for his Alzheimer's-afflicted wife that's actually just the place where Fisk is hiding his mother, he is killed by Fisk for something that he wasn't even responsible for.
  • Ray Nadeem is an honest and hardworking FBI agent who only wants best for his family. He goes into financial debt to handle his sister-in-law's cancer treatments thanks to Fisk cutting off her insurance, tries his best to weather things as Fisk manipulates him and Dex into doing his dirty work for him. And after an effort to get him to speak out against Fisk in front of a grand jury fail due to Fisk tampering with the jury, he just goes home, films a dying confession to his family, and is just resigned to his fate when Dex comes by to kill him.

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