History Fridge / Daredevil2015

* When one considers how Fisk's long-term gambits work out in Season 3, one wonders how exactly he was able to quickly assert total control of the prison upon Dutton's death. But in the scene where Fisk asks Stewart Finney for information on Dutton's connection to the gangs involved in Frank's family's death (following the time skip), notice that he's got at least a half-dozen or so yellow notepads on the table in his cell. Fisk likely wasn't gathering information on Dutton and his associates, he was also gathering information on all the other prisoners and guards to figure out how best to secure their loyalty, and also researching criminal enterprises he could sell out to Nadeem once it was time for that scheme to go into play.

* There's an obvious but subtle hint that Fisk's shanking was staged right from the start. In season 2, Fisk's control of the guards was shown to be so absolute that they stood there and did nothing as he throttled Matt around and threatened him. Then in his first scene in season 3, he's shown ordering the inmates to quiet down so he can enjoy his omelet in peace, and they all instantly comply. So there's no way Jasper Evans should be able to approach Fisk in the rec room with a deadly weapon in hand, and get close enough to attack him without any of the other inmates in the room intervening...unless, of course, Fisk has allowed him to do so. That Fisk arranged his own shanking is also made apparent by the fact that Evans stabs him near the waist in an area where there aren't any vital arteries to sever, as opposed to do something like stab Fisk in the heart or slash his throat. After all, the attack had to be non-fatal yet also look convincing enough to sell to Nadeem the fiction that Fisk was in danger.

* Early in Season 3 Episode 6, Karen is seen sitting down for a conference meeting at the ''Bulletin''. Ellison makes a comment about how their health insurance was recently slashed, joking, "I recommend that you don't get sick." This is the same day as Dex's attack on the ''Bulletin'', where multiple people are killed or severely injured. A few episodes later, Nadeem learns that Fisk manipulated his sister-in-law's insurance coverage to gain leverage on him. Meaning Dex's attack on the ''Bulletin'' may not have only been to discredit Matt and kill Jasper Evans, but also open up opportunities to get leverage over journalists at a paper that he just recently lost his leverage in (after Caldwell had been arrested). If enough time had lapsed, and Karen hadn't been fired, what's to say that Fisk wouldn't find a wounded reporter struggling to pay their medical bills, and offer to pay for their treatment in exchange for them spying on Karen for him.

** Since we don't know how much time passed between Seasons 2 and 3, for all we know Fisk started his gambit to use Foggy's brother as leverage using the reserve fund Donovan had managed to set up for him while he was waiting to make a move against Dutton.
* At the start of Season 3, we see no sign of Stewart Finney or the Valdez brothers, the three inmates Fisk recruited in Season 2 to be his advisor (Finney) and bodyguards (the Valdez brothers) with his reserve funds. Knowing [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness what Fisk does to henchmen he has no further use for]] can give some disturbing ideas as to what may have happened to them.
* When Matt is sulking in Fogwell's after learning the truth about Sister Maggie being his mother, and later when Matt, Karen and Foggy are there to negotiate a plea deal for Nadeem, you can see that Fogwell's has closed recently, as evidenced by [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EH1T_-xWsAIASGj?format=jpg&name=large a "FOR LEASE" sign strewn on the floor]]. While it's possible that Fogwell's only closed sometime in between ''The Defenders'' and ''Daredevil'' Season 3 (since Matt must've still been working out somewhere in order to leap back into fighting shape when he fought the electronics thieves after the earthquake), it's also very likely that it might've closed as early as sometime between Seasons 1 and 2, as evidenced from the fact that Matt never returned to Fogwell's during present day scenes in Season 2's timeline (the only time he went there was a flashback in 2x05 when he took Elektra there).
* In season 3, Matt goes to the prison to find information on Fisk's time there, using Foggy's Bar ID to pose as him. The officials at the prison maneuver him to an exam room deep in the prison so that way, he will have to fight his way out when Fisk gives them the green light to begin the attack. The first thing that's apparent is that Fisk clearly put a lot of planning into this attack that he'd directed his men at the prison to carry out if one of the lawyers who put him away happened to show up looking into his activities. The second thing that's apparent is that Fisk was planning to have this elaborate attack carried out against Foggy, who isn't much of a fighter. Notice that Fisk only finds out that his men are going to be attacking Matt and not Foggy when Matt is caught on camera in the exam room (which is why the first thing Fisk says when Matt answers the phone is, "You're not Franklin Nelson"). It's by pure luck and some help from the Albanians that Matt is just barely able to escape the prison, but had it really been Foggy, things probably wouldn't have ended very well for him.

** The revelation that Fisk had Nadeem marked for over a year further explains a seemingly out-of-character moment from Fisk that should've given Nadeem red flags. When Hattley is tasking Nadeem with visiting Fisk in prison, Nadeem protests that "we talk to this guy every month, and every month he gives us nothing." He goes to the prison, meets Fisk, and as soon as he identifies himself, Fisk immediately makes a speech asking Nadeem if he has any loved ones he'd do anything for. At first, one might be led to think that the threat of legal consequences to Vanessa that was talked about in Fisk's first scene has led to him caving in and deciding to become an informant to protect Vanessa. But watching this scene with the knowledge that Fisk has been manipulating Nadeem, it's obvious that Fisk's willingness to play ball is actually because he's decided it's time to put his plans for securing his release from prison into motion. And that his words in this scene ("I have made many mistakes. But I accept the debt I'm paying because of them. But what I will not accept... is that the woman that I love should have to pay for them, too. I would do anything to protect her. Anything") were carefully tailored to strike a chord with Nadeem on account of the financial troubles Fisk drove him into.

** In Hattley's first scene, Nadeem goes to her office and asks for a promotion. Hattley, who knows Nadeem is under a mountain of debt, tells him he can't get promoted because he'd be easy pickings to be corrupted. She also says she's been holding him back for reasons that have nothing to do whatever line of bullshit she fed him. Just a few sentences later, she sends him to the most notorious corrupter of cops and politicians in the city to make a deal. Then, just as the Jasper Evans lead comes out to suggest that Fisk is playing them, Nadeem magically gets his promotion. Meaning her offer to run the Fisk intel up the food chain was nothing more than a bluff to make Nadeem actively choose not to report it. She was more than likely setting Nadeem up to be the FBI's fall guy, so that if anyone begins to suspect something, Nadeem would take the fall for Fisk and the other agents, and the press would see him as an agent struggling with debt who made a deal to get Fisk out of prison and has been covering for his illegal activities, which ultimately is the plan Fisk decides to go for after foiling Nelson & Murdock's attempt to put Nadeem before a grand jury before Vanessa decides to order Nadeem's execution.

* In the first episode, when Matt and Karen are in Matt's apartment, Karen makes small talk to ask Matt about his blindness. She's very nonplussed to the fact that Matt was blinded in a car accident and very sympathetic, saying, "I can't imagine what that must be like..." It turns out Karen ''does'' have an idea what it must be like, as in Season 2, the dossier Ellison gives to Karen showing Ben's research into her background includes a newspaper clipping showing that her brother was killed in a car accident. When Matt says, "I'd give anything to see the sky one more time," Karen has this look of complete understanding, because that's what she thinks about the accident that killed her brother every day, and how she'd give anything to look at him one more time…

* Before Foggy and Karen learn the truth, notice how Matt responds when Foggy and Karen ask about his injuries. He doesn’t actually say anything untrue. He lets them assume he fell down, or walked into something, but what he actually says is stuff like, “I just, uh, wasn't paying attention last night. It's my fault.” Even while lying by omission pretty much constantly, he avoids lying explicitly. It’s actually kind of like his no-kill policy, where he doesn’t deliberately kill people but does plenty of stuff that could easily result in someone dying (throwing people through windows, off roofs, etc.)

* While it seems odd that Matt didn´t go up with Karen for sex after their first date, the scene in the following episode when he's in the car and changing into his tux as he and Elektra are leaving the gala makes clear why: the scars. Karen would see his scars all over his torso.

** The revelation that Hattley and the others are dirty retroactively explains how exactly Fisk was able to blatantly manipulate Dex into his assassin without any of his colleagues intervening and stopping him: the people who should've seen what Fisk was doing and put a stop to it had all been bribed or intimidated into looking the other way, while Fisk sent Nadeem on the snipe hunt against the Nelson & Murdock members to keep him occupied.

** ''Dex actually cannot defeat Fisk''. Fisk is bulky enough that he can tank right through Dex's projectile attacks and strong enough to inflict some real damage; notice that it was Fisk who took Dex out of the fight, not Matt, who...

* When one considers how Fisk's long-term gambits work out in Season 3, one wonders how exactly he was able to quickly assert total control of the prison upon Dutton's death. But in the scene where Fisk asks Stewart Finney for information on Dutton's connection to the gangs involved in Frank's family's death (following the time skip), notice that he's got at least a half-dozen or so yellow notepads on the table in his cell. Fisk likely wasn't gathering information on Dutton and his associates, he was also gathering information on all the other prisoners and guards to find ways to secure their loyalty, and also researching criminal enterprises he could sell out to Nadeem once it was time for that scheme to go into play.

* When one considers how Fisk's long-term gambits work out in Season 3, one wonders how exactly he was able to quickly assert control of the prison upon Dutton's death. But in the scene in Season 2 where Fisk asks Stewart Finney for information on Dutton's connection to the gangs involved in Frank's family's death (following the time skip), you'll notice Fisk has at least a half-dozen or so yellow notepads on the table in his cell. Fisk might not just have been gathering information on Dutton and his known partners, but also have been him gathering intelligence on other prisoners and guards to find out how to coerce them into changing sides, and also researching which gang would be best to sell out to Nadeem.

* There's an obvious but subtle hint that Fisk's shanking was staged right from the start. In his first scene in season 3, it's revealed that Fisk's control of the prison is so absolute that he could bark orders for the inmates to quiet down so he can enjoy his omelet in peace, and they all instantly obey. So there's no way Jasper Evans should be able to approach Fisk in the rec room and get close enough to attack him without any of the other inmates in the room intervening...unless, of course, Fisk allowed him to do so. That Fisk arranged his own shanking is also made apparent by the fact that Evans stabs him near the waist in an area where there aren't any vital arteries to sever, as opposed to do something like stab Fisk in the heart or slash his throat.

** As Karen enters the penthouse, the camera swivels around her several times as she takes in her surroundings before Fisk makes his GrandStaircaseEntrance. It conveys that Fisk has the high ground, the power. Karen might be in over her head.

** After Karen admits that she was with Ben when he spoke with Fisk's mother (something Fisk really didn't like) she also reveals that she knows Fisk killed his father. The camera pans behind Karen, and as Karen's head passes through the frame, Fisk suddenly looks smaller.
** Fisk, of course, is prepared with his own barb and asks how long Karen has known about Matt's alter ego Daredevil, leading to Karen making several micro-expressions. She's caught off guard, confused, then realizes that Fisk knows and then there is a little bit of fear and hesitation.

** But, Karen has another secret: Wesley's death. She glances up at the security camera and then whispers that she killed Wesley. Here, there are more close up shots, as the conversation is more intimate and so is the camera work. It's now Fisk's turn to be the one making micro-expressions as he goes from confusion, to realization, to rage, at realizing Karen is Wesley's killer.

* There's an obvious but subtle hint that Fisk's shanking was staged right from the start. In his first scene in season 3, it's revealed that Fisk's control of the prison is so absolute that he could bark orders for the inmates to quiet down so he could enjoy his omelet in peace, and they all instantly obey. So there's no way Jasper Evans should be able to approach Fisk in the rec room and get close enough to attack him without any of the other inmates in the room intervening...unless, of course, Fisk allowed him to do so. That Fisk arranged his own shanking is also made apparent by the fact that Evans stabs him near the waist in an area where there aren't any vital arteries to sever, as opposed to do something like stab Fisk in the heart or slash his throat.

* There's an obvious but subtle hint that Fisk's shanking was staged right from the start. It does initially seem odd that Jasper Evans would be able to get close enough to Fisk to shank him without being stopped. Especially considering that in his first scene in season 3, Fisk's control of the prison was shown to be so absolute that he could bark orders for the inmates to quiet down so he could enjoy his omelet in peace, and they all instantly obeyed. There's no way Evans would be able to sneak up on Fisk while Fisk was in a vulnerable position...unless Fisk allowed him to do so. That Fisk arranged his own shanking is also made apparent by the fact that Evans stabs him near the waist in an area where there aren't any vital arteries to sever, as opposed to do something like stab Fisk in the heart or slash his throat.

* Rewatching Season 3, there are a lot of hints that Nadeem's boss Tammy Hattley is working for Fisk well before the reveal is made:
** In Episode 1 alone, Nadeem goes to his boss's office and asks for a promotion. Hattley, who knows Nadeem is under a mountain of debt, tells him he can't get promoted because he'd be easy pickings to be corrupted. She also says she's been holding him back for reasons that have nothing to do whatever line of bullshit she fed him. Just a few sentences later, she sends him to the most notorious corrupter of cops and politicians in the city to make a deal. Then, just as the Jasper Evans lead comes out to suggest that Fisk is playing them, Nadeem magically gets his promotion. Meaning her offer to run the Fisk intel up the food chain was nothing more than a bluff to make Nadeem actively choose not to report it. She was more than likely setting Nadeem up to be the FBI's fall guy, so that if anyone begins to suspect something, Nadeem would take the fall for Fisk and the other agents, and the press would see him as an agent struggling with debt who made a deal to get Fisk out of prison and has been covering for his illegal activities, which ultimately is the plan Fisk decides to go for after foiling Nelson & Murdock's attempt to put Nadeem before a grand jury before Vanessa decides to order Nadeem's execution.

** The revelation that Hattley and the others are dirty retroactively explains how exactly Fisk was able to blatantly manipulate Dex into his assassin without any of his colleagues intervening and stopping him: they had all been bribed or intimidated into looking the other way, while Fisk sent Nadeem on the snipe hunt against the Nelson & Murdock members to keep him occupied.

* In Season 2 Episode 12, when Karen's being held captive by Schoonover, Frank comes to save her by t-boning her car with a pickup truck. Karen is left with a nasty cut on her forehead from hitting it against the driver's side door. Afterwards, she crawls out of the car and collapses, very much in pain and shock. She begs Frank not to kill the Blacksmith, saying that she’ll be dead to him, but he does it anyway. She walks back to the car wreck and stares at it before bursting out crying. On first watch, it seems like her reaction is because Frank wouldn’t listen to her. However, watching this scene after watching her flashback episode in Season 3, Karen’s breakdown is because she's being reminded of her brother’s death in similar circumstances.

* When Nadeem is introduced in the first episode of Season 3, it's to make a DealWithTheDevil with Fisk, wherein Fisk sells out the Albanians in exchange for charges against Vanessa being thrown out. At the end of the season, when Matt defeats Fisk, he forces Fisk to make a literal DealWithTheDevil where as long as Fisk never tries to escape jail or hurt Karen and Fogggy, Matt will leave Vanessa alone. In a lot of works of fiction, when someone makes a deal with devil or some other powerful evil entity, there’s always catch to what you gain no matter how good it may seem at first. Essentially, the Devil let Fisk’s wife walk freely as long as Fisk agreed to rot in jail, or his own personal hell. Nicely foreshadowed when he was in the car with Nadeem prior to the Albanians' ambush and musing about love being a perfect prison.

* In his introductory scene, Nadeem promises his son Sami to make a pool in the backyard so Sami and his friends can party in it. As the season progresses, the hole is gradually dug in the backyard, presumably for the pool and using the money Nadeem is earning from his work with Fisk and his new promotion. By the end of the season, when Dex comes to the house to kill Nadeem, he shoots Nadeem in the head and he falls into the hole. Nadeem literally dug his own grave by working with Fisk.

* In Season 1, Madame Gao and Owlsley betray Fisk by trying to kill Vanessa, because they think that Fisk's love for her makes him weak. Fisk killing Owlsley in retaliation ends up sending him to prison for this leads to Hoffman turning on Fisk. In Season 3, Fisk betrays Dex by having Julie killed, for the exact same reasons. Matt uses this to turn Dex against Fisk.

* Why would Stick give Elektra -- who is [[AxCrazy predisposed to be a killer]] by virtue of being the [[DarkMessiah Black Sky]] -- weapons like sai? Because sai were designed to be killing weapons, instead meant only to disarm their opponents. Whether this was his way of teaching her restraint or if he was trying to declaw a tiger is another matter.
* In the Season 3 premiere, Matt's practice boxing match has him wearing black gloves while his opponent's are red - foreshadowing the conflict this season of Matt fighting only in his black outfit vs an imposter Daredevil garbed in red.

* In season 3, Matt goes to the prison to find information on Fisk's time there. The officials at the prison maneuver to an exam room deep in the prison so that way, Matt will have to fight his way out when Fisk gives them the green light to begin the attack. But the first thing Fisk says when Matt answers the phone is "You're not Franklin Nelson." Fisk didn't plan this attack for Matt, he planned it for ''Foggy.''

!!FridgeBrilliance

!FridgeHorror

* When Matt is sulking in Fogwell's after learning the truth about Sister Maggie being his mother, and later when Matt, Karen and Foggy are there to negotiate a plea deal for Nadeem, you can see that Fogwell's has closed recently, as evidenced by [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EH1T_-xWsAIASGj?format=jpg&name=large a "FOR LEASE" sign strewn on the floor]]. While it's possible that Fogwell's only closed sometime in between ''The Defenders'' and ''Daredevil'' Season 3 (since Matt must've still been working out somewhere in order to leap back into fighting shape when he fought the electronics thieves after the earthquake), it's also very likely that Fogwell's might've closed as early as sometime between Seasons 1 and 2, as evidenced from the fact that Matt never returned to Fogwell's during present day scenes in Season 2's timeline (the only time he went there was a flashback in 2x05 when he took Elektra there).

* Why would Stick give Elektra -- who is [[AxCrazy predisposed to be a killer]] by virtue of being the [[DakrMessiah Black Sky]] -- weapons like sai? Because sai were designed to be killing weapons, instead meant only to disarm their opponents. Whether this was his way of teaching her restraint or if he was trying to declaw a tiger is another matter.

* Ben Urich getting killed is bad enough, but how many times is his Alzheimer's-afflicted wife going to have to be told the bad news? Although, people might just stop repeating that to her at some point, which is probably just as bad.

* Rory, one of Finn's men, threatens a store owner at gunpoint and tells him that they're looking for a man who "Wears a jacket... even in the middle of summer." This is a clear lampshade on how Castle constantly wears his iconic black trenchcoat no matter the weather. However, if you think about it, there's a reason the guy might live like that. As a sniper, Castle tends stay in one place and pick off his targets, which isn't going to make him hot wearing the jacket, since he doesn't exert much energy. Also, he tends to snipe from rooftops, where it will be naturally cooler because of the altitude, and additionally, it appears as though he prefers to work at night, during which time it will also be cooler compared to the day time.

* Why would Stick give Elektra -- who is [[AxCrazy predisposed to be a killer]] by virtue of being the [[DakrMessiah Black Sky]] -- weapons like [[SaiGuy sai]]? Because sai were designed to be killing weapons, instead meant only to disarm their opponents. Whether this was his way of teaching her restraint or if he was trying to declaw a tiger is another matter.

** The reason Karen is able to get the drop on Wesley isn't because he acted out of character. It's because he made a HORRIBLE misread of the person and situation he was dealing with. He misread Karen the same way most viewers probably misread the scene. He asks her if she really thinks he'd be stupid enough to leave a loaded handgun within reach of her. Karen says "I dunno. '''[[PreMortemOneLiner Do you really think this is the first time I've shot someone?]]'''" and we can tell from the way her voice hardens saying that line that she is not bluffing. Wesley screwed up. He didn't take proper precautions (tie her up, not load the gun, not put the gun on the table within reach of her, not answer the phone, etc.) because he made a bad mistake in reading her. His own poker face in the scene is excellent, but his reading of his opponent is horrible.\\
** There were many times throughout Season 1 that could have gone this way, but in those scenes Wesley's reads turned out to be right. So we see him intimidate underlings, and survive. We see him in his first appearance intimidate and threaten Farnum, threaten Farnum's daughter, and survive. If he'd made a bad read there, Farnum could caused him all kinds of immediate problems even in a public place. But Wesley did take that precaution -- he approached him in a public park. Well, Wesley thought Karen was even weaker than Farnum. That's why he didn't even take the precaution of doing it in public.\\

The reason Karen is able to get the drop on Wesley isn't because he acted out of character. It's because he made a HORRIBLE misread of the person and situation he was dealing with. He misread Karen the same way most viewers probably misread the scene. He asks her if she really thinks he'd be stupid enough to leave a loaded handgun within reach of her. Karen says "I dunno. '''[[PreMortemOneLiner Do you really think this is the first time I've shot someone?]]'''" and we can tell from the way her voice hardens saying that line that she is not bluffing. Wesley screwed up. He didn't take proper precautions (tie her up, not load the gun, not put the gun on the table within reach of her, not answer the phone, etc.) because he made a bad mistake in reading her. His own poker face in the scene is excellent, but his reading of his opponent is horrible.\\
There were many times throughout Season 1 that could have gone this way, but in those scenes Wesley's reads turned out to be right. So we see him intimidate underlings, and survive. We see him in his first appearance intimidate and threaten Farnum, threaten Farnum's daughter, and survive. If he'd made a bad read there, Farnum could caused him all kinds of immediate problems even in a public place. But Wesley did take that precaution -- he approached him in a public park. Well, Wesley thought Karen was even weaker than Farnum. That's why he didn't even take the precaution of doing it in public.\\

** The second is the fact that in ''Series/LukeCage2016'', Cottonmouth uses Spurlock's Mortuary to cremate some of his victims. We know this because when Scarfe kills Chico and delivers his body to Cottonmouth, he tells Cottonmouth "I'm sure that your homey down at Spurlock's Mortuary can hook you up." And later, after Scarfe gets shot, he tells Luke and Claire that the mortuary cremated Tone after Cottonmouth killed him as punishment for killing Pop. Knowing all that, Fisk likely had Wesley's body incinerated. So the best guess Matt and Foggy probably have about Wesley is that he skipped town before the FBI could get to him in response to Hoffman's snitching.

* Brett remarks to Foggy and Karen in "[[Recap/Daredevil2015S2E2DogsToAGunfight Dogs To A Gunfight]]" about how [[Series/JessicaJones2015 Oscar Clemons]] once said "We gotta treat witnesses like mushrooms: feed 'em shit and keep 'em in the dark." Clemons may never have said that onscreen in ''Jessica Jones'', but it's a great analogy for how, in that same episode, Reyes manipulates Nelson & Murdock into letting her use Grotto as bait for Frank Castle. The episode title is also appropriate, because Frank uses a Dogs of Hell biker's dead body in the truck as a distraction for the ESU team to shoot at while he prepares to snipe Grotto from another location.

* In ''Series/IronFist2017'', it's revealed that the Hand has infiltrated various elements of society, since Bakuto mentions that his camp has gotten people into places like City Hall and hospitals at one point. In fact, one of Colleen Wing's former students, Becca Woo, works at Metro-General. Suddenly, the Hand's attack on the hospital, and the cover-up, make sense: it was all an inside job.

* As ''Series/ThePunisher2017'' shows, the key to Frank's drive and his nightmares is inaction. As a service member, his unit doing some pretty horrendous things and while uncomfortable, never blew the whistle, even when Gunner tried to bring to light the illegality of what they were doing. On his return to the United States, he became a liability, out of Colonel Schoonover and the rest of his unit's surveillance, and they couldn't trust it. Either directly or indirectly, Frank's inaction towards atrocity and war crimes while in the service caused his family's death. That is why Frank is in so much disbelief about the "light" Matt says is in everyone: because the potential for harm/blowback is much greater from the perspective of someone like Frank who has taken major personal losses.

* While audiences wait for ''Series/TheDefenders2017'' to come out, a couple of fanfics have been made speculating on how Karen takes Matt's reveal of his secret identity. [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12052046/1/Every-Single-One-of-Us This one in particular is noteworthy,]] as Karen realizes that Foggy had to be ''terrified'' every time Matt was late for work or failed to show up, fearing that he'd either been hurt or killed. This even happened on screen: look at the expressions on Foggy's face when he's searching for Matt after the Punisher's attack at the hospital, or his visit to Claire's emergency room after the police ambush. And it had to be worse for Foggy when he had to lie to Karen while having no clue where Matt is.

* ''Series/IronFist2017'' creates a few:
** Multiple people point out in that show that The Hand's technique of reviving people from the dead has negative side effects. Harold Meachum's resurrection foreshadows Elektra's changes in ''Series/TheDefenders2017''.

* Watching the rooftop scene between Matt and Frank after watching ''Series/ThePunisher2017'', Frank is actually very hypocritical: he criticizes Matt for “running around the city in little boy’s pajamas and a mask” and goes on to talk about the difference of his experience, being in the military:

* Frank's line to Matt on the roof about how "We're soldiers. We don't wear masks" becomes even more poignant after ''Series/ThePunisher2017'' reveals what went down in Kandahar: Frank was part of an illegally sanctioned CIA black-ops squad and unknowingly was participating in war crimes, like the execution of Ahmed Zubair, which is the whole reason Frank's family was killed. Frank's disgust with Matt in that moment is because he feels Matt is hiding behind the mask and using it as a means to divorce himself from the stuff he does while wearing it. Frank knows it, because he's been behind such a mask himself. He knows how it feels. He knows there's something fundamentally dishonest about sheltering yourself behind it as you commit horrible acts. He knows that the mask is a symbol of shame, of not being able to face yourself in the mirror, and he made a conscious decision to not hide behind one again in his life. Even after he's recognized and exposed escaping from O'Connor's house after rescuing Curtis, he doesn't hide behind one anymore. The masked Frank plays a huge role in his nightmares. It's his greatest source of pain -- that guilt, that shame, that regret -- and it's one that's caused him the greatest tragedy.

* Another one regarding the Punisher: Watch his assault on the hospital in the first episode. Why is he missing all those shots? [[spoiler: He's not trying to kill Grotto, since Karen is right next to him. He's trying to drive them to her car, where he can pick Grotto off in a more precise method, i.e. the sniper rifle he has waiting on the roof.]]
* In the first episode of Season 2, Turk says there are rumors of a new crew in town with military precision. We later find out it is only one man. Frank Castle. But... [[spoiler:There is a new crew. The Blacksmith's. And they're ex-soldiers. So those rumors were true, just not in the way that the rumors were going.]]

* The revelation of Stick and Elektra's relationship casts a new light on Stick's behavior towards Matt. Stick probably started training Matt soon after he had Elektra adopted by the Greek diplomat in order to protect her from the Chaste. Stick didn't just leave Matt upon finding out that Matt was beginning to see him as a surrogate father because he was a dick. He also left because he was still hurting from [[spoiler: having said goodbye to Elektra and didn't want to risk losing another child.]]

* The events of Season 2 show that Nobu and his associates may have had a eminently practical reason for wanting a very specific city block in Hell's Kitchen, on top of whatever mystical requirements they had. [[spoiler:Digging a super deep hole in the middle of Manhattan without running into any existing or planned subway tunnels or interfering with the water and electrical grids may have severely limited their choice of sites]].

* Finn's crew shows a counterpoint to Frank Castle's "I hit them and they stay down". Even though the individual people he hits stay down, there are other criminals taking up the gauntlet that will threaten everyone with death for potential leads. Had Matt not intervened he would have died trying to escape the Irish. Compared to Season 1 where Wilson Fisk wanted to dispatch the man in the mask as discreetly as possible so that the non-corrupt police elements wouldn't get in his way, with the Punisher it's "kill or be killed". [[spoiler: Furthermore while Matt's refusal to kill Fisk allowed him to get strength in prison, it was Frank who gave Fisk unlimited influence over the prison.]]

* When Vanessa first drinks the poisoned champagne, you can see her react to the taste and glance down at the glass as if it has an unexpected flavor. She wisely doesn't drink any more champagne, being smart enough to know that the unfamiliar taste is a sign something's not right. Hence why she only ends up spending a few days in the hospital instead of the morgue.

** Poisoning the champagne to kill Vanessa and look like an unsuccessful hit on Fisk is a pretty slick BatmanGambit on Owlsley's part when you consider that Fisk admits to being uninterested in wine (and is so lacking in knowledge on it that he has to defer to Wesley for recommendations), while Vanessa is.

** The opening consists of various invisible objects, that have their outlines revealed when red liquid is poured on them. This is just a fanciful depiction of Matt's radar sense.

** In Episode 1 alone, Nadeem goes to his boss's office and asks for a promotion. Hattley, who knows Nadeem is under a mountain of debt, tells him he can't get promoted because he'd be easy pickings to be corrupted. She also says she's been holding him back for reasons that have nothing to do whatever line of bullshit she fed him. Just a few sentences later, she sends him to the most notorious corrupter of cops and politicians in the city to make a deal. Then, just as the Jasper Evans lead comes out to suggest that Fisk is playing them, Nadeem magically gets his promotion. Meaning her offer to run the Fisk intel up the food chain was nothing more than a bluff to make Nadeem actively choose not to report it. She was more than likely setting Nadeem up to be the FBI's fall guy, so that if anyone begins to suspect something, Nadeem would take the fall for Fisk and the other agents, and the press would see him as an agent struggling with debt who made a deal to get Fisk out of prison and has been covering for his illegal activities, which ultimately is the plan Fisk decides to go for after foiling Nelson & Murdock's attempt to put Nadeem before a grand jury before Vanessa decides to order Nadeem's execution.
** In Episode 2, Nadeem meets with Hattley after the Albanian bust on Fisk's information. She tells him he's still being denied promotion, and says to him, "I've got a boss too, and he's got a hard-on for agents in financial holes." Later, we learn that Fisk manipulated Nadeem's finances to make him desperate enough to want to make this informant deal work. And true to what Hattley tells him later, her denials of his promotions really were her just trying to keep him out of the hands of Fisk's machinations, but Nadeem still charged right into that trap.

** The revelation that Hattley and the others are dirty retroactively explains how exactly Fisk was able to blatantly manipulate Dex into his assassin without any of his colleagues intervening and stopping him: they had all been bribed to look the other way, while Fisk sent Nadeem on the snipe hunt against the Nelson & Murdock members to keep him occupied.

* When one considers how Fisk's long-term gambits work out in Season 3, one wonders how exactly he was able to quickly assert control of the prison upon Dutton's death. But in the scene in Season 2 where Fisk asks Stewart Finney for information on Dutton's connection to the gangs involved in Frank's family's death (following the time skip), you'll notice Fisk has at least a half-dozen or so yellow notepads on the table in his cell. He might not just have been gathering information on Dutton and his known partners, but also have been him gathering intelligence on other prisoners and guards to find out how to coerce them into changing sides, and also researching which gang would be best to sell out to Nadeem.

** In fact, the hits to organized crime that happened across the interceding shows between ''Daredevil'' Season 1 and ''Daredevil'' Season 3 might very well have been why Fisk felt he could make a lucrative profit extorting protection money from other gangs that have taken losses/experienced increased police attention. It certainly would explain why Rosalie Carbone was among those rounded up for the restaurant meeting: she lost a considerable amount of territory in the events of ''Luke Cage'' Season 2, between Mariah Dillard's death and Luke Cage creating a crime-free zone in Harlem. When Foggy presents his theory to Karen, notice that the other gangs outlined in his napkin diagram are organizations that have suffered from vigilantism: the Golden Tigers and Yangshi Gonshi (decimated by Davos in ''Iron Fist'' Season 2), the Maggia (both Rosalie Carbone, and the Gnucci outfit that Frank killed in the first episode of ''The Punisher''), and the Mexican cartel (decimated by Frank at the start of ''Daredevil'' Season 2).

** Speaking of Harold Meachum, a number of {{Website/Reddit}}ors [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Defenders/comments/61j5c9/weird_ddpunisher_theory_spoilers_for_dd_s2_and/ have noted]] [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Defenders/comments/61b9x8/iron_fist_punisher_hand_connection_xpost_rironfist/ that]] the behavioral changes Harold undergoes after each resurrection are also present in Frank Castle, giving the suggestion that Frank has the Hand's resurrection abilities too.

* When one considers how Fisk's long-term gambits work out in Season 3, one wonders how exactly he was able to quickly assert control of the prison upon Dutton's death. But in the scene in Season 2 where Fisk asks Stewart Finney for information on Dutton's connection to the gangs involved in Frank's family's death, you'll notice Fisk's bed is covered in a lot of yellow notepads. Those notepads might not just have been for gather information on Dutton and his known partners, but also might very well have been him gathering intelligence on other prisoners and guard to find out how to threaten them into joining his side, and also researching which gang would be best to sell out to Nadeem.

* When you learn what's motivating Frank, it makes more sense that it already did he'd take the act of offering [[[[PapaWolf child porn]] [[TranquilFury personally]] when you learn what's really motivating him.

* In the first episode of season 2, Turk says there are rumors of a new crew in town with military precision. We later find out it is only one man. Frank Castle. But... [[spoiler:There is a new crew. The Blacksmith's. And they're ex-soldiers. So those rumors were true, just not in the way that the rumors were going.]]

* Finn's crew shows a counterpoint to Frank Castle's "I hit them and they stay down". Even though the individual people he hits stay down, there are other criminals taking up the gauntlet that will threaten everyone with death for potential leads. Had Matt not intervened he would have died trying to escape the Irish. Compared to season one where Wilson Fisk wanted to dispatch the man in the mask as discreetly as possible so that the non-corrupt police elements wouldn't get in his way, with the Punisher it's "kill or be killed". [[spoiler: Furthermore while Matt's refusal to kill Fisk allowed him to get strength in prison, it was Frank who gave Fisk unlimited influence over the prison.]]
* Why is Fisk able to throw Matt around like a ragdoll, and Matt almost makes no attempt to fight back? Because Matt doesn't want to give away his secret identity. In that scene, Matt's also in the presence of guards and a lawyer that he suspects are all loyal to Fisk. If Matt had fought back, everybody in there would've known something was off with him. And after Matt kicked Fisk's ass, he would've had to kick every corrections officer in there as well. After seeing his moves. EVERYONE would've known he was Daredevil. Matt let himself get throttled, because he was only there seeking to confirm what he already suspected - that Fisk was indeed controlling the prison and orchestrated Castle's escape. Fisk's ranting while throwing Matt around confirmed that.
* In Fisk's last onscreen appearance in season 2, when he's in his jail cell, he asks for his file on Matt Murdock, having started to put together that Matt is the man in the mask. This seems puzzling at first, that Fisk would have a file on Matt. But if you remember from the first episode of season 1, after Rance is deposited outside the ''Bulletin'' offices with Karen's Union Allied flashdrive, we cut to Wesley in the car talking on the phone with Fisk. Nelson & Murdock comes up and Fisk tells Wesley, "Start a file. They may be of use." Two episodes later, when Wesley visits Nelson & Murdock to solicit them on the bowling alley assassin, he already knows things about their college educations and their internships at Landman & Zack. So Fisk has had files on Matt, Karen, and Foggy since the start of the show.
** Not only that, but it's clear that Fisk's people actually spent their time researching Matt and his friends in between season 1 and season 3. In season 1, Karen is able to get the upper hand and kill Wesley because he didn't know about her past in Fagan Corners or that she knows how to use a handgun, so he saw nothing problematic about putting a loaded handgun on the table in front of her. By season 3, Felix Manning knows all about Karen's past and threatens her with it when she tries to question him, and how Fisk is able to find enough information linking Matt to Daredevil.
* Some research into season 1 filming locations establishes that Wilson Fisk's apartment isn't in Hell's Kitchen at all. [[http://untappedcities.com/2015/05/05/10-nyc-film-locations-for-marvel-studios-netflix-series-daredevil/8/ Rather]], the establishing shot of the building shows it's The Yves, which is on 7th Avenue and 18th Street, in Chelsea. This may be intentional: Fisk doesn't live where his criminal enterprises operate. In other words, he doesn't shit where he eats.

* There is a nice parallel between the last Matt-Karen scene in both season 1 and season 2. Season 1 ends with Matt and Karen reading about the recently named Daredevil in the ''Bulletin'' outside of a now recently established Nelson & Murdock, then Matt extending a hand out to Karen as they head inside, denoting optimistic themes. Season 2 ends with Matt revealing to Karen that he is Daredevil inside a closed and disbanded Nelson & Murdock. [[https://lcarenpage.tumblr.com/post/157874086167 In fact, the cinematography is almost identical]]: Matt extending his right hand out to Karen, and the camera cutting to a lingering close-up of Karen's face.

** It's common for people to criticize Wesley's death by saying it was out of character or contrived for Wesley to do something as stupid as go out and threaten Karen on his own without telling Fisk where he was going, or leaving a loaded handgun where Karen can easily grab it. But what these people don't realize is that while intelligence/competence is one of Wesley's main character traits, it's not his only one: his three main traits are intelligence/competence, loyalty (to Fisk), and ''overconfidence''. To the point of smugness, actually. Whenever we see him dealing with someone throughout the season, watch how he behaves - he's always in total control, or at least, he acts like he is. Because that is who Wesley is: a guy who's in constant life and death situations, and gets by on confidence and by making reads of people and situations.\\

There were many times throughout season 1 that could have gone this way, but in those scenes Wesley's reads turned out to be right. So we see him intimidate underlings, and survive. We see him in his first appearance intimidate and threaten Farnum, threaten Farnum's daughter, and survive. If he'd made a bad read there, Farnum could caused him all kinds of immediate problems even in a public place. But Wesley did take that precaution - he approached him in a public park. Well, Wesley thought Karen was even weaker than Farnum. That's why he didn't even take the precaution of doing it in public.\\
Wesley's mistakes are based on overconfidence rather than simple incompetence. If Karen had been who he thought she was, he'd have been fine - he made the 'mistakes' he felt he could afford to make, given who he thought he was dealing with. He thought Karen was a woman who could be easily intimidated, when in reality, Karen was sick and tired of people trying to silence her.

** And his death ends up indirectly causing Fisk's undoing twice: in season 1, him being dead and Fisk being distraught over his death leaves him unable to flee town with Vanessa, allowing him to get caught and be sent to jail. And in season 3, Fisk sending Dex after Karen to avenge Wesley indirectly leads to the chain of events that lead to Nadeem turning against Fisk and making a confession video implicating Fisk in all of his crimes.

** As noted on the main page, Matt's ArbitrarySkepticism towards the supernatural in season 2 comes off as really strange, given that this show takes place in New York City, where a self-professed Norse god and a band of other superhumans defeated an alien invasion not so long ago and, hell, where Matt himself gained [[SpiderSense "radar vision"]] from the chemicals in the accident that blinded him. Stick even calls Matt out on his refusal to accept the possibility that the Hand can actually bring the dead back to life, given Matt himself is a devout believer of Catholic Christianity, which centers around the fact that Jesus Christ was killed and then rose from the grave. But, when you think about it, Matt's status as a believer is probably ''why'' he has such a problem accepting the supernatural things he gets involved in. After all, struggling with preserving faith in the face of challenges posed by life is a real world issue. And, [[NoSuchThingAsWizardJesus as a certain trope covers in detail]], despite the great taboo against openly exploring it in depth, in a setting that adds real magic to the world, the validity of certain religions can come into question. Matt is struggling with the concept that if the Hand can bring their members back from the dead, then what does this say about Jesus' status as TheMessiah? Yes, the Bible claims other forms of magic exist but are a result of Satanic influences, but, really, that purported difference between magic and miracles boils down to a cosmological case of "he said, she said", if not circular logic. So, Matt's reactions are just his natural discomfort with the idea that there is magic out there and how to reconcile it with his faith pushing him to be particularly skeptical about it -- not "BeliefMakesYouStupid", just inherently uncomfortable with some of the links that can be drawn by accepting it as given.

* Matt suddenly becoming a couple with Karen partway through season 2, and the relationship ending almost as it's just getting off the ground, is criticized by some people as [[RomanticPlotTumor out of nowhere]], and there have been a number of people who've criticized this plot element saying the relationship feels forced. This is intentional: their romance didn't have a strong foundation because they are attracted to idealized versions of each other that don’t exist. As soon as Frank Castle appears, Karen is pulled into his world and convinced that he’s the answer, somehow, to her guilt over killing James Wesley. This is something she would never share with Matt (at least at this point in her character’s trajectory) which instantly weakens their relationship at her end, and it's easy to see the thinness there, how much she’s holding back. Meanwhile, as soon as Elektra re-enters Matt’s life, he’s addicted to the freedom that comes with being around someone who knows all of him – who he doesn’t have to hide around. Again, this is something he would never share with Karen (at this point) because he’s still convinced he can pull off the double life. He isn’t the mild-mannered lawyer Karen thinks he is, and Karen isn’t the embodiment of innocence and normalcy that Matt thinks she is. They’re kidding themselves.
** Matt and Karen feel "off" compared to Matt's flings with Claire and Elektra, because Karen doesn't actually ''know'' Matt. She knows the two-dimensional image she holds of him in her head as she considers him to be little more than a paragon of the legal profession, and the image that Matt puts out to the world. That becomes more obvious in Season 2 when Elektra enters the picture, but even in Season 1 it's pretty obvious they know almost nothing about each other and don't even try to get to actually know each other. Compare that to Claire, who knows all of Matt's secrets and gets to know him very quickly. Except Matt doesn't really try to get to know Claire either, and as a result the caring seems really one sided. Claire always takes care of Matt but he just ends up causing trouble for her (getting kidnapped by the Russians, losing her job at Metro-General). Claire is smart enough to notice that, so she chooses not to enter a relationship with him and instead enters one with Luke Cage, but she keeps helping Matt, and later on Luke and Danny because she believes in what he's doing- since, as she herself said, she can see the results of his work in her day to day life.
** That Karen had previously dated a drug dealer, as revealed in season 3, gives some roots to [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys her crush on Daredevil prior to learning it's Matt]].

** Matt and Karen's first kiss in "[[Recap/Daredevil2015S2E4PennyAndDime Penny and Dime]]" has a very subtle callback to season 1. He brushes a raindrop off her arm and then cups her face with his left hand. Just as he pulls her in to kiss her, she turns her face into his hand. Because she’s literally been thinking about this moment since she met him, especially since that conversation in season 1 where Foggy pondered what Matt would feel if he were to touch Karen's face, and how she would feel.

** Taken the right way, the line points out that Matt and Karen are two different worlds, but they belong to the same world because they’re part of each other’s worlds. One can’t evolve without the other. As the analysis also points out, on three occasions in season 2, we see Karen leave an interaction with Matt and glancing over her shoulder at him while doing so: 1) when hailing a cab after their first kiss in "Penny and Dime", 2) reentering her apartment after making out on her front steps in "Kinbaku", and 3) him leaving to fight off Nobu after he rescues her and the other Hand hostages in "[[Recap/Daredevil2015S2E13AColdDayInHellsKitchen A Cold Day in Hell's Kitchen]]". Karen always looking back at Matt could be interpreted as ''her'' needing him. So in the season 2 finale, Matt going to Karen, Matt telling her his biggest secret is ''him'' needing her. Furthermore, thanks to his abilities, Matt always knew she was still looking, but never looked back, proving he was not ready to completely let her in. Now, he is.

* Karen's promotional poster for season 2 has her imitating the pose of the painting ''Saint Jerome Writing'' by Caravaggio. It's actually quite appropriate because Karen and St. Jerome are very similar:
** The poser is writing, or more specifically, translating. St. Jerome translated the Bible into Latin. In season 2, Karen wants to “translate” Frank Castle to the people. Her main goal is to show him as more than “just” the Punisher. That’s why she collects evidence about his family’s murder and how it lead him to become the ruthless vigilante.

* The song playing in the background when Frank and Karen are in the diner in "[[Recap/Daredevil2015S2E11380 .380]]" and talking about Matt, is called "She’s Got You", covered by Music/LeeAnnWomack. That is a song told from the perspective of someone who still loves somebody that loves another person, which is the state of Karen's relationship with Matt at the time - deep down, she still somewhat loves him, but he's busy running around with Elektra, his college flame.

* A noticeable theme recurrent throughout the show is that Matt and Karen [[BirdsOfAFeather have an awful lot in common]]. As a result, in season 2, Elektra and Frank Castle drew out the darker sides of Matt and Karen respectively, and highlighted where they differ from one another. Throughout both seasons Matt and Karen have connected over their commitment to doing the right thing even when it's by far the harder thing and adhering to the law. And they each enjoy that side of one another. But then each has this darker side that they don't quite reveal to one another, and Elektra and Frank are the ones who connect with those sides.

** When Stick first appears in his titular episode of season 1, he scolds Matt for having too much luxury in life. He tells him he is weakening himself and coddling himself with his silk sheets and furniture and that it’s distracting. Basically Stick is the voice in Matt’s head that doesn't let him enjoy anything. The very episode after this opens with Wilson Fisk going through his MorningRoutine, showing off the insanely luxurious lifestyle this criminal has, picking out his suit, and chopping up his green onions to sprinkle onto his omelette in his fancy apartment at his giant table. Fisk is a powerful opponent and he uses people’s comforts and support systems to manipulate them. As we see throughout season 1 and season 3, he goes after people’s loved ones and homes (Matt's allies, Jasper Evans' son, Mrs. Shelby's son, Julie, Ray Nadeem's family) yet he is such a delicate guy that if you interrupt his dinner, he will take your head off with a car door. He is weak in that way. He loses it when his routine gets interrupted. In a way, Fisk proves Stick's point: Not having anything to lose does make you stronger by virtue of removing weaknesses that can be exploited. Fisk's weakness twice ended up being Vanessa: in season 1, Fisk's increased time with her led Gao and Leland to think he had become a bit of a softie and they tried to have her killed in a misguided attempt to get him back on track, which ended up with Fisk killing Leland and Hoffman talking, while in season 3, letting her order Ray Nadeem's death ended up causing Nadeem's confession tape to become admissible evidence to put Fisk back in prison, and also gave Matt leverage to use against him.

* There's a noticeable similarity in how Elektra and Karen feel suppressed by the men in their lives, towards the end of season 2. Elektra at one point says to Matt and Stick, "You'd rather see me die than outgrow you," referring to her training and obliquely touching on how both men want to control her and her destiny. Karen has a similar sentiment towards Ellison of "You’d never pull this patriarchal shit with Ben," when he has some cops stationed outside her apartment for protection, to which Ellison counters "You're right. And I'll never make that mistake again. Not about someone I care about." Even though Elektra and Karen are very different women, both have to deal with the patriarchy and patriarchal figures. They're both aware of it and feel stifled by it. They live in a world where violence has nullified all sense of justice and civil obedience, but the patriarchy still exists — and is perhaps stronger than ever. Whether it's police protection for Karen or Stick's controlling training methods for Elektra, or Matt telling Elektra that she doesn't need to kill, the patriarchy is painted as a nuisance, but a necessary one. Both exchanges get at one of Daredevil's worldviews: that the lawlessness of this world has made the patriarchy seem safe. Karen needs to trust the patriarchy because it will help her avoid getting hurt or killed, while Stick and Matt are guiding figures in Elektra's life.

* Even in season 1, Madame Gao, Nobu, and the Hand clearly saw the long game of the Netflix shows, leading into ''The Defenders''. On a rewatch of season 1 knowing full well about the later events of ''Daredevil'' season 2 and ''Iron Fist'', the build ups towards later reveals are clearly seeded. The strongest example is when Nobu is set on fire. Madame Gao mentions that Nobu's body is “being prepared for what’s next.” A first-time viewer will likely assume that Gao was talking about burial, and as a result, it was shocking when Nobu reappeared alive and well in season 2, so Gao is actually talking about resurrecting Nobu through the same means that Harold Meachum was resurrected by. Often in shows with complicated continuity, like with these shows, there are little errors and points where it is obvious that no plan for the next steps existed. But here, this is a case of careful planning.

* When Matt and Foggy are debating whether or not to take a plea deal for Karen, Foggy says, "All right, I'm just gonna say this once and we can move on. You don't necessarily show the best judgement when beautiful women are involved, Matt." It seems at first like a funny joke about Matt's ability to bed women even though he's blind. But in season 2, it's revealed that Matt had dated Elektra in law school, and while Foggy isn't aware of the specific circumstances under which they broke up, he does know that she was incredibly toxic to him and nearly caused him to flunk out of classes, so that line is actually Foggy reminding Matt about how his past fling with Elektra ended and worried that Karen might be a repeat of that.
* In the first episode, when Matt and Karen are in Matt's apartment, Karen makes small talk to ask Matt about his blindness. She's very nonplussed to the fact that Matt was blinded in a car accident and very sympathetic, saying, "I can't imagine what that must be like..." It turns out Karen ''does'' have an idea what it must be like, as in season 2, the dossier Ellison gives to Karen showing Ben's research into her background includes a newspaper clipping showing that her brother was killed in a car accident. When Matt says, "I'd give anything to see the sky one more time," Karen has this look of complete understanding, because that's what she thinks about the accident that killed her brother every day, and how she'd give anything to look at him one more time…

** Bill was abusive and controlling. This is how Fisk sees Hell's Kitchen now: a cesspool of violence and suffering that oppresses everyone who lives there. Fisk killed his father to protect his mother. He approaches the city the same way: he feels he must destroy it in order to save it. His father thought that running for office--rising to the top--would give them a better life because that's where the money is. Fisk is more like his father than he'd like to admit, because he also sees conquest as the only road to power.
** Jack was also at the bottom of the social ladder, but he was loving and supportive. That's the city that Matt knows now, where people work together in the face of adversity--Foggy, Karen, Elena, Claire, Santino--the Hell's Kitchen that Matt lives in feels like a family. Jack didn't try to beat The Man by becoming the oppressor, like Bill, he did it by beating him fair and square in a boxing match that he was supposed to "lose", knowing full well that he'd be killed for it. Matt does not want to become Fisk, he just wants to knock Fisk down a few pegs, and put him in jail, fair and square. He tries to play by the rules, but as a boxer's kid, all he really knows how to do is fight.
** Matt and Fisk both feel responsible for their father's death: for Fisk it was a murder, but for Matt it was a sacrifice on his behalf. As adults, Fisk only knows how to destroy (has anything actually been built by his construction firms?)--he thinks the only way to make things better is to wipe the slate clean. Matt only knows how to fight: he knows the war will never be won (there's always another match), but the point is to keep fighting, and he sacrifices everything he has--his relationships and his body--to keep the fight going day by day.

* Karen becoming a journalist makes complete sense for her arc. Because when Matt saves her life the first time, he does it not just by punching Rance, but by then taking the flashdrive to the ''Bulletin'' and telling the public what was going on. Matt saved Karen's life through an act of journalism, in other words. While Karen’s past is still unclear, she implies from her conversations with Frank at the hospital in season 2 that there was at least some measure of abuse in her family life, so Matt saving her life then may well have been the first time anyone stepped in to help her since the death of her brother. Karen seems to be a deeply lonely person (something that may have allowed Matt to connect with her, being quite lonely himself), and it’s no wonder that Matt saving her life twice, and her losing him to Midland Circle, would have a profound impact on her. In ''The Punisher'', Karen flat out says to Frank that the best way to solve his problems is to let the world know about them. Whether she realizes it or not, Karen is quoting Matt back to him.

** The title of episode 2x06, “Regrets Only” [as in the past catching up with you], becomes ironic as the writers chose this as the episode where Karen and Matt rapidly start to break down as a couple. Up until now they were getting to know one another; their feelings were growing. They shared their first kiss at the end of 2x04 and had their first date in the next episode. But the truth of the matter is both of them got caught up in the fantasy of one another. Their feelings for each other are real...but not what they presented to each other. Karen and Matt are both hiding dark secrets and lies; and ‘honesty’ is the very basis of any solid, healthy relationship. So right there was instant foreshadowing that things are about to deteriorate.

** After shooting Wesley, the next episode opens with Karen having a nightmare about Fisk confronting her in her apartment. This is probably one of Karen’s worst nightmares. He’s telling her about the responsibility of taking a life and how it’ll affect her forever. We know this horrific event has already begun to consume Karen going into season 2, ''The Defenders'', ''The Punisher'', and season 3. Fisk is technically representing her conscience in this moment. Seems kinda odd that Fisk would be the voice screaming inside Karen’s head instead of Matt or Foggy, the lawyers she’s working with. Then add to the fact that this nightmare foreshadows an inevitable consequence for killing Wesley in the future. Karen is going to cross paths with Fisk eventually, the question is when?
* When Matt visits Fisk in prison in season 2, Fisk's lawyer makes him sign a contract, and Donovan replies to Matt's observation about his strict rules that this visit is to be discussed with no one, "Rules are what separate us from the animals on the inside, Mr. Murdock." Moments later, Matt makes the mistake of trying to egg on the lion while he's in the lion's den by threatening Fisk with never getting to see Vanessa again. "Separates us from the animals on the inside," indeed.

* When Matt is working alongside Elektra in season 2, one will notice that Matt's helmet covers his face from his eyes down to his nose, whereas Elektra's mask covers her mouth up to her nose. Together, they have a whole mask; apart, they're only half. But the positions of their masks also symbolizes where each of them is being deceptive: Matt lies with his eyes (blindness), while Elektra lies with her words (seducing Matt in college).
* After it's revealed partway through Elektra's arc in season 2 that the initial relationship she had with Matt had been an assignment from Stick, her approach to reeling him in at the faculty party makes much more sense. She fidgets with her arm bracelets, and circles the rim of her cocktail glass with her finger to make a distinct sound, both of which she uses to get his attention. Ultimately, Matt seems almost hypnotically drawn to Elektra. Whatever the pull may be though, it is clearly not her physical beauty that does the trick.

* When Stick and Matt are at Elektra's grave in the season 2 finale, Matt mentions that Elektra likes/liked orchid flowers. Orchids are mostly epiphytic or parasitic, meaning they need other plants to survive and thrive, much like Elektra was herself, being so strongly attached to Stick.

** In season 3, Matt's mask now has a white band on the bottom edges (due to having been cut from the fabric of a nun's habit) as well as white wraps to protect his hands, which both contrast sharply against the black colors. This likely represents that while Matt is definitely going to embrace his dark side more and more, there ultimately is still that central goodness in Matt that will always remain and win out.

* For season 3, one could say that Matt is fighting two Wilsons: Wilson Fisk, and Dex (played by ''Wilson'' Bethel).

* In a lengthy HourglassPlot, season 1's finale starts with Father Lantom presiding over a funeral for Ben Urich, much like season 3 ends with a funeral for Father Lantom.

* Rewatching season 3, there are a lot of hints that Nadeem's boss Tammy Hattley is working for Fisk well before the reveal is made:
** In episode 1 alone, Nadeem goes to his boss's office and asks for a promotion. Hattley, who knows Nadeem is under a mountain of debt, tells him he can't get promoted because he'd be easy pickings to be corrupted. She also says she's been holding him back for reasons that have nothing to do whatever line of bullshit she fed him. Just a few sentences later, she sends him to the most notorious corrupter of cops and politicians in the city to make a deal. Then, just as the Jasper Evans lead comes out to suggest that Fisk is playing them, Nadeem magically gets his promotion. Meaning her offer to run the Fisk intel up the food chain was nothing more than a bluff to make Nadeem actively choose not to report it. She was more than likely setting Nadeem up to be the FBI's fall guy, so that if anyone begins to suspect something, Nadeem would take the fall for Fisk and the other agents, and the press would see him as an agent struggling with debt who made a deal to get Fisk out of prison and has been covering for his illegal activities, which ultimately is the plan Fisk decides to go for after foiling Nelson & Murdock's attempt to put Nadeem before a grand jury before Vanessa decides to order Nadeem's execution.
** In episode 2, Nadeem meets with Hattley after the Albanian bust on Fisk's information. She tells him he's still being denied promotion, and says to him, "I've got a boss too, and he's got a hard-on for agents in financial holes." Later, we learn that Fisk manipulated Nadeem's finances to make him desperate enough to want to make this informant deal work. And true to what Hattley tells him later, her denials of his promotions really were her just trying to keep him out of the hands of Fisk's machinations, but Nadeem still charged right into that trap.

** As a fan pointed Matt recounting of the story of Job at the start of season 3 leaves out a few details such as how it wasn’t God who inflicted all those pains onto Job but the Devil (though God did give Satan permission in order to test Job's faith) and that in the end God did reward Job ten times after Job proved successful in keeping his faith. Why is this left out? Because Matt has gone through the suffering part but he has not yet experienced the reward. At the end of the season when Matt manages to defeat Fisk without sacrificing his morals his payoff is well earned: He has his friends back, his partner law firm with Foggy is starting back up, his reputation is presumably cleared by the FBI and he seems to be on the verge of a reconnect with his mother. In short just like Job, Matt did suffer but was also rewarded for his suffering.
* In season 3, when Matt goes to the ''Bulletin'' to turn himself in, Dex suddenly shows up and starts attacking. Matt appears moments later with what appears to be his black costume. It seems odd that he would have had his costume nearby to change into until you notice that Matt had simply taken a black jacket and stocking from the coat rack and used that as a makeshift costume. [[https://i.redd.it/pm2s1cynjgv11.jpg]]

* In episode 8 of season 1, Karen takes mild offense at Foggy nicknaming her "K". In her flashback episode in season 3, we learn that her boyfriend Todd used that nickname with her, indicating that she's feeling uncomfortable remembering a painful memory from her past.
* In season 2 episode 12, when Karen's being held captive by Schoonover, Frank comes to save her by t-boning her car with a pickup truck. Karen is left with a nasty cut on her forehead from hitting it against the driver's side door. Afterwards, she crawls out of the car and collapses, very much in pain and shock. She begs Frank not to kill the Blacksmith, saying that she’ll be dead to him, but he does it anyway. She walks back to the car wreck and stares at it before bursting out crying. On first watch, it seems like her reaction is because Frank wouldn’t listen to her. However, watching this scene after watching her flashback episode in season 3, Karen’s breakdown is because she's being reminded of her brother’s death in similar circumstances.

* When Nadeem is introduced in the first episode of season 3, it's to make a DealWithTheDevil with Fisk, wherein Fisk sells out the Albanians in exchange for charges against Vanessa being thrown out. At the end of the season, when Matt defeats Fisk, he forces Fisk to make a literal DealWithTheDevil where as long as Fisk never tries to escape jail or hurt Karen and Fogggy, Matt will leave Vanessa alone. In a lot of works of fiction, when someone makes a deal with devil or some other powerful evil entity, there’s always catch to what you gain no matter how good it may seem at first. Essentially, the Devil let Fisk’s wife walk freely as long as Fisk agreed to rot in jail, or his own personal hell. Nicely foreshadowed when he was in the car with Nadeem prior to the Albanians' ambush and musing about love being a perfect prison.

* In season 1, Madame Gao and Owlsley betray Fisk by trying to kill Vanessa, because they think that Fisk's love for her makes him weak. Fisk killing Owlsley in retaliation ends up sending him to prison for this leads to Hoffman turning on Fisk. In season 3, Fisk betrays Dex by having Julie killed, for the exact same reasons. Matt uses this to turn Dex against Fisk.
* When one considers how Fisk's long-term gambits work out in season 3, one wonders how exactly he was able to quickly assert control of the prison upon Dutton's death. But in the scene in season 2 where Fisk asks Stewart Finney for information on Dutton's connection to the gangs involved in Frank's family's death, you'll notice Fisk's bed is covered in a lot of yellow notepads. Those notepads might not just have been for gather information on Dutton and his known partners, but also might very well have been him gathering intelligence on other prisoners and guard to find out how to threaten them into joining his side, and also researching which gang would be best to sell out to Nadeem.

* Matt may have a ThouShaltNotKill rule, but it is shown constantly that he is very loose with it, as many of the injuries Matt inflicts on his opponents are likely to cause all sorts of dangerous problems such as internal bleeding (Matt constantly punching guys in the face). When Matt throws the Russian off of Claire's roof, it seems really like a stroke of luck that the guy merely ended up in a coma, rather than in a body bag. Same goes when Matt is rescuing Frank Castle from the catacombs - many of the Kitchen Irish grunts Matt knocks out, after a significant amount of time has passed, aren't shown getting up. Meaning they're dead or have permanent brain damage. As Charlie Cox pointed out at a convention in 2016:

* On arrival in jail, Fisk is stuck in a small cell after losing everything, with only a similarly patterned wall that reminds him of the wall he stared at before he murdered his father for abusing his mother. He has plenty of time to stare at the constant reminder of his deep-seated psychological issues. And as season 2 establishes, he isn't in jail long by the time he begins plotting Dutton's demise, or enlisting Stewart Finney and the Valdez brothers to provide muscle and intelligence for him. And as season 3 establishes, the schemes he'd set in motion to manipulate Nadeem and the other FBI agents probably began not too long after he was arrested.

* In Fisk's last scene in his brief season 2 arc, he's shown in his cell asking for his file on Matt Murdock. Fisk has recognized Matt's fighting style, and is beginning to connect the lawyer and the vigilante. That's why it only takes one instance of seeing Matt fight out of costume (in the prison) for Fisk to connect the dots.
* At the end of season 2, Fisk is only starting to reclaim the power he once had, and given he has very little at this point, that may bring only small comfort. But given the vacuum that's opened up in organized crime as a result of Mariah Dillard's death, coupled with the elimination of the Hand with the destruction of Midland Circle, Fisk's rise to Kingpin of organized crime in New York City ''itself'' may be easier done than said.
** In fact, the hits to organized crime that happened across the interceding shows between ''Daredevil'' season 1 and ''Daredevil'' season 3 might very well have been why Fisk felt he could make a lucrative profit extorting protection money from other gangs that have taken losses/experienced increased police attention. It certainly would explain why Rosalie Carbone was among those rounded up for the restaurant meeting: she lost a considerable amount of territory in the events of ''Luke Cage'' season 2, between Mariah Dillard's death and Luke Cage creating a crime-free zone in Harlem. When Foggy presents his theory to Karen, notice that the other gangs outlined in his napkin diagram are organizations that have suffered from vigilantism: the Golden Tigers and Yangshi Gonshi (decimated by Davos in ''Iron Fist'' season 2), the Maggia (both Rosalie Carbone, and the Gnucci outfit that Frank killed in the first episode of ''The Punisher''), and the Mexican cartel (decimated by Frank at the start of ''Daredevil'' season 2).

** It's easy to view the breakdown of Matt's relationships with Foggy and Karen in season 2 as a thesis to everything Stick had stated about the futility of balancing a normal human life with the life of a warrior. A large part of why Matt thought he tended to get under his skin, is because deep down he might actually believe Stick. When Stick says "they'll suffer and you'll die," his words became more and more true, and Matt was slowly growing to accept it. At the end of season 2, when Matt saw what was happening to his friends, how hopeless it had been to try and fight Wilson Fisk in the humane way, trying to use the corrupt legal system to his favor, in Matt's eyes it was hopeless and he was willing to abandon it all. Elektra offered him a larger taste of that side of him, and that created an imbalance that isolated him from Foggy and Karen. That's why he needed people like Foggy and Karen to keep him grounded and remind him that he's only a human, and that he needs support, comfort, friendship, and love from other people if he's going to be constantly facing extreme odds. Which explains exactly why Matt chooses to come clean with Karen about his secret identity at the end of "A Cold Day in Hell's Kitchen".

** Some of the negative things that Matt says about Frank Castle throughout season 2 can't have have gone over too well with Karen. Matt believes Castle kills because he enjoys it, and that makes him no worse than any of the criminals he takes down. Thing is, Karen hasn't told Matt or Foggy about how she killed Wesley. Every time Matt something along the lines of Frank not being better than his opponents, he could've been influencing Karen's view of herself. Remember, Karen gets drawn to Castle as a subject of interest because she wants to believe that even after killing Wesley, she can still be a good person.
** And then Karen comes to realize that Matt probably was right about Frank after watching Frank execute the Blacksmith. Up through the trial, Karen had believed that Frank only killed criminals to deal with his family's death. When he executed the Blacksmith in cold blood, she realized that Frank was a sociopath - he would never be a normal person again and that he actually wanted to kill criminals without remorse. In fact, her realizing this parallels how Matt realized it: when Frank gave him the sadistic choice on the roof of either shooting him or shooting Grotto. Frank was deadset on killing Grotto and no amount of reasoning from Matt would get him to back down. Likewise, he was deadset on killing the Blacksmith and no amount of pleading from Karen would get him to back down.
** Another thing: Karen was mortified about having to kill Wesley, as well as mortified about looking at the dead bodies of Frank's other kills. When Karen sees Frank's handiwork in the diner, she realizes she'd been lying to herself about whether Frank Castle was someone worthy of redemption. Karen desperately wanted to believe that deep down, Frank was a good man, albeit heavily troubled and traumatized, despite everyone - Matt, Foggy, '''even Frank himself''' - telling her that he legitimately ENJOYS killing people. She wanted to believe that so that she could believe she was a good person after killing Wesley, as Deborah Ann Woll commented on one of her boyfriend's podcasts. Consider that after he killed those two men in the diner, Frank told her to stay away from him; his self-awareness and honesty showing there.

** Another thing: the Hand's resurrection technique gradually chips further and further away at a person's humanity and identity each time. But think about Nobu: at the start of season 1 of ''Daredevil'', he is already completely unaffected by cold. So how far gone was he? The good thing is, the later show also confirmed that he's dead for good, as decapitation is the one way the resurrection process can be stopped for good.

Karen had the right idea here - she knows Matt isn’t good for her, and that she (and Foggy) don’t deserve to take the shit he’s been throwing at them throughout the season. Regardless of how they feel about one another, you shouldn’t put up with being lied to, hurt and confused by someone you love, someone that claims to love you back. But Frank has been without anything good for so long that even pain would be a blessing for him. Of course he wouldn’t see being hurt as a reason for Karen to let go of whatever she and Matt might have had, because he’d take anything over being alone.\\

** When Elektra first shows up in Matt's apartment in "Kinbaku," she makes a remark about Matt's German beer, that it "tastes like piss." Which is exactly what Stick said in season 1. On further viewings, especially the flashbacks, it becomes clear that Stick is off-camera puppeting Elektra through all her interactions with Matt. As in, everything Elektra does is designed by Stick to elicit a specific reaction from Matt.

** Also, Stick has clearly been spying on Matt all this time. Think about his appearance in season 1. Even though Matt hadn't seen Stick in all this time, Stick knows everything about Matt's life. And has ways of knowing where Matt is at any given moment. He didn't just happen to stumble upon Matt in the parking garage interrogating Owlsley. Then think about the timing of Elektra's introduction in season 2: she makes her entrance immediately after Matt and Karen have their first kiss. It's no coincidence that Stick would have Elektra reenter Matt's life just as he's beginning to develop a romance with Karen. Karen is an obstacle that gets in Stick's way, or more specifically, it's Matt's relationship with Karen that gets in the way of Stick's plans. Because if Matt falls in love with Karen, he'll have her and Foggy to lean on. He'll have them and his job at Nelson & Murdock. And he won't have any reason to become dependent on Stick. The reason Matt had been able to balance out Daredevil with Matt Murdock before Elektra showed up was because Karen and Foggy gave him love, stability, and family. Three things Stick doesn't want Matt to have...

** In season 3, after Matt has lost everything except his war, he disguises himself with a hat, sunglasses, and a green jacket. His clothing matches Stick's fashion sense. In essence, he has become the thing Stick wanted him to become since the beginning. That should clue people in to just how far off the deep end Matt has gone.

* In season 2 episode 7, Karen said this to Foggy during Frank's trial about why she connects with Frank, which takes on a whole new meaning after it's revealed what role Karen played in her brother's death in season 3 episode 10:

* Early in season 3 episode 6, Karen is seen sitting down for a conference meeting at the ''Bulletin''. Ellison makes a comment about how their health insurance was recently slashed, joking, “I recommend that you don’t get sick.” This is the same day as Dex's attack on the ''Bulletin'', where multiple people are killed or severely injured. A few episodes later, Nadeem learns that Fisk manipulated his sister-in-law's insurance coverage to gain leverage on him. Meaning Dex's attack on the ''Bulletin'' may not have only been to discredit Matt and kill Jasper Evans, but also open up opportunities to get leverage over journalists at a paper that he just recently lost his leverage in (after Caldwell had been arrested). If enough time had lapsed, and Karen hadn't been fired, what's to say that Fisk wouldn't find a wounded reporter struggling to pay their medical bills, and offer to pay for their treatment in exchange for them spying on Karen for him.
* Late in season 3, Foggy finds out that his brother was tricked by Fisk into committing fraud, so that Fisk could have something to blackmail Foggy with. Then you remember that while Fisk is going after Matt hard at this point, he did say to Matt that he'd destroy the lives of both Matt and Foggy when he got out. He hadn't been making an idle threat, and Matt's attempt to get him to leave Foggy alone probably had the opposite effect of giving Fisk ''more'' incentive to hurt Foggy.
** Since we don't know how much time passed between seasons 2 and 3, for all we know Fisk started his gambit to use Foggy's brother as leverage using the reserve fund Donovan had managed to set up for him while he was waiting to make a move against Dutton.
* At the start of season 3, we see no sign of Stewart Finney or the Valdez brothers, the three inmates Fisk recruited in season 2 to be his advisor (Finney) and bodyguards (the Valdez brothers) with his reserve funds. Knowing [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness what Fisk does to henchmen he has no further use for]] can give some disturbing ideas as to what may have happened to them.
* When Matt is sulking in Fogwell's after learning the truth about Sister Maggie being his mother, and later when Matt, Karen and Foggy are there to negotiate a plea deal for Nadeem, you can see that Fogwell's has closed recently, as evidenced by [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EH1T_-xWsAIASGj?format=jpg&name=large a "FOR LEASE" sign strewn on the floor]]. While it's possible that Fogwell's only closed sometime in between ''The Defenders'' and ''Daredevil'' season 3 (since Matt must've still been working out somewhere in order to leap back into fighting shape when he fought the electronics thieves after the earthquake), it's also very likely that Fogwell's might've closed as early as sometime between seasons 1 and 2, as evidenced from the fact that Matt never returned to Fogwell's during present day scenes in season 2's timeline (the only time he went there was a flashback in 2x05 when he took Elektra there).

* In season 1, Madame Gao and Owlsley betray Fisk by trying to kill Vanessa, because they think that Fisk's love for her makes him weak. In season 3, Fisk betrays Dex by having Julie killed, for the exact same reasons.