Fans of Netflix and Marvel’s Daredevil will know that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen has a complicated relationship with morality, his own vigilantism, his enemies, but especially his friends. Now that the world thinks the Defender is dead, be prepared for those relationships to get even more tangled. This past March, Black Girl Nerds went on set during the shooting of the series’ third season and chatted with showrunner Eric Oleson (Arrow, The Man in the High Castle) to find out what to expect from this (semi) post-Matt Daredevil universe.
This Season Will See Fewer Crossovers
If it’s a Marvel property, it seems like you can always expect two things: easter eggs and crossovers. But Oleson revealed he pumped the brakes on the latter for Season 3, in hopes of regrounding viewers in the lives of and stakes for Daredevil‘s core cast.
“I wanted it to be stand alone, I did not do crossovers this season,” Oleson stated. “I wanted to get back to these core characters and use the real estate to focus on who they are and really flesh them out before I introduce external and other elements in the MCU. … I want to fully explore all of the colors of Wilson Fisk this season, and at the same time, really refocus Matt Murdock and our core group – Matt, Foggy, and Karen – on the dynamic between them and the character journeys.”
The Theme Of Season 3 Is Fear
One of Matt Murdock’s (Charlie Cox) most distinctive traits is how little he fears… well, anything. In fact, one might argue the only thing Matt fears is fear itself. Daredevil’s regular test of the limits of mortality and morality will serve as a central theme for this season, even beyond Matt, Oleson said.
“We have kind of a design for the season that is framed around a central theme for me, which is that our fears enslave us,” Oleson said. “Daredevil being the man without fear, of course, was an interesting jumping off point. But as I’m kind of observing the world around us right now, the country’s very divided, the world has a lot of problems, and I think ultimately that it’s everybody’s fear that ends up manifesting in ways that pit us against one another,” Oleson continued. “And villains who capitalize on our fears are able to bring us down. You know the old adage of a house divided against itself will fall.”
Kevin Smith’s Guardian Devil and Frank Miller’s Born AgainComics Were Influences
While the show has diverged in enough ways to make it distinctive from Daredevil‘s comic run, comic plots provide an exciting blueprint for the potential of each season’s overall arc. During our conversation, Oleson revealed that Season 3 will very much be its own original story with a touch of inspiration from Guardian Devil and the Born Again comics.
“My hope was to draw inspiration from comics like Born Again and Guardian Devil, and there are certainly moments that resonated for me totally that I used as inspiration,” Oleson said. “But it is an original story. I am not doing a direct translation of any of the comics. I think that would have been a mistake. I wanna make sure that everybody’s really hooked with an original story where they are deeply invested in the characters this season, and understand why the characters behave the way that they behave and do the things that they do. And I was very much interested in bringing more contradiction and dimension to some of the characters that we’ve grown to know and love on the show.”
The full story appeared at Black Girl Nerds on Oct. 1, 2018.
