Marvel's Daredevil Season 3 Review: 8 Ups & 2 Downs

4. Fisk V Murdock, Round II

Technically you could consider this round 3, after their brief but key encounter in Season 2, but regardless of what count we're up to, there's absolutely no doubt the show - and Matt - benefits from having Wilson Fisk back as a regular character.

That Vincent D'Onofrio gives one of the most nuanced villainous performances is well-known by now, and yet it continues to astonish in Season 3: in both performance and physicality he is such a phenomenal presence in every possible sense of the word, but with a fair amount of vulnerability too. He can turn on a dime, going from the charming businessman who wants to rule Hell's Kitchen one moment, to a man aching with sadness and loneliness the next, and a feral beast the one after that.

His return also gives the show much more focus. Matt and all of the other characters have a central force to move against, and it's in pushing back against Fisk that Charlie Cox delivers his strongest work, unleashing both rage and self-doubt. As far as superhero/supervillain battles go, theirs is one for the ages; surprising, emotional, and utterly brutal.