(Spoilers ahead for the Marvel series “The Defenders”)
If you’re the sort of person who has been into the “Daredevil” show on Netflix the past few years but haven’t really strayed into the rest of Marvel’s little TVverse on Netflix, you’re probably gonna be a little bit confused when you fired up season 3 of “Daredevil” and see that Daredevil (Charlie Cox) is dead.
Or, at least, he’s pretending to be, and all his friends definitely think he is. For the first several episode of the new season, Matt Murdock hides out in a church basement under the care of the nun (Joanne Whalley) who raised him after his father died. That’s quite a story leap from the end of season 2, when Daredevil was about to get ready for whatever the Hand had planned for Elektra (Elodie Young).
Well, the thing is that a whole bunch happened in the teamup show “The Defenders” last year — the eight-episode run essentially functioned as another season of “Daredevil,” wrapping up the story of the Hand and Elektra that the first couple seasons had been building toward. And the events of “The Defenders” were pretty catastrophic for Daredevil personally.
The climax of that show saw Daredevil, Luke Cage Mike Colter), Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) and Misty Knight (Simone Missick) storm a new skyscraper called Midland Circle, where the Hand and the resurrected Elektra were holding Danny Rand as they tried to pull off some crazy magic ritual in the basement that would put the entire world firmly in their control.
Our heroes’ plan involved basically just blowing up the building and taking the Hand down with it — which they did succeed in doing, foiling their dastardly plan. But Daredevil didn’t make it out. During the fight he managed to turn Elektra back into a good guy, undoing their indoctrination, and they held up the baddies so the rest of the Defenders could escape.
Unfortunately, that meant that Daredevil and Elektra were still under Midland Circle when it came down. What you saw at the beginning of season 3 was the direct aftermath of that whole thing, with Matt somehow managing to crawl out of the wreckage through the sewers. Elektra, presumably, is actually dead — but we have about as much evidence of her death as we did Daredevil’s at the end of “The Defenders.”
Anyway, that’s the story of why Matt Murdock is all messed up and feeling miserable, setting the stage for all this new existential angst he’s got.