Here’s what you need to know about the third season of Marvel’s Daredevil show on Netflix, including when it’s coming out and all of the trailers so far.
It’s been two long years since Daredevil season two (even if the character did grace our screens for 2017’s The Defenders crossover spectacular) but Matt Murdock is finally returning to Hell’s Kitchen for Daredevil season three this year.
As the show that kicked off the Marvel Netflix universe (and one of the best TV shows on Netflix) Daredevil’s return is hugely anticipated, and with a major returning villain, a massive cliffhanger to follow, and a fan favourite comic arc being adapted, there’s a lot to look forward to here. So here’s everything we know so far, including when the third season is out and all the trailers so far.
Very soon: the next season arrives on Netflix worldwide on 19 October. As always, the full season will arrive in one go, ready for a big weekend binge.
We’re actually not sure. Netflix used to order 13 episodes of every season of its Marvel shows, but that’s begun to change. The Defenders ran for just 8 episodes, while Iron First’s second season was only 10 episodes long. That’s one of the reasons that show’s return earned praise from critics, so we wouldn’t be surprised if Netflix is taking the same approach with Daredevil.
After a long period with nothing but tiny teasers, Netflix has only gone and released four different sets of footage for the upcoming Daredevil season within the space of just three weeks. First up was this clip, originally released as a post-credit tease at the end of the second season of Iron Fist:
Then there was the show’s date announcement trailer, our first proper trailer, which carries on the theme that this season will see Daredevil go even darker than before in the wake of recent events:
As if that wasn’t enough, less than a week later we got another new trailer, showing off the grand return of one Wilson Fisk – now in some snappy (and very familiar to comic fans) duds:
And then, presumably just because it could, Netflix followed that up after just two days with a new teaser focused even more on Fisk, with some very menacing voiceover from Vincent D’Onofrio:
It’s been a while since Daredevil’s last season, so here’s a brief reminder of how it left things – and how The Defenders then carried on the story.
All the usual suspects are returning: Charlie Cox is back as Daredevil himself, while Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson are back as Karen and Foggy respectively.
Vincent D’Onofrio will also once again appear as the villainous Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. The Kingpin, seemingly back for a bigger role after shifting to the sidelines in the second season. No word yet on whether Rosario Dawson’s Claire or Elodie Yung’s Elektra will be making appearances though.
As for new faces, Wilson Bethel and Jay Ali are both joining the show as FBI agents who get caught up in the battle between Daredevil and Kingpin. There’s also some speculation that Bethel may have a larger role to play as Bullseye (last seen on screen played by Colin Farrell back in the Ben Affleck movie), but that’s firmly speculation right now.
Joanne Whalley is the other major new addition: she’ll play the ‘Maggie’ mentioned in the recap above, who’s a bit more important than you might think: in the comics she’s Daredevil’s long-lost mother, who nurses him back to health in the Born Again arc that the show is loosely adapting.
Finally, there are a few people we know won’t be appearing. New showrunner Erik Oleson told IGN that this season won’t crossover with any of the other Marvel shows, so don’t expect cameos from Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Danny Rand, or Frank Castle.
“I wanted it to be standalone, I did not do crossovers this season,” Oleson said. “I wanted to really get back to these core characters, and use the real estate to focus on who they are and really flesh them out before I introduced external and other kind of elements of the MCU, at least all the Netflix Marvel stuff.”
If you’ve read all of this and watched the trailers, you can probably guess the main thrust of the season. Matt Murdock will return to Hell’s Kitchen with a renewed focus on his Daredevil persona after being nursed back to life by his mother.
He’ll find himself up against a Kingpin who’s now out of prison, and if the show sticks to its adaptation of the Born Again arc, there’s a good bet that at some point Kingpin will discover the devil’s real identity. That was even teased back in season two when Fisk asked to re-examine his files on Murdoch after being reminded of an injury he was given by Daredevil.
There’s a lot of speculation that Bullseye will feature too – sparked by a crew production jacket with a bullseye motif – and rumour has it that Bethel’s new FBI agent character will actually be a revamped take on the classic Daredevil villain.
Finally, Matt’s resurrection will inevitably prompt speculation about whether Elektra somehow survived too. We’re not expecting her to have a big role here, but we’d be very surprised if the season didn’t end with a tease of Elektra’s return.
