Celebrating Daredevil's 10 Best Moments on Show's Fifth Anniversary
Five years ago today, the first season of Daredevil hit Netflix. It introduced fans to an entirely [...]
#10: Kingpin Origins
Despite seeing Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio) decapitate a mobster with a car door — which we'll get to later — one of the most disturbing Kingpin moments comes during the character's origin story. We find out the turning point in Fisk's childhood came when he ended up murdering his abusive father with a hammer.
The elder Fisk was in the midst of a faltering political election campaign when he was forced to turn to the mafia to fund his campaign. This led to growing tensions at home, which Fisk ended up taking out on his wife and son. Naturally it ultimately led to his untimely death thanks to Wilson and a hammer, setting the younger Fisk on his path of villainy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
#9: Page Kills Wesley
From the beginning of the series, Deborah Ann Woll's Karen Page served as a continually growing character, jumping leaps and bounds in development from one episode to the next. That all comes to a head when Page murders James Wesley, Wilson Fisk's assistant. Though she doesn't face immediate repercussions, the moment does serve for a particularly tense moment during Fisk's house arrest in season three, another moment that nearly made this list.
#8: Fisk Kills Urich
Vondie Curtis-Hall's Ben Urich served as a major supporting character throughout the vast majority of the show's first season. That's why it came as a major shock Fisk personally murders the investigative journalist inside his very own home. Urich has long been a supporting character of Daredevil — and other Marvel characters, for that matter — so many were led to believe the character could have the potential for crossover opportunities and such. Instead, he fell victim as the show's first major protagonist killed off.
#7: Family Reunion
Matt Murdock isn't Daredevil without storylines of his faith sprinkled in, so it's only fitting for Erik Oleson and his team to introduce Sister Maggie (Joanne Whalley) in the third season of the show. Now, if you've read many Daredevil comics — Frank Miller's "Born Again" storyline, in particular — you would have already known who Sister Maggie was before the show even started...but that's nothing something that made the revelation within the show any less powerful.
After a fallout between Sister Maggie and Matt, the former starts a prayer as the latter workouts out in the basement of the church trying to blow off steam. In the midst of a building score, it's revealed Whalley's character is praying to the late Jack Murdock when she drops a line that made me jump off my couch in excitement. Fingers interlock, Whalley stares ahead at the church's crucifix and says, "Our son is too much like you, Jack."
#6: You Ever Been Tired, Red?
The second season of Daredevil introduced Jon Bernthal's The Punisher to critical acclaim. Portrayed as a monster throughout the duration of the season, the Daredevil/Punisher relationship is taken to a different level in the heartbreaking cemetary scene between Castle (Bernthal) and Daredevil.
As Castle details his family and what he does now is for them and to avenger their deaths, the character's development turns a complete 180 and the monologue does what it can to humanize the murderous vigilante.
#5: Hallway Fight #1
You weren't getting nervous about us missing out on the hallway fights, were you? Good -- because there are two in the top five alone. Though stellar fight and stunt work have long been apart of Hollywood, Daredevil Season One popularized the one-take extended fight sequence and somehow, they made it work. Minutes-long, Charlie Cox's titular character uses nothing but his fists to take down criminal masterminds in a single take — no easy task in the world of filmmaker.
The green-hued scene would become so popular, Marvel Television did what it could to add similar fight sequences in each of its other Netflix shows as well.
#4: Heads + Car Doors
We teased it before and now we're here — Kingpin taking some dude's head off with a car door. Living up to his name, a major progress in Fisk's stranglehold on the underworld crime syndicate of New York City, Fisk ended up decapitating Anatoly Ranskahov — one of the leaders of New York's Russian Mafia — after the latter embarrassed him on a date. We'd put a picture or video here — but, you know...car door decapitations aren't entirely SFW.
#3: Punisher Prison Fight
Remember when we said The Punisher was portrayed as a monster for the duration of Season Two? That was especially the case when Fisk tried to get the character killed during their collective time in prison. The hit Fisk ordered subsequently turned Frank Castle into a monster as how brutally murders many of the inmates involved in the assassination plot. An obscene amount of blood, stabbing, and eye-gouging later, the Punisher easily found himself in our Top 5 with this moment.
#2: I Beat You
This moment easily could have been in the number one slot on this list, but since a countdown can't have two top spots, we opted to slide this into second place. During the final moments of Season Three, Daredevil gets to a point where he has complete control over Kingpin. Murdock has Fisk where he wants him and has everything in his power to kill the villain and stop his tyranny once and for all.
As that obviously goes against everything Murdock stands for, the hero not only decides to let Fisk live — he also reveals his face to the villain in one of comic book cinema's most memorable scenes. Two years later and this writer still gets goosebumps while watching it.
#1: Hallway Fight #3
I promised at least two hallway fights on this list and two hallway fights you shall get — including one on the top spot on our list of most memorable Daredevil moments. The show's hallway fights up until Season Three were special in their own right until the third one just completely blew the lid off the things. A massive one-take fight sequence that lasted a whopping 11 minutes was nothing short of incredible, a real anxiety-inducing masterpiece.
No matter who you ask, an 11-minute single take is challenging enough even when not factoring in stunt and fight work — yet Daredevil did it. And it did it so well, it's set the bar for any comic book properties to come forth afterwards.
*****
What's your favorite Daredevil moments? Think it over and let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting me up on Twitter at @AdamBarnhardt to chat all things MCU!
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