Daredevil Season 1: The Many Devils of Hell’s Kitchen

Shastine Matsunaga Nol 26’ / Emertainment Staff Writer

Spoilers Ahead!

In 2015, Marvel Studios released the first season of Daredevil, the first live-action adaptation of the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen since the unsuccessful 2003 film of the same name. This would be the first of a series of TV Shows known collectively as the Defenders Saga, a dark and gritty branch of Marvel tv shows that existed within its own self contained universe, initially released on Netflix and moved to Disney Plus in March 2022. With the release of many new Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) projects of increasingly massive scale, the Defenders have slowly begun to fade into the background. Daredevil, however, has stayed in the spotlight, often regarded as one of the best Marvel shows to date.

With the release of Daredevil: Born Again, premiering on Disney Plus on March 4, 2025, almost exactly ten years after the release of the original, it feels like the perfect time to take a look back at the original Daredevil and see what made it so great.

Daredevil follows Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), a lawyer by day, and a vigilante, Daredevil, by night. Matt has been blind from a young age, after rescuing someone from a car accident and getting chemicals in his eyes as a result. While he cannot see, every other sense is enhanced, and when he fights as Daredevil, he relies on his other senses and in particular, sound, to map out the world around him. Notably, he will use the sound of heartbeats to detect people around him or use the pattern of their heartbeat to detect their emotions.

In the comics, this is shown visually, with solid-colored panels filled with dark shapes to emulate what Matt sees. While this type of visual is absent in the show, the excellent sound design and cinematography more than makes up for it. Periods of dead silence are disturbed only by heartbeats, and other otherwise overlooked sounds such as the scraping of a chain against the ground.  It creates an atmosphere that is at once unsettling and anticipatory of Matt’s next ruthless attack.

Matt is also a lawyer, and a good one. In the first episode, “Into the Ring”, he sets up his brand new law practice with his legal partner and best friend Franklin “Foggy” Nelson (Elden Henson). His goal is to provide legal counsel to people in the place he grew up who have been otherwise neglected by society. He fights for justice, not money. In fact, he and Foggy take their first client, Karen Page, without any payment whatsoever.

The law can only help so much, however, at least according to Matt. He comes to understand this after having to use physical force to save a woman from her abusive partner when the law failed to protect her. This is why Matt dons his vigilante mask in the first place. He sees evil in Hell’s Kitchen, evil that cannot be touched by the law, so he takes care of it in the only other way he knows how: violently.

His best friend Foggy  is a caring, loveable man who believes in justice for the people of Hell’s Kitchen (even if he is very wary of the fact that the law office is very behind on bills due to their justice-focused business practice). Foggy is a loyal friend to Matt and a devoted attorney. He, unlike Matt, is not a superhero, and doesn’t have the same view of Hell’s Kitchen and its inner workings as Matt does. As a result, Foggy is much more civilian oriented, focusing more on protecting those around him. Unlike Matt’s dark and gritty way of fighting evil, Foggy’s way is a lot more grounded. While Matt is focused on the people responsible for the pain and suffering, Foggy is focused on helping the people enduring that pain in any way he can.

To round out the trio is Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), Nelson & Murdock’s first client and eventually their secretary. She meets Matt and Foggy when she is framed for murder after having stolen suspicious files from the company where she worked. This company is eventually revealed to be a part of the network of people all working for the big bad of the show, the Kingpin. They take her case and win, but Karen, not satisfied with simply being absolved for murder, continues to look into the company and the secrets they are hiding. In doing so, she is thrust deeper into the criminal world spearheaded by the Kingpin.

The Kingpin, Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), is a rich and powerful businessman and the ringleader of a group of criminal organizations in Hell’s Kitchen; they all for him and making way for his plans to rebuild Hell’s Kitchen, in exchange for the ability to operate their own criminal enterprises without interruption. He has almost all of Hell’s Kitchen in his pocket, from senators to cops. Fisk is blunt and unwavering, and is unafraid to cut off loose ends mercilessly, although he prefers not to get his hands dirty, opting to have someone who works for him do it instead. But he is also a man of love and passion who will put everything into what he cares about, even if those things are dark and sinister and cause massive collateral damage. His goal is to rebuild Hell’s Kitchen with himself at the top, and in order to do that, he throws the poor, the less fortunate, and to him the less important under the bus. 

He destroys their homes and has them killed, literally steamrolling them over in order to achieve his vision. He maintains an untroubled demeanor throughout all of this, creating an unsettling calm within the storm. But when he snaps, he snaps. His calm demeanor vanishes completely, replaced by an uncontrollable rage. D’Onofrio plays this masterfully, creating a simmering villain, calm and composed yet always on the brink of madness, a madness that manifests itself in ruthless violence.

The fights throughout the season, and the show in general, are bloody and violent, and incredibly well choreographed. Matt’s acrobatic fighting style contrasts beautifully with Fisk’s slower and more brutal style of beatdown. The level of violence only adds to the show’s gritty noir style, and showcases the lengths Matt is willing to go beyond the law to protect Hell’s Kitchen. There are few lines he is unwilling to cross as Daredevil, and Fisk has even fewer.

Matt and Fisk create a perfect rivalry. If Matt were to try to put one of Fisk’s men behind bars using the law, those paid off by Fisk in a position to do so, such as cops or judges would get them off the hook. Fisk has rigged everything in his favor by way of loopholes and manipulation, and he is the exact kind of man that Matt created Daredevil for in the first place. In the final episode of the first season, “Daredevil,” Matt, Foggy, and Karen corner Fisk with the law and expose all of his manipulation and lies to the press. He is arrested by the FBI, but even they are being paid off by him. They provide him with means and opportunity to escape scot-free, but one final obstacle stands in the way: Daredevil. In the end, despite all of the work put in to corner him with the law and the press, his demise comes from Daredevil, the persona Matt created for exactly this moment, the moment where the law wasn’t enough. In the end, Matt is right. The only thing that can really take down men like Fisk is something beyond the law.

Daredevil season one tells a story about the unbalance of power in society, something that rings painfully true in today’s world. It is a lesson about what happens when men like Fisk gain too much power, and the lengths one has to go to stop them. It is a masterpiece of sound, cinematography, acting, and fight choreography. If you are a Marvel fan, planning to watch Daredevil: Born Again, both, or even neither, this is not one to be passed by. It is some of the best Marvel Studios media ever created, and even ten years later, it will always be worth the trip to Hell’s Kitchen.