I’d Rather Watch a ‘Kingpin’ Show, Than a ‘Daredevil’ Show

Last week’s release of Daredevil Season 3 on Netflix cemented something for me: I’d rather watch a Kingpin show, than a Daredevil show. It’s not that the cast of Marvel’s streaming superhero series isn’t good: Charlie Cox really shines this season in the lead; Deborah Ann Woll steps up; and Elden Henson has finally worked out Foggy’s quirks to make him a palatable character. But the villains are so good, particularly Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk, that it vastly overpowers every other aspect of the show.

This has been pretty obvious since the first season, as D’Onofrio ably inhabited the rotund, bald form of New York’s preeminent crime boss. Not only did he look like he stepped out of the comics page, his coiled fury mixed with meticulous mental acuity shined in every scene. He also, frankly, got more development than the ostensible star of the show, Cox’s Matt Murdock/Daredevil. While the hero was saddled with your typical “should a vigilante kill?” storyline, slowly building to a costume reveal in the final episode, Fisk’s arc felt refreshingly unique.

If anything, what worked about Fisk was that it wasn’t aping the tried-and-true mold of the superhero TV show… Fisk was instead in an anti-hero show in the vein of Breaking Bad or The Sopranos. Yes, we’ve seen that a million times, too. But Fisk’s devotion to his wife Vanessa, his shattered upbringing, even his obsession with blank canvases felt unique.

Fans and critics rightly responded to Season 1 Fisk, noting that the biggest advantage of the Netflix format was letting the villain’s depth get explored far more evocatively than in the Marvel movies, which only allow scattered scenes for bad guy motivation. Personally, I found myself engrossed whenever Fisk was on screen, and consequently tuning out whenever any of the other characters showed up. Probably not what the showrunners were going for, but with Fisk so elevated beyond Daredevil, it felt like an uneven watching experience.

Season 2 smoothed things out by sidelining Fisk in favor of the equally fascinating Punisher (Jon Bernthal), who arguably went on to have the best single season of any Netflix show after he was spun off. But the best episode in Daredevil Season 2 was the one where Punisher was sent to prison, and faced off against Wilson Fisk. We caught up with what the Kingpin of Crime had been up to since heading to jail in the Season 1 finale, then saw him go head to head with Frank Castle’s murderous vigilante. Again, the difference was palpable: D’Onofrio singes every frame of film that’s put on screen with his magnetic presence. His intensity versus Bernthal’s vicious focus was a thrill to watch, and most of the season was downhill from there.

Season 3 is a marked improvement over Season 2, and I’d argue it’s due to the villains. Wilson Bethel’s Benjamin Poindexter is a fantastic foil for Cox’s Murdock. But really, bringing back D’Onofrio as the Big Bad is the masterstroke. While Matt mopes in the basement of a church, Fisk is cleverly working his way back to the top of New York’s underworld, always one step ahead of the heroes and villains alike. Every move he makes is enough to fuel an entire episode of a network show, from “breaking out” of prison, to recruiting Poindexter.

He’s also so much weirder than Daredevil… Carefully making omelettes, building a Hannibal-esque mind palace to explore Poindexter’s past; it isn’t just textually that the Kingpin is far beyond Daredevil, it’s visually as well. That’s the sort of thing that deserves more screentime, and could allow showrunners, writers, designers and actors to flex creatively, delivering something that truly feels unique when compared to other comic book based TV shows.

The time for the anti-hero show has definitely come and gone. We’ve moved into different modes of storytelling on TV, different characters, different focal points. But like how TV loops back to hospital shows, and cop shows, that time can come again; or at least, we can get a one-off, something that truly delves into the psychology of evil. To that end, if/when Marvel and Netflix move forward with their plans for the streaming superhero universe, I’d much rather watch Kingpin Season 1, than Daredevil Season 4. We’ve seen the heroes grapple with their own dark heroism… For once, let’s let the bad guys win.

Stream Marvel's Daredevil on Netflix