Marvel’s Daredevil season 3 production still. Photo: David Lee/Netflix
Bullseye’s Origin Story
Most shows struggle to provide one compelling villain but somehow, Daredevil season 3 gifts us with two truly threatening bad guys. Ben Poindexter begins the season as an unassuming FBI agent tasked with protecting Wilson Fisk while he’s in police custody, but things quickly spiral into chaos for the troubled young man.
It turns out Poindexter was raised in an orphanage and because of his rough beginnings, he’s developed some psychopathic tendencies. He kills his baseball coach at a young age and is forced into therapy where he learns to control his baser instincts. Still, the guy is creepy. The show manages to tease this out over the course of a few episodes, so that when we learn of his shady past, his tendency to stalk young women, his fascination with Fisk, and his ultimate descent into darkness, it feels earned and inevitable.
There’s a really brilliant bit of exposition halfway through the season as Fisk is reading Poindexter’s case file, trying to gain insight into the man so he can use him for his own ends. Instead of reciting facts through monologues or a dialogue between Fisk and his henchman, the scene turns gray and we watch as Fisk watches Poindexter’s life play out. It’s captivating, getting to see this transformation instead of being told about it, and it makes Poindexter’s eventual turn to the dark side that much more tragic.