(Content Warning: mass shooting tragedies in the United States; Spoiler Warning for Daredevil season 3)

Those living in the United States have gotten too accustomed to bad news. Every mass shooting, wildfire, and other various tragedies has become distilled to push notifications on phones and headlines on cable news. I’ve felt a certain guilt for an increasing indifference as the bad news has increased in volume, but I felt this even more so when the news finally reached me personally. The Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh set something off in me, as I went to school mere miles away from there, and I visited Squirrel Hill for leisure and errands regularly. I felt sorrowful and uneasy knowing that such a nefarious act was committed in an area I once considered to be practically my backyard.

It had an eerie and troubling effect on a piece of media that I treasured, as only a couple of weeks before this real-life tragedy, Netflix released season 3 of Daredevil, which prominently featured a chilling scene of a fatal attack on a place of worship.

What that television show did might not necessarily be bad taste, as it released before the real-life analogous event occurred — it isn’t the same situation where the Las Vegas shooting prevented the apparently-planned early release of The Punisher, or Paramount executives scurrying and attempting to release their Heathers television reboot in piecemeal, attempting to slip their tone-deaf program in-between real-life tragedies. Still, the proximity in date alone puts a shroud over Daredevil in my eyes, and a rewatch is impossible for me without associating it with the act of hate and domestic terrorism that happened in a city I love.

I eventually thought back to the words of Erik Oleson, the showrunner of Daredevil’s third season. I attended the Daredevil New York Comic-Con panel, where Oleson presented his thesis statement for season 3 — it would be about “combating fear and the narcissistic tyrants that weaponize it.” The Tree of Life shooting is not the only recent news event that could be analogous to events in his show, and none of these were unfortunate coincidences — these were by the show’s design. Daredevil season 3 tapped into our real-life fears and anxieties, and like practically all superhero fiction, it presented a fantastical story where those fears were conquered.

To anyone at that NYCC panel with their finger on the pulse, it was obvious just what (or who) Oleson was referring to. Wilson Fisk, finally embracing the role and appearance of the Kingpin, is our narcissistic tyrant.