Season 3 of Marvel’s “Daredevil” on Netflix returns to the basics in the best way possible. Gone is Matt Murdock’s fancy suit, gone are his superhero friends, and back is the welcome return of Vincent D’Onofrio‘s menacing Wilson Fisk. This means no crossovers, no superpowers, and much higher stakes. Factoring into these decisions was a creative change in the form of a new showrunner for the Devil Of Hells Kitchen’s third season. Marvel appointed former “Arrow” and “The Man in the High Castle” producer and writer Erik Oleson as the shows new creative head, and it paid dividends.

I had a chance to speak with Oleson about all things Season 3 including his vision’s comic arc inspirations, conceiving and executing fight sequences, how his spy background factored into the season’s narrative, Bullseye, his thoughts on “Iron Fist” getting the axe, and much more.

“The Defenders” events hinted at Matt Murdock’s next arc. When you took over as showrunner for the third season of “Daredevil,” was it more your idea to tap the comics’ ‘Born Again’ storyline or Marvel?

The events of “The Defenders” put Matt in a certain place and there were certainly hints at the end of the [limited series, such as] the mention of Sister Maggie, among other things. When I sat with Jeph Loeb, I had very specific ideas, but Marvel also had [thoughts] they presented as options to me. They wanted to give me the creative freedom to tell the story that I wanted to tell, but they knew, that Vincent D’Onofrio was interested in coming back. They knew that they had the ability to draw from some of their favorite comic runs and mine, ‘Born Again,’ a few others, so Bullseye [became an option] this season. They don’t tell showrunners what to go write, but they give you a lot options and ideas and then let you go do what you think is best.

I wanted to treat Season 3 of this show as if it were the Erik Oleson run of the comic books, like Frank Miller had his run of the comics and [Brian Michael] Bendis, [Jeph] Loeb and Kevin Smith. All of whom honored what came before and yet put on their own stamp. I wanted to honor what Drew Goddard and Steve DeKnight had done in Season one, and what Marco [Ramirez] and Doug [Petrie] did in Season two, but tell a story very much that was my personal tone and the things that interested me and the storytelling technique that I think makes for the best TV. And Marvel gave me their blessing.

Read the rest of the interview at The Playlist.