Episode 6, Regrets Only - An encounter with Frank Castle's farm fresh public defender sees Nelson & Murdock becoming his new legal representation, placing them once again with the crosshairs of DA Reyes. Meanwhile, Elektra enlists Matt's help to steal an incriminating Roxxon ledger from a fancy party.
So the last episode benched The Punisher to introduce Elektra and this one confirms that the two will still be moving forward together in episodes. Despite the action and flare of Elektra's heist, it's The Punisher's arc that grabs the most attention. It creates one of the show's most comic loyal moments to date as Matt Murdock becomes the lawyer for another Marvel hero. Not to mention drawing inspiration from the 2013 publication, The Trial of the Punisher. It delivers some great scenes between Karen and Frank as she earns his trust by talking to him about his family, including some very touching moments. It plays well to develop the sympathetic side to his character as he's shown in an almost discarded and neglected state in the hospital, like a leper in the streets that nobody will approach.
There's also an excellent feeling risk and stakes for our faithful avocadoes as they risk the entire future of their law firm by taking the case. It's the case that nobody will take for a reason, which is played out well through the early exchanges of Matt and Foggy, including questioning which side of Matt is making the decision, "Is this about saving a man or a vigilante?". The play out gives us more great verbal smack downs between the boys and DA Reyes with full credit to writer Sneda Koorse for the way the arguments are careful setup and layered for Matt to flip them on Reyes. There's still the feeling of more to the Punisher/Reyes relationship as he goes to such lengths to defy her.
It may not quite have the big moments of The People Vs Frank Castle, but Matt and Elekra's swanky heist forms the fun half of the episode to balance out the darker somber tone of the hospital scenes.
The party is a visually dazzling set piece location with the looking very dapper in Matt's tux and Elekra's red dress. Their time together produces some great action from their opening fight, picking up from the prior episode (did anyone else have a Homer Simpson "But Marge, that little guy hasn't done anything yet.... he's gonna do something and you know it's going to be good" moment?) to getting rumbled mid-heist. The screen door fight is a nice arty sequence as shadows flash in and out while the pair takes down the thugs. There's a wonderfully playful tone as Elektra strings Matt along through the evening and that despite everything that happens, he's enjoying it too. He firmly declares the event a one-night stand to be begin with before laughing and grinning at the end as Elektra teases another session, "Same time tomorrow Matthew?". Throughout the heist, we get some good creative uses of Matt's abilities such as touch safe-cracking. The pair get full credit for their effective and rather unexpected exit strategy; Elektra is utterly hilarious as she sells it to the henchmen. Finally, the aftermath within Roxxon gives us our first hints towards the arrival of The Hand as the Roxxon chief claims that he is not Yakuza. His box of disciplinary fingers is a great touch.
The new big legal drama is a fantastic and expected direction for the show to take as it will get Matt & Foggy inside a court room for only the second time in the show's duration while sustaining The Punisher in the story and further developing Reyes as a behind-the-scenes schemer. Not to mention that Frank goes to prison, we all know which season 1 main character he could run into, another man that deemed his actions necessary. Elektra is an absolute riot and should definitely consider teaching her arse based recognition techniques to the police. Brett Mahoney's promotion is a nice touch too. After 6 episodes, the season still feels nothing but strong despite the absence of a large villain presence like Wilson Fisk and Punisher.
Episode 7, Semper Fedelis - Matt and Elektra get the Roxxon ledger translated and follow delivery shipments to a very startling discovery. But as the trial of Frank Castle begins, Matt's night time activities with Elektra cause him to let Foggy and Karen down when they need him the most.
So this episode becomes the boiling point of Matt being overrun by the demands of his day job and night time hobbies when one has disastrous effects on the other. Some of this does get a tad predictable. As soon as Foggy starts talking up how much they're counting on Matt's contribution, it becomes painfully obvious he'll be guilty of a screw-up. Yet through the second half of the episode, it does manage to produce some good court room twists as the biggest trial in the history of New York becomes unsurprisingly problematic. It stacks the odds up against the avocados well to keep that all important underdog feeling and ultimately deliver the payoff as they rise above it. Foggy gets a brilliant piece of forced improv in Matt's absence. There are times when DA Reyes doesn't seem as formidable as she should but things are still getting starting, and the feeling is more apparent that we're meant to be viewing this as a 50-50 situation going into it. The opening jury selection montage gets this across superbly. So far, we've only had passing hints that some people applaud The Punisher's work for taking out the bad guys but here, we see before us that the city and its people are completely divided over their opinion of him. Reyes already makes her anti-vigilante stance clear in keeping with Marci's prior bean-spilling. The biggest dramatic payoff of the court scenes is the conflict it creates between Matt & Foggy. As much as we love them as a team, we saw firsthand in last season's Nelson v. Murdock just how powerful they can be when at each other's throats and that's exactly what we get this time too. We love them so much that it's painful to watch in all the right ways.
Jon Bernthal becomes more of a passenger to the trial once the courtroom routines set in but he still makes his presence felt. His best moment by far comes in his meeting with Karen as he refuses to fake PTSD. It really speaks well to his soldier's code of honor. Frank and Karen's friendship is getting more interesting with every episode, especially when Matt & Karen are later debating vigilante ethics and she struggles to see the difference between the approaches of Daredevil and Punisher. She even shows openness to the idea of vengeance, which goes as far as creating some tension and awkwardness between them, "Vengeance is not justice". When Karen leaves Matt's apartment shortly after, she feels much more like his co-worker than his girlfriend.
Like last episode, the Daredevil and Elektra tag team provide the episode's action and again, they don't disappoint. The fights are vigorous with great incorporations of weapons. The most notable factor though harks back to their younger flashbacks. Just as Elektra could draw the darkness out of Matt Murdock during their relationship so do we get the feeling that now, she's slowly drawing it out of Daredevil. In general, Matt's masked approach seems much angrier and more excessive with the violence than normal. His glass pane interrogation was certainly extreme for him. In the climax against the construction site guards, we see him burying blow-after-blow into an already defeated opponent like he's venting his rage. Has Elektra awoken the real devil inside him? There are also increasing signs that Matt will succumb to her romantic temptation as their stitch-up session has a definite sexy vibe to it. If the fallout with Foggy drives Karen away from him, how long before it's Greek to Matt?
Despite some great setup and hype, the trail doesn't quite deliver on its expectations (yet at least), but this episode does bring with it a sense of season escalation as we start to delve deeper into some areas. As the season reaches its halfway point it, if it keeps this up, it will better its first season.
Episode 8, Guilty as Sin - After discovering the chasm like whole in the construction site, Matt and Elektra are attacked by a new and deadly enemy that an old friend reveals to be an ancient evil order known as The Hand. The trial of Frank Castle continues and the team makes the risky call of placing Frank on the stand.
So we've been teased for a few episodes but now, The Hand is most definitely here and immediately presents themselves as formidable opponents for Matt as their lack of heartbeats vastly compromises his ability to see and fight them. We even see them capable of getting the drop on him. Although the notion of immortality is thrown around, this could simply be an extension of the heart rate lowering technique demonstrated by Nobu last season that was able to fool Matt's radar. It's not just their lack of chest thumbing but the agents of The Hand show no shortage of skills through their ninja appearances and agility but their conviction. In a great enhancement of the season long theme of justified killing, we now see Matt facing a new dilemma of having to kill out of survival because if he doesn't, he can be sure as hell The Hand will kill him.
The early incident with Elektra reinforces this perfectly as Matt's Catholic ideals have near fatal consequences for her. That this is no longer a fight for justice, this is war. At least that's what the returning face of Scot Glenn's Stick would have you believe. It's awesome to see the big gruff guy again. He gets a great entrance and as well as delivering the back story exposition unto the good vs evil conflict of The Chased and The Hand, we get a few interesting little remarks into his estranged relationship with Matt. That as hard and uncaring as he may appear, Stick has fond memories of the time he spent training a young Matty to the extent of actually missing him. Their connection is only reinforced as Matt gets just as detached and stubborn with him after learning the truth of recent events. The notion of a "Black Sky" superweapon recurs from season one with the feeling that it could be the season climax end game. As for what it is, the big hole conjures some imagery of rising a demon from the depths, but that seems far too farfetched for the show's current tone.
The Punisher trial is still great to watch but the niggle of the last episode is sadly worse this time around. We just aren't seeing enough of the prosecution in action. Save a single question cross examination, Reyes does almost nothing throughout these scenes when she should be ripping Matt & Foggy a new one. While the circumstances and long shot nature of their defense add some good stakes to proceedings, Reyes just feels like she's rolling over and dying in front of them rather than being the ruthless power-hungry lawyer we're supposed to believe she is. Focusing on the positives, Frank's war time CEO character witness is one hell of a cameo, and his story of Frank's war time heroism is nicely-paced. Similarly, the arguments about EED (Extreme Emotional Disorder) are well delivered to create plausible belief that the verdict (or at least reduced sentence) could go their way. Frank's centerpiece testimony has some excellent theatricality to it. It's more like a wrestling match with the audience waving signs for him and against him, and Matt's pro-vigilante address being greeted with thunderous applause, "New York needs these people, we need heroes". The conclusion has just enough subtle teases to leave us speculating a bigger picture we're not seeing yet, which sees the episode ending with one of the most joyous sights all season.
The Foggy, Matt & Karen conflict is mostly well handled. Karen's ill-timed entrance feels thoroughly wasted as it ends just as quickly as she arrives and without anywhere near enough fallout. Sure, Karen gets her point-of-view in once the day is done, but it really feels like something that could have been structured better. Matt & Foggy fair much better as we clearly understand their mutual reasons for being angry at each other following the recent events. Even if it has some bumps along the way, the episode achieves its goal of being a breaking point, shattering our protagonists before building them back up again over the final run of episodes. Stick's tease of getting the band back together is very tantalizing over just who he'll be returning with. We can be pretty sure it won't be The Stooges.
Episode 9, Seven Minutes In Heaven - After meeting him in prison, Wilson Fisk makes Frank Castle an offer to kill someone involved in his family's murder, while Karen continues her investigations into his past with the New York Herald, and Matt tracks down one of The Hand's operations.
Welcome back, Vincent D'Onofrio, my God have we missed your big bad self. The opening prison life catch up sequence brings all those good memories of his season one performance flooding back as he transitions through the phases of his incarceration. From the early days of being mute and emotionless, accepting his defeat and following his lawyer's orders to keep his head down, only to regain his mojo. The scenes are nicely paced to show his gradual process of accepting his surroundings as a new Hell's Kitchen to conquer and even seeing his comic "Kingpin" alias being thrown about. The dialogue is surplus to requirements because the story is all in his physical acting. The mere contrast of the trudging first walk to his cell compared to his chin-up strides while flanked by his entourage says it all. It pulls back very well to his Good Samaritan speech in the season one finale, accepting and embracing that he is the villain after all. Over the course of the episode, we get some superb and sinister scheming from him, especially the last super with his rival prison overlord. It all creates the fascinating ideal of Fisk re-finding himself in the most unlikely of circumstances, "Everyone warned me that prison would be an inhumane environment... and it is but I find it refreshing".
Then, there is Fisk's chemistry with The Punisher, which sets their scenes on fire. Placing the two greatest characters the show has produced in a room together does not disappoint. Frank is all grizzle and badass attitude but Fisk stays so un-phased he could merely be a puppy. Their plot and purpose for their meeting functions very well as unsurprisingly, Fisk looks to exploit the one man army for his own means, which results in the most brutal fight the show has produced to date. The corridor and stairwell fights were epic but this is nigh on psychotic! Jon Bernthal looks like Jackie Earl Harley's prison Rorschach that swallowed a Mario mushroom and grew into an even bigger badass. There are moments you want to long away but can't because it's just so engrossing as the hardest of men is pushed to his limit in desperate survival. While the timeframe of the events turns Frank's prison stay into more of a Linsley Lohan affair. The only question that remains is whether or not he'll side with Matt against The Hand.
Speaking of Matty, his now solo crusade to save the city has some real fascination to it. Although we would like to keep Elektra in the picture, it feels a safe bet that she hasn't departed the season for good. There's a nice ominous nature to many of his encounters with Hand associates as many are claiming it is already too late, and that their grand events are already in motion. The Blood Farm takes this to a new level of creepy and adds so weight to the idea of a supernatural endgame ("You are not the only devil who will walk these streets") . In the same way, The Hand's reputation of immortality becomes real and solid in the best Adelai Niska style from a surprising return, "Wait, you're dead..... there is no such thing". Although it plays a clear second fiddle to The Punisher's prison brawl, the action elements involved are very satisfying. Overall, though the episode arc struggles because the other arcs see it squeezed down (this is perhaps an overly busy episode).
Karen's change of direction is a lot more enjoyable than expected. While there's little joy in seeing the band break up as Matt, Foggy and Karen go their separate ways; Karen's departure comes with a great new arc for her character and for all intensive purposes, she becomes an employee of the New York Herald under Lanthom. This plays extremely well as Karen has long shown that keen investigation skills are within her skill set (yes Eugene, she called dibs on them), and it actually feels much more natural for her to pursue them a journalistic investigator than as the office assistant of a law firm; from secretary to Spotlight, good on you girl. As for Foggy, the episode does leave him somewhat in parts unknown but he does get does could scenes on the way out as he parts with Matt and Karen.
This episode is a great change of pace and settings for the season but does have its moments of feeling overstuffed. Despite the Thunderdome promises thrown down, Fisk and Punisher have to reunite before the end of the season. Overall, this tale of hard times is quite a great time.