Netflix Retrospective: Daredevil season 2 episodes 3-4 - New York's Finest/Penny and Dime

We’re back with 2 more episodes from Season 2 of Daredevil

New York’s Finest

So, after a ‘flashback’ that looks incredibly creepy, with all the blur and eww, what the f*ck’s wrong with your face and the blood, there’s also that, we return to Daredevil waking up chained up on the roof. With Frank Castle just sitting there drinking coffee. Roll credits.

The DA and her confident are overseeing the cleanup of the crime scene, wanting to keep everything out of the media’s eyes. Foggy and Karen try to confront them for using their client the way they did, but she implies them she’d destroy their firm by blaming them for this fiasco. Karen, the one member of Nelson and Murdock without legal qualifications, is the only one doing any talking.

Back on the roof, the Punisher is stitching up his own wounds as Daredevil stuggles with the chains. Matt asks why he isn’t unmasked, Punisher doesn’t give a sh*t who he is.  Matt also correctly deduces that he’s a soldier. Foggy goes to the hospital, looking to make contact with Claire, but the hospital is full of people, some presumably lucky escapees of the Punisher’s wrath.

Karen is called by Grotto, who’s less than impressed with what went down, and tells them he’s gonna get out of the city his own way. Well, I think you can guess that his fate is sealed at this point. Back on the roof, Daredevil tries to talk but the Punisher just ignores largely. Daredevil largely has largely worked out Punisher’s military background and the fact that he’s lost someone. Finally Punisher starts to react telling Daredevil his methods are ineffectual and they’re very similar. I like this angle, but the problem is this is old ground.

Foggy gets nothing from Claire, aside from the fact that’s clearly annoyed people, probably more so after the JJ finale. One of the patients sees someone he claims to be responsible for his injuries, and manages to break himself free. Punisher has a gun hidden by the door on the man who came to the roof, but they manage to talk over being soldiers. Oh boy, more of the same moral debate, haven’t quite had enough of this yet, MORE PLEASE, MORE!

Karen goes to the office of the DA’s assistant and reminds him that our DA douchebag has screwed over them as well. Karen manages to steal something from him about the Punisher. Foggy manages to break up the fight, pointing out that this many witnesses and cops everywhere, any fight between them would screw them both.

Here we go, time for the moral dilemma bit, hopefully the payoff for all this retread might be interesting. Daredevil has a gun taped to his hand, Punisher brings up Grotto. You might remember what this is basically, it’s the Red Hood dilemma. If Daredevil doesn’t kill Grotto, the Punisher will, if he wants him to stop, he’ll have to kill the Punisher, except in this version Daredevil is tied up and can’t pull off any tricks. Grotto reveals he killed someone on the orders of the mob, and had to kill the family as well to cover his tracks.

So, we get some closure on Claire Temple’s subplot until that kicks into gear in say 6 or so episodes time. Daredevil’s not in a hospital, which we already knew so moving on.

Daredevil manages to use the gun to free himself, but Frank shoots Grotto before Daredevil can stop him. As Daredevil tries to tend to Grotto, Punisher shoots a motorbike outside the Dogs of Hell HQ, causing a riot. Karen meanwhile finds a murder file in her envelope. Daredevil finally knocks out the Punisher but the Dogs of Hell are making their way up. Daredevil puts Grotto in the elevator and fights his way through the dogs of hell. Daredevil has some really well done action bits and this is another of them, using the chain and gun still attached to Daredevil to add some variety against a normal fight.

It’s a bit of a slog, this episode, covering a lot of the same ground as previous episodes but it’s kinda worth it for that final fight.

Rating 7/10

Penny and Dime

Finn returns to the Irish, who are busy burying their dead. Finn’s son was among those killed by the Punisher. Finn kills one of them for trying to say ‘Death was part of the deal’ $1.2m of his money was jacked by the Punisher, so he wants all his grunts to start searching for him. And by search I mean roughing down everyone with even a hint of a connection to him. They find his apartment and start searching for the money, it’s not there. Finn sees a leaflet pinned to the map and thinks he knows who they’re dealing with. Frank happens to be coming home as they’re leaving, but not in time to stop them.

Matt’s back home, selecting a suit for the day. Karen calls and it kinda dawns on me more and more that they’re a couple. Karen has a brother and this isn’t important in any way. It’s time Grotto’s funeral and we have our father carry out the service… what he’s saying about Grotto donating is. I’m pretty sure, a load of lies and Matt, Foggy and Karen are the only attendants.

Matt and the Father talk privately, Matt asks why he feels guilty, the Father tells him it means his work isn’t yet done. We cut to Frank doing more stitching and bandaging up his arm, he also has a suitcase with some handcuffs or something. Karen shows the others the X-ray, there’s a bullet lodged in Frank’s skull, and it could all by a coverup by the DA. Going after the DA may be the only way to… is Karen that stupid? Karen is much better suited to being a journalist, as this basically proves. She disappears and Foggy tells him to find the Punisher before Karen does.

Time for some new suit modifications, also some contacts of Melvin have been asking him to outfit them, he’s been turning them down, but if they threaten Betsy, it’s all over. Karen finds the guy who operated on the Punisher, who was of course relieved of duty soon afterwards. Frank was taken in as a John Doe, they didn’t think he’d survive the bullet, and Feds had signed a DNR on his behalf, he flatlined for a minute but woke up and insisted on being taken home.

Frank is creepily watching all the kids on the carrousel at Central Park, they leave and the lights go out but he remains sitting on the bench, he sees guys approaching from all sides, he’s drugged a then tased unconscious, usually he’d be wearing armour to prevent sh*t like that. Mahoney and Daredevil meet at the scene of one of the irish shoot-ups from earlier, Mahoney tells Daredevil this is his fault too, the uniform isn’t stopping crime anymore. Yeah… you were so much better when your buddies were all paid off and murders were covered up, idiot.

Karen arrives at the Punisher’s house and breaks in. Somehow Daredevil beats the cops to the carrousel, and finds one of them still alive and begins to interrogate. The Punisher wakes up in a torture room and gets beaten up. Gratuitous violence ensues. Karen investigates the house and unfortunately, we see the house has an alarm which she tripped. Yes, we get it, Frank had a wife and child that were killed, this is elongated to the extreme to explain things most of us already know or have figured out.

Meanwhile Daredevil begins taking out the outer guard. Finn brings in the dog and promises to torture and kill him too, this is enough to make the Punisher talk. So, 2 of the Irish find a case as the Punisher finds a blade embedded in his skin which he uses to escape, just after a bomb he had in the money case explodes. Punisher escapes and manages to kill a few before bullets slow him down, Daredevil comes to his rescue and stops him from killing anyone else, he’d already killed Finn.

A white van stops by the castle house. Daredevil drags Frank to the nearby cemetery because of reasons. They talk and more about Franks dead family and a teacher that probably shouldn’t be teaching if she’s doing what Frank described. Brett +1 arrive to arrest the Punisher, Daredevil tells Brett to take credit for the collar, and give people faith in the police again. Karen apparently escaped from the suits somehow and is drinking with the others…

Matt and Karen have their romantic moment, finally and the episode ends with Elektra showing up.

Credit where it’s due, this is a good episode. Let’s see if that trend continues in the next 2 next week.

Rating 8.5/10