Netflix Retrospective: Daredevil season 2 episodes 7-8 - Semper Fidelis/Guilty as Sin

We’re back to look at more Daredevil. When I originally watched it’s about this point where my opinion on the series began to sour, is this still the case?

Semper Fidelis

We open with the people of Frank’s jury giving out their pre-existing opinions on him. Some think he’s an awful killer monster, others saying he’s the only one protecting them by putting bad people in the morgue. With the lawyers of both sides satisfied with the jury selection, we see Frank being brought in with the courthouse crowded now. Roll credits.

We flash back to the Nelson/Murdock team deciding what their legal options are, the insanity plea is quickly dismissed but they think they could help Frank avoid a public jail where his enemies would ‘kill him’ by citing PTSD from his time at war. Karen says she’ll talk to Frank, make sure he’s on board with this route.

They remove paper clips from her files as she enters, thinking castle could turn them into a weapon. We really haven’t seen that side of him, he’s mostly about guns. He refuses to accept their legal strategy on the grounds that it’s an insult to people who actually have PTSD. He does provide Karen with a potential witness. Col Ray Shoonver.

Meanwhile, Matt gets a call from Elektra, she’s discovered a Professor who encoded the ledger and plans to go and get the cipher. If they don’t handle it tonight, the ‘Yakuza’ could alter their plans and they lose all progress. Cut to the creep as he’s confronted by Daredevil and Elektra who ‘persuade’ him to do the decoding. There’s a shipment of something being brought in tonight at 11pm.

Karen brings Foggy some food but thanks to looking at bloody bodies all day, he's not hungry. Karen tries to make Foggy empathise with Frank given the news he won’t endorse PTSD but it’s all for nought if they have nothing to give to the jury. There’s a doctor who handled some wounds that’s testifying for Reyes, they might be able to get him to corroborate with their story with the right approach.

At the train yard, they discover the cart but it seems to be only full with dirt, a team is on them before they can investigate further. Using not very stealthy means, they manage to knock them out but more reinforcements arrive. There’s a couple of weird things in this fight scene, apparently one of the guns doesn’t have bullets in it and someone is knocked out immediately after kicking Daredevil.

Elektra is injured, though not severely and needs stitching up by Matt. I guess they didn’t stick around to see if there’s anything else in that crate. They talk about each other’s scars and Nobu comes up because he’ll be important later. Hey Matt, don’t you have an opening speech to submit tomorrow, maybe should work on that. No, he falls off to sleep too, I think…

Morning rises and Matt is really late, much to Foggy’s annoyance. The trial starts without him and Reyes gives a decent opening speech for the prosecution. But Matt isn’t there to give the opening statement. After the occasional stumble, Foggy delivers the opening speech, with Matt only arriving seconds before the speech ends.

What the f*ck is Karen doing there, she’s not a qualified attorney. So, Matt wants a crack at the Doctor, one of the day 1 witnesses. They relent but warn that this line may lead nowhere at all. Matt gives his idea to Karen but I can’t imagine this line not being objected by the prosecution before the Doctor incriminates himself. Karen compares Castle to Daredevil and this time she can kind see why Frank did what he did. Hearing something, he subtly gets Karen to leave.

Elektra is nearby, she’s looked into Roxxon’s construction investment, only a few projects in NY are capable of moving that much dirt. One of them is Midland Circle, put a ring around that, it’ll come up later. So, time for the doctor to give his testimony… he seems nervous and soon after Matt starts questioning him he blurts out that he falsified the reports, but also that he was tied up and threatened last night which means the statement was made under duress and is worthless in court.

Matt confesses all this to Foggy which does nothing to help their relationship. Matt confronts Elektra and she claims to be following his philosophy which is some bullsh*t but moving on… They find the property for the project. Daredevil takes out the guards and the begin searching, what they find is a massive hole, incredibly deep.

This episode is OK, we’re not into the bad yet, but the trial is a foregone conclusion making those segments less interesting.

Rating 7/10

Guilty as Sin

The hole is at least 40 stories deep but they’re soon ambushed by more fighters, Daredevil can’t hear their heartbeats but can hear their swords. Elektra is injured when she hesitates and soon Daredevil is overwhelmed, so it’s remarkably convenient when Stick arrives to save their asses. Oh joy, Stick, my favourite part of season 1… *SARCASM*

Stick drives them away but the ninjas are somehow faster than a car and ambush the group. Stick manages to kill most of them in time to get Elektra back to Matt’s apartment so they can use some made up potion thing to neutralise the toxins from the ninja’s swords. Back to the forgone conclusion, we have the witness Karen managed to pull up, Foggy asks about Frank’s blue cross, which Frank won by clearing an ambush all by himself and saving his team from a botched operation. Reyes gets confirmation that he was a witness, didn’t know about him herself because the names were redacted from her files.

Matt demands explanation, an ancient group of assholes who dominated the east in ancient times and found the secret of bringing back the dead. No mention of K’un L’un yet because Iron Fist hadn’t come out yet. They plan to activate a weapon called the Black Sky with consequences that are totally unknown to them. Somehow a kid with a dead mother managed to kill some of them, sure why not… The kid called him the Chaste, he began rounding up fighters to fight the hand. It’s finally revealed that Elektra works for Stick. Matt tries to persuade him to try fighting the war his way and not Sticks.

Back to forgone conclusion: The trial, a doctor examines Frank’s gunshot wound and suggests he may have EED, Extreme Emotional Disturbance, people with EED cannot pre-meditate a crime in his eyes. But then there’s an outburst from the audience from someone whose dad was killed by the Punisher. Karen persuades Frank to take the stand… this can only end badly! Foggy agrees to doing it but Matt has to ask the questions.

Speaking of Matt asking questions… Stick trained Elektra and him try and distract him, but she fell in love with him and it complicated matters. Which is why she left. Karen interrupts this show, seeing Elektra in Matt’s bed. She tells Matt about the questioning, which Foggy later informs him is because of his double-life. When Frank comes in, an officer tells him to ‘think about what he wants’ and goes to tell the jury that he’d kill all the people he did all over again. Basically, steamrolling over the entire defence, yeah, it was such a good idea to put him on the stand.

Elektra decides to tell Stick to leave, having decided to stay with Matt and try it is his way, Stick heads to a car but one of the Hand ninjas continues to follow them. Matt comes home and sits with Elektra. She can tell they lost the case, and perhaps his friendship with Foggy and Karen, we’ll get back to that later. As he closes the door he’s shot through the shoulder by an arrow. A Hand Ninja tries to fight him off, and Matt is only barely able to defeat, finding he was just a kid before Elektra slits his throat… when only 2 seconds ago she’d elected to try it his way. Matt begins passing out, take your pick of the reasons why.

Frank is processed and taken into prison by a corrupt officer from earlier. Well, he’s a corrupt officer so guess who he works for. Another guard turns off the security feeds, and yes, you’re making the correct guess, this entire charade was perpetrated by Wilson Fisk.

I guess this episode is kinda boring until near the end, it’s a lot of explaining sh*t about the hand and the foregone conclusion that was the trial. Matt loses a lot in this episode, and it’s not something he recovers from in this series, or at least not all of it.

Rating 7.5/10

So maybe it hasn’t gone downhill yet, but we’ve still go 5 episodes left guys