Netflix Retrospective: Daredevil season 1 episodes 7-9

Stick

Who is master and who is apprentice?

The heart of this episode is rather a diversion from the main story, there’s little to no development on the Kingpin side of things at all. Aside from a short side-story that I’ll come to later. The main plot is told half in flashback, half in present.

Murdock is reunited (at the most annoying time possible, by the way) with his mentor, Stick. Stick helped him nurture his heightened senses from the orphanage (what did happen to his mother, anyway?) he helped him taste, smell, hear and more importantly to him, fight.

We’re 20 years later and obviously the pair have a lot of catching up to do. Stick believes that Matt has gone soft and should not surround himself with comforts or love ones that can be caught up in battle. It’s honestly a dilemma, the problem is if you don’t have a life outside of fighting, what are you really fighting for? Daredevil hasn’t struck me as the person avenging his father, that’s not the reason he’s fighting. In fact he didn’t take to the costume until a lot later and he was pushed into learning to fight at all.

But that aside Stick meanwhile is old, he’s been caught up in the war so long that’s all he can see anymore. So when a weapon known as the Black Son was being shipped into New York, he’ll do whatever it takes to put a stop to it. The fact that the weapon is an innocent, I assume meta-powered child doesn’t matter to him anymore. Where is S.H.I.E.L.D. in all this anyway, you’d think they’d likely be tracking some like that.

The fact is compassion is not a weakness, in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Coulson used HYDRAs lack of compassion against them (admittedly in a move that wasn’t very compassionate) and the lead to the death of several of their major heads. This is something Stick may have never learned and its his weakness too as while he does succeed in accomplishing his objective, it leads to a fight with Murdock that he’d inevitably lose.

One of the things the Daredevil movie did badly wrong was having Daredevil kill the way he did. As a Catholic it makes no sense for him to kill (not sure if his religion was really brought up in the movie either) as not killing is one of the major laws that govern Catholics, not to mention Daredevil's hopes to stay (within reason) on the right side of the law.

Does it have that disadvantages? Of course it does. Stick was right, there are times where Daredevil might have to choose between taking a life or losing his own. And it does mean you have the Batman syndrome of old enemies coming back to haunt you.

Back on topic, we have a short side-story regarding Ben and Karen’s investigation, Ben warns that this’ll be a hard process, but Karen is determined to fight. She gets some information out of Elena, who had just been brought back from hospital and is jumped on by two thugs. Whilst she may carry pepper spray it’s the antics of Foggy that gets her out (don’t worry, she’ll get her moment later) Foggy is then introduced to the case. And that’s as far as this story goes.

We get a cliff-hanger ending that hints at the Chaste, the organisation that Stick represents. There’s clearly more to come from it, but I don’t know whether it’s hinting for season 2 or for one of the other series Marvel Netflix is putting out.

Rating 8/10

Shadows in the Glass

OK, you know you’ve got quite an episode when you actually make me feel sorry for Wilson Fisk.

Wow, I mean it, wow. We get pretty much an entire episode dedicated to the main villain, and he pulls it off. Admittedly its ending is fast becoming a cliché but this episode is good enough for that to be overlooked (even though I’m gonna mock it later)

So we find out that Wilson’s father was a total psychopath, but a bit of a loser as well. Already struggling with debts he tries to make money by getting elected into office and takes out a loan from a particularly dodgy lender in order to do so. His campaign fails and when Wilson is beaten up by a guy who calls his dad a loser (which he kinda is) he comes out and beats the kid nigh to death, then convinces his son to join in (OK, I take it back, don’t hurt me) when Wilson eventually stops the dad forces him to look at a blank wall (hence rabbit in the snowstorm, I guess) as he beats his wife for worrying too much. Wilson eventually brings this scene to its only logical conclusion, he beats his father to death with a hammer (go feminism?) they begin sawing off body parts (guess the mother is a bit of psycho too) and sending them down the river over time, and that’s why Wilson was sent away for much of his childhood.

But his past issues are nothing to what he has to deal with in the present. See the Japanese are mad that their Black Child thing was intercepted, Owlsley’s not happy given his recent visit from the man in the mask and is becoming more and more concerned as loose ends start popping up for every attempt they make to close them. And then we have Madame Gao, fluent in every language, knowledgeable about Wilson’s own abilities and able to track him down in an instant.

She claims this is because he’s gotten sloppy, probably because of the romance in his life.

So, when all your secrets as well as your identity are in danger of being exposed, if Young Justice and the Arkham City prequel comic are anything to go by the best answer is to publicly reveal yourself, and so he does, much to Karen and Foggy’s surprise and Ben and Matt’s annoyance.

This is a decent episode, although if you like the action, there’s not very much for you here

Rating 9.5/10

Speak of the Devil

Another episode largely centred on Matthew’s morality. Yes please.

To be fair, whilst Matthew’s way of life was questioned by Stick not two episodes ago, this offers a different perspective on it, about how his friends and people consider that the man in the mask should act.

We get a fair amount of time with the guy Matt always confesses to. His job is to be honest, frank, and see the best in the people around him. In a show that’s so dark and full of bad people this is a refreshing character to receive focus. He’s not overly cheerful but his optimistic views are a nice change of pace.

There are 2 big events in this episode, the first being the tragic death of Elana, whose complete opposition to having her home destroyed and the Russian’s instance that Wilson would give them that specific block lead to her inevitable demise. The consequences of it are felt throughout every character. Matt of course plays down his anger so he can unleash it in costume to find the person responsible.

This leads to the second big moment of this particularly long episode, the showdown between Murdock and the guy in red from 2 episodes ago, Nobu (that really needn’t have been previewed) OK, so there’s a third big moment but I’ll get to that later.

I’ve given quite a long speech on Matt’s morality already, so I’m not going to give it again so yes I’m skipping over a lot of the episode. Nobu is a trained specialist, and given what he said, it seems like he’s the member of the Hand, the nemesis of the Chaste. The fight ends with Nobu being killed thanks to conveniently stored gasoline and Matt having to confront Fisk himself. Fisk dominates the fight (although does he have a bad neck/back? His head is at an angle throughout the entire scene) but Daredevil barely escapes.

He returns home but Foggy is waiting. Him finding out Matt’s secret was inevitable given how close they’ve been. Foggy is naïve but he’s not stupid. Him finding out this way presents a lot of opportunities for the next episode, and we’ll see what comes of it.

Rating 8.5/10

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Images used in this review are from Marvel's Daredevil and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use