For a few episodes now, I’ve been worrying that Daredevil’s second season has been going around in circles while it was desperately trying to find itself a new, solid launching point to leap from after the first four episodes came at us so damn hard. Since then, Matthew Murdock has found his head well and truly turned by his amoral old flame, Elektra and they’ve burnt through three whole episodes chasing proof for undisclosed wrongdoings from an unclearly defined enemy. Worse yet, Jon Bernthal’s scene swallowing Punisher has been waylaid as his trial arrives, keeping him stashed far away from the action.
However, with Guilty As Sin, it seems that the gear shift we’ve all been waiting for has finally occurred and not only does the show give Frank Castle and Elektra something substantial to play with, we also pick up with kind a few dangling threads from season 1 that not only brings back Stick and finally establishes a classic Daredevil enemy by name, but we also get the return of a man who has been conspicuous by his absence – a certain Kingpin of crime…
After establishing that the huge, mysterious hole that’s been dug in the basement of a tenement building in Hell’s Kitchen is at least 40 storeys deep, Daredevil and Elektra are soon attacked by red clad ninja who use a various array of pointy murder weapons to try and slay the intruders. However, after Elektra is badly wounded by a poisoned blade, the pair are suddenly rescued by Matt’s old mentor, Stick, who whisks them away as more hooded reinforcements show up. While they hole up in Matt’s apartment to try and cure Elektra of the toxin flowing through her veins, Stick goes into full exposition mode in order to catch his old student up on the various goings on of that war he mentioned an entire season ago. It seems that the ninjas are part of an ancient order known as the Hand and the Yakuza and the Japanese arm of Roxxon are merely a front for the clan that have been locked in battle with their rivals, The Chaste, for hundreds of years. While Matt is still resistant to Stick’s tales of secret battles and the news that the Hand discovered the method to obtaining eternal life, he pays far more attention when he discovers that not only was Elektra also one of Stick’s students, but she only met up with Murdock in the first place to lure him back into the Chaste.
However, while the injury she sustained seems to have given Elektra a new lease on life and she genuinely seems to want to make a new start with Matt without all the crime, killing and deception, the Punisher trial is now moving with the unstoppable mass of an out of control juggernaut, but while Foggy has having to do the majority of the work on his own, he manages to get Murdock in to cross examine Castle himself. However, after Frank spectacularly torpedos his own defence and tanks the entire trial, it doesn’t take long after he’s admitted to prison for an interested party to make his presence felt – Frank Castle, meet Wilson Fisk.
To say that Daredevil has managed to get back on track with a bang is an understatement akin to suggesting that Frank Castle has something of a stern stance on crime, but the semblance of a plot returns to the season with such force, it requires a fairly sharp knowledge of a particular episode of season 1 to work. However, those familiar with Frank Miller’s Daredevil classic run will find lots to be excited about as we not only get the full-fledged Hand leaping all over the place, trying to kill Daredevil and Elektra, but Scott Glen’s Stick makes his triumphantly grizzled return to fully bring home that this season now finally has a legitimate arc. It also helps that the Hand are reintroduced in style with backflips, throwing stars and a cool chase where Stick, Murdock and a wounded Elektra try to make a getaway in a speeding car while ninjas pepper the vehicle with arrows. It’s the martial arts trained boot to the arse the show has needed to bring some stakes and urgency into the Murdock/Elektra plot and it also helps makes Stick’s bottle episode back in season one retroactively better much in the same way the belated payoff of The Avengers made the lesser entries of phase 1. However, beyond the ninja fights and a ton of exposition, not only do we get more of Glen delivering all of his lines as if he’s the most sardonic son of a bitch that ever lived, but we actually manage to get some progression in the relationship between Murdock and Elektra. It seems that her near-death experience has shaken her out of her previous attitude and has her wishing she really could settle down with him and in return, nearly losing her to Hand poison has got Matt yearning after her too.
As nice as this all sounds to anyone who has been “shipping” them (Mattchios anyone?), it proves to be horrendously awkward when Karen calls by – conveniently between ninja assaults – in an attempt to get Matt into the courtroom only to find him with a strange woman in his bed and a belligerent old man in his living room.
Oh yes, speaking of the court case; you’d be forgiven for worrying that the Punisher’s trial would once again be swept under the carpet to make space for the introduction of the Hand and all the baggage that comes with it, but thankfully the show’s momentum has picked up again to the extent that Frank’s arc is well served and even becomes the exclamation point of the entire episode. It also helps that one of the character witness for Castle is being played by none other than Clancy friggin’ Brown. Matters get even more awesomely dramatic when Murdock finally drags himself out of the world to question Frank on the stand with an impassioned bit of grandstanding about the nature of heroes and vigilantes, however, due to a mysterious message whispered to Frank before he takes the oath, Bernthal is given the chance to deliver the latest in yet another all time great Punisher moments when he explodes into an enraged rant in order to deliberately obliterate his entire trial. While you’d think a perfect Punisher moment would require an automatic weapon, a bullet-riddled criminal and a white skull on a black t-shirt, Bernthal proves this stunningly false as he bellows “You people, you call me the Punisher, ain’t that right? The big bad Punisher. Well, here I am! You want it, you got it! I am the Punisher! I’m right here!” to the crowd as guards lead him away to his inevitable prison stay.
Of course, this all leads to Murdock once again grazing rock bottom as his relationship with both Foggy and Karen is once again on the rocks and his professional career is also under threat after screwing the pooch with the Punisher trial. But he can’t even take solace in his renewed feelings for Elektra, for when a later attack from a Hand assassin reveals the attacker is actually only a teenager, she steps up and slits his throat without hesitation despite earlier maintaining that she wanted to change her ways. However, the closing shock doesn’t come from Daredevil, Stick, Elektra, Foggy, Frank or Karen. No, the final word comes from the brief but triumphant return of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk who seems to have a nefarious use for the Punisher that requires him to be behind bars with him. What machinations await, and just how shocking brutal will it be? It’s the return of the Kingpin.
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