As we wade towards the big finish of Daredevil’s second season, you can’t help by feel that the hero is still being plagued by the greatest hurdle he’s ever had to clear – the lack of a clear narrative. Now don’t let it be said that the show isn’t still delivering more than its fair share of classic, kickass moments that include the Man Without Fear, the Punisher, Elektra, a cameoing Kingpin and many others, but while we’re still getting plenty of skull cracking, nose busting, ninja fighting action, the show is still in dire need of a central figure to take the mantle of a main villain.
There’s plenty of pretenders. Ninja warrior Nobu has showed up, back from the dead; The Punisher himself played an antagonist role in the first three episodes; Elektra took a turn being the devil on Matt’s shoulder; Stick’s being a bit of a prick these days and even the Kingpin popped in for a bit to take the reigns before bouncing out. However, with the promise of yet another secondary baddie waiting in the wings with this mysterious Blacksmith, you get the feeling that the season desperately needs to pick one sooner rather than later…
However, while the black hats are all over the place, it’s a good thing that the heroes are still in the game.
Metro General Hospital is about to get a few undesirable visitors showing an unhealthy interest in some of their patients when agents of the Hand turn up looking to take back the drugged up teens who were giving an unreasonable amount of blood to aid their unholy cause. Aiming to take them back to fuel their strange, ancient machine, the stor the hospital looking to reclaim their abused property only to find Daredevil playing watchdog and the fight is joined. However, while put upon nurse Claire Temple manages to kill one the ninjas, Daredevil is unable to stop the rest of his sword swinging buddies killing one of Claire’s friends or prevent the Hand from taking back what’s theirs.
Instead of wasting time writhing in Catholic guilt, Matt instead tries to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding the shadowy Blacksmith who is rumoured to be the true man behind the shootout that killed the Punisher’s family and after getting info from Madame Gao of all people, he heads out to follow this new lead.
Speaking of the Punisher, Frank Castle is celebrating his recent escape from Rykers by bonding with Karen Page about love and grief and tearing apart the Blacksmith’s goons like a fucking animal after they take a shot at them. But while Karen recoils in horror at Frank’s deeds, Castle gets the info he needs and collides with Daredevil once again at the Blacksmith’s apparent location during a massive drug shipment.
Bullets are fires, fists are thrown and in the end, a disillusioned Matt admits that the Punisher’s way may be the way that works; but after a huge explosion apparently leaves the survival of Frank in question, Daredevil is left to ponder the ashes.
Meanwhile, a vengeful Elektra, pissed that her mentor Stick tried to have her killed, has located her quarry and aims to have a serious chat with her former teacher.
As season two continues to scramble about with way too many pieces still on the board, one thing is becoming fairly apparent – it seems like we really are in the middle of an Iron Man 2/Avengers: Age Of Ultron scenario where the main story is getting slowly choked out by the need to set a whole bunch of shit up. In fact, the checklist has now become so dense that I’m not even sure what the main story even is anymore. At one point I thought it was the Punisher trying to track down who killed his family, but then Elektra turned up and eventually brought the Hand with her in her wake, but is the Hand and their freaky machine the main story now? The issue is that with the long touted Defenders series on the horizon (not to mention The Punisher getting his own solo series), there’s a very real chance that neither of these two plot points could actually get resolved during this series, which genuinely is a really shitty thing to do to one of the best superhero shows at the moment. I understand that the connective tissue of superhero properties is a voracious monster that demands to be fed, but I really thought we’d learnt from all the Avengers pandering that weighed down the second Irin Man movie and all the Phase 3 prep that came with Age Of Ultron.
Anyway, now that I’ve had my little rant, I have to admit that even though .380 is making me a little uneasy about where this all is going, it still proves to be a damn exciting episode that takes its two most enticing characters and gives them classic, no bullshit adventures that even ends in a good, old fashioned Marvel team up. Almost.
Let’s start with Daredevil first as the entirety of the pre-credits sequence sees him enacting Assault On Precinct 13 in a hospital with a bunch of ninjas and it’s as cool as you’d hope it would be. Still, while watching Murdock lock horns with hooded assassins isn’t old hat isn’t just yet, it’s good that the episode continues on to give us the hero doing his classic crime fighting thing beyond yet another battle royale with katanas. In fact, we get another episode that sees Matt mostly get to cut loose without the Hand, Elektra or Stick to slow him down or trip him up and I’m starting to cherish everytime the show gives us some old school, season one style crimefighting that comes repackaged in that cool, season two suit. In fact, on his travels to pin down one of the wealth of villains scattered across the city, he stumbles on another one – Madame Gao. I know I’ve been fretting that the season is piling in far too much to handle, but the addition of another old antagonist does actually help to create that sprawling crime community that the Netflix/Marvel shows have built up.
While we also get some progression with Rosario Dawson’s Claire who is sick to the back teeth with hypocrisy of the cover ups of her hospital (although what would you do if you found your building had been attacked by ninja who have already been through an autopsy) , it’s another plot point that’s probably going to be picked up in another series, so we’ll leave that for now, but thankfully Frank Castle gets his chance to do his thing once again. I was worried that his relationship with Karen Page was going to defuse some of the great things Bernthal has brought to his interpretation, but actually, they end up playing off one another pretty well with their conversation about love (stay with me) proving to be genuinely moving. However, that doesn’t mean Frank doesn’t get to make a pretty spectacular mess when he takes out two goons in a diner. However, things get even cooler when we get another Daredevil/Punisher reunion and they go right back to hurling each other’s opinions on justice directly into their faces. However, in a twist, Matt actually breaks and admits that Frank’s way might actually be the only way that works, only for Castle to talk him out of it. It’s a nice little progression in their relationship and considering how little time we have left, it could very well be the last they get to have, but the thrill of seeing them sharing a screen still hasn’t abated yet.
As the episode comes to a close, it looks like Elektra is tagging back in as she aims to settle her beef with Stick, but the main question I have right now is that after looking at the painful looking
purple mess that covers 75% of Bernthal’s face, what the hell is the show’s “bruise budget”? It must be fucking astronomical!
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