Daredevil, Season 1, Episode 12: The Ones We Leave Behind
For a penultimate episode, it's honestly a bit underwhelming. It's not that it's horrible or bad or whatever, it's actually decent, but there were a fair bit too many oustanding plot threads that's just wrapped up in this episode, and while none of them particularly messily, it all felt a bit too haphazard compared to the more focused episodes of before.
We've got Vanessa waking up, we've got Fisk discovering Wesley's death, we've got Karen running around, we've got Foggy and Matt still doing their no-talk childish game, we've got Foggy recruiting Marci doing some sneaky lawyer stuff, we've got Matt assaulting Madame Gao's heroin operation, we've got more Karen-Urich sensible/impulsive arguments, we've got some great character moments for Urich as he confronts the head of his paper, a nice moment between Urich and his wife... and then Kingpin confronts Urich in his home, and after a tense argument strangles Urich to death. Well, fuck, that last bit I didn't see coming either.
It's a bit of a disjointed mess other than the Urich bits, but it isn't quite as focused as the previous episodes had been to their respective big parts, and all these B-plots are vying for attention, and none of them really build up to the big finale the way you'd expect a penultimate episode to be. Which is honestly a bit strange.
But, hey, let's talk about this episode bit by bit. Pacing and focus problems aside, it's still a decent episode. We've got Karen throwing way the gun and going a bit paranoid, actually dreaming of Kingpin showing up in her apartment and pulling a Gregor Clegane on her... and normally it would be a cheap red herring, but since it's a bit of a foreshadowing to events that happened later on in the episode, albeit on Ben instead of on Karen...
The moment when Fisk finds out Wesley's death... it is a powerful moment as we see him just... break inside at the sight of his dead friend, that angry beatdown to poor Francis that had to be stopped by Owlsley, pulling up that chair next to Wesley's corpse, that last brotherly kiss, that hollow look, and we see him visibly strain to just reach into his friend's bloody coat and pull out his phone to try and work out what happened.
At least Vanessa's up! And naturally, refuses Fisk's offer of being spirited away to another country. And proving that birds of a feather do flock together, Vanessa fully supports Fisk bringing down all the brimstone and vengeance on those that wronged them.
And it works to humanize him. Again, it's far more effective to see Wilson Fisk confront Ben Urich with the cold anger right off having his best and only friend murdered, and while I don't want Fisk to kill Urich -- especially with Urich's scenes in this episode, it does add to the emotions flying around in the scene.
And I honestly didn't think they were going to kill off Ben Urich, half-expecting him to stick around in Daredevil if not bounce around the different Marvel Cinematic Universe stories. And it's a bit sad, as we go through what seemed to be his darkest hour as he gives in to Karen's insisting that he publish his stories (and while we, the audience, knows that Karen has an additional reason to panic, to Urich it's Karen pulling his usual hotheaded tantrum), getting fired from the Globe, very likely because his chief is on the Kingpin's payroll. It's a powerful scene as Urich confronts his superior and the hurtful argument between the two, but a far more powerful scene is when he talks to his wife, who gives him a lot of encouraging words, telling Urich that he never needed a paper that restricted him from telling stories. And as Urich is motivated by his wife to publish everything to the internet...
Kingpin happens. And then after a terse conversation, Fisk kills Urich. Sigh. And he was such a likable supporting character, too! It also, in a meta sense, raises the stakes as Ben Urich is not exactly a minor character in the Marvel comics, so what's stopping them from killing Foggy or Karen or Claire or whoever else in the finale?
Meanwhile, Matt... well, Matt continues his crusade to bring down the Kingpin's organization, which is fairly less character and emotionally-driven as the Urich and Fisk scenes in this episode. We've got him in Daredevil getup confronting Ben Urich and making an alliance with him, which is short-lived because, y'know, strangulation. We have Urich giving him the idea that 'no one looks at a blind man twice' and he uses his blindness to stake out and do a pretty impressive parkour run to determine Gao's hideout.
And while he does manage to infiltrate Gao's hideout, filled with those creepy blinded Chinese workers, we have Gao face off against Daredevil and she, uh, does this kung fu palm attack that one-shots Matt down. Lady, you're not only mysterious, you're also apparently pretty fucking strong. Iron Fist in the future, maybe? We also have some additional edgy creepiness to Gao's organization as apparently her followers took out their own eyes voluntarily, and her home is apparently 'far away' from China, which implies... well, a quick research into Marvel comics lore seems to imply that she hails from K'un L'un. Both her super-palm-thrust and the logo of the Steel Serpent on her heroin packs imply that she hails from the mystical city that the superhero Iron Fist's power comes from. Madame Gao is mysterious and I'm happy she survives (maybe she'll show up in the upcoming Defenders show?), though as far as her part in Kingpin's organization goes, it's a bust for now.
Also she and Owlsley are both responsible for trying to poison Vanessa to get Fisk back in line. While Owlsley is a bit obvious, her part in this comes as a bit of a surprise. With her leaving the upcoming war (much to Owlsley's chagrin), though, the point is honestly a bit moot.
I am honestly a bit surprised that the little friction between Matt, Foggy and now Karen aren't resolved in this episode, because that means it'll take a fair bit of screentime in the finale is going to be devoted to that. Also, to Fisk confronting Owlsley, no doubt. And our three main heroic leads being reduced to 'those three guys trying to do their own things' who aren't talking to each other, it's kind of lost a fair bit of its focus. Again, while the stuff with Urich and Fisk are well-handled, this episode still lacks focus and the whole Madame Gao thing really felt like something episodic and honestly not at all finale material, something that belonged somewhere earlier in this season. Thankfully the sudden death at the end of the episode is definitely a finale-level event.
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