Daredevil, Season 2, Episode 6: Regrets Only
Last Daredevil episode review this week, I think. We'll do another batch next week.
This episode is a lot slower and honestly less good than the previous five episodes, though that's nothing to be ashamed about. The show just kinda has a bunch more plot lines to juggle, and as a result some of them felt lackluster for it. Our screentime (and Matt's attention) is split between Elektra's crusade against the Not-Yakuza, and the Punisher trial. Again, I want to say just how genius it is to have Punisher be involved in the obligatory lawyer plot, especially after a whole four-episode arc dedicating to building up his character.
Matt, perhaps somewhat foolishly, volunteers his law firm (much to Foggy's indignance) to represent Frank Castle, if only to find out just what the hell Reyes is hiding and how much of a hand she has in fucking Frank Castle's life up. Reyes looks like she's about to be set up to be the season's villain, or at least one of them, anyway -- the Elektra side of the plot probably is going to have a different main villain. Matt talking Karen and a reluctant Foggy to the plan to defend Frank was a great moment, and Karen having investigated Frank's story and finding a lot of discrepancies with what Reyes is telling them and forcing them to say is a believable way to get her on Matt's side. Reyes (and her assistant Blake Tower) is a compelling enough of an obstructive bureaucrat style antagonist that it's fun enough to have her around, even if she's nowhere as interesting as Kingpin, Kilgrave or Punisher himself.
Of course, Matt's attention is split between his two insane clients -- Punisher and Elektra, who's mostly just going all 'Matt, meet me here and help me infiltrate the Roxxon company' with no regard to Matt's life.
And while the moments with Punisher is understandably more serious and grim, we did get a bit of a bonding moment between Karen and Frank as she tries to understand Frank as a person, telling him that they could at least figure out just who is responsible for the death of his family. It's definitely a really strong moment for Karen, and both Karen and Frank really have some great dialogue -- not as well-scripted as Matt/Frank, perhaps, but still great. In addition to Karen helping Frank remember his family, there's also the oblique hints to Karen's ultra-super-duper-mysterious past, which she is still hiding.
There's of course the court scenes, which is awesome. Frank deciding to cooperate with Karen and going to trial, if only to give Reyes a big 'fuck you' and to uncover Reyes' secrets, was a great moment. I don't really give two shits to the trail scenes of Daredevil's first season due to, well, not really being interested in lawyer-style settings (more power if those kind of stories interest you, though), but throw a character I care about like Punisher into the mix and suddenly everything becomes so much more interesting! Also you can't help but note that Karen's motivations in helping Frank definitely stems from her identifying with Frank more, having killed a criminal herself last season.
The highlight of the episode is still Matt and Elektra infiltrating the Roxxon party, with Matt acting as a bumbling blind man, their pretending to be a drunk couple having sex to avoid security, and generally just them sneaking around to steal the ledger is a lot of fun. Again, just as how he did it with Punisher, Matt is forcing Elektra to not be lethal and it's fun. Their target is this rich jackass Stan Gibson and, well, he's just a butt monkey throughout the episode, isn't he? It's a nice break that Matt goes from beating up mafia dons and random street punks and decides to go up against corrupt businessmen for a change.
Up until the end, until this Mr. Hiroshi fellow, who previously has been portrayed as a generic Japanese businessman, kills the two bodyguards that failed to protect Stan Gibson, delivering the wham line 'who says we are the yakuza'? Yup, the Hand is here. Also, it's cool how the two bodyguards are tying up their fingers in preparation for the yakuza finger-cutting ritual only to find out that, nope, shot through the heart.
It's more of a set-up episode, really, and it kinda suffers for not really delivering much on the characterization (Karen/Frank conversation aside), backstory or action quota, but we need slower breather episodes like this in a series. It's a strong, if relatively unspectacular episode, but being less good than its predecessors is really nothing to really be ashamed about. It's just building up the Hand, the Punisher trial, Karen's backstory, Frank's backstory and Matt having to choose between his two identities all at the same time.
Foggy really needs something to do beyond being the 'please don't do this stupid thing' to Karen and Matt, though. He's easily the least interesting of the main cast, and he really needs something to justify the amount of screentime he receives.
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