Daredevil, Season 2, Episode 7: Semper Fidelis
Frank Castle goes to court, and I never thought that an episode about a court trial would be so exciting. The Punisher and Elektra storylines finally intersect, as do the Matt Murdock and Daredevil storylines. As it's obvious to probably everybody watching the show, Matt kinda fucks up by choosing the vigilantism thing over being a lawyer, thus forcing Foggy to cover up for Matt's absence. Elektra's unconventional and pushy methods of getting Matt to help her out in combating the Hand is definitely hurting Matt's attempts to, y'know, be a lawyer.
And, well, Elektra tries to help out when she overhears a part or two of the trial. One of the witnesses, the coroner that falsified Frank Castle's body and made it disappear, is refusing to give truthful testimony, so Elektra tries to help out in the only way she knows she can -- threaten the fuck out of the coroner, and make him piss his pants. The judge is half-competent, however, and she kinda gets the poor scared coroner to confess that, yes, someone came and threatened him to tell the full story. While Daredevil is exonerated since he gave the description of a ninja lady, his testimony is considered to be under duress and struck from the record. This leads to heated tensions between Matt and Foggy that's been brewing all throughout this trial -- mostly due to Matt missing all their trials and whatnot -- finally explodes. He's finally doing something, at least. "Stop acting like these things just happen to you" is an absolutely great comeback.
Yeah, Foggy becomes relevant, and the trial scenes become relevant. We're at the halfway point of the season, and I cannot believe that this trial is that exciting. In a sense the story of the season isn't as focused as the one from the first season, which is all about Daredevil vs. Kingpin's organization. The story here is focused on the Punisher, but with an Elektra sideplot that consumes a good chunk of the middle and takes up almost the entirety of the final leg of the season. But it's fine! Variation is good, right, and it's definitely welcome here.
Also, Karen, despite being mostly supportive of Matt throughout the episode, gets into a bit of a discussion-slash-argument with Matt over vigilantism, kind of putting a bit of a halt to their romance. It's a really great discussion, and having Karen's input on it (sometimes people like Frank is needed) is great both for the audience, so we don't just see the same two people regurgitating the same old points over and over... but also for Matt's own character development as he is confronted with the fact that despite thinking that he's doing the right thing for the people, some of the people might want something substantially different, and hearing it come from one of his closest friends probably really hurts him.
Hell, even the jury itself is split on Frank's killing spree, with some of them noting that the police are shit and it's people like Daredevil and Punisher who even get anything done, with some of them condemning the criminals as scum who should die, some who are just scared of all these crazy psychopaths be it vigilante or goons, and some family members of Frank's victims.
All throughout this it's fun to see Frank's own reactions. He's just crazy here, just being a wildcard for all involved both his defenders and his enemies. Though I don't really understand a huge chunk of what they're trying to get from the trial, really... get Frank's death sentence annulled, yes. Also, um, maybe decrease his sentence for... something? I dunno. American courtroom laws isn't something I'm well-versed with at all. It's just entertaining to see everything that's going on, though, and at least I understand enough to see whether Team Frank or Team Reyes is winning.
Meanwhile, the Hand plot doesn't really advance that much -- they follow the ledger to a train full of dirt, fight a bit and in the end, where they show up in that mysterious building that Nobu seemed so keen to obtain from Kingpin back in season one, and, um, they dug a big, big big hole. Yeah. Some crazy Hand thing. Despite the friction that Elektra caused between herself and Matt, the fact that this strange threat ends up to be real and somewhat incomprehensible, at least Daredevil isn't too proud to ignore Elektra's valid warnings about this group of psychopaths tearing his city apart.
Overall I still think it's weaker than the earlier episodes thanks to the more disjointed focus, and the slow buildup to the Hand plot. And as interesting as the trial is, it's also, um, not quite that great in really revealing much beyond what we already know regarding Frank Castle. It's interesting to see his reactions and his prideful refusal to be portrayed as a 'crazy' PTSD patient, and it's somewhat interesting to see Foggy and Karen scramble to try and figure out how to win this defense, but overall... it really could've been somewhat shortened. Ditto for the whole 'Elektra is a bad influence on Matt's life' thing. There is some nice tie-in between the Elektra and Punisher plots, though, and that's pretty decent. Decent doesn't really stand up all that well to the quality of episodes one through five, though. I think my biggest problem is simply that there just isn't quite enough content to stretch it out over an entire episode. But eh, they can't all be winners.
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