Daredevil, Season 2, Episode 11: .380
Another busy episode. The second half of this season is, well, nowhere as strong as the first half, and is honestly a bit messier, but it's still an entertaining and well-written mess nonetheless.
We start this episode off with the Hand army charging the hospital and springing the brainwashed kids free. Stan Gibson's son kills him off-screen in the process, which is a small, heartbreaking moment. Poor Stan Gibson is so afraid of all this insane vigilante ninja thing going on around him and all he wants is for his son to be safe, but not only is the poor kid probably never going to be normal ever again, he's also his killer. It's entertaining to see Daredevil just fight a ninja army in the hospital, and it ended up leading to a bit of a character plotline with Claire. One of her nurse friends was killed by the ninja assault, and the hospital wants to cover it up -- though in the hospital's defense they really can't afford such simple naivety because they can really get shut down if it's found out that two nurses stole supplies to treat a bunch of unregistered patients under orders from a vigilante. Which, by the way, was what painted the hospital as a target in the first place. Plus the Hand probably threatened that hospital as well. As awesome as the spirit of that 'NO HIDE THE TRUTH I QUIT' scene is, Clair really came off as stupidly unreasonable.
Oh, and in addition to having creepy brainwashed blood-bank psychotic child soldiers, the Hand also have bodies with clear autopsy marks, which again ties in to the whole 'come back from the dead' thing.
Meanwhile, the rest of the episode delves into Daredevil and the Punisher going off on their own personal quests for answers regarding the Hand and the Blacksmith respectively. This features the welcome return of another season one antagonist, Madame Gao, the mysterious Chinese lady who definitely has more to her than meets the eye. It's a great, fun scene, with Gao having enough charisma and mystique to carry the scene by herself, but I really don't know if having her show up really is all that necessary other than to peg her as a possible supporting character for the upcoming Iron Fist show.
Meanwhile, Frank and Karen sit in a diner talking about love, and telling Karen to hold on to 'those who are close enough to hurt you', because if you don't really love someone then they can't hurt you. It's actually some sage advice from someone who lost his entire family with regrets for not spending enough time with them, and over the time of eleven episodes Frank and Karen have grown close enough that this heart-to-heart relationship advice actually makes sense. As much as 'the Punisher gives dating advice' might sound stupid on paper, it's a scene that really works.
It's followed quite brutally by an awesome diner shootout against a couple of the Blacksmith's men, upon which Karen is reminded with the stark horror that is the Punisher's roaring rampage of death. Yeah, talking about how you agree with the Punisher murdering people is one thing -- being present while said bad guys are begging for their lives as the Punisher fills them with bullets is another. They're giving the Punisher a soft side, but make no mistake. He is the Punisher and he will punish you.
Both Daredevil and the Punisher find their way to the docks, where they find a huge shipment of the Blacksmith's narcotics, and are assaulted by a bunch of people that Frank knew from before, apparently. After going through the hell that he did (probably helped by the fact that Kingpin was not stopped by simple incarceration), Daredevil was ready to make a single exception to his 'no killing' rule with regards to the Blacksmith... which the Punisher tells him to really think hard about, because once the line is crossed there's no going back. It's a great moment for both characters, with each of them respecting the other's methods and code of honour, and the Punisher recognizing the need for, well, a more optimistic hero. Or something. It's just a cool moment and I'm kinda tired to make detailed character analyses okay.
(And, no, the Punisher's not dead in that ship explosion. That's not how this works.)
This episode really works well in bringing the Punisher and Daredevil arcs together after the initial Punisher arc, with great scenes for Frank in particular. Sadly, the Hand/Elektra/Chaste arcs really felt to be relegated to just filler, because, well, as awesome as the hospital scene was, ultimately that was just a bit of filler that really didn't feel like progressing the Hand-Chaste war. Stick is kept mysterious with him sending a hitman to kill Elektra for abandoning the cause, and we seem to be building up to a Stick-Elektra showdown. To truly bring this to a climatic ending we really need either Fisk, Stick or Nobu to be the Blacksmith, to show that, yeah, there is one person pulling all the strings behind all the happenings in the city, how this untouchable mob boss is actually connected to one of the big secret ninja organizations. Otherwise any reveal on who the Blacksmith's identity is will kinda be m'eh considering the dude has been a phantom for nearly the entirety of the show. With a couple episodes more to go, though, we'll see how neatly this series ties up.
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