Daredevil, Season 2, Episode 8: Guilty As Sin
Well, not only Stick, I guess, but also a surprise unexpected character at the end. But I'll save that for later. The bulk of the episode deals with the rather slow revelation of the whole Hand vs Chaste secret ninja war, and while I appreciate the slow buildup instead of infodumping it all on us, I really wished they had gone and be a wee bit more clear about the going-ons regarding the secret war. We've had enough buildup and mystery with the whole 'yakuza is back! Except they are not yakuza!' for the past three or four episodes, plus the whole Nobu and Black Sky thing over in the first season, so we really didn't need to spend yet another episode for Stick to go 'legends are real' and Matt going 'you crazy old man', especially in this second half of the season.
But still, Stick is entertaining, slow episode notwithstanding. He's such a gigantic asshole! I could list his awesome quotes in this episode, but then we'll be here all day. He's got a big damn heroes moment when he rescues Elektra and Daredevil from the Hand ninjas, and he got a couple of great scenes in vehicular combat against a ninja army. Again, we spent way too much time dealing with Elektra getting poisoned and Daredevil playing doubting Thomas, and while the long fight against the young Hand ninja at the end is impressive visually, it's another chink that slows down the pacing of this episode that it feels like just a bunch of fight scenes, a filler 'Elektra gets poisoned' subplot and an inconclusive introdump that keeps getting interrupted by Matt's skepticism.
Which is a shame, really, because the show isn't quite clear on the backstory of the Hand in the four episodes to follow and some things really came out of the left field there, so I can't help but fault this episode somewhat for being a rather bad introdump episode. But, hey, let's talk in an episode-to-episode basis.
We get some Matt-Elektra moments, we get some Matt-Stick moments, and it's clear that Stick is embroiled in the backstories of both vigilantes without Matt knowing... but the whole Elektra-playing-on-Matt's-emotions thing is kinda messy. Which is both good and bad at the same time. Good in that messy is definitely the word that describes their relationship accurately, but bad because it's kinda inconsistent to watch especially when Elektra spends a good half of the episode passed out. She ends up choosing Matt over Stick and the Chaste, and kinda tries to uphold his 'no kill' policy... though when faced with a hypercompetent ninja assassin kid about to murder a poisoned Matt Murdock, well... Elektra ends up killing again. That can't be good for her mind.
Also Karen kinda sees Matt with Elektra and immediately assumes the worst because drama. It's kept minimal, though, and Daredevil handles these drama subplots well, so I don't mind that much. Again, though, so much grief could be spared if Matt would just confide in Karen just what he's doing in the night, and I'm annoyed that he hasn't done that already. I mean, his friendship with Foggy is all but shot to hell in this episode and the previous one, and now he's about to lose Karen. Oh well.
The Punisher trial got a couple of great moments, with Colonel Schoonover being a great guest character and painting Frank Castle the soldier in a highly positive light. It's really obvious that Schoonover is the jackass officer or at least one of the soldiers that Frank Castle saved, but it's still really funny seeing Reyes get blindsided by one of her witnesses. Though honestly I'd rather have it be shot in flashback so we just don't get ten straight minutes of Schoonover's storytime. But Schoonover is played by the awesome Clancy "Lex Luthor" Brown, so all is forgiven. After several episodes of more or less the same thing it ended up being rather annoying, if surprisingly unexpected, for Frank Castle to flip out and just go 'fuck you all' and just explode despite Team Matt's efforts to salvage his case.
I have no idea why Matt didn't press on the mysterious guard dude in the courtroom when Frank was delivering his outburst, though. He clearly heard it with his super senses, so why did he only tell it to the already-furious Karen and the apathetic Foggy later on? Jeez, Matt.
And, well, apparently the mysterious guard who has his voice on the Punisher's ear is working for... Wilson Fisk! Who I honestly did not expect to show up in this season at all! The Kingpin meets Punisher, the two main villains of their respective seasons, and it came out of nowhere and it's still really very awesome. Kingpin only has like three seconds of screentime but he definitely steals the ending scene there, and it's going to be awesome to see these two great personalities interact with each other. It was an ending that made sense -- of course Fisk would be aware of what's happening in Hell's Kitchen -- but other than a mysterious party using Punsiher I really did not expect it to be Wilson Fisk. Oh, and of course he's working out while in prison. Naturally.
And honestly, as fun as Elektra and Stick are, the Hand plot is honestly kinda m'eh. I'd rather see more Punisher and Kingpin, please. It's overall... an inconsistent episode, I think? All the characters are entertaining and top-notch, but the pacing of this episode really felt off.
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