Daredevil 2x07 Review: Serving Two Masters

“Semper Fidelis”
Written by Luke Kalteux
Directed byKen Girotti
 
The Story
The judge selects a jury for the Frank Castle case (which is exceptionally difficult), and Nelson & Murdock discuss how they’re going to approach the case. They decide to try pushing the PTSD angle and potentially the insanity defense. Frank won’t go for PTSD because he doesn’t have it and that disrespects veterans who do. The insanity defense is a long shot. Matt gets swept up in Elektra’s mission again. They’re getting closer to learning what the not-Yakuza are in town for. It has something to do with the block Fisk acquired for them in S1. They beat up a bunch of dudes, and Elektra gets some wounds. They go so late that Matt sleeps in and misses his opening statements in court. Foggy has to do it, and luckily he knocks it out of the park. But he’s pissed. Matt promises to make up for it by handling the corrupt medical examiner who doctored the reports on the Castle murders. But before he can, Elektra finds the M.E. and threatens the crap out of him, which he tells the judge about, and she declares his entire testimony inadmissible. Matt tells Foggy about Elektra, and Foggy blows up at him for screwing over their case. There’s really nothing Matt can say to make it better, and Karen’s almost as angry at him as Foggy. After about thirty seconds of yelling at Elektra for screwing things up for him, he goes with her to keep investigating the not-Yakuza, and they find a bottomless pit underneath the shell of the tenement building Elena Cardenas lived in last season. Whaaaaaat?
 
Something extremely frustrating just occurred to me. It seems like kind of the point of the Elektra plotline is that Matt is losing sight of his priorities and destroying his career and relationships in pursuit of the vigilante stuff, without even doing it on purpose. That’s actually a perfectly fine character arc—in fact, it’s the same arc Angel had in S2 of his show. What’s frustrating is that this means the Elektra plot can’t satisfyingly intertwine with the Punisher plot, because that would validate all the time Matt is spending on it when he should be working the case. Also, the Elektra plot can’t become as interesting as the Punisher plot, for the same reason. GAH.
 
Things I Liked

• The montage of super biased (both ways) potential jury members
• Karen’s ability to get Frank to sit down and shut up
• “My life doesn’t stop every time you call.”
• Elektra’s Mario-style wall-jump up to the top of the train
• Elektra being bitter that her neck scar means she’ll never have short hair again
• Aha, a spark of conscience in Elektra
• “This trial isn’t about vigilantes” as Matt walks in

 
Things I Didn’t

• So the Asian Studies professor, or whatever, is a lecherous pig who can’t tell Asians apart?

 
The Characters
I think Matt is now afraid Karen might not be quite the glowing, positive influence he was hoping for. I think he thinks that if she believes Frank’s revenge is justified, then she could end up trying to pull him more persuasive than Elektra was at getting him to skew his personal rules for vigilantism. I am entirely on Matt and Karen’s side about Matt’s behavior. He’s doing an extremely bad job of balancing Matthew Murdock, Attorney at Law with the Daredevil. And why does he care so much about what Elektra’s doing? Is he just unable to let it go that the Yakuza might still be in town? If that’s true, then why didn’t he do much about the Irish, the cartel, or the Dogs of Hell?
 
Foggy is very valiant and loyal. He’ll hold his ground and be very awesome doing it even if he has to do it alone, but people like that don’t appreciate being taken advantage of. Matt can’t keep leaving all the lawyer stuff for Foggy to do. They’re supposed to be partners, but just because Foggy knows Matt is the Daredevil and is covering for him, that doesn’t mean he volunteered to shoulder the entire law firm on his own.

Yep, Karen's highest motive is definitely the discovery of truth. And I think some of her sympathy for Frank comes from how much time she has spent terrified for her life since coming to Hell's Kitchen. I imagine it would be hard to live in fear and not to have at least part of you start to want the people who inspire that fear to get a taste of their own medicine. The more permanent, the better.
 
I still don’t like Elektra. She can’t just drag Matt into her own stuff? Now she has to directly sabotage his?
 
Overall Rating
4.5/5