*Spoilers found within recap*
Right from the get go, the action builds in episode 11. Members of The Hand scale the hospital where Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) is taking care of the blood drained victims. Daredevil (Charlie Cox) comes to her aid, but the captors retrieve their prey, and make off with them.
Matt explains everything to Claire, and then heads out. Ms. Temple attends to a member of The Hand to do an autopsy and -surprise!- he already had one. Seems the members of this ninja group are pretty hard to kill.
Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) is under police investigation due to her being shot out, and despite the man’s past, she lies to protect Frank (Jon Bernthal). She and Matt run into each other later and she claims that she believes that Frank did not kill the DA. Her and Frank meet up in a diner later, and he senses being followed, only because he used Karen as bait. He takes out his would be followers in a sweet little action piece, and in addition gets info about the Blacksmith, so he follows the lead to the docks.
Frank starts covering the boats with gasoline in order to blow up the shipment of drugs. Daredevil is there shortly after, but the two are separated by an explosion caused by the gang of the Blacksmith, shooting at the boats. The Blacksmith’s men are caught in the blast and killed. Frank is presumed dead. We know better.
Anyway, Stick (Scott Glenn) has been trying to kill Elektra (Elodie Yung) with sending thugs but there’s been no luck. She goes to kill him but Daredevil intervenes, and before they know it, The Hand shows up. Stick is captured by the ninja clan, and they take him away. Matt has all the intentions of rescuing him safely but Elektra wants him dead and says she’ll find him first. The two separate to complete their respective missions
In the meantime, Karen wants to learn more about Frank Castle, as she’s trying to build info on him for a newspaper story, so she heads to the house of the Colonel Ray Schoonover (Clancy Brown) Frank fought alongside in the war. They both seem to have a solid chat about Castle, but Karen becomes disturbed when she sees a picture of a man involved at the shoot out at the docs. Schnoonover pics up on this, and makes Karen get into a car and drive somewhere. They are t-boned by a pick up truck, and the screen goes dark. Karen wakes up and realizes that Frank has the colonel, and sees a light on in a distant shed. The Punisher has no time for the actions of Schoonover, who says his family was intentionally targeted during the sting. Frank disposes of the Colonel, and afterwards he discovers a solid stash of weapons. IT’S GO TIME.
As the episode ends, Daredevil and Elektra find Stick tied up, along with Nobu and The Hand. Before Stick can be taken care of, Nobu (Peter Shinkoda) unleashes the information that Elektra is The Black Sky, a leader that The Hand was looking for. Stick knew about Elektra’s powers, which is why he tried to kill her, but ultimately Elektra chooses to side with Daredevil and Stick and get out of The Hand’s grasp.
A lot happened in these two episodes, and I haven’t even touched upon Foggy (Elden Henson) having a chance to work for a big time law firm. He’s earned that shot due to everything he’s been through, no doubt. In any case, Elektra’s story line finally gives the character something interesting to do, and the annoying factor went away after her story arc took a turn. Punisher is still an engaging feature, even when he’s talking to Karen in a diner. It’s still disappointing that the titular character needs a little bit more oomph, as he seems more of an inconvenience to everybody, but thankfully he’s surrounded by a really intriguing set of people. Onto the finale!!!
Overall Rating: 7.5/10
Daredevil Season 2 is currently streaming on Netflix
===========================================================================================================
Logan J. Fowler is a senior writer and video game editor on Pop-Break.com. He contributes his thoughts every week for Trailer Tuesday and ABC’s The Goldbergs.” Logan’s “kid at heart” nature has led to his discussion about pop culture that many geeks love to talk about, including superheroes, Super Mario Bros., Pixar, and Muppets, among other things. In addition, one of his first pieces for the site, “Top Ten Comic Book Movies,” was picked as a “Freshly Pressed” piece by WordPress and remains one of the site’s most well-read articles. Many of Logan’s friends have said that he moonlights as Spider-Man but this is so not true. Wait, are those police sirens I’m hearing?! Gotta go! -thwipp-
=========================================================================================================
