S02.E08: Guilty As Sin

[HolmesUltimateQu]

What about the fact that Matt was testifying directly to the jury?

I'm not even a lawyer and I was like, "that would never happen in real life - him giving a big speech like that... why isn't anyone objecting?!"

Matt really annoyed me this episode. I don't like that they are separating him from Karen and Foggy. I liked Electra until Matt suddenly cared more about her than his friends.

I loved seeing Frank and Fisk together!

[Tara Ariano]

In case you missed it, here's the Previously.TV post on the episode!

 

Daredevil Gets Dealt A Very, Very Bad Hand
And Matt Murdock finds out things have just gone way off the chain.

[mccartygirl]

So over Karen, but I think I have some resentment left from True Blood. Her character got on my nerves there after a while. 

 

Poor Punisher, doesn't he know that he still has a kid alive on the Walking Dead? Rick and Carl are watching her. That might take some of his anger away. 

[RustbeltWriter]

This season started well but they need to be careful with this Hand and Chaste stuff. It's the sort of plot that can get out of control if it's allowed to much room to breathe and expand. The last thing a show about a vigilante in Hell's Kitchen needs is to get caught up in some war between immortal ninjas that is being fought in New York rather than somewhere in Asia. The names "hand" and "chaste" don't even make a lot of sense. If Stick is supposed to be chaste it must be a joke. He seems like the kind of guy who commits all 7 of the deadly sins.

[Kalliste]

Hey, it's Brother Justin from Carnivale!

 

Don't you mean Kelvin from LOST? :D

 

And, according to IMDB, a billion other things. Man, that guy does a lot of voice acting! 

[FurryFury]

So over Karen, but I think I have some resentment left from True Blood. Her character got on my nerves there after a while. 

Jessica was my favorite character! I guess I got pre-built affection towards Deborah Ann Woll. So I don't get this at all (of course, YMMV).

[WendyCR72]

It's just preference. We like who we like, we hate who we hate. Neither side is wrong.

 

It's all subjective: For instance, Fisk is one of my favorite characters here. Others hate him. Viva la difference!

[mccartygirl]

Jessica was my favorite character! I guess I got pre-built affection towards Deborah Ann Woll. So I don't get this at all (of course, YMMV).

She was one of my favorites on TB, then for some reason I just didn't like her as much. 

 

Fisk is pretty good. He's my hubby's favorite. 

[solea]

Matt comes back to his loft after the trial and Elecktra says, "You lost. But not just the trial." Then Matt replies with something like, "It doesn't matter."

Really Matt? You're blowing off two good friends with that comment. Not sure what the writers are trying to convey here. I don't think Matt is that fickle, so is he just trying to not worry Elecktra? Or is he so sure that the damage he's caused is easily fixed?

[Bec]

I think Matt's just brushing the loss of Karen and Foggy aside because he doesn't want Elektra to feel bad. She did have a hand in creating this situation. Though it really is more Matt's fault than hers.

 

Also Matt's default mode is denial. Heh.

[slayer2]

I'm so in love with this Elektra. Her and Matt have so much chemistry it is absolutely electric (no pun intended) her and Punisher made season 2 for me because I couldn't stand Foggy, there wasn't enough Claire and Karen and Matt have anti-chemistry and it's like they just shoved them together because they are there. I tend to think Matt was quite ridiculous in this episode towards the end with his overall nonsense about not killing people. I think it's faulty, unrealistic and puts the burden of guilt upon others by default. Take the reason Elektra was injured in the first place, it was because Matt told her not to take the killing blow and he distracted her with his nonsense long enough for a ninja to attempt to kill her. If Stick wasn't there they'd both be dead, and Matt wasn't counting on Stick to be there, that means, by Matt's rules all of Hell's Kitchen would now belong to the hand.  

Let's say they escaped that last situation on their own, the following situation with the kid that Matt refused to kill , the kidmay have been afraid, so fucking what, he's a ninja, chances are he would either have to fall on his sword for failing or do as Elektra said he would and send more folks to kill them of which Matt has already proven inadequate to deal with them because he is unwilling to do whatever it takes to stop them which is what you must do to KILL a NINJA. He even wanks on about not killing Nobu who btw, has died about three times already now and it doesn't seem to stop him. I think Matt is being immature and in his unwillingness to do what is necessary to win this fight, he is putting his friends, lovers and everyone he's ever cared about (including Hell's Kitchen) in danger. Every time he refuses to take a life when it's truly needed, someone like Kingpin escapes and kills more people and the burden is placed on someone else to stop him and do what needs to be done. Stick and Elektra are in a sense enabling him (although Stick somewhat less) in this unrealistic goal-setting behaviour by agreeing to abide by his rules. 

Does Elektra need to tone it down with the murder if she is truly enjoying it? Maybe or maybe she's like Dexter and she's simply picked the right industry to channel her rage because it's not as if she goes around targeting innocent people, picking fights and killing for fun. Even her first kill as a child it was clear that if he had the upper hand she would surely be dead, so honestly I'm firmly on Team Stick/Elektra/Punisher here. He's not fighting a bunch of low level criminals, he's fighting powerful ninjas and mob bosses who own people as high as the FBI, this is going to be a long ass, dragged out fight with everyone he loves in the grave before it's done, if he doesn't reinvent his ground rules.  I've always been of the mindset of Mal from Firefly "If someone tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back" anything else is self-sacrificing martyrdom nonsense.

 

ETA: Wrt the comment about Matt not being sorry about losing Foggy and Karen, I loved it and it made perfect sense to me. It reminded me of the recent Supergirl episode and parallel Smallville episodes where Supergirl was ready to move to Metropolis to be with Superman and work side by side with him, she tried to explain to her sister Alex that she finally had that feeling of belonging and not feeling like a freak of nature when her cousin was around because she wasn't the only one like her. Alex took that opportunity to guilt trip her and accuse her of abandonment. Similarly when Alicia used red kryptonite on Clark (which drastically affects his behaviour, removes his inhibitions and allows him to be a freer version of himself) he ran off and married her in Vegas, his  Earth father (king of the platitudes and guilt trips) accused him of being irresponsible and selfish and Clark tried to explain that being with someone who knew about his powers and had powers herself and who treated him like a normal person allowed him to feel free in a way he had never been his entire life.

Matt has been playing a dual role with Foggy and Karen as he has with the world, much like Clark Kent. He has had to play a relatively bumbling blind man of relative mild manners, downplay his abilities and skills and downplay the parts of him that he clearly feels the most connected to, the version of Matt that Foggy and Karen know isn't Matt, it is his disguise. It becomes clear by the end of the series that Matt truly views himself as Daredevil and Day Version Matt is a guise that by the end of season 2 he is more than happy to shed. In the context of this it makes perfect sense that he's not sorry to lose them because in losing Foggy and Karen he is losing the part of himself that has to lie, hide and cover who he is, even with Claire he felt able to be exactly who he was without compunction which empowered her to make a choice about their relationship early on while still being his friend, accepting him and giving her honest opinion without judging. Foggy has not been able to do that, from the moment Foggy found out the truth about Daredevil it has been nothing but whining, guilt-tripping and accusations that have been designed to make Matt give up Daredevil altogether. To Foggy's great surprise Matt went the opposite way, but not to my surprise because if Daredevil is the true Matthew Murdock than Foggy rejecting Daredevil so truly and profusely is in fact a rejection of the true Matt, why would Matt be sorry to lose someone like that? I wouldn't. It's the difference between work friends and real friends.

Wrt Karen, Karen and Matt have only ever played as friends, the two of them have been through the most traumatizing events of the recent lives, living and working in close proximity and neither of them felt comfortable enough with each other to bother sharing that a) they killed a man after being kidnapped and traumatized or b) after being traumatized as a child they were secretly trained as a damn near ninja and now fight crime late at night. The incident that happened with Karen had a direct result on how Kingpin and Daredevil interacted but because the two of them never spoke about anything of personal importance to each other they were never able to share it. Surely Karen knowing Matt was Daredevil at that time could possibly have prevented the situation from happened in the first place and had she shared she was digging into Kingpin and inadvertently digging into the Akuza but these people don't talk to each other. That's why I don't believe that these are real friendships, they are companions and acquaintances but they're not something you give up someone like Elektra or Stick for and similarly it's the reason that Punisher and Daredevil got so close so quickly, because there were on that rooftop for hours sharing their moral codes and laying bare their personalities to each other. This is something that they have not shown Foggy or Karen to do with Matt or viceversa. When Foggy wanted to talk he's go to Marcie (who he doesn't deserve IMO) when Karen wanted to talk she'd go to Ben or Punisher so when we talk about losing friends for Elektra or sacrificing relationships I really don't think there was much to sacrifice here.

Edited November 1, 2016 by slayer2

[slayer2]

On 20/03/2016 at 0:35 PM, FurryFury said:

The show kinda presents Matt as a hypocrite and unreasonable about this no-kill stuff. I personally really don't like the "don't kill" stuff (which is why I prever Marvel to DC, DD seems to be the only MCU installment that makes a big deal out of this), but I could live with it if it was "don't murder" or "don't be trigger-happy". Because it's hard to suspend my disbelief that in a such a gritty show, Matt never kills people unintentionally in self-defense. I mean, I could kinda-sorta get such all-around powerful characters as The Flash or Supergirl being able to avoid killing, but this creed seems to simplistic and idealistic for this particular show. Especially because other characters, whom Matt wants to persuade not to kill the bad guys, don't even have any powers at all. And this moment with Elektra being injured because of his bullshit was a great illustraition of the flaws in his reasoning.

 

I want him to discuss this stuff with Jessica. Try to defend your no-kill rule against somebody like Kilgrave, dude.

Praise!!! Say it louder for the people in the back!