The July 1, 2022 installment of Jake Schoeneberger’s random entertainment opinions
The Daredevil show is getting pretty interesting. Nobu is back so Stick certainly wasn’t lying. The question on the mind of Jake Schoeneberger is this: How will Matt deal with all of this on his own now that he’s effectively pushed away close to him away?
With that in mind, here are some random thoughts about the entertainment I’m currently consuming.
This Installment’s Edition of Jake Schoeneberger Has Been Living Under a Rock Features: Daredevil
*This will contain spoilers for anyone who hasn’t watched the show yet.*
The tenth episode of season two begins with Mahoney coming to The Farm to get the victims out of there. It seems Nobu set us some kind of machine to siphon people’s blood in order to heal himself. Is this the answer to immortality that The Hand has found? Daredevil tells Mahoney to start looking at the Yakuza to figure out what’s behind all this. It’s good to see that he’s keeping Mahoney in the loop on all this. He’ll need more allies.
Mahoney brings the victims to Claire at the hospital at Daredevil’s request. They’re keeping them secret because Daredevil suspects The Hand will come after them. Claire finds that they’ve burned the fingerprints off the victims. Matt shows up at the hospital to warn Claire that bad guys might show up to claim the victims, but she still wants to help. As they’re talking, Matt overhears the police radio announcing that Castle has escaped prison.
Reyes has called Foggy, Karen, and Matt in to question them about Castle’s escape. As they’re talking, Foggy mentions that Castle was taken to cell block D, and Matt remembers that’s the same place they took Fisk. They immediately form the theory that Fisk facilitated Castle’s escape, and I must say, Jacob Schoeneberger is pretty impressed at how quickly they figured that out.
In Reyes’ office, Matt says if she wants their cooperation she’s going to have to tell them everything she knows immediately. This seems like a pretty fair deal to me. Reyes and Tower tell them that they learned about the Blacksmith, a new major player that wanted to take over the drug trade in NYC. They set up the sting to get to the Blacksmith at the carousel in Central Park but obviously it all went south. Reyes admits she didn’t clear the park because that would have tipped off the sting. That’s how Castle’s family wound up getting caught in the ensuing firefight.
Reyes says she found the x-ray of Castle’s head injury in her daughter’s backpack so she fears for her family’s life. Karen tries to tell her that coming after her family is not part of Punisher’s code, but Reyes doesn’t listen. She says she just wants them to let her know if they hear from Punisher.
And at that moment a bombshell drops. Reyes’ office gets shot to smithereens. Matt hears it a moment before it happens and is able to knock Foggy and Karen down in time. Foggy is hit on the arm, but Reyes gets hot badly. This is meant to look like a Punisher hit but I must say Jake Schoeneberger isn’t buying it. This is not Punisher’s style at all. My guess is someone is trying to make it look like Punisher did it. In the aftermath, Reyes lays dead on her desk.
Foggy is given medical help outside the courthouse. He’ll be ok but he asks Matt not to go looking for Punisher. But we all know Matt has to go do his thing. Then Tower comes over to explain everything he knew. He found out that Reyes was covering up her mistakes, that’s why he gave Karen the x-ray of Frank’s head hoping she’d put the pieces together. Hmmm, I’m wondering about Tower’s role in all this. I remember that he dangled a job for Foggy if at the DA’s office of he played ball before the trial. And we know Tower was expecting to be the new DA if Reyes continued her political climb to mayor. Is Tower somehow behind this shooting and not Punisher?
Matt goes to the prison with Fisk’s attorney, Donovan, to speak with Fisk directly. This is a bold and unexpected move from him. I’m pretty impressed. I figured he’d go straight to being Daredevil to get answers. It’s an amazingly dramatic moment seeing Matt sit down face to face with Fisk.
Matt accuses Fisk of facilitating Castle’s escape. He says, “That’s what you do. The scheming, the machinations. Frank Castle is a killing machine and you set him free which means you’re aiming a loose cannon at someone, and we both know it.” Matt has figured it out but he’s looking for clues into Fisk’s motivation. Fisk predictably stonewalls him until Matt brings up Vanessa. That makes Fisk take notice. Fisk sends Donovan away so he and Matt can speak privately.
Matt threatens to ensure Vanessa can never come back to the United States and this infuriates Fisk. Fisk breaks his chains and slams Matt into the table. I’m not sure what Matt was aiming to get out of this strategy but what he did get was a butt-kicking. Fisk picks him up and tells him he’s going to crush Nelson and Murdock when he gets released and that The Punisher isn’t what they should truly fear.
Karen goes to the Bulleting after the shooting and she and Ellison start going over the facts to figure out if Punisher is the one behind this shooting. They decide their next step is to go talk to Tepper in case Punisher has him next on his list for falsifying his medical report.
Surprisingly enough, the next scene finds Elektra at a small airport bar. She orders a tequila and is joined by a mystery man who buys her drink. Have to assume he’s some sort of target. He says his name is Jacques Duchamps. But when she gives him a fake name he says he thought her name was Elektra. Uh oh, Jacques is pretty sharp! He says he knows who she is and who she’s killed. When she asks if he’s going to kill her he replies, “Something like that.” Very intriguing plot twist, was not expecting to see Elektra again so soon.
Karen and Ellison arrive too late to Tepper’s hotel room. The police are there and Tepper has already been killed. But again, the scene doesn’t look like a Punisher scene. There are way too many bullet holes all over the place. If Punisher wanted to kill Tepper he would have done it neatly. Harsh yes, but neat. Punisher wouldn’t stray bullets all over the place to take out one man. He’s far too skilled a soldier for that. This one has Jake Schoeneberger scratching his head.
Karen is thinking the same way I am. She tells Ellison this is not Frank’s style. She says this scene looks out of control. But Ellison says that they need to figure out who else might be in danger from Castle. He sends two police officers to escort Karen back to her apartment protect her so she can retrieve her files on Castle.
In the hospital, one of the victims finally wakes up. It’s Stan’s son and he is coherent. I wonder how much the son knows about what just happened to him.
Claire goes to the roof for a break and Matt is there. She tells him Foggy is doing well and will get better. She says Matt should pay him a visit. He says he can’t because he feels he dragged Foggy into this mess and he wound up getting shot for it. Claire tells him, “Maybe you need to start climbing down off that cross of yours and spending some time with us normal people for a change.” Really, she couldn’t have given him better advice. It’s exactly what old Jacob Schoeneberger has been saying for a while now. Matt is pushing all the people who care about him further away. That’s not the right answer for his life.
Then Claire tells him about the toxicology report on all the victims. They all had foreign organic substances entered into their bloodstreams, were used as incubating devices, then drained slowly and systematically of their blood over months. This was how Nobu used them to reanimate himself. Seriously, Nobu? That’s the grossest fountain of youth I’ve ever heard of.
Then Matt shares his frustrations with Claire. He is frustrated with the legal system, especially because Fisk is now running the prison that Matt sent him to. He says, “I’m done, Claire. No more law, no more friends. At best, they’re a distraction. At worst, I put them in jeopardy. From now on, I need to focus.” She tries to talk him out of it, but he just thanks her for the coffee and walks away.
At Karen’s apartment, the two cops wait outside while Karen finds her files. But then a shadow approaches in the hallway and from inside Karen hears the sound of a scuffle. Karen pulls a gun from a drawer just as Frank enters her apartment. He says to her, “It wasn’t me.” But as he’s standing with his hands up, he hears a noise outside. He dives and tackles Karen just in time as bullets start spraying into the apartment from an unknown shooter. So now we officially know these hits weren’t done by Castle. The two are unharmed and they flee the apartment once the shooting stops.
In prison, Fisk asks to speak to Donovan so that he can reexamine Matt Murdock’s files. This is a bad sign. Matt really kicked a hornet’s nest on that one and has made a powerful enemy. It was one thing to put Fisk away, but now Fisk considers it personal.
In the airport hangar, Elektra and Jacques are having a fistfight. Jacques is holding his own; he’s clearly a skilled fighter. But Elektra is Elektra and she gets the best of him. She uses his own knives to kill him. As he’s dying he tells her that The Hand didn’t send him, Stick did. Interesting for two reasons. First, why would Stick want her dead? It’s one thing not to work together but how does she pose a threat to Stick? Second, why would Stick send a clearly inferior fighter to kill Elektra? He has to know how awesome she is. Why would he think that would work?
At the hospital, several ninjas climb the side of the building. Matt is ready for them but he’ll be badly outnumbered. Clair goes to check on the victims but they’re all up out of bed like zombies. They’ve killed Stan and they stare at Claire like she’s next. She runs away, but we have to wonder what kind of hold The Hand has over these poor people. The episode ends with a shot of at least eight ninjas scaling the walls ready to enter the hospital. Not sure how Daredevil will take on that many opponents at once.
The Jake Schoeneberger Random Entertainment Thought of the Day
Every episode of this show makes you crave the opportunity to watch the next. That’s a sign of a great series. The interwoven storylines have Jacob Schoeneberger trying to guess what will happen next.
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