TAP Reviews | Marvel’s “Daredevil” S2 E10: ‘The Man In The Box’

Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, Episode 4, Episode 5, Episode 6, Episode 7, Episode 8 and Episode 9 have all been a hoot. Now this episode sees a whole lot of opposition working against the Marvel Knight as he desperately clambers in an attempt to keep his city safe.
 

The last episode left us with all the pieces on the chess board of Hell’s Kitchen, and with these many variables in play, things are surely coming to a seethe. Daredevil gets the cops to bring the blood-drained abductees he found on the farm to the hospital clandestinely to be cared for by Night Nurse Claire Temple.

And things get curiouser and curiouser; the victims show worrying and peculiar signs including burnt off finger tips and spiking temperatures. And with an injured Matt Murdock worrying that these abductees are still in danger, word hits his super hearing that Frank Castle has escaped custody.

And with a loose, but precise cannon like the Punisher roaming the streets again, it is understandable that the little law Hell’s Kitchen has goes into pandamonium. Nelson & Murdock are summoned to DA Reyes’ office which brandishes more security checks than usual, bring together Karen, Foggy and Murdock together after their rocky split as BFF’s. Good thing it’s all business to distract them from the elephant in the room.

Reyes is worried, and with good reason. Reluctantly she divulges all to Matt + Foggy. The Blacksmith. The botch sting in the park. The resultant murder of Frank’s family and essentially the potential murder via DNR. Naughty lady. And with Frank out, and a CT scan of Frank’s previous head GSW placed in Reyes’ daughter’s backpack as a warning / threat, Reyes is clutching for anything that will get her out of Frank’s crosshairs. That’s when hell breaks loose. The only warning was a distant click heard by the acute senses of Matt. In broad daylight the DA’s office gets shot up from a sniper’s perch with automatic gunfire. And its bloody. Nelson gets a slug to the arm, and Reyes lays dead, eyes cow.

A bit sloppy for The Punisher, don’t you think? Karen also seems to think so.

Reyes isn’t the only one. The chief medical examiner that did the report doctoring also bites the dust from a hail of bullets.
 

In the aftermath of the Reyes shooting, Murdock takes a trip to prison. Matt suspected the only way Frank could have escaped was with help. The help of someone who with connections and power. Fisk.
 

This is the first time Murdock meets face to face with the Fisk since his arrest, and Murdock approach is somewhat timid. Cox did good to channel intense emotion that was fear, but it was also something more, caution, a heightened alertness that boiled the blood and made him cold all at once.

Sitting in the interrogation room opposite Fisk, Matt demands answers from him about his facilitation in the escape. Of course Fisk denies all in the most Flippant of ways. That’s when Matt digs deep and comes back up with words meant to hurt and get under Wilson Fisks skin: . He threatens Fisk with eloquence and harsh words, how Fisk would never allow his wife and love Vanessa to step foot back into the US, and all he’d need to do it was some legal paperwork and 6 dollar postage to ensure that they’d essentially never be together.

What follows is Vincent O’norfrio reminding us of how chilling his interpretation of Fisk as a large man with a child’s temper. He undoes his cuffs and start wailing fists and slamming Murdock’s face into the table. We’re not sure if Murdock was trying to not reveal the Daredevil in him or if he was taken by full surprise. But it was a pretty intense scene. And Matt did get a hit in, but he’s already marked. Fisk has a blood vendetta against not only him, but Foggy, the two ‘amateurs’ that got him arrested. Murdock tried his best to put all the blame on himself, but Fisk had both of the esteemed lawyers of Murdock and Nelson in his sights. Another problem for another day Matt.

Oh, yeah, what the hell are CO’s for?

We leave the interrogation room with a track out, symmetry shot of the broad future King Pin. You could almost see the air churn about him with foul scents of sulphur and a coming vengeance.

Elektra, being turned down by Matt for being a blood-lusting assassin kid-throat-slitter, she looks to exit New York in style in a Jet hangar. Only her past city-hopping crusade of assassination, murder and going up against the Hand comes to a head when an assassin comes take her out. Who better to kill an assassin than an assassin? And this close encounter with death brings Elektra nearer to true self-actualisation; Jacques tries to kill her with sais, which is the weapon of choice for Elektra in the comics. But she overpowers him and the weapon she takes from him is her salvation.

Like Fisk hearing the label of ‘Kingpin’ for the first time, Matt being called the Devil of Hells kitchen, and Frank accepting the moniker of The Punisher, the Daredevil series presents the young, impulsive and naive with destiny. But after escaping death, her would-be assassin says some fateful words that is sure to keep Elektra in Hell’s Kitchen a while longer; Jacques was sent by Stick to kill Elektra.
 

Matt as well seems to be flailing as the weight of the safety of an entire city lays precariously on his crown, and it was good to see Claire Temple offering respite for our weary Marvel Knight on the roof of the hospital. But nothing lasts forever as the Hand ninjas are back to reclaim their abducted blood cattle humans saved by Daredevil from The Farm.

The blood-drained victims brought to the hospital in secret are starting to look pretty much starting to look like brainwashed children of the corn. And with the Hand is scaling the walls of the Hospital, and not to mention the Punisher pays a visit to Karen just in time to save here from a hail of bullets similar to the one that killed Reyes, there is a lot of narrative strands happening in this episode. And we suspect these strands are about to intertwine once more for a grande finale centre stage in Hell’s Kitchen.

Blood and sacrifice make for interesting destinies

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