Episode 2.04 – “Penny and Dime”
An Irish wake, full of whiskey and caskets. All the men the Irish lost to the hands of the Punisher in the pub massacre lay at rest.
Finn Cooley arrives, bag in hand. A menacing presence, he’d travelled as soon as he heard his son had died. Standing over his body, eulogizing him, he remarks on on a life he never wanted his son to enter.
Seamus, leading the proceedings, rests a hand on Cooley’s shoulder and reminds him that “…death is part of the deal.” Cooley responds kindly with an ice pick to Seamus’s eye. Turns out, he’s actually more concerned about the money Frank took than the loss of his men, including his son.
Frank’s an anti-hero, but Cooley is a straight-up terror. He was withheld from the viewer, much like Fisk in season one, and has come to take back what was his. He sends his underlings to find his money and capture the man wreaking havoc on their organization. A bloody search for The Punisher ends at Frank’s apartment, but the money isn’t there. They do find two tickets to the Central Park Carousel pinned to a map of New York City.
To the wall, Cooley says, “So that’s who you are.”
Two Sides Of The Same Coin
Frank, like Matt, is a man who can’t let go, who won’t let go. If he were to do so, his mission would be a failure. In holding so tightly to his justifications, he lives with the pain of loss on a daily basis. The carousel seems to be a tie to a memory, one that he can’t let go.
As he witnesses the group of armed men leaving his apartment, knowing well that they’d find him wherever he was. He preps for battle, and inevitable capture. Digging into his arm, at first I thought he was cleaning a wound, but looking closer he was opening one, placing something inside. He also leaves the briefcase he had carved off the wrist of the younger Cooley in a old van. He’s covering every angle.
Before meeting Foggy for Grotto’s funeral, Karen arrives at Matt’s apartment as he’s getting ready. There’s a tension between them, a flirt that hasn’t quite emanated beyond the surface, yet. Karen, helping Matt with his tie, says that she would help her brother with his when they were young. This is new information to Matt, to which Karen responds, “You never asked.”
It points to the importance of the growth Matt goes through in this episode. He’s always willing to put his body on the line to protect others, as Daredevil, but when it comes to those he’s closest to their are still selfish traits that shield him. All of which resonates in Father Lantom’s sermon, “One life gone, one sinful life…but one person is not just one person.”
Matt isn’t able to recognize that his actions have an effect on those closest to him, whether it’s intended or not. Through the earlier episodes, you can see Karen’s concern for him as he’s continuously “falling” or any other of the “blind excuses” he gives her.
Lantom also speaks to Matt’s guilt, a guilt that burns from not being able to do more. “It’s the soul’s call to action.” This season has leaned deeper on Matt’s faith than the previous season did and I appreciate that. Frankly, I don’t think you can have Daredevil and play down his Catholicism. It’s how you handle that part of his life that makes or breaks the character execution.
Karen also has a theory, stemming from the X-Ray of Castle’s skull, that perhaps there’s something deeper than just a won man killing machine and that DA Reyes is covering something up. She needs to know if there’s more to the story. She tracks down a janitor who was formerly a nurse, a nurse that was assigned to take care of Frank when he was in a coma. After a DNR order came through, the doctors pulled the plug, and a minute later his heart started back up. He awoke and asked his nurse to bring him home. An amazing story of survival, it’s how Karen is able to track down Castle’s broken past. She comes across a book, One Batch, Two Batch.
A family, ripped away. A wife, daughter and son slaughtered. This is a vengence tale. A heartbreak that could make a person do anything it takes to feel justice is served.
Rory and the rest of the Irish thugs drug Castle. As he’s outnumbered and half-conscious, Cooley’s men surround, taze and capture him. Tied up and secluded, Frank is at the feet of Cooley’s whim. Bloodied, he’s still given a chance to come clean about where his money rests. After receiving a headbutt to the bridge of the nose, the Irishman’s response is a drill through the foot. A brutal torture that merely reinstates Frank’s resolve. It takes threatening Frank’s adoptive pitbull for him to give up any information.
This is the point when Cooley turns from cold-hearted to absolutely nefarious, but Castle is ready for him. He removes a razor blade embedded in his arm (that self-inflicted arm pocket from before) and cuts himself loose just as tamper-bomb in the van detonates. After rampaging through the few mob lemmings left in the room, he stands over Cooley to ask him who was there the day his family was murdered. With disdain in his voice, Cooley’s response is “Who cares?”
Frank shoots him in the face with a shotgun.
Daredevil, knowing there’s got to be a reason for Frank’s unhinging, makes his way through the building to help his diametric opposite. Matt can’t be the only one feeling guilt, and so he goes to help a man in pain.
Just as Frank ducks behind a coffin door, reciting his lines from One Batch, Two Batch, DD arrives and the duo take out anyone standing in the way of their escape. Frank attempts to kill each person he attacks, but Matt stops him. They escape to a cemetery where Frank collapses, and reveals his story to Matt. His history steeped in war and family. A soldier through and through, he was never scared until returning home.
Family Always Keeps You Going
“My girl, she’s keeping me on my feet.” And long after he loses his family, it’s still true. Everything he fought through, everything that should have brought him down…they held him up so he could finish his mission. I don’t want to give too much detail of this story away, because it’s an astonishing monologue, easily the most emotional of the series to date and I hope they push for Jon Bernthal’s performance in this episode to get a nomination for the Emmy. It’s that good.
Matt’s decision to not take credit for catching Castle convinces Mahoney that the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen may not be what people thought. He still isn’t sure he can fully trust him, but he knows he’s nothing like The Punisher. This gives Matt at least some of the forgiveness he was searching for.
After a night of celebrating at Josie’s, Foggy leaves Karen and Matt to walk home together. They stop outside Matt’s building and finally give in to the tension and temptation that’s been between them for a while now. And he’s happy. For once, the guy is genuinely happy and it feels so good as the viewer to see him embrace it after so much self-torment.
Through all four of these first episodes, there are more hints towards Karen’s past. While I’m awaiting that reveal and curious to see how accurate to the comics they go, it’s going to be incredibly hard to watch her struggle with people finding out who she used to be. If it is anything like in the comics, it’s going to weigh heavily on the blossoming relationship between her and Matt. Once they say goodnight and he’s basking in the moment in his apartment, he suddenly senses a presence. In such a calm moment, I was just as startled as Matt as he grabbed for a knife.
“Hello, Matthew.” – Enter Elektra.
These first four episodes wound up standing almost as a miniseries within this sophomore season. To have the amount of resolution in character and plot embarked here is remarkable, considering there are still nine more episodes left to go. The Elektra tease at the end of episode four is so good that I didn’t want to stop, despite having to start writing! As much as the first season blew me away, it seems, so far, that they’ve outdone themselves with season two.