Daredevil S01 E06 – And his strong sense of morality.

Previously: Fisk went on a date.
—

Condemned

Annie: We start right where we left off in the last episode. The cops have Daredevil surrounded and are shouting at him to get down on his knees. He slowly complies and the cops cuff him. One of the cops ask what they’re supposed to do with Vladimir and the other tells him to ‘take care of him’. DD takes that opportunity to bust some dirty cop heads. He fights the three dirty cops off pretty well, considering he’s handcuffed. In the scuffle, Vladimir gets shot.

Catherine: I like how he wasn’t going to beat up the cops until he found out they were dirty. I feel like that’s a good indication of his character. IDK. I like Matt.

Jessica: And I liked his cool flippy jump in handcuffs! And like, his strong sense of morality, or whatever.

Marines: Plus, he’s pretty. Oh, and justice and stuff.

Annie: I feel like there is something wrong with me. I don’t have that attraction to Matt. Am I dead inside? Probably.

Once the cops are all knocked out, Daredevil uses the cop’s keys to get out of the cuffs. Then he asks Vlad how hurt he is and Vlad says something to Daredevil in Russian. DD kicks him in the face, knocking Vlad out.

One of the cops starts to come to, but when he grabs his gun and looks up, Daredevil and Vlad are gone. He goes over and shoots Vlad’s buddy and then radios that shots have been fired and their are two suspects on foot.

JUSTICE AND WAX!

Ben Ulrich is working on one of those six-degrees-of-separation police boards. Do those have a name? He’s using playing cards instead of photos or post-its. He’s got ‘Vladimir’ written on the Jack of clubs and ‘Anatoly’ written on the Jack of Spades. The other cards have things like ‘Russian connection?’, extortion and kidnapping written on them. He also has newspaper clippings and more cards with stuff written on them. He’s shuffling through things and pinning up cards and newspaper clippings on the corkboard. Ben is looking at the King of Diamonds at the top of his crime-tree. He’s written a question mark on that card. (C: ooooohhhh symbolism.)

Ben’s craft time gets interrupted by commotion in the newsroom. It’s very busy and newsroomy, as the editor is telling his staff there have been reports of multiple explosions in Hell’s Kitchen. He starts shouting at different staff members to get different people on the phone for statements. The PD, the public works department. Ben asks him about the locations of the explosions so they know where to go to cover the story. He starts listing them and Ben is all ‘this isn’t public works, those locations are controlled by the Russians’. Ben grabs his coat and runs out.

Out on the street, Fisk’s fancy SUVs are careening around corners as police cruisers are going in the opposite direction. (J: Those squealing tires are totally not sketchy.) Inside the vehicle, Wesley is on the phone. He hangs up and tells Fisk that Vladimir has disappeared. Wesley explains that the masked man was beating him up, but stopped their cop friends from killing Vladimir. Daredevil didn’t want to kill Vladimir, and Wesley figures that he was just trying to get information from Vlad.

Fisk is less than happy, but Wesley assures him that their sweep will find both Vladimir and the masked guy. Fisk is upset because Madame Gao had put her trust in him and he’s fucking everything up. He tells Wesley that he’s going to have to tell Gao the truth. Gao will want to know what their plan is and Fisk tells Wesley that he’s going to let the cops do the jobs he pays them to do.

Explosion site aftermath. The dirty cops are going through the rubble. They come across a survivor and question him about Vladimir’s whereabouts, pressing the broken concrete and rebar into the guy when he says he has no idea where to find Vlad and begs the cop to stop. Dirty cop Blake, who looks like a poor man’s Bradley Cooper in this lighting, shoots the guy. He then calls out to the rest of the cops searching for survivors and tells them to shoot anyone they find alive in the head.

Jessica: It really gives you a sense of the reach Fisk has in the PD when the dirty cop can just yell “shoot survivors in the head” out loud and not worry about repercussions.

Annie: Fisk has deep pockets and many car doors. He is the villain-iest villain.

Inside an abandoned building. Daredevil lays Vladimir down and tells him he’s been shot. Vladimir tells Daredevil he’s going to kill him for decapitating his brother. Daredevil explains he didn’t do that, that he doesn’t kill people. Vladimir points out Daredevil’s treatment of Semyon, but Daredevil counters that Semyon was still breathing. So. Proof he doesn’t kill people? (C: He just puts them in a coma. Totally different.) (M: Every hero has their standards.)

They argue about what Daredevil has done, and Vladimir accuses him of working for Fisk. DD explains that Vladimir is being played by Fisk and it’s time to choose a side. Daredevil tells Vlad he wants Fisk brought to justice (and wax?!?) for all that he’s done. Vladimir thinks there is no chance in hell of that happening. Vlad wants to know what he’ll get for helping Daredevil. Daredevil tells him that he’ll get payback by seeing Fisk fall. Vlad tells DD to suck his dick. So I guess that’s a no?

Vladimir passes out.

Hospital. Foggy and Karen are helping Mrs. Cardenas, and Foggy is screaming for help. Someone in scrubs runs over to them and Karen asks her if she’s a nurse. Uhhh, she’s wearing scrubs and we, the audience, know it’s Claire. Yeah. She’s a nurse. Claire speaks Spanish to Mrs. Cardenas and takes over, leading her away to be taken care of. Foggy shouts to Mrs. Cardenas that they’ll be waiting for her. Foggy tells Karen they should call Matt to see if he’s okay (lol), and when he reaches for his phone, Karen notices that he’s bleeding. She makes him sit down and goes off to find help.

The nurse manager is walking through the hallway surveying the chaos and directing her staff. She spots Claire and asks her what she’s doing at work since she heard that Claire had been in a car accident. Claire tells Nurse Manager that she made a very bad decision, and the Nurse Manager is all ‘it me’ and tells Claire she’s glad to have her back.

Claire’s burner phone rings. It’s Matt, calling to ask for Claire’s help. He wants her to talk him through stabilizing someone who’s been shot. Claire tells him to call 911, but Matt explains it was the police that shot him and he doesn’t want to risk giving them the chance to finish the job.

Claire’s almost on board for helping him, but then Matt tells her that it’s Vladimir, aka the guy that had her beaten up, that he’s trying to save. Matt explains that he’s important to the bigger picture, because he has important information on Fisk. Claire agrees to help him.

Jessica: I like that Matt told her who he was helping. Even though his reason is more “I need information” than “Because it’s right” so we get to see both of his and Claire’s centers of morality at work, and it’s neat.

Mari: Agreed. I love that he respects her enough to think she should have the whole story if she’s going to save a life, even via phone. 

Annie: Claire asks what materials he has to work with, and Matt lists everything in the room. I guess he can… smell it? Sense it? (C: And taste it. And whatever the other sense is.) (J: My guess was smelling. The touching comes next.) Claire settles on the emergency road kit, and tells Matt to use the flare to cauterize the wound. It will slow the bleeding maybe long enough for Matt to get his information, plus it’s going to hurt a lot, which Claire sees as a bonus. Do NOT mess with Claire, baddies.

Matt puts Claire on speaker phone, lights the flare, and cauterizes the wound. Vladimir wakes up and starts screaming.

Catherine: I love Claire so much. I love that she’s not necessarily into saving this guy after she finds out who he is. I feel like she’s a lil’ vindictive and I love her.

Annie: Outside, a police officer hears Vladimir’s screams and runs to investigate. (J: Yeah, that’s the downside of using a FLARE when trying to hide, Matt.) (M: I’d like to think he did it for Claire anyway.)

Back inside the building, Matt finishes cauterizing the wound and tells Claire he’s gotta go.

The cop is climbing the stairs and enters the warehouse room. He shines his flashlight on Vladimir and orders Vlad to show him his hands. Daredevil descends on the cop and explains that Vladimir can’t hear him. DD tells the police officer that he’s going to stop choking him, and that as long as the cop answers his questions, no one’s going to get hurt.

Daredevil wants to know who the cop works for, and he keeps answering ‘City of New York’. Daredevil listens to the cop’s heartbeat and decides he’s telling the truth. He tells the officer to radio to the station that it was a false alarm. The cop radios, but shouts into the radio that he’s on the second floor, with a guy in a mask and an injured civilian. Other units respond over the radio. Daredevil sighs.

Police in cruisers show up and surround the abandoned warehouse. Blake and Hoffman (the dirty cops) get out of one of the cars and take over. Hoffman and Blake are talking about whether or not they think the masked guy and Vlad are in the building, when Ben Ulrich shows up. He taunts Blake and Hoffman and asks for a statement. Blake does some showboating and tells Ben to back off. Ben doesn’t back off and keeps asking the two detectives questions. Blake tells Ben to stay out of the way, and threatens him vaguely, saying that if things go badly, he might get caught up in it.

Back in the SUV, Wesley is back on the phone. He hangs up and tells Fisk about the cops coming across Daredevil in the abandoned building, and that Blake and Hoffman are waiting for permission to storm the building. Fisk tells Wesley that he wants to put all this behind him, to tell them to get it over with already. Wesley warns that Ben Ulrich has shown up and he may pose a problem. Fisk tells Wesley to contact their friends in the media, because he wants everyone to see what’s going to happen next.

In the abandoned building, Daredevil is cuffing and taping the cop to a poll. Vladimir wakes up. Daredevil explains the building is surrounded by cops. Daredevil tells Vlad that he cauterized his wound, but the bullet is still inside him. Vlad tells Daredevil that he’s no different from him. Daredevil reminds Vlad that a man like Fisk destroyed his whole crime biz, and that he has enough cops on payroll to ensure Vladimir doesn’t make it out alive. Daredevil again asks for information on Fisk. Vladimir tells Daredevil that Fisk’s associate came to them, wanting them to be part of a bigger crime ring, where police and politicians would help them, and they would have access to Chinese drugs. Vladimir tells Daredevil about an accountant named Leslie Shumway that handles all the money for Al Capone. Daredevil asks for the name of Fisk’s money guy, and Vladimir lunges at Daredevil. He’s fighting well for a near-dead guy with a bullet lodged in his body. Daredevil counters his punches and they fall through the floor. Daredevil seems knocked out from the fall.

Outside the abandoned building. A crowd has gathered, including some tv news trucks. Blake and Hoffman are telling Ben Ulrich he’s old news, that video killed the newspaper star. Ben doesn’t seem worried.

Foggy’s hospital room. Karen is on the phone, leaving a message for Matt. Foggy asks Karen if she’s tried his apartment, and tells him that she’s called his apartment three times. Foggy tells Karen not to panic, but she says it’s hard not to when Matt is a blind guy out in this mess. Foggy reassures her that she doesn’t know Matt the way he does, and that he does very well (for a blind guy). This feels ableist and it bugs me a little. I get that the joke is on them, because he’s Daredevil with the superpowers, but still.

Foggy goes to get out of his hospital bed, but like, he totally shouldn’t be.

He tells Karen he needs to go look for Matt, as he’s all the family Matt has. Karen tells him not to be an idiot and just stay put. She kisses Foggy on the forehead. Foggy makes a joke about how this must be the worst first date, ever. LOLZ, Foggy. Karen is all ‘I’ve had worse’, and she leaves to go see if Matt’s been brought in to the hospital.

Foggy picks up his phone and calls Matt. He leaves Matt a voicemail, asking him where he is.

Cut to Daredevil, laying unconscious in the abandoned building. He comes to, and then wakes up. Vladimir is laying beside him, somehow alive still. Daredevil tells him that ambushing him wasn’t smart. Vlad says it was fun. Vladimir dies, and Daredevil starts giving him chest compressions. Maybe not the best way to revive a guy with a bullet lodged in his body?

Daredevil is successful in reviving Vladimir, who still hasn’t provided all the Fisk information yet.

Catherine: Disclaimer: I don’t think punching someone in the chest would bring them back to life IRL. But I’m not a doctor.

Mari: A punch is just an aggressive chest compression. 

Annie: Fisk’s crimemobile. Wesley climbs in and hands Fisk a handheld radio. The convoy of crime-mobiles take off.

Back outside the abandoned building, the TV reporter is delivering her report while Ben stands nearby. The ESU pulls up in big SWAT trucks, and heavily armed cops jump out. Blake is instructing them to put their radios on channel 5. Ben asks Blake about what’s going on, and he tells him maybe he’ll get a story worth writing about.

Inside the building, Daredevil is using his heightening hearing to find a way out of the building. He’s moving aside planks of wood, when he hears Fisk over the radio, asking to speak to the man in the mask. Daredevil retrieves the walkie-talkie, asking who’s on the other end. Fisk tells Daredevil that he knows who he is, that he’s heard Daredevil’s been asking about him. Daredevil asks for his name, and Fisk refuses to, unless DD tells him his name. Fisk tells Daredevil that they’re a lot alike, that they both want to save the city. Daredevil tells Fisk he’ll find them, but Fisk says that’s not going to happen. He tells Daredevil that his part in all this has come to an end. Fisk tells Daredevil he’s planning on using him as a scapegoat, because he seems villain-y enough, running around the city in a mask, beating people up, taking hostages, etc.

Mari: Plus, his get-up is not superhero-y enough. I feel like all of this would be quite different if he were wearing some primary colors. 

Annie: And spandex and a cape.

Fisk tells Daredevil they can call things even if he kills Vladimir. Because Vladimir is a bad man and deserves it. Daredevil says Fisk has just proven how important Vlad is, full of info. Fisk counters that means Vladimir hasn’t told Daredevil anything of use yet.

Fisk tells Daredevil he’s a lone wolf, and the city will celebrate when he is disposed of tonight. Daredevil is all ‘no they won’t, others will come for you’.

Fisk nods at Wesley, who radios someone, telling them to ‘do it’.

As they’ve been talking, a dirty ESU officer has set up a sniper scope and gun on a rooftop. The sniper trains his scope on Ben, who is leaning up against a police cruiser.

Ben starts taunting Blake and Hoffman again. Blake walks over to Ben, telling him to back off. The sniper shoots Blake and takes a few more shots, creating chaos. Ben tells Hoffman to go and get an EMT while he applies pressure to the geyser of blood coming from the bullet wound in Blake’s chest.

Back inside the building, Daredevil wants to know what Fisk just did. Fisk said it’s all on him, tells him goodbye, that they won’t talk again. Daredevil angrily smashes the radio. Fisk tells Wesley to tell ‘their friends’ to roll the tape.

At the hospital, Claire is helping a man into a wheelchair. She turns to the TV in the hallway, where a news anchor is reporting on the sniper attack, that has killed 3 police officers. The anchor pauses, listening to her earpiece, then says they are receiving some more news.

In Foggy’s hospital room, he wakes Karen, asking her to turn the TV up. The male news anchor is reporting that tape of a masked man has just been released, just after the explosions in Hell’s Kitchen. He says that police believe the masked man is responsible for the explosions, as well as the sniper attack.

Karen tells Foggy the masked man in the video is the same one that saved her life. She tells Foggy that he didn’t seem like the blowing-up-buildings-and-sniping-police-type. Foggy tells Karen that men who wear masks usually do so because they have something to hide.

Catherine: This is why Superman doesn’t wear a mask, yo. Although this type of thing happens to him a lot, too.

Jessica: Superman doesn’t wear a mask, but he does wear glasses as Clark Kent in a (ridiculous yet amazing) attempt to hide his identity. So it’s kind of the same? Though that identity is his fake identity but still, the point I think it that the identity that they’re always trying to hide is the one with loved ones and innocents attached to it. IDK.

Annie: Back inside the abandoned building, Daredevil is trying to lift a grate in the floor, when his cellphone rings. It’s Claire, calling to tell him about the news. Daredevil tells her it was Fisk. He hears police radios getting closer in the background, and goes on a little monologue to Claire, telling her that she was right about him, and he’s sorry he got her in to all of this mess.  He tells her that if she doesn’t hear from him again, to take care of herself.

Members of the ESU break down the door to the building using a battering ram. Downstairs, Daredevil is trying to lift the grate, and Vladimir appears beside him, telling him this isn’t how he’s going to die. He grabs hold of the grate and the two men try to lift it.

Mari: Vlad is getting a lot done for a guy with a bullet inside him, a cauterized wound, and for having been resurrected a hot second ago.

Annie: Are we sure Vladimir doesn’t have some kind of super power?

The officers are storming the building, clearing it floor by floor. They find Sullivan, the officer that Daredevil taped to the pole, gagged. The officer radios that office Sullivan is dead. Sullivan starts fighting against his ties and trying to scream through the gag, but the dirty ESU guy stabs him dead in the throat. (J: RIP, last non-corrupt cop.)

Daredevil and Vladimir have successfully lifted the grate and are climbing down into the access tunnels below. Daredevil uses his magic hearing power to determine which way to go, half carrying, half dragging Vladimir with him.

Daredevil finds a doorway and tries to push it open, when he hears more police radios. He tosses Vladimir aside and grabs the EUS guys with the automatic weapons. And then they fight. Daredevil makes short work of the two guys, but in the meelee, Vladimir gets hold of one of the guns. Daredevil is all, ain’t nobody got time for this, Vlad, but Vladimir says he doesn’t want to go with Daredevil. He tells him that Fisk has control of police, judges, there is only one way to beat him, and that’s by killing the baddies. Vladimir tells Daredevil that Fisk will come for him, and everyone he cares about, just as Fisk came for everyone Vladimir cared about. Vladimir asks Daredevil if he’ll still have his no-kill policy then.

Vladimir tells Daredevil the man he wants to find is named Leland Owlsley, but that he won’t have everything that Daredevil needs. Daredevil hears more police radios in the background. Vladimir tells Daredevil to go, and he cocks his weapon, stands up and starts singing to himself in Russian.

Daredevil escapes through the tunnels to the sounds of automatic gunfire.

Mari: I think this episode did a lot to ramp up the over-all conflict after last episode did a lot to add character depth. Seeing just how dirty the police are here added so many levels to what Daredevil is up against. Fisk seems like such a worthy foe in this episode. Not that he didn’t seem that way when he was beheading people with a car door, but his calm demeanor throughout, as he sets the city on literal fire… man. You feel for Daredevil, especially as people continue to laugh at how limited his knowledge of his own situation is. We don’t get it said in so many words, but as Daredevil throws the walkie at a wall and has no words for Vladimir at the end, you get the sense that he realizes this, too. He’s up against much more than he even imagined.

 

Next time on Daredevil: Someone from Matt’s past shows up in S01 E07 – Stick.