‘Marvel’s Daredevil’ 2×07 Review: ‘Semper Fidelis’

We’re back with our seventh review of this season’s Daredevil on the episode “Regrets Only”. As we’ve mentioned in our previous reviews, this season we are reviewing each episode so we can get deeper into the nitty gritty of this spectacular series and so we can keep up with everybody’s various binge-ing habits.

In this episode the trial of Frank Castle begins, Elektra gets involved in Matt’s day life and the two stumble upon a strange pit. Let’s get into Semper Fidelis:

The People vs. Frank Castle

Matt’s been having trouble balancing his vigilante activities at night with his lawyering life during the day and it all came to head in this week’s episode. With Frank’s case a day away, each member of Nelson and Murdock had a role to play – Matt was supposed to do the opening statement, Karen had to speak to Frank about using a PTSD defense and Foggy had to find more arguments.

Foggy and Karen had their head in the game, but late night shenanigans with Elektra meant that Matt was late in giving his opening statement so Foggy can do it – unprepared. Although he did an excellent job, even if Frank quipped, “That was a pretty thick slice of bullshit, counselor.”

Matt dug his hole even further the next day when his cross-examining of the medical examiner of the Castle murders got the examiner to admit he forged the documents but it was thrown out of court because he admitted he was coerced into confessing by a masked woman – who is of course Elektra.

When Foggy finds out about Elektra (he remembers the bad influence she had on Matt back in his college  years) he loses it and the two have a blow out where Foggy rightly goes off on Matt about the fact that he isn’t pulling his weight in the trial and that his actions keep jeopardizing the case (remembering that Matt was the one who wanted to represent Frank in the first place).

I was actively upset with Matt in this episode, because Foggy made some good points, no one was making Matt jump to everyone of Elektra’s whims, no one was making Matt be Daredevil, this was what he wanted. The Hand is a serious issue, and will continue to be a serious issue, but when the trial is taking place, he can at least make that his top priority, especially since it was a trial he sought out.

There was also an interesting moment between Matt and Karen as they were discussing vigilantism in New York City, and whether a man like Frank Castle can be understood. And as we have seen from previous episodes, Karen definitely understands Frank, maybe even because she murdered someone in cold blood last year, sometimes bad people are simply just that bad people. This viewpoint, among other issues, were part of what pushed them apart before they barely began dating, so it’s tense times already in the Matt/Karen universe.

Matt, Elektra and the Big Hole

In Matt and Elektra’s side journey, they managed to track down the man who did the coding for Roxxon and deciphered it to mean that there will be a shipment in a certain area the next night. A few times through the episode the coding reveal places whereby they have epic fights with the members of the Hand, and after one such occasion (the night before the opening of the trial) the two hang out in Matt’s apartment recovering, half-naked, and I swear you could cut the chemistry with a knife, Matt has not had such a connection with any of his other love interests so far.

At the end of the episode they track the Hand to an abandoned building which is a callback to Season 1, when Wilson Fisk procured it for them. In the building there is a large pit which is so deep that they can’t see the bottom of it. What the hell, The Hand?

Well the Hand storyline is definitely intriguing and a good way to sync the first season with the second, I don’t feel fully invested in yet because I don’t see the link to the greater story yet. I’m hoping that there will be something bigger than Elektra asserting herself into Frank’s story to link the two. My predictions for this is that it’s The Hand that coerced the DA and the medical examiner to cover up the Castle murders, and that Elektra forms part of the secret committee that Stick belonged to that was hellbent on taking down The Hand.

What is Semper Fidelis?

In Latin, ‘Semper Fidelis’ means ‘always faithful’ or ‘always loyal’ and it is the motto of the United States Marine Corps. This could be a call to Matt’s clear lack of faithfulness to Foggy and Karen, or it could be a nod to Frank Castle’s unwillingness to be seen as a PTSD patient because it was disrespectful to people who did have the illness.

Final notes

• The jury selection for the Frank Castle trial at the beginning of the episode was so excellently done, just Matt and Foggy and Karen, the people of New York are divided on how they feel about Frank – some people think he’s doing the right thing while others think he’s a monster.
• At this point, I wonder how they will ever be able to make a convincing trial for Frank.

What did you think of this episode of Daredevil? Let us know in the comments below.
Marvel’s Daredevil is now available to stream on Netflix.