We’re back with our tenth review of this season’s Daredevil on the episode ‘The Man in the Box’. 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 we got to see an epic scene between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk, everyone is searching for Frank Castle, and Claire comes into contact with some zombie children. Let’s get into ‘The Man in the Box’:
Frank Castle, man on the loose
Every since Frank Castle so aptly escaped at the end of the last episode, the police have been on a lookout for him, and the one who is the most nervous is the DA who found the scan of his skull (you know, which also happens to be his logo) in her kid’s backpack. She confesses to Matt, Foggy and Karen how the sting gone wrong was her fault because she didn’t clear the park before organizing it, causing the death of the Castle family, and she covered it up.
We discover whether or not, Frank is after Samantha Reyes, when a shower of bullets enter her office and while everyone gets down, Reyes is murdered and Foggy is injured. It’s seems Frank Castle does not forgive or forget.
This prompts Karen to go back to Ellison, in where they both kind of agree that the hit does not seem like Frank’s style but they intend to protect the medical examiner anyhow, only to find him gunned down as well. The police chaperone Karen home, only to be easily knocked out by Frank who comes to her home to defend himself, saying it was not him who committed the acts against Reyes and the medical examiner, but while he is there someone attempts to gun down Karen, only for Frank to save her, proving his point.
So who is framing Frank? Is it Fisk or the Blacksmith? And did they kill Reyes and the medical examiner in order to keep them quiet? So many questions.
Wilson Fisk, the man in the box
Matt, who is always quick on his feet, when discovering that the Punisher was in cellblock D, immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was Wilson Fisk who helped him out. He was of course right, but to everyone else it seemed like a bit of a stretch.
So Matt goes to pay ole Wilson a visit and at first Fisk is apprehensive and unwilling to cooperate but then Matt threatens Vanessa, and if we remember from the first season, that’s a notable no-go area, and Fisk snaps and full on beats Matt up in front of the guards and his lawyer. This clues Matt up to the fact that Fisk/Kingpin is running the joint and had enough resources to release Frank.
If anything, this season worked as a reminder to us about what a strong performer Vincent D’Onofrio is, he even made a thrilling and violent scene like the prison scene seem enchanting and poetic. He has the ability to appear both terrifying and intriguing. The scene didn’t do much to add to the plot, other than increase Matt’s suspicions about Fisk’s involvement in Frank’s escape but it did hint a bit to what season three might be about.
Matt openly angered Fisk by threatening the women he loves, and he did so without a mask on, so when Fisk is let out of jail, which I assume will be soon, he will know exactly who to go after – Matt and everyone that he cares about.
The army of zombie children
The episode began with the police removing all the teenagers who were being drained of blood from the Roxxon basement, Matt tells Brett to take them to Claire’s hospital where she discovers that their fingerprints were burnt off, they are malnourished and not only was blood being taken from them but weird toxins were being pumped into them.
Matt and Claire have a chat on the rooftop whereby she tries to encourage him to go and visit Foggy even though they are still on bad terms. But Matt is struggling with balancing the vigilante aspect of his life and his personal and professional life, but as always Claire is the voice of reason telling him he cannot carry this cross alone. I truly missed the dynamic between Matt and Claire this season, and I do enjoy that while Karen seems to put him on a pedestal as this great man, and Elektra sees him as a dark person like herself, there is Claire just encouraging him to do better while still not making him out to be this hero.
When Claire reenters the emergency room though, she sees the teenagers standing in a creepy line, looking all murderous, while the dead body of the father of one of the teens lies dead. It was a scene straight out of a horror film, and we can assume that whatever toxins Nobu and his crew pumped into these kids turned them into some kind of killing machines.
Last minute notes:
- Somewhere in another storyline, Elektra was about to leave New York when she was confronted by an attractive Frenchman named Jacques, played by Gilles Marini (who we’ve recently seen as Sebastian in Teen Wolf, but who I will always remember as Dante in the Sex and the City movie) who tries to murder her and she discovers (while she kills him) that he was sent by Stick not The Hand. So he hasn’t quite let bygones be bygones.
- I’m here for all the Frank and Karen scenes – him seeking refuge with her, him going to her for help, him protecting her. I have since discovered their ship name is Kastle, and I’m 100% on board.
- Claire is such a delight – with her voice of reason and her no nonsense attitude I really enjoy it when she makes appearances on the show
- The one thing that the death of Ben Urich brought about is that characters can die, it’s scary and it’s sad, but it’s a shocker even when it’s adversaries that we’ve grown used to (like Wendy on Jessica Jones) this episode reminded me of this with the murder of Samantha Reyes.
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.
