Ricky Church reviews the thirteenth episode of Daredevil season 2…
Daredevil’s second season finale was, for lack of a better word, lackluster. The series tried to play off some big stakes, but the stakes weren’t explained very clearly, much like everything else The Hand has been involved in. A lot of threads were left loose by ‘A Cold Day in Hell’s Kitchen’, obviously setting up for Season three, but many of those threads needed to be tied now, or at the very least explained, so viewers wouldn’t be left wondering what exactly happened in these final few episodes.
The revelation in the previous episode that Elektra is a Black Sky and the object of The Hand’s worship was somewhat surprising and here The Hand spends much of the episode attempting to get her back so they could end or rule the world. One of the big questions left though is how exactly they planned to do that. What exactly is a Black Sky? How is Elektra supposed to end the world? Is she the only one and if she isn’t why can’t The Hand simply get another Black Sky? Why has that tomb been so important? None of these questions were answered, leaving the stakes high since the world apparently hung in the balance, but without any reasoning as to why they were so high, the stakes didn’t feel quite real.
In place of having to give an actual explanation, The Hand instead kidnapped Karen and several others Daredevil has saved over the course of his career. This led to a big confrontation and rooftop battle at a warehouse, but the scene lacked excitement. I suppose seeing several episodes of fighting ninjas just got old for me, especially since Daredevil didn’t attempt make their finale drastically different from those other fight scenes with The Hand. It largely felt business as usual.
There were some good moments in the finale though. Matt and Elektra’s conversation about being together was well acted. Charlie Cox and Elodie Yung gave good performances in this scene, once again displaying the chemistry they have with each other. It was also good to see Elektra in a costume resembling her comic book look as well as Daredevil gaining his billy club. Deborah Ann Woll and Elden Henson likewise gave a good and emotional performance in their final scene together. For future seasons of Daredevil or other Marvel Netflix shows, it will be interesting to see where working with Jessica Jones’ Jeri Hogarth with take Foggy. It was also quite appropriate for Karen to take up Ben Urich’s old job seeing how dedicated she has been to chasing down and uncovering the truth.
The only person who got the short end of the stick in the finale was Jon Bernthal’s Punisher. Though his story was largely wrapped up in ‘The Dark at the End of the Tunnel’, it still seemed incongruous to have him come in for a last-minute save of the rooftop battle, firing a few bullets before walking away into the night. It was also surprising to see Daredevil repeat pretty much the same thing as last season’s finale; having him finally show up in his full costume, adorned with the skull, in the final minutes of the episode. Bernthal has been the standout star this season and seeing him pushed to the side just to show up as a deus ex machina just didn’t feel right, even if it was to set up his own Netflix series.
‘A Cold Day in Hell’s Kitchen’ wasn’t a bad episode, but was certainly very weak compared against Daredevil’s first few episodes this season. It lacked any sense of risk due to the stakes just not being there or understood. The cast gave some good performances, but they weren’t enough to elevate this finale or sell the danger the world faced, whatever that exactly was. Rather, it spent too much time leaving stories open for next season instead of focusing on closing this one now, tying it all together in a rich fashion as Season one’s finale did. It’s a shame the season ended on such a lackluster note given the strength it showed early on.
Ricky Church
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Originally published March 30, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
