I'm all for building excitement about a new product and finding out when it's released, but there needs to be an element of surprise in order to really enjoy any sort of show. There's a reason why I almost never watch a preview for the next episode of a show. I like to have as little information as possible beforehand so as to preserve a little bit of surprise and enjoyment for what's coming.

 

 

I put this statement in this review because every trailer of this show on Netflix has given away the appearance of both the Punisher and Elektra Natchios in the coming season. Elektra doesn't make an appearance in the premiere, but Frank "The Punisher" Castle does, even though he's never mentioned by that nickname, or any other name really. The premiere actually functions as an extended, episode-long preview of what's to come in Daredevil's second season. It's establishing the status quo. Wilson Fisk is in prison, leaving the Nelson & Murdock law firm to take on smaller cases within Hell's Kitchen. That's by day. By night, Matt Murdock becomes Daredevil and takes out any number of petty criminals dumb enough to commit a crime in an area patrolled by a costumed vigilante.

 

The first point, I think, is the key to what will unfold through the course of the second season. Kingpin had specific plans to take over Hell's Kitchen, thus capitalizing on the ruins created by the Avengers nearly destroying New York City. Daredevil stopped all that. Naturally, larger criminal organizations see Fisk's removal from the board as license to come in and take what's left as ripe for the picking. The head of the Irish mob makes this grand ol' speech about how nothing will stand in their way and if someone or something does, then they're going to resort to violence to put down resistance. Before the gang has even gotten a chance to input this plan to action, they're all swiftly gunned down by what looks like an army that's using military-grade hardware. We the audience, of course, knows this is only the work of one man: The Punisher. It's amusing that the characters think for a while that it's the work of an army, more dangerous and surgical in their hits than the Irish mob or a biker gang that thinks they're a darker, tougher version of SAMCRO from Sons of Anarchy.

 

 

The show holds back on introducing the Punisher until the latter stages of the episode. In the interim, there's a succession of very interesting scenes that provide some mysteries to fuel the rest of the episodes in this season. Foggy, who has solidified his friendship with Murdock in the wake of his knowledge of his partner's dual identity, mentions that Karen has been asking questions about the number of injuries Matt has sustained from his crimefighting. More than likely, Karen will find out about the Daredevil connection before the season is out, which is really a mirror of what happened to Foggy in the first season. It's suggested in the pool scene that Karen may be harboring a crush on Matt, though that could be misdirection. The way the scene is framed with Matt listening to a rapid heartbeat could be him listening to Karen's or his intently focusing on the mysterious man at the bar. If it is true that Karen has a crush on him, Elektra's entrance into the fray will cause complications. We'll just have to see how things unfold as the season goes along.

 

I actually really like the detective aspects of this show, and that's not just a statement based on tying together Jessica Jones with this show. I really enjoyed the extended sequence where Foggy investigates by himself what happened to the Dogs of Hell biker gang. He clearly knows he's in over his head, being a lawyer who talks to a bunch of street tough bikers, using the pretense that he knew one of the members from their childhood days. Foggy is genuinely terrified of the whole enterprise, which makes him much more endearing, and that fear combined with some rather logical reasoning with one of the bikers gets him the information he had been looking for.

 

 

If Wilson Fisk was a completely overwhelming sort of force, even as he kept up the pretense of being a higher class of criminal, then the Punisher is more surgical and clinical. He has that air of being unstoppable as well as the ability to just exist in the shadows, but we're unclear as to what his motivations are in any way. Is the show going to integrate his more famous backstory, where Castle is seeking revenge against those who brutally murdered his family? Or is something else going to happen? I think it may have something to do with the Hand, the shadow organization that operated in the background during the first season (with the exception of the "Stick" episode, we don't hear too much about the Hand). Did the Hand hire the Punisher to take out everyone who was going to dip their hands into what was Fisk's pie? One of the Irishmen's hands is missing (looks like it was hacked off through the bone) in the aftermath of the club massacre, and I don't think the attention paid to that particular detail by the CSI detective is something to be ignored. It's a literal signal that the Hand is coming for Hell's Kitchen, and initially, it looks like Daredevil is in over his head on this one. The Punisher fights with guns, not with hand-to-hand combat (Daredevil's specialty), and so our heroes must now adjust.