Okay, so today we open with a brief
history of Electra. Well, the revived Electra. Apparently, several months ago,
White Hat approached Alexandra and let his boss know that they’d recovered the
Black Sky. For those of you who might be, somehow, just reading my stuff and
not watching along, the Black Sky is a special person that the Hand have been
tracking since the first season of Daredevil.
They’ve been pretty vague as to what the Black Sky does, just that the Hand
having one is incredibly bad. Alexandra is excited by the prospect and orders
to see her. A short time later, they prep Electra for the resurrection ritual. White
Hat implies that the Hand are running low on whatever resources that they need
to perform their ritual, and wonders if bringing Electra back is necessary. FYI,
while extremely rare, Electra isn’t the only Black Sky in the world, so I could
see why White Hat would be cautious to use up the last of their resources if
waiting for another was an option. Alexandra assures him that she is, they
perform the ritual, and Electra is ‘reborn’ sometime later. After her revival,
we learn that the Hand have somehow purged Electra’s memories from her (the
personal ones, she knows how to speak, fight and so on, just not any oof the
details of her life) making her the perfect weapon. After some brief training,
she’s at the skill level where she can take down multiple opponents at once.
She’s pretty terrifying.
 |
| I sense the beginning of a toxic relationship. |
In the present, Alexandra has Matt
Murdock’s mentor, the Stick, handcuffed to a pole and thoroughly beaten. He’s
been ‘interrogated’ several times, as the Hand want to know what he knows about
the Iron Fist. The Stick isn’t interested in chatting. Alexandra calls in
Electra, and the two try to use even more extreme measures to try and get the
info from him. The Stick, being a bad ass, nabs a katana and actually holds
some of the off while still being handcuffed to the pole. He opts to slice off
his right hand, to escape the handcuffs, and makes a break for it.
Back in the interrogation room of
the local PD, Matt Murdock and Jessica Jones are going over her legal options.
Which are, actually, many as the NYPD isn’t actually charging her with anything
at the moment. Matt tries to get info from her about the… unusual things
happening in New York right now, but she shuts him down, as she likes to do.
She storms off, but Matt decides to follow her, using his super-hearing to keep
track of her.
At Claire’s place, Luke ices his
face after taking that hit from Danny. He fills Claire in on what he’d found,
namely that a shady group is paying off young men to do cleanup for them. Not
janitorial clean up, by the way, but disposing of bodies. He mentions taking a
hit from a dude with a powerful glowing fist, one might say it was made of
Iron, that rattled his teeth. Claire, realizing just who he’s talking about,
calls up Danny and insists that the two men meet in person. How could this go
wrong? Oh, right, the two are openly hostile to each other. Both men seem
uncomfortable with the other superhuman, but the women in their lives insist
that they talk it out and try to work together. Nothing like a kick in your
pants from your girlfriend to make a fella want to play nice, am I right?
 |
| I'm sensing some hostility between these two... |
Meanwhile, Jessica does a follow up
interview with John Raymond’s widow. Mrs. Raymond is clearly not holding up
well following her husband’s death, but insists that he wasn’t into anything
shady or evil. Jessica leaves after getting all the info she can. On the
Street, she notices a certain blind lawyer following her, doubles back, and
tries to follow him. Matt, realizing the tables have turned, drops the ‘I’m a
run of the mill blind man’ act, and uses his ninja moves to escape her.
Unfortunately for him, she takes several photos of him scaling walls. She then gets
a call about an appointment.
Back with Luke and Danny, the two
men seem to have felt each other out and are bonding slightly thanks to their
shared struggles. But, unfortunately, things fall apart again when they switch
focus onto what they are fighting for. Danny is hell bent on defeating the
Hand, and not too interested in the ripple effects that might occur because of
his personal war. Luke, on the other hand, is more focused on the young men and
women that are getting swept up and hurt by the actions of the Hand and its
minions. Both want the Hand gone, but neither particularly cares of the other’s
tactics. Luke leaves in a huff.
Luke goes to visit the kid, Cole,
in prison. He tries his damnedest to help, but Cole seems pretty resigned to
his fate. He’s terrified, but doesn’t want to talk. Fears that things will get
worse for him. When Luke name drops White Hat’s name, Cole freaks out and gets
worse when Luke name drops the Hand. He clams up completely, except to tell
Luke to buy Cole’s mother lottery tickets and tell her that he’s sorry.
Danny and Colleen discuss tactics.
Danny is unsure if he’s been approaching the Hand on the right front. He’s been
hitting them hard and repeatedly, but nothing seems to change. He decides to
use his real superpower, money, to try and figure out the Hand. It’s just crazy
enough to work! Danny and Colleen visit Rand Enterprises, and asks one of the
staff to look into the shell companies that the Hand had tied to Rand. The
employee is clearly nervous when the Hand is brought up, but searches anyway.
She uncovers that all of the Hand’s shell companies closed their accounts on
the same day and funneled all the money into a single account. You think an
evil Ninja cult would be subtler then that… The account in question belonged to
a group called Midland Circle Financial.
 |
| Sigourney Weaver and her army of Ninja businessmen. |
Jessica’s appointment was with
Duncan Dotter architect firm, that’s the company that John Raymond worked for.
She’s pretending to be a vapid startup company employee looking for a new
building for her firm. Jessica seems to love going to that vapid well when she’s
going undercover, doesn’t she? After a little schmoozing, she learns that the
last building Raymond worked on was for a brand-new company last year, Midland
Circle Financial.
Luke visits Cole’s mother. She’s a
lovely woman, and is doing her best to keep together, despite the fact her last
living child is currently incarcerated. Luke gets her the scratch off lotto
tickets that Cole told him to grab. She reminisces about the good old days,
when her little boy would by her scratch offs with his milk money for her. What
store was stealing lottery tickets to a kid? I happen to know that the cops are
SUPER against that. Just saying. Luke learns that Cole’s mom kept all her old
lotto tickets, and kept them on a box on a high shelf. She can’t reach it
herself, Cole took it upon himself to get it down for her. Luke opens the old lottery
box, and finds a STACK of bills inside, and a security pass for Midland Circle Financial.
Cole’s mother gets a call from lockup. Her son had been murdered in his cell.
She breaks down in Luke’s arms upon learning her youngest, her still living
child, was dead.
Colleen was taking a bit of a break
from butt kicking and doing some meditation at her dojo. Said meditative calm
is shattered with the arrival of the Stick. The blind old ninja is bleeding
badly and demanding to see the Fist.
Danny enters Midland Financial, and
demands to see the board of directors. He’s taken right away, obviously, as the
CEO of Rand Enterprises just gets to go places. He confronts the group, telling
them that he’s going to expose their dirty deals and destroy the Hand. Alexandra
walks in, and starts condescending down to Danny. More of that “We’re the
future” bull.
Jessica walks into Midland
Financial, with Matt Murdock in toe. Our favorite blind lawyer tells Jessica to
get out of here, as things are about to hit the fan. Jessica obvious tells him
to blow off, but he’s not backing down this time.
 |
| Did anyone ever expect the unstoppable force to team up with the immovable object? |
Alexandra mocks Danny, his failures
and the destruction of K’un-Lun. An assistant pulls a gun on Danny, and all
hell breaks loose. Turns out, the entire board of directors were Hand Ninja,
and they rush Danny in mass. He fights back, but it’s simply a matter of numbers.
Two dozen ninja can simply overwhelm one Iron Fist. Matt hears a gun shot and
an alarm blaring. He steals Jessica’s scarf, pulls it over the top his head
like a mask and rushes to the upper floors. Jessica follows, but uses the
elevator. Danny starts getting overwhelmed, but then Luke busts in, literally. The
two superhumans start pushing the Ninja back. Matt and Jessica then join in,
and then they start forcing the Hand back. Alexandra gets desperate enough to
release her Black Sky.
Matt takes on Electra while the
other’s handle the rest of the goons. He holds his own against her, until he
realizes who she really is. He hesitates, and Electra tries to run him through
with her wakizashi. Danny jumps in, and uses the Iron Fist to shatter the short
sword’s blade. He grabs Matt, and the group beats a hasty strategic withdrawal.
 |
| Yeah, they're pretty much the raggiest of the ragtag groups out there. |
This was a really good episode. It
was really nice to see the different members of the group interacting with each
other. Matt and Jessica were a bit of fun, as both seem to try to ferret out
what is up with the other. Think a mild game of cat and mouse between two cats…
or two mice. Danny and Luke were interesting. To those who don’t know their
characters too well, these guys are actually best friends in… well, everything
that focuses on them. Heck, I believe Danny is godfather to Luke and Jessica’s
son in the comics. And we see shades of that kind of friendship between these
two as they get to know each other. Sure, they buttheads pretty quickly, but
the best of friends often does that. That last fight scene was amazing, using
each of the character’s themes as they join the brawl. My only complaint was
that it was rather short. But, hey, we have another five episodes to go, so
there’s plenty of time for more brawling.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/14971249
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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