Daredevil: The Ones We Leave Behind
May 6, 2015 5:05 AM - Season 1, Episode 12 - Subscribe
Matt takes on Madame Gao's drug smuggling operation. While Karen begins drinking heavily to cope with Wesley's death, Matt and Karen make amends, and Ben attempts to publish his expose on Fisk, but is rejected by his editor.
Madame Gao's operation goes up in smoke, prompting her to leave the city. When Ben decides to publish the expose online, Fisk breaks into Ben's apartment and strangles him to death.
Madame Gao's operation goes up in smoke, prompting her to leave the city. When Ben decides to publish the expose online, Fisk breaks into Ben's apartment and strangles him to death.
As a comic fan, I found that shocking as well.
I love that they subverted our expectations so well with the Karen thing last episode, that they could give Ben the full "Goose" treatment this episode, and I still wasn't sure whether they'd go through with it.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 5:22 AM on May 6, 2015
I love that they subverted our expectations so well with the Karen thing last episode, that they could give Ben the full "Goose" treatment this episode, and I still wasn't sure whether they'd go through with it.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 5:22 AM on May 6, 2015
I was hoping, up until the last second, that Fisk was going to let Urich live.
But no.
I'm going to miss Vondie's Ben Urich; he seemed to be a genuinely good man trying like hell to do the right thing. I figured he was going to be a calming or leveling influence on our Heroic Trio, but now it looks like they are going to have to pick up the torch that was dropped.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 5:42 AM on May 6, 2015 [3 favorites]
But no.
I'm going to miss Vondie's Ben Urich; he seemed to be a genuinely good man trying like hell to do the right thing. I figured he was going to be a calming or leveling influence on our Heroic Trio, but now it looks like they are going to have to pick up the torch that was dropped.
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 5:42 AM on May 6, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm bummed they killed Ben, but I think it makes the threat more real and hits our main characters close to home.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:04 AM on May 6, 2015
posted by Fleebnork at 6:04 AM on May 6, 2015
The Stealth Villain of Daredevil Is Gentrification
In a crucial scene near the end of the season, Fisk intrudes in the home of the reporter, Urich. Sitting in front of an over-crammed bookshelf, one tome's thick, white spine is notably visible behind Fisk: Robert Caro’s The Power Broker (1974), a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of the polarizing urban planner Robert Moses.posted by 1970s Antihero at 8:01 AM on May 6, 2015 [7 favorites]
The Stealth Villain of Daredevil Is Gentrification
Is it really "stealth"? Fisk has explicitly said he's buying/taking all that property to build condos and "improve" the neighborhood. Well, and to give a city block to the Hand.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:57 AM on May 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
Is it really "stealth"? Fisk has explicitly said he's buying/taking all that property to build condos and "improve" the neighborhood. Well, and to give a city block to the Hand.
posted by Sangermaine at 11:57 AM on May 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
I am super (hah) bummed to have a marvel cinematic universe without Ben Urich in it.
posted by phearlez at 8:25 PM on May 9, 2015
posted by phearlez at 8:25 PM on May 9, 2015
Yeah, Fisk is transforming more and more into the Kingpin in this episode, becoming insanely dangerous and savage as he's cornered - and it was pretty obvious he was hell-bent on making someone, anyone pay for Wesley. Karen signed then sealed Ben's death warrant.
Leland Owlsey is becoming interesting and multi-faceted, and getting more and more screen time. This character is well known by another name in the comics world, and is someone to be reckoned with in his own right.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:18 AM on May 12, 2015
Leland Owlsey is becoming interesting and multi-faceted, and getting more and more screen time. This character is well known by another name in the comics world, and is someone to be reckoned with in his own right.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:18 AM on May 12, 2015
This is a wake, so we shall... well... drinking does not seem kind, in light of other parts of the episode.
Let's instead unfold a copy of the New York Bulletin, that miserable fish-wrapper, to ward off the rain from our heads while we speak of the dead.
He was a vanishingly rare commodity in modern television - a middle-class professional African American who was schlumpy and unshaven and scrupulous to a lethal fault, while being about as Not-White as you can be. He was incredibly good at his job, super-heroically good at it, and generous in teaching what he knew. He was always confident without arrogance in being smarter than everyone else in the room - including his last scene.
He was immune to raw fear and rage, his anger expressing itself in either quiet irascibility to those he liked or the slow burn of a symphony building to crescendo to those he did not, and his worry and apprehension were merely the indication of the prescient steps he took to outmaneuver the powerful, and to mitigate the harm they can do when they stole a march on him.
(Also, monk-strap shoes are A Thing right now, which is why everyone's wearing them. This will seem weird in five years' time.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:14 PM on May 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
Let's instead unfold a copy of the New York Bulletin, that miserable fish-wrapper, to ward off the rain from our heads while we speak of the dead.
He was a vanishingly rare commodity in modern television - a middle-class professional African American who was schlumpy and unshaven and scrupulous to a lethal fault, while being about as Not-White as you can be. He was incredibly good at his job, super-heroically good at it, and generous in teaching what he knew. He was always confident without arrogance in being smarter than everyone else in the room - including his last scene.
He was immune to raw fear and rage, his anger expressing itself in either quiet irascibility to those he liked or the slow burn of a symphony building to crescendo to those he did not, and his worry and apprehension were merely the indication of the prescient steps he took to outmaneuver the powerful, and to mitigate the harm they can do when they stole a march on him.
(Also, monk-strap shoes are A Thing right now, which is why everyone's wearing them. This will seem weird in five years' time.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:14 PM on May 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
One thing that stood out when Matt and Ben were talking early in the episode... There's this blind lawyer known for poking around Fisk's business. And there's this vigilante with an eye-covering mask and a penchant for knocking out lighting, poking around Fisk's business. Isn't someone going to put that together? So far no one's explicitly said out loud that The Devil is blind, so I guess that's cover, but someone's bound to figure it out. I thought maybe Ben had but that doesn't really matter any more. As dead as if Karen killed him herself.
I liked the scenes in Gao's heroin warehouse, they were pleasingly weird and disquieting. A bit inhumanizing though, the blind Chinese folks acted more like Walking Dead zombies than people. Maybe they're all addicts too?
Thank goodness we finally know Leland is behind all the attacks on Fisk now. The way he's been telegraphing that the past two episodes has been painful.
posted by Nelson at 10:16 PM on May 18, 2015
I liked the scenes in Gao's heroin warehouse, they were pleasingly weird and disquieting. A bit inhumanizing though, the blind Chinese folks acted more like Walking Dead zombies than people. Maybe they're all addicts too?
Thank goodness we finally know Leland is behind all the attacks on Fisk now. The way he's been telegraphing that the past two episodes has been painful.
posted by Nelson at 10:16 PM on May 18, 2015
I can't help thinking that the reason the season has to end soon is because they are running out of characters left alive.
posted by lollusc at 7:09 AM on May 26, 2015
posted by lollusc at 7:09 AM on May 26, 2015
Wow, great episode. As soon as I saw Kingpin in Ben's study, I knew there was only one ending to that scene.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:28 AM on November 21, 2015
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:28 AM on November 21, 2015
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posted by Etrigan at 5:16 AM on May 6, 2015 [6 favorites]