Daredevil is many things. Above all else, it's a crime show. But it's also a comic book show, an action thriller, and a legal drama. In the third episode we're introduced to that final element more than we have so far. We know that Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) can fight with his fists, and now we're finally getting a sense of how formidable his mind is as well.
The episode opens with an unassuming man, John Healy (Alex Morf), stopping by a bowling alley just before they close. He looks pretty average, fit with thin hair and a Ron Howard grin. But this is Daredevil, and bowling balls are great for inflicting blunt force trauma. Healy approaches the only person bowling, a surly guy named Prohaszka (Peter Claymore), and asks if he can join him. Prohaszka's bodyguards tell Healy to get lost, and that's when all hell breaks loose. Healy quickly dispatches the bodyguards in hand-to-hand fighting, and would have just shot Prohaszka, but the gun jams. So that's when takes up the aforementioned bowling ball. We don't see the impact, but the blood spattering Healy's face tells us everything we need to know. Healy hides the gun, and quietly waits for the police.
There's a quick flashback to a few hours earlier, when Turk (Rob Morgan) gives Healy the defective automatic. We met Turk in episode one, when Daredevil smashes his face while rescuing some girls. Like everyone else in Hell's Kitchen, he's working for someone else.
The next morning, Father Lantom (Peter McRobbie) finds Matt sitting outside the church. Recognizing him from confession, the priest offers Matt a cup of coffee, but Matt doesn't want to talk. Like any good Catholic, Matt believes that life is sacred and that we answer to a higher power for the actions we take in life. From the confession in the first episode, we know that Matt is conflicted about his vigilantism in light of his beliefs. Yet he can't give it up because it's the only way he knows to help save his city. Sometimes even a blind man doesn't want to deal with the gray areas of right and wrong.
At the docks we are introduced reporter Ben Urich (Vondie Curtis-Hall), who is meeting with Silvio (Jack O'Connell). Both are men from a different time. Ben is a reporter from the old school, who searches out the truth in the dark places where even the police won't go. Silvio is a former criminal who still has a sense of the city's criminal goings on. They talk about how the world has changed. Not because of superheros fighting aliens, but because of time. In Ben's time, you didn't drag a man's family through the mud with him. In Silvio's time, killed your rival and sent flowers to his wife. Today anyone is fair game, and if you kill your rival you kill his wife too. Silvio is done with the life and the city. Ben can't do the same.
John Healy needs lawyers. The immaculate James Wesley (Toby Leonard Moore) approaches Nelson & Murdock. We've seen Wesley before and know that he works for someone who shall not be named. At first Foggy (Elden Henson) is thrilled at the prospect of a paying client in a big case, but something doesn't feel right to Matt. The longer they talk, the less Foggy wants to take the case and more intrigued Matt becomes. Against Foggy's strong objections, Matt decides that they will take Mr. Healy as a client.
Meanwhile, Ben is visited by his editor, who tells him to drop the construction corruption story. People want to read about the plans for the subway, not involved investigations into things that don't directly effect them. Print journalism is just hanging on as it is. They need to publish stories that sell. Ben doesn't feel good about it. His editor doesn't feel good about it. But Ben agrees to write the subway story.
While Foggy is meeting with their new client, Matt trails Wesley by the ticking of his watch (good thing the guy doesn't wear a Rolex, eh?). Wesley gets into some sort of motorcade, and Matt heads down to the jail. Turns out that Healy knows almost as much about law as Matt and Foggy, and insists that they go to trial.
Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) isn't really used much in this episode, and that's a shame. Her former employer offers her an enormous amount of money not to say anything more than she already has about the embezzling she uncovered. The company's lawyer encourages her to talk to her lawyers if she wants, but Matt and Foggy are too busy with their new case to pay any attention to her. Matt even pulls the boss card, telling her "No more long lunches until this is over." Ouch.
The real standout in this episode is Ben. Looking like someone who has suffered the trials of several lifetimes, Curtis-Hall brings the right level of empathy to the character of the world-weary reporter. In addition to professional struggles, he also has a sick wife in the hospital and the insurance money isn't coming through quickly enough. He's not too proud to beg a hospital administrator for an extension, but never stoops to bribery while he can still offer a token of thanks.
In the courtroom (man, we got there fast), Matt listens to the jurors heartbeats and singles out one woman whose heart is going too fast. He also picks up on Wesley's watch. Why is he observing them? That night as Daredevil, Matt follows the female juror until she's threatened by a man in an alley. It's not clear which way he wants her to vote in the trial, but Daredevil doesn't care. After the woman is gone, he attacks her blackmailer. The man says there's no name for the person he works for, but if he doesn't do as he's told he's dead. Daredevil tells him to make the woman leave the jury, and to get out of his city. The next morning in court a new juror is brought in, and Matt makes a very convincing closing argument.
Wesley is riding with Leland Owlsley (Bob Gunton), one of the investors embezzling rebuilding funds. Turns out the murder of Prohaszka has something to do making a move on his holdings. Owlsley wishes that they'd just had Healy murdered in his cell, but Wesley insists that trails (of bodies) eventually lead somewhere. It's all pretty convoluted, so I'm just going with, "Bad guys are bad, and I'll watch Daredevil sort it out,"
Karen approaches the wife, Jennifer (Wendy Moniz), of the man who was murdered in her apartment. She's gone to him when she discovered the embezzling, and she blames herself for his death. Jennifer is loading a U-Haul, and doesn't want to talk to Karen. She knows why her husband was killed, and admits without saying that she was offered a similar deal from her husband's employer and took it. If Karen wants to go public with the corruption, she's doing it alone. Later, she approaches Ben.
As the courtroom waits for the judge to announce the verdict, Matt listens in on the jury's heartbeats. The forewoman's is too fast, and Matt realizes that it's a hung jury and that D.A. won't push for a retrial. Healy is free to go.
Daredevil finds Healy loading his car. We've already seen that Healy is an excellent fighter, and as usual, the episode ends with a nasty fight. At one point Healy nearly manages to impale Daredevil's head on an angled metal spike. Daredevil gets Healy on the ground and tortures him for a name. Healy finally speaks the name that everyone else was too afraid to say: Wilson Fisk. He says that he would have been better off if Daredevil hadn't been too weak to just kill him, because now that he's outed Fisk his life is over anyway. Turning, he rams his face into the metal spike. It's gross.
The episode closes with our first look at Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio). He only says one line, but his entire bearing, his presence, contrasts so strongly with the delivery that the effect is shocking. It was a simple, powerful way to close out a simple, powerful episode.
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