Warning: Spoiler Alert
A genuinely seemingly polite man named John Healy walks into a bowling alley around closing time. A man and his goons continue to bowl as if the rules don’t apply to them. Because they don’t. This new patron politely asks if he might join them. This is where the interaction begins to lose its polite nature. Healy (the polite bowling enthusiast) takes an exception to the attempt at having him removed. He swiftly takes care of the two goons. His gun jams (which Turk said it absolutely wouldn’t do) and is now in a fist fight. A fist fight that ends with Healy bashing the man’s face in with a bowling ball. The bowling alley employee runs off after calling the police. Healy hides the gun and assumes the position as the sound of sirens nears. When the cops arrive he says only one thing.
Healy: I want a lawyer.
Matt Murdock sits at a bench outside his church. The interaction between him and his priest is very short. Confession doesn’t seem to be in the cards, so Father Lantom offers him a latte from a fancy espresso machine that was donated to the church. That feels like it will re-emerge at a later date.
We meet Ben Urich as he meets with a local mobster. There clearly is a long-standing relationship. This particular mobster seems all too happy to cash out and moved to Florida. There is a new element in the organized crime equation in Hell’s Kitchen. Urich tries to get some information he can use, but all he’s getting is to sit this one out. There’s a respect from previous, but this is a dead-end. Maybe.
Mobster: When I went away to do my ten, every newspaper in town dragged my name through the —-, you were the only one who did it without mentioning my kids. Always grateful for that.
Urich: Then give me something. A name. Anything.
Mobster: Take a pass on this one Benny. Some fights, just get you bloody.
Foggy arrives at work very hung over. Moments later, Matt shows up with bruises and cuts on his face that will in time become something relatively normal. Foggy charges in with a joke that I hope will become a running gag. “You need a dog”. While Matt tries to fight off the need for a seeing eye dog, there is a knock at the door. In the doorway stands a very well dressed and well spoken gentleman we will eventually come to know as “Wesley”.
Wesley has come wielding nothing more than a very large check, the intent of putting promising local ‘talent’ on retainer, and vaguely dancing around who his employer is. Foggy can’t get past the big check part to see the significant issues or omissions that seem to bother Matt. Matt starts again about being selective about their clientele, then Wesley inquires about Karen. Asking if they hire all the suspects they get off of murder charges or just the attractive ones? Wesley offers them to look into one of their cases to see that everything’s on the up and up. Matt runs out to tail Wesley and picks up on his watch’s unique second-hand rhythm. Matt follows just long enough to hear Wesley (in the distance) say, “its been taken care of”.
At the 15th precinct, Foggy begins to confer with Healy. Healy’s answers are entirely too spot on. Foggy gets the impression that this is not Healy’s first rodeo. He has clearly been coached, using adjectives a person in his positions is not likely to have at his disposal. Especially when you combine that with his very even keel and calm demeanor. Foggy is all set to decline the case and walk away, knowing something if off here. Which is precisely the reason Matt walks in more than happy to take the case.
Urich is in his office fighting with an insurance company when his boss walks in. Urich is the old guard of reporters back when reporters covered what was newsworthy and responsible. He is a dinosaur in an ever-changing print media world. Organized crime doesn’t sell papers like it once did. Ellison (boss) wants Urich on the annual, “Will Hell’s Kitchen Get A Subway Line” fluff piece.
Urich: There was a time when this newspaper wrote the hell out of the news.
Ellison: Everyone we know are making twice what we are writing for blogs. Working from home in their underwear. We’re hanging on by our fingertips Ben.
Inside the room with Healy, Matt decides to see what if anything he might get from Healy on the bigger fish, the man who hired them. It’s slim pickings. Healy does not in any way exhibit the behavior of a man facing life in prison or worse. Matt asks him, “are at all afraid with what might happen if we lose this case?” Healy’s answer is simply “no, are you?” Foggy does not like this at all. Not interested in defending a professional criminal or a ‘shark in a skin-suit’.
Wesley shows up at the bowling alley as if he were just another patron. Shrugs off the comments from the pinball players, lays down a quarter and says, I’ve got next. Wesley’s presence has nothing to do with playing pinball. He’s there to retrieve the gun Healy hid under the pinball machine.
Once back at the office, Matt apologizes for taking over and taking a case that Foggy thinks they shouldn’t take. They accept that they need to take some cases they aren’t proud of to keep the lights on. Then they realize Karen is not in the office. That’s because Karen is at a meeting where she is offered a deal and a large sum of money to never disclose publicly anything about Union Allied Construction (former employer) or any of its affiliates.
Urich’s health insurance issue is not with him specifically, it pertains to his wife. As she is not talking to this point, it’s easy to assume that she will come up in the near future.
In the courtroom Foggy delivers their opening statement on the Mr. Healy case. His statement is pretty straight forward for anyone whose seen a courtroom drama. You don’t have to condone his actions, but the prosecution has to prove that he was not justified in defending his own life. Then Matt hears something odd followed by something familiar. A quick heartbeat that belongs to the juror followed by the familiar tick of a certain Cartier Mens wrist watch.
Outside, the juror is met by a handler. They have something on her and Daredevil is going to find out what it is. It’s a video tape, of the adult entertainment variety. The handler will provide cause for this woman to excuse herself from the jury. Something personal. Then he will leave this city.
The juror is excused and Matt delivers their closing statement. Just curious, what do you think the over/under is on the likelihood that Matt Murdock references ‘justice is blind’? Matt surveys the room listening for anything specifically different. Murdock’s statement is resoundingly good. It almost makes Foggy’s statement seem pedestrian. He lays out that Mr. Healy is in fact guilty of taking a man’s life, but that is not what’s on trial here. Maybe I’m biased on my enthusiasm of this show, but I’d put Murdock’s statement up against any we’ve seen recently in a courtroom drama. Or at least the ones I’ve seen. Up to and including Jake Brigance’s (Matthew McConaughey) closing statement at the end of A Time To Kill.
Karen approaches Mrs. Fisher, the widow of the dead man Karen woke up next to in the first episode. She is there to apologize but to also see how much Mrs. Fisher knows and what she might to do to bring these people down. Mrs. Fisher is not filled with the same gumption. She instructed her husband to bring to light what he felt was wrong. As a result of which, he is now dead. Mrs. Fisher’s two kids now dictate her compliance.
Karen shows up at the Bulletin to speak with Ben Urich. Her interest is with the Union Allied story, not the subway lines. She has more information, if he’s interested.
In the courtroom, the jury gives its verdict. Before it is read Matt, surveying heart beats already knows the jury is hung. The jury may be hung, but the DA is not going to retry the case, and Healy knows it.
Instead, Healy is convicted by the court of public opinion and his sentence is carried out by The Daredevil. Healy fights admirably. When he no longer has the upper hand, Daredevil inquires about the man who hires Healy’s lawyers. With a large shard of glass moving deeper and deeper into Healy’s neck, he spills. “FISK, Wilson Fisk”. Daredevil instructs Healy to get in a car and never return to Hell’s Kitchen.
Healy: You still think this is about you. I gave up his name. You don’t do that, not to him. He’ll find me and make an example. And he’ll find everyone I’ve ever cared about…and do the same to them. So that no one ever does, what I just did. You should’ve just killed me. You coward. (Then Healy turns and throws his face into an old rusty metal post killing himself instantly)
A curator walks through her art exhibit and finds a large bald man staring at a large predominantly white canvas. She tells a story about the price of art, reflecting that it’s what the art is but the feeling the art invokes. This large man replies with, “It makes me feel alone”. If you’re not picking up what I’m putting down, the large bald man is Wilson Fisk.
