Daredevil - S2E4 - Penny and Dime

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Previously on Daredevil, ‘New York’s Finest’

“Death is part of the deal.”

Vengeance is a dish best served cold. Unless it’s exacted by the Irish Mob against Frank Castle. And Matt Murdock gets involved, then things are bound to get very messy. “Penny and Dime” is a superb hour of television with the perfect balance of action and drama and closes out the initial arc of this season of Daredevil.

This episode was all about death, but not just on a superficial level. The two funerals that open the episode underscore how death, though the end of one person’s life, is a catalyst for change and can galvanize people to act. Finn, the father of the Irish mobster whose rousing speech was cut short by The Punisher’s bullets, rallies his people for vengeance and (more importantly) to get his money back. With the staff of Nelson & Murdock overcome with guilt over Grotto’s untimely demise, Matt focuses his efforts to bring Frank Castle to justice while Karen digs deeper into his past. As Father Lantham aptly states, “guilt is a call to action.”

This episode was filled with violent and gut-wrenching scenes. If you thought Anatoly’s death-by-car-door scene was gruesome, you may want to avert your eyes with some of the things that occur in this episode.

“One Batch. Two Batch. Penny and Dime.”

The Punisher has never truly been a well-rounded character in the comic books. Up until Garth Ennis breathed new life into the character’s mythos in his Punisher MAX run, Frank Castle often comes off as a caricature of extreme violence and justice through bloodshed.

His monologue in the cemetery where he bares his soul to Matt was deeply moving. Very rarely does one encounter a poignant discussion of what the horrors of war truly does a person, how it breaks them. And perhaps the real tragedy isn’t being maimed in combat or the emotional trauma over all the violence you’ve seen—it’s the inability to reinsert yourself back into your old life and move on as if nothing happened. He’s haunted not only by the gruesome deaths of his family but by the guilt of not finishing a bedtime story he was reading to his daughter. At the core of it all, is that not what Frank Castle ultimately is? A haunted man. I’m certainly not the first person to say this but Jon Bernthal deserves an award, a standing ovation, or some form of special recognition for his deeply sympathetic portrayal of The Punisher. 

Side Notes and Memorable Quotes

• Father Lantham is back and I appreciate how he doesn’t sugar-coat things about how much of a pitiful scoundrel Grotto was.
• “The Irish may not have invented revenge, but we sure as hell perfected it!”- Finn
• I don’t know about you guys, but the chemistry between Matt and Karen feels a bit forced. I am not here for Matt x Karen.
• I’m so glad that the dog didn’t die.
• “You would’ve made one hell of a marine, Red.”- Frank
• And we get a brilliant x-ray of the iconic Punisher skull symbol
• Finn is a character in the comic books. A severely disfigured character that’s missing half his face. So maybe we’ll see more of him in the future.

Elektra Natchios is here! Elektra Natchios is here!

Quote of the Week 

“Nothing shines a halo faster than death… but funerals are for the living. And revising history only dilutes the lessons we should learn from them.”- Father Lantham