Daredevil Recaps: “Stick” and “Shadows in the Glass”

In this week’s Daredevil recaps, we have obligatory orphan ninja training, vaguely mystical weirdness, and mountains of father-figure issues.

“Stick” starts with this guy running down a whole bunch of stairs to grab a gun to protect himself from an unknown threat. Or maybe he’s just really into fitness and is trying to Paul Bunyan the elevator, which he points his gun at as it approaches. (Spoiler: Paul Bunyan loses, dude, btw.)

PSA for Paul Bunyan’s coworkers: just take the stairs.

BUT then someone appears who brought a—albeit large—knife to a gunfight because like other characters I could name, he apparently dgaf. Which turns out to be warranted as he slices Paul’s gun-holding hand off and demands information about “Black Sky.” Bunyan tells him it’s on a ship on the way to New York, and then sword dude cuts his head off or something equally gruesome and gets back in the elevator just to make sure he’s completely ruined Paul’s day.

And it appears he’s blind, so that’s probably not a coincidence.

Back in New York, Foggy discusses his how much he wants to punch Daredevil—who’s been dubbed “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen”—and his dumb mask and black costume.

“My desire to punch him is inversely proportional to the amount of red in his outfit. Just saying, Matt.”

Karen tries to get Matt to weigh in on the subject/seriously just admit it’s him already, and things get a bit awkward—before they get a lot awkward when Foggy tries to ask Karen out again and gets blown off. Then Foggy asks Matt about his secret lady friend (Claire), and Matt says it didn’t work out, and OH GOD WHY I THOUGHT WE’D FIXED THIS. DAMMIT, MURDOCK.

Elsewhere, Leland speaks to Nobu, one of their Minions Anonymous members, and discusses some cryptic villainy stuff probably about Black Sky, and then Daredevil corners him when he goes to leave. But then he’s distracted when he hears a familiar cane approaching and gets tasered by Leland, who drives off instead of finishing him off for reasons.

The person with the distracting cane sounds turns out to be the guy with the sword from before, who takes this opportunity to mock Daredevil for getting distracted in the first place.

“You never learned not to mind your surroundings. Lol.”

Daredevil takes a breather for a minute while we get into how the two know each other.

“I’m cool down here for now. Why don’t you flashback in the meantime?”

In the past, after the death of Matt’s dad, he was taken in by nuns, and sword guy—who we’re about to find out is Stick, so I’ll just go with that from now on—shows up to help him adjust to his blindness/receive his no-parents-ninja-training, which I thought was handed out complimentary in comic book universes, but Stick takes payment in the form of the pile of money Matt’s dad left him. He somehow already knows about Matt’s abilities and throws his keys at the kid, who of course catches them instinctively, and that’s basically all I’ve wanted Foggy to do in literally every scene where he talks about Matt’s ability to know things he shouldn’t know without eyesight. FINALLY. At least someone did it.

Stick assesses Matt’s super senses while the two make an ice cream run in a park and points out that at least Matt got to see for a few years. Stick was born blind.

“You adopted the dark. I was born in it.”

Daredevil’s present-day lie-down is over, and Stick makes fun of him for not having everything under control despite the fact that Matt had everything under control until he got there. Matt doesn’t point that out, probably because Stick would just counter that he means more than just this one instance and he knows something Matt doesn’t, and GOD even pseudo-parents are frustrating.

(While this is going on, it also turns out Karen only blew Foggy off so she could go meet Ben about the investigative journalism activities, so cheer up, Foggy! Hooray!)

Matt brings Stick home so they can talk, and Stick—who totally doesn’t want to be Matt’s dad at all or anything—immediately has opinions on his apartment, how he should be dedicating his time to Daredevil, and how glad he is Claire and Matt split up, and now I am furious. He doesn’t like all the “soft things” Matt’s surrounding himself with in his apartment, despite Matt’s understandable concerns about super senses and sheet quality.

Tam Haverford: Secret Daredevil.

So they break the tension as Matt takes a swing at Stick, who immediately puts him into an arm lock, by diving into another flashback. Stick mercilessly beats on child-Matt, who is driven by anger with feeling like his dad’s death was his own fault.

“DARKNESS. NO PARENTS.”

In the present, Matt has learned how to get out of that lock, and he and Stick take a few swings at each other for old times’ sake.

“Hahaha remember when you were ten and I beat you up? Fighting is fun.”

And then Stick has a beer and does this nonsense, because I guess no one told him this isn’t Ben Affleck’s Daredevil.

Disbelief un-suspended. Reel it in, Stick.

He wants Matt’s help stopping the delivery of Black Sky, which he says is a weapon. The he joins the chorus of voices telling Matt he’s going to have to kill someone to achieve his long-term goals. He agrees to help Stick, but only if he swears he won’t kill anyone.

“I swear I will not kill anyone.” So Terminator 2, basically.

Karen goes to get some information from Mrs. Cardenas about the guys who busted up her apartment, and Mrs. C asks if it has to do with the “handsome lawyer.”

“Oh you mean Matt?”

“Oh honey, no.”

After sharing information and Karen’s awkward realization that Foggy wasn’t joking about that whole date thing, Karen leaves and finds she was tailed by the guys Mrs. C just told her about. They grab her, and she takes out one of them with a swift knee in the pants, but the other guy throws her to the ground just before Foggy shows up to help her out.

“Stalker! Thanks, though.”

Stick and Daredevil go to intercept Black Sky at the docks, and…

Wtf? It’s a kid. In chains. Some kind of superpower thing?

Despite his Terminator 2 promise, Stick tries to Hawkeye the kid, but Matt stops him, and we get another flashback where Stick abandons Matt’s training after Matt makes him a friendship bracelet, because feelings are for losers!

Back at Matt’s apartment, he argues with Stick over the no-kill promise, and things break into another fight when Stick reveals that he killed the “Black Sky” later anyway as Matt dealt with the goons on the dock. It looks bad for Matt, but he eventually pulls out a victory against Stick, who seems proud as he takes off.

Karen lets Foggy in on what she and Ben have been doing and introduces the two, and the gang draws closer to fighting evil as a cohesive unit. They even show Foggy their obsessive-person wall chart.

“And over here, we have our ‘Wall of Foreshadowing’!”

They’ve even drawn Daredevil’s mask on one of their cards despite still seemingly not putting two and two together with the whole blind vigilante/blind friend who seems not-so-blind thing.

The episode finishes with a bonus scene of Stick talking to his mentor/boss? They discuss whether or not Matt will be “ready when the doors open” and what is going on?

Keep reading for episode 8, “Shadows in the Glass.”