Netflix Daredevil

Hmm. Sort of like how they did with Mr. Hyde over on Agents of SHIELD.

Mind you, we still don't really know what a Black Sky is.

Not having a formal introduction is not the same as not being introduced.

A large part of the episode was dedicated to "this amazingly powerful thing is on its way to New York," "Stick is brutally tracking this powerful thing," "Matt's enemies want this thing for some veiled reason" and "Stick recruits Steven, then finally "what could this horrible thing be, and what damage would it wreak on New York?"

Then we immediately jump from "holy crap, that thing is a child? Wait, this is more complex than I thought!" to "no, wait. It was killed offscreen. End of plotline." We don't even actually get to see what the Black Sky is or any real hint about why it was so important to dedicate time to it. The whole thing stops cold and the plot instead jumps past an actual conclusion to Nobu and Kingpin having problems about it.

It's a poor disconnect by itself, which is why the viewer and Matt not actually seeing everything that happened makes more sense than nothing actually coming from all that time spent setting it up.

edited 17th Apr '15 10:10:23 AM by KnownUnknown

You are splitting hairs. We have every reason in the world to believe "Black Sky" will be something important in the next season/shows. We don't have any to believe this particular one will, specially because we know there are more than one. If there haven't been a line about other "Black Sky", I would be totally with you, being sure the kid would come back one way or another. But they made sure to point there are others, so maybe the others are what will come back, not this specifically one.

Look, I am not saying there is no chance. And I am definitively not saying the plotline ended here. I agree that the off screen killing is very conspicuous. However, they did write a perfectly convenient way out so that the lost of this Black Sky doesn't terminate the plotline. This plot is still going, no mistake about that. But that is not the same to say the kid is definitively alive.

@alliterator

Sounds about right.

Plot progression is not trivial. If it were, those scenes wouldn't exist.

Neither is one line in a greater conversation itself a means of concluding that progression - the line implying there are other Black Sky's does not narratively deal with the way the current Black Sky is set up or the threat/presence of said Sky developed within the plot itself. Rather, it sets up a later plot with similar subject matter.

edited 17th Apr '15 11:59:11 AM by KnownUnknown

The current Black Sky is dead. Stick said he killed them and, later, Nobu said that it was "lost" (I think that's the term he used). Stick obviously didn't have enough time to kidnap them, stash them somewhere, and then come back toMatt's apartment, so we believe him at his word. Why lie?

edited 17th Apr '15 12:02:31 PM by alliterator

Because he can?

Well, we have no idea what his long term goal is, so we have no idea if he has a reason to lie about this.

If Stick did abduct rather than kill the kid, lying about it ensures that Matt wouldn't go looking for him.

Which actually adds an interesting question: How capable of lying to Matt is Stick? (Like, he lied about his promise- but if he truly believes that Black Sky isn't really a person, it could technically not be lying)

The current Black Sky is not an issue. That was definitively dealt in that episode. That one line most certainly did finish that plot for now. After all, the best case scenario have Stick kidnaping the kid and taking him away from Hell's Kitchen. As far as the narrative of the season is concerned, it is over.

Sure, it will probably come up again in a future season/show. But for all I know it will come back in Luke Cage's show, with no involvement from Stick himself. There is no guarantee that this particular Black Sky is at any way relevant.

edited 17th Apr '15 2:04:56 PM by Heatth

The issue isn't whether the narrative is over, it's whether the narrative was concluded well or not (that is, whether or not the writers really performed an Ass Pull and rendered a lot of the episode needless by having Stick abruptly conclude said narrative offscreen).

Remember that the original post was that the abrupt conclusion felt is oddly unfulfilled and fishy, due to the show generally not treating its plot points so loosely, so I believe there was something else going on that we (and Matt) were not being told.

edited 17th Apr '15 3:44:57 PM by KnownUnknown

It'd be fun if that comes up in a similarly small capacity in all the Marvel Netflix shows and isn't properly explored until The Defenders.

There are a million other ways to solve that plot in another manner though. Having him survive is a relatively unlikely possibility. For instance, his death could be used as a "NEVER AGAIN" For Daredevil if he meets Stick again, or even for the Hand itself being pissed about the loss of its Black Sky, or a Black Sky's relative seeking vengeance against Stick, e.t.c

To me, that is just the show subverting expectations again. For example: in episode 2, you expect the show to flash back and show how Daredevil got into the dumpster. Nope! He just explains that he got thrashed and that's that. And then, on the flip side, in a later episode, a flashback is used...as a joke.

In the case of the Black Sky, we assume that since it got away, it will become a recurring badguy/plot device for the rest of the season. But nope! Stick killed it offscreen.

edited 17th Apr '15 4:39:37 PM by alliterator

Just finished Episode 9. I understand that Fisk thought he was going to kill the masked man, but it was still a major, and stupid, oversight not to unmask him while Fisk was winning the fight.

It's also notable that Fisk didn't recognize Matt's voice, despite having spoken to him just the previous day.

edited 17th Apr '15 9:55:56 PM by Galadriel

Fisk simply doesn't care for the masked man's face. For all he knows it is just a random guy. There is no reason at all it is someone he would recognize (and, in fact, he probably wouldn't). Voice is probably the same thing. Fisk likely wasn't paying enough attention to remember Matt's voice.

The odds of Daredevil being somebody Fisk knows are actually quite slim, at least as far as Fisk is aware.

Relevant.

Fisk's got a big network and he owns half the cops. If nothing else, he'd be able to surruptitiously have the guy run through the police database, and have the rest of his people keep an eye out.

Then you are proposing to also take a clear photo. That is adding more work for a guy who is about to die. It is not like Fisk bothered taking photos of the Russian brothers on the off chance they escaped alive either.

...well, Fisk did meet Matt Murdock before, remember? At the art gallery? So he would probably recognize him from that.

I remember, but would Fisk? I have no reason to think he looked at Matt with more than a passing interest. Yeah, they talked a couple of sentences, but not anything remarkable. I don't remember the face of everyone I meet, not to mention is harder to remember someone if you meet that person in a highly different context. Matt Murdock was a blind man with a clean face wearing a suit. The masked man is a presumably sighted person with multiple face injuries wearing street clothes. Not easy to match if you are not familiar with him.

Also, it is not like Fisk would suspect he had met the masked man, so he doesn't have a big reason to unmask him in the first place.

edited 17th Apr '15 11:32:26 PM by Heatth

Honestly, given what Fisk is like, in the situation shown, what I would *expect* him to do is keep beating the man in the mask until he stops breathing. And then a bit more to make sure. Matt survived that encounter due to writer fiat - it's not the only one, either. It's only mildly annoying compared to things like the torture, but writing your characters into corners they only then escapes because "That's what's in the script" is a peeve of mine.

Both with heroes and villains. If a character is at someone's mercy and that someone has all the incentives in the world to keep kicking until said character is a stain on the carpet, they should die then and there.

If you're not willing to kill that character, either give said character an explicit "Get out out of death" power (I love Megan's high epic power. So cheaty, but still permits drama because it takes her off the board for a couple of days) or alternatively enough tactical acumen to not ever get cornered that badly.

In contrast, the show did do this right with Karen.

edited 18th Apr '15 1:44:37 AM by Izeinsummer