Line #7 Recap/Daredevil2015S1E1IntoTheRing


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/daredevilbloodandrain.png]]
2
3	-> ''"You know, I'm supposed to say I don't miss it. That's what they teach you in tramua recovery--define yourself by what you have, value the differences, make no apologies for what you lack. And it's all true for the most part...but it doesn't change the fact that I...I'd give anything to see the sky one more time."''
4	-->-- '''Matt Murdock'''
5
6	'''"Into the Ring"''' is the first episode of ''[[{{Series/Daredevil2015}} Marvel's Daredevil]]''.
7
8	-----
9
10	In the early 1990s, boxer "Battlin'" Jack Murdock races to the scene of a car accident, to find his nine-year-old son Matt amidst an overturned truck carrying chemical waste. Matt saved an old man from being hit by the truck by pushing him out of the way, but in the process his eyes were splashed with chemicals that blind him, and Jack is left to comfort his now-disabled son.
11
12	In 2014, Matt Murdock (Creator/CharlieCox) visits the Hell's Kitchen church his father attended and takes confession. He tells the priest, Father Paul Lantom, about his father's record as a "tough as oak" boxer, and how sometimes Jack would "let the devil out" on his opponents. Matt didn't understand what that meant at the time, but he does now. When Father Lantom asks what Matt has done that he wants to confess, Matt admits that he doesn't want forgiveness for what he's done, but rather what he's going to do.
13
14	That night, at the docks, a gang of human traffickers, lead by Turk Barrett, are loading captive young women into a shipping container. Matt intervenes in a black suit and a mask that hides his identity, using heightened senses and advanced martial arts to dispatch the traffickers and free their captives.
15
16	The next morning, Matt meets up with Foggy Nelson (Creator/EldenHenson), his best friend and law partner, to tour a potential office space for their new practice. The space they're scouting out is available at a steep discount due to the general damage and reconstruction going on in Hell's Kitchen after [[Film/TheAvengers2012 "the Incident"]]. Matt eagerly decides that the space is perfect for them. Now they only need clients, but that's been difficult due to Matt's insistence they only defend the innocent; at this point, he'd settle for a single client.
17
18	That first client comes in the form of Karen Page (Creator/DeborahAnnWoll), a young woman found in her apartment by police, standing over a dead body and holding a bloody knife, and arrested despite her tearful pleas of innocence. Matt and Foggy are tipped off to the potential client by Sgt. Brett Mahoney (Royce Johnson), a police officer at the 15th Precinct and childhood friend of Foggy's (Foggy regularly bribes Brett with cigars for his mother Bess in exchange for information), and the pair are able to convince Karen to hire the firm and be their first client. In tears, Karen explains that she and the victim, Daniel Fisher, worked for a construction firm called Union Allied, and after meeting up for drinks the night before, she blacked out and woke up a moment before the police arrived. From her heartbeat, Matt can tell she's innocent.
19
20	A middle-aged cop named Clyde Farnum is eating lunch in Abe Lebewohl Park when he's approached by James Wesley (Toby Leonard Moore). Wesley explains that his employer's organization has acquired the $28,957 debt that Farnum owes to Rigoletto, a mobster who has recently "[[DeadlyEuphemism retired]]"; and shows him a live tablet image of Clyde's daughter Tracy in a park with an assassin stationed not ten yards away from her, who they are going to give a kill order to if Clyde doesn't use his position to do a job for them.
21
22	At Nelson & Murdock, Matt is convinced that something's amiss about Karen's case: [[OrgyOfEvidence if the case against Karen is so open-and-shut]], why are the police dragging their feet on charging her and why haven't any news outlets reported on the crime? Foggy suspects Matt's reluctance is because Karen is just his type (a beautiful woman of "questionable character"), but he agrees to dig deeper into the matter. He suggests that it's possible Karen is innocent...but she is withholding from them information that could lead the police to the actual responsible party.
23
24	In the middle of the night, Farnum attacks Karen in her sleep. He tries to stage a suicide by strangling her with a bedsheet tied into a noose, but Karen fights back, drawing blood from his right eye, and manages to scream for help. The next morning, Matt and Foggy meet with the investigating officers in Karen's case, Detectives Christian Blake and Carl Hoffman, and demand Karen's immediate release from custody, since she's not been charged and she now has grounds for a civil suit against the precinct. They begrudgingly acquiesce, though not before Blake threatens physical violence against Matt. In private, Matt suspects the attempted murder was part of an attempt to cover up evidence that would exonerate Karen.
25
26	At the office, Karen admits to knowing why someone would want to frame and kill her. The construction firm where she worked, Union Allied, has been making millions off government contracts to rebuild much of Hell's Kitchen. Karen was accidentally emailed a "pension file" that was actually a ledger for what she presumes was criminal activity. Her boss, Mr. [=McClintock=], laughed off her concerns, so Karen asked Daniel Fisher from the legal department to advise her on what to do next. When they met up at the bar to discuss it, someone drugged their drinks and staged the murder. Blaming herself for Daniel's death, Karen tearfully insists on leaving, not wanting Matt or Foggy to suffer because of her, but the pair resolve to keep her safe, and Matt offers to let her stay at his apartment.
27
28	Matt's lofty apartment is sparse and cheap, partially because of a bright and gaudy electronic billboard on the building across the street. After Karen [[SexyShirtSwitch changes into one of Matt's dress shirts]], they talk about his blindness, and Matt admits that he misses his eyesight. Their talk turns to the Union Allied business, and Matt's theory that Karen was framed – rather than killed outright – because she knows too much. And more importantly, she has something that the conspirators want: a copy of the pension file. Karen denies it, but Matt senses the lie.
29
30	A disparate group of organized criminals meet on the roof of an under-construction high rise: elderly financial expert Leland Owlsley (Creator/BobGunton), Russian mobsters Anatoly and Vladimir Ranskahov (Creator/GideonEmery and Nikolai Nikoleff), Yakuza enforcer Nobu Yoshioka (Peter Shinkoda), and elderly Chinese drug manufacturer Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho). Wesley is the last to arrive as a representative of his employer, whose name he refuses to allow be spoken aloud. When Wesley asks why the Russians are short on their payments, they explain the recent incident with the masked vigilante. Owlsley is dismissive, but Wesley shows more interest in this vigilante and demands details. The Russians get defensive when the others seem skeptical of their story, and when it's mentioned that Wesley's employer will be displeased with them, and they fire back by asking about the situation with one of their rivals, Prohazska, which they're just as displeased about. Wesley insists that his organization is handling Prohazska, but the Russians don't seem to have been placated.
31
32	In the middle of the night, Karen sneaks out to her apartment to retrieve a flash drive containing a copy of the pension file. Rance—the assassin that Wesley had used to threaten Farnum's daughter—is lying in wait, and attempts to kill Karen after taking the drive, but Matt has followed her in his vigilante outfit and fights Rance. Bolstered by memories of his father, Matt defeats Rance and retrieves the flash drive with Karen looking on, though she doesn't recognize him. He promises to get the drive into the right hands, bypassing the cops, and telling "everyone" by delivering the assassin and the flash drive to the front steps of the ''New York Bulletin''.
33
34	A few days later, the Union Allied story is front page news in the ''Bulletin''. Over the phone, Wesley assures his employer that the scandal won't be linked to their operation, since Owlsley has cleared out the dirty money and the key people with evidence, such as Clyde, Rance, and [=McClintock=], [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness have been or will be dealt with]]. Farnum is shot in his basement and his death staged as a suicide, Rance is hanged in his jail cell with a bedsheet, and [=McClintock=] is force fed a lethal dosage of pills. His employer is curious about how Rance was subdued, but tells Wesley to leave Karen alone, since she doesn't know anything beyond what has already been exposed, and to keep an eye on Nelson & Murdock in case they'll be useful in the future.
35
36	Karen cooks Matt and Foggy some lasagna to celebrate her acquittal, and offers to work at Nelson & Murdock as their secretary. However, despite the firm's victory, the criminal enterprise is continuing unabated. That night, Matt waits on the rooftops of Hell's Kitchen in his vigilante suit and listens for trouble; hearing the sound of Vladimir and Anatoly ambushing and abducting a child from his father, Matt pulls on his mask and goes to work.
37
38	----
39	!!Tropes:
40	* ActionPrologue: There is one of Matt rescuing some girls from being trafficked [[EstablishingSeriesMoment and it gives the viewers an idea of what type of show this series is going to be.]]
41	* AnachronismStew: In the opening shot of Jack racing to the scene of his son's accident, there's one car that clearly has [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NY-2010-License-Plate.jpg a modern 2010 New York license plate]][[note]]Embossed dark blue numbers on gold plate, with small blue bar at bottom with thin blue stripe above and curved larger blue bar at top with thin blue stripe below, with orange "NEW YORK" in serifed block letters curving to edges of top bar[[/note]], in a scene that is supposed to take place in the 1990s. Such a car would actually have plates that look more like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_1986_License_Plate.jpg this]], as accurately depicted on several of the other cars. Modern MTA buses from the 2000s and 2010s can also be seen in the background when Jack is running to the scene.
42	* AndYourLittleDogToo: Wesley shows Farnum a live video of Farnam's daughter in the park [[ImpliedDeathThreat with Rance nearby]], to coerce him into killing Karen.
43	* ApologeticAttacker: Farnum, who's only trying to kill Karen because his daughter's life is being threatened, is almost sobbing when he apologizes to Karen while strangling her.
44	* BailEqualsFreedom:
45	** Averted with Karen. She thanks Matt and Foggy for getting her out of jail in light of Farnum's attempt, but they counter that just because she's been released doesn't mean the district attorney won't seek charges at a later date.
46	--->'''Matt Murdock:''' How are you holding up?\
47	'''Karen Page:''' Better. Thanks for getting me out.\
48	'''Foggy Nelson:''' Don't thank us yet. Just because they released you doesn't mean they won't eventually bring charges.\
49	'''Matt Murdock:''' Which means it's crucial you don't speak to anyone other than the two of us about what happened.
50	** Played with for Farnum. Fisk arranges for him to be bailed out, just so that he can then be killed off more discreetly.
51	* BattleInTheRain: The fight between Matt and Rance outside of Karen's apartment happens in a driving rainstorm.
52	* BlatantLies: Foggy claims the realtor is homely and is prejudiced against blind people.
53	* {{Bookends}}: The episode begins and ends with a child in danger, and a helpless father.
54	* ButHeSoundsHandsome: Matt can't help smiling when Karen is praising her MysteriousProtector, though cuts her off when she goes on to say he's a weirdo.
55	* CantStopTheSignal: Faced with a possible [[WeAreEverywhere widespread criminal conspiracy with police involvement]], Matt decides to just deliver Rance and the thumbdrive with the dirt on Union Allied to the ''Bulletin''.
56	* ChekhovsGun:
57	** When Farnum calls his daughter, she says she's coming around over the weekend to drop off her laundry. She does...and discovers her father's body.
58	** Matt hearing the child being abducted by the Russians sets up the events of the next episode.
59	* {{Confessional}}: Used for exposition into Matt's character (although Matt is ostensibly talking about his father).
60	* ContinuityNod: Matt and Foggy's new office is one of the few places in Hell's Kitchen to have largely escaped damage during [[Film/TheAvengers2012 the Chitauri invasion]], which the locals are now just calling "the incident."
61	* CopKiller: Clyde Farnum, a guard who owes money to Fisk, is threatened by Wesley into attempting to hang Karen in her jail cell. When the attempt fails due to Karen clawing out one of his eyes, Fisk has Farnum bailed out, and then killed by a hitman who stages his death to look like a suicide.
62	* CurbStompBattle: Seemed to be in effect at the beginning at first, but subverted when Matt begins to take hits too.
63	* DeathByIrony: The first attempt on Karen's life involves Farnum trying to make it look like she hanged herself with a noose made from the bedsheets in her cell. Following the second attempt on Karen's life, this is the fate given to Rance.
64	* DescriptionCut: Matt says he'd settle for one innocent client. Cut to Karen freaking out over a bloodstained corpse.
65	* TheDulcineaEffect: Foggy is not impressed by Matt getting them involved with a client with no money and a hopeless case, which he thinks is not entirely unrelated to the fact that she's a good-looking DamselInDistress. Even Matt admits he has a point, though points out he (supposedly) has no way of telling she's beautiful.
66	-->'''Foggy Nelson:''' All right, I'm just gonna say this once, and we can move on: you don't necessarily show the best judgment when beautiful women are involved, Matt.\
67	'''Matt Murdock:''' How would I even know if she's a beautiful woman?\
68	'''Foggy Nelson:''' I don't know. It's kinda spooky, actually! But if there's a stunning woman with questionable character in the room, Matt Murdock's gonna find her and Foggy Nelson is gonna suffer.\
69	'''Matt Murdock:''' ''[chuckling]'' All right, I don't disagree with anything you're saying.\
70	'''Foggy Nelson:''' ''[relieved]'' Thank you.\
71	'''Matt Murdock:''' But I need you to back me, anyway.
72	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: After Turk's later appearances as a comic relief HarmlessVillain across the MCU Netflix shows, it's pretty weird to see him doing something as despicable as human trafficking in his first appearance.
73	* EyeScream:
74	** Karen claws at Farnum's eyes when he tries to strangle her in her cell, hard enough to draw blood from his right eye. He's still wearing a bandage patch over it when Fisk sends men to kill him and make it look like a suicide.
75	** Not to mention Matt getting chemicals splashed in his eyes when he was younger.
76	** Madame Gao's workers are also chemically blinded.
77	* {{Fanservice}}:
78	** Karen gives us the MCU's first female nudity. There's a brief glimpse of {{Sideboob}} from behind as she puts on the shirt Matt gives her, then when the camera perspective changes, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it but fully visible shot of her bared right breast before she pulls the lapels closed.
79	** [[FemaleGaze The female audience]] gets Matt's ShirtlessScene.
80	* FeeFiFauxPas:
81	** Susan Harris, the realtor showing Matt and Foggy around their future office space, manages to commit this three times with Matt in the span of 30 seconds. Luckily, both Matt and Foggy take it in good stride and humor, and proceed with the tour of the property without issue.
82	** When talking with Matt in his apartment, Karen nods in response to a question Matt asks...and then awkwardly laughs in embarrassment at her slip-up for forgetting that Matt is blind.
83	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
84	** Despite the fact that [[ObfuscatingStupidity they seemingly need translators]], Nobu and Madame Gao react at several points to the exchanges Vladimir, Anatoly, Wesley and Owlsley are having in English. Both of them give Owlsley [[DeathGlare dirty looks]] when Owlsley [[InterchangeableAsianCultures asks Nobu to translate for Gao]], both turn to stare intently when Vladimir and Anatoly throw the Union Allied affair into Owlsley and Wesley's faces, and at one point Wesley translates a question Gao asks...a question that was in response to something that had only been discussed in English.
85	** Vladimir and Anatoly bring up the whole matter with Prohaszka, a rival of theirs who will come into play in later episodes.
86	** Some of the divisions and tensions among Fisk's allies is plain to see from their conference, especially between the Russians and Fisk's faction.
87	** A poster in the gym is for one of Matt's father's fights, "[[Recap/Daredevil2015S1E2CutMan Murdock vs. Creel]]".
88	** In the montage at the end of the episode, Nobu and his men are looking over the blueprints for what will become [[Series/TheDefenders2017 Midland Circle Financial]].
89	** Although Wesley dismisses Matt and Foggy as just {{Ambulance Chaser}}s, his boss tells Wesley to open a file on them [[Recap/Daredevil2015S1E3RabbitInASnowstorm in case they prove useful in the future]].
90	** Foggy says that Matt has a history of being attracted to [[ComicBook/{{Elektra}} hot women of dubious morality]].
91	* FriendsRentControl: The huge electronic billboard shining through Matt's window all night is used to explain why the rent is so low on his large corner apartment.
92	* HandsOnApproach: Matt gets the hot realtor to guide him around the apartment. From the eyerolling expression on Foggy's face, he's clearly done this before.
93	* HeroicSecondWind: It took a flashback of Matt's father giving words of encouragement to get Matt back on his feet and finish the fight.
94	* HeWhoMustNotBeNamed: Wesley insists his employer's name not be spoken out loud.
95	-->'''James Wesley:''' [[PunctuatedForEmphasis We don't...say his name]].
96	* HonorBeforeReason:
97	** Matt and Foggy are divided over whether they should defend the innocent, or more pragmatically defend anyone who is charged with a crime and has money to pay them, given that such people are legally innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
98	** Matt insists on defending Karen even though they don't appear to have a case and she doesn't have any money to pay them. However Matt does have reasons--they've only just opened and have no clients, so need to build up their reputation. And the fact that the DA has an OrgyOfEvidence yet haven't charged Karen is suspicious in itself.
99	* LivingLieDetector: Matt listens to Karen's heartbeat, first when she asserts her innocence (true) and later when she denies [[IMadeCopies she copied the pension file]] (lie).
100	* LoveAtFirstSight: Karen has an instantaneous crush on Matt. Her body language while serving Matt and Foggy her homemade lasagna is very telling, as she doesn't take her eyes off Matt unless replying to a remark from Foggy, and her chair is positioned much closer to Matt than it is to Foggy.
101	* MadeOfIron: Averted. Matt's fight in the rain with Rance leaves him bloody and bruised all around. The final kick that wins the fight for him probably hurts him almost as much as it hurts Rance.
102	* MouthOfSauron: Wesley acts in this function for Fisk at the meeting. Nobody is happy about this and the Russians in particular threaten to leave as soon as they find out Fisk isn't coming, cursing both Fisk and Wesley and stating that they "don't deal with lapdogs."
103	* MythologyGag:
104	** Don Rigoletto is mentioned, and, according to Wesley, he has retired. In the comics, Rigoletto employed Wilson Fisk as his bodyguard, before Fisk killed him and took over his business. We learn from Ben Urich's informant in a later episode that Rigoletto got chopped into pieces.
105	** Karen asks Matt, as he's showing her into his apartment, "Do you have a shirt I can borrow? This one's a little wet and I'm a...Hellions fan." The Hellions were rivals of various teams of younger mutant heroes in the X-Men franchise, initially as actual villains and later on a team that was more of a school rival than actual enemies of the X-Men.
106	* NeverSuicide: Fisk arranges the cover-up of the Union Allied matter by having Karen's boss force-fed a lethal number of pills, while Rance is hanged in his cell with a bedsheet and Farnum is shot through the mouth at his house and are both made to look like suicides.
107	* NoSenseOfPersonalSpace: Wesley walks up to Farnum while he's eating lunch in the park and sits down ''right'' next to him, so that he can then use the man's gambling debts as leverage, combined with threatening his daughter's life, to get him to kill Karen.
108	* NotSoDire: Foggy says he's going to bribe a cop. Brett turns out to be a childhood friend (or maybe frenemy) and he's just bringing cigars for his mom, in exchange for letting them know of any interesting cases that come across his desk.
109	* OrgyOfEvidence: A variation--it's not the evidence that makes Matt suspicious, it's the fact that Karen has not been charged immediately despite overwhelming evidence of her guilt.
110	* PragmaticVillainy: Wesley's employer sees no point in harming Karen after the news breaks, because everything she knows is now public knowledge.
111	* ProperlyParanoid: Given that she was drugged the moment she ''started'' telling someone else, and then woke up next to their body, Karen is understandably wary about trusting these two white knights who came out of the blue to help her, suspecting they are either part of the conspiracy or more innocents she could put in harm's way.
112	* PullTheThread: Foggy's absolutely correct that Karen's case is open and shut, ''and'' that there's a good reason she hasn't been charged yet (it's the weekend). However, Matt is correct that Karen's case is ''so'' open and shut and so violent that it should be a sensational case splashed across all the tabloids, not a silent nothing being dealt with as quietly as possible.
113	* RevealingCoverup: The attempt to murder Karen only proves to Matt and Foggy that there really is a conspiracy, as well as [[NiceJobFixingItVillain giving them the leverage to get her released from custody.]] It's a... not a subversion, but there's something, because the cover-up only reveals because it fails.
114	* SexyShirtSwitch: Karen puts on one of Matt's buttoned dress shirts because the T-shirt Foggy has loaned her got wet, and we get a moment of her topless as she pulls off the t-shirt.
115	* SceneryCensor: Matt's right shoulder is used to obscure Karen's breasts as she pulls off her T-shirt, and she is then shown [[ToplessnessFromTheBack topless from behind]] until she can get her replacement shirt buttoned up.
116	* ShoutOut: After defeating Rance outside Karen's apartment, Matt deposits him on the front steps of the ''Bulletin'' with the flashdrive still attached to him, very reminiscent of the scene from ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' where James Gordon finds an unconscious Lau outside the police station with a note reading "Please Deliver to Lt. Gordon" attached to him.
117	* SignatureMove: While down at the docks, Matt does his familiar reflecting baton toss with one of the slave ring guard's stun stick. It's hard to say what's more impressive: that he could give [[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Cap]] a run for his money, or that he did it without any vibranium.
118	* TastesLikeFriendship: In this case used to seal a friendship rather than establish it, when Karen serves the lasagna her grandmother told her [[ShipTease only to serve to her future husband]], and offers to work at Nelson and Murdock given that she has no money to pay them.
119	* ToplessnessFromTheBack: When Karen is changing shirts in front of Matt, the camera uses Matt's right shoulder to hide her breasts from in front, then shoots her from behind.
120	* UnkemptBeauty: Karen looks terrible when Matt and Foggy see her, but Foggy still describes her as a knock-out.
121	* VillainDecay: Arguably played for the better. We first meet Turk Barrett here. Later, he'll become one of the biggest butt-monkeys of the MCU, but here he's trafficking slaves for $1000 a head.
122	-->'''Turk Barrett:''' Now, if you keep quiet, I'll let you have a bucket. If not... [sparks up cattle prod]
123	* TheVoice: Wilson Fisk is only heard from a speakerphone in Wesley's car. It will be another two episodes before we finally see him in person.
124	* ThoseTwoGuys: This episode establishes Matt and Foggy as this to everyone else.
125	* WhoAreYou:
126	** Done for both lawyers and the vigilante.
127	--->'''Karen Page:''' Who the hell are you guys?\
128	'''Matt Murdock:''' I'm Matt. He's Foggy. ''[Foggy smiles and nods]''\
129	'''Karen Page:''' Who sent you?\
130	'''Matt Murdock:''' No one sent us.
131	** And later when a masked man in black appears out of nowhere to save her from a hitman, Karen can only gasp out an incredulous "Who...what the hell?!"
132	* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Matt works out that the only reason the people who've set Karen up haven't killed her is because [[IMadeCopies she copied the pension file]] and they're hoping to pressure her into giving it up. They only changed their plan after [[SpannerInTheWorks Matt and Foggy]] turned up out of nowhere to defend her.
133	* YouHaveToBelieveMe: Karen passes out after having a drink with a colleague, then wakes up in her apartment next to his corpse, [[BetterManhandleTheMurderWeapon clutching the knife that killed him]], just as the police burst into the room. She uses this trope to Matt and Foggy, knowing full well how screwed she is.

Context Recap / Daredevil2015S1E1IntoTheRing