Daredevil Season 2, Episode 12 Recap And Review: “The Dark At The End Of The Tunnel”

“The Dark at the End of the Tunnel” is the dark before the dawn. This episode features the reality of legends, the fall of heroes and our faith in them. It is a time of endings without the promise of new dawns. Yet, with all of it driven by choices, there is a hope there created by people imprinting their will upon the world. FULL SPOILERS follow directly below.

Not-So-Short Summary: Daredevil Season 2 Episode 12 “The Dark at the End of the Tunnel” begins with a young Elektra training under Stick’s tutelage. She’s a lethal child who has to be pulled away from battle with three trained men to stop from killing them. Stick talks to young Elektra about learning self control. They go to spar when we travel back to the present, where Elektra has arrived to kill Stick. Daredevil interrupts the fight right before the Hand arrives and steals Stick. They decide they are both going out find Stick. Elektra to kill him, and Daredevil to save him.

At the pier, Karen and the police are watching all the bodies as they are pulled out of the water. Matt and Foggy meet at their soon to close office. There Foggy helps Matt out in his search for the bad guys, mentioning underground tunnels Daredevil never knew about, before they say goodbye to their partnership for good.

Matt heads down the tunnels looking for the hand while Karen returns to the newspaper looking for what to do next. After a short conversation, Karen’s editor convinces her that there’s something more ahead of her, a story that only she can write.

Daredevil follows the tunnels till he reaches the Hand who begin to abandon their weapons, realizing he’s at a disadvantage when they do. Karen, in attempt to finish her article goes to speak to the only man who has spoken kindly of Frank Castle, his former officer. Their conversation begins well before she recognizes someone in his pictures that was pulled out of the water. She tries to hide this, but fails while he pulls his gun confirming all of her suspicions.

Daredevil closes in on the man who took and were torturing Stick. He coaches Matt to find a better way to track the ninja and fight them. Colonel Ray Schoonover leads Karen to her car and has her begin driving to the location he hopes will be her last. A car crashes into them. When Karen comes to, she realizes it was driven by the Punisher, who grabs the Colonel and brings him to a shack in the woods. She tries to speak some mercy into him, but instead becomes the witness again to another one of Frank Castle’s murders. After killing the Colonel, Frank Castle finds his secret stash of guns and other equipment.

Daredevil finds Stick while he is being tortured by the Hand and frees him, only to have Elektra arrive soon afterwards. Nobu enters with Hand ninja and reveals that The Black Sky they have been looking for is really Elektra. As a child, Elektra is attacked by the man of one of Stick’s allies. He demands that Elektra be killed. Stick kills his ally instead, smuggling her out of there and placing her with a rich childless couple. The Hand offer Elektra a sword and their obedience as she comes to terms with the information Stick always knew but never told her.

Stricken with indecision, Daredevil forces her to make a choice, putting her blade to his neck as he is an enemy of the Hand. Daredevil surprises her, taking her hostage. The three of them defeat the ninja there and escape. Stick tells Elektra why Daredevil came to save her. He gets into a knockdown drag out fight with Nobu, then escapes knowing the full wrath of the Hand will follow.

Miscellaneous Musings and Thoughts: With this episode, they did a good job of narrowing the focus to the things I’m assuming they’ll deliver on next episode. Other threads were dropped by the wayside as they’re at a good resting point for other series’ or seasons to pick up. It’s almost like the writers found a way to build the universe around them organically without it taking anything away from the story being shown. I hope the distinguished competition is paying attention. Their live action offerings could learn a lot here.