A lot goes down in "Straight To Hell," the season finale of Daredevil: Born Again, including the return of two legacy characters and a major power shift that has me pumped AF for season 2. It's not exactly a cliffhanger ending, but New York City in the MCU is at a low point, and that's where superheroes thrive. Someone has to save the day! Mayor Fisk has fully reverted to Kingpin mode and Matt Murdock is finally suiting up as Daredevil with only the regular amount of Catholic guilt. He's done some much-needed soul searching throughout the season and witnessed the many ways the system isn't working. There's also a new/old love triangle brewing, if you even care...
First and most importantly, episode 9 opens with confirmation that Vanessa Fisk ordered the hit on Foggy and his client Benny. She also arranged for Bullseye to be released from prison the first time, too. Vanessa did this with paperwork, mind you, not Matt Murdock's "knock Bullseye's tooth out and let him murder his way out" method.
How does Fisk respond to the attempt on his life?
In the aftermath of the gala shooting and with the help of Mayor Fisk's carefully executed plan, New York City goes from bad to worse. Fisk orders the Anti-Vigilante Task Force to go after all masked individuals. He also has his guy at Con-Ed cut the power and effectively black out the city. That causes chaos and a rise in crime. Because these cops are the baddest of apples, they even go so far as to shoot a teenager in cold blood and then put a mask on his face after the fact to justify their actions. They also go after Daredevil directly. We'll get to how that goes down in a minute.
Thing 1 and Thing 2 (a.k.a. Daniel Blake and Buck Cashman) call a city council meeting in the dead of night. Why? To blackmail them, basically, and threaten retaliation if they refuse to show support for Fisk's authoritarian "Safer Streets" initiative. They're getting rid of the former Kingpin's enemies left and right. After Police Commissioner Gallo refuses to comply with the "Safer Streets" initiative and conspires with Sheila to hold Fisk accountable to the law, Fisk has his driver replaced by a member of the AVTF named Luke (not Luke Cage, if you were wondering). This inferior Luke takes Gallo to the warehouse in Red Hook where Fisk, in full Kingpin mode, snaps his head in half.
The next morning, the fighting is over and power is back on. Fisk comes in to work and appoints an eager Heather Glenn as the Commissioner for Mental Health. I would not count on her relationship with Matt to last very long into season 2. During a televised address, Mayor Kingpin Fisk officially criminalizes vigilante activity and declares martial law in New York City, complete with a city-wide curfew.
Why did Frank Castle go to Matt's apartment?
Alright, now let's get into the titular hero's storyline in the season finale. Matt Murdock senses that Buck Cashman is OTW to kill him at Metro-General and escapes, still wearing his backless hospital gown. When he returns to his place, Frank Castle is waiting for him. He refuses to elaborate on who tipped him off that his life is in danger from Bullseye and/or the AVTF. (We find out later in the episode that Karen Page is the one who called him. She's also most likely the reason for Frank cleaned up good with aftershave and everything...)
Frank says he made a promise to protect Matt and get him to safety. They both know that the AVTF is closing in on his apartment. Matt's not sure he wants his help. He's against murdering, after all, and Frank has kind of the opposite take on superheroism. Even when the two of them discover that one of the task-force members present is the cop who killed Hector Ayala, Matt can't bring himself to deliver a fatal shot. That debate is left unresolved, however, when another one of the cops throw a grenade. The two street-level heroes jump out of a window together, where Karen herself is waiting to drive them to safety.
They patch themselves up at Frank's underground bunker. Karen offers to help Matt look into the case that got Foggy killed at a storage unit. Frank stays behind, grumpily saying that it's not his fight. Karen's not convinced, but leaves with Matt regardless.
For the last time, what's so special about Red Hook?
Before they find the files they need, Matt does some more prodding into the current nature of Frank and Karen's relationship. He can tell they have feelings for each other. He listened to their heartbeats. To be fair, as Karen points out, her heart was also racing when she saw Matt. And he didn't deny it when Karen called him jealous. Throuple alert? You can tell that the yearning between Matt and Karen, while present and not bad, is nothing compared to the angst between Karen and Frank, right?
But back to Foggy, Red Hook, and the task at hand. According to an old charter that Foggy found, Red Hook is what's known as a "free port"–zones that the government designates as tax free to encourage trade. They're also perfect for storing expensive goods, like works of art, to avoid paying taxes on them and/or laundering obscene amounts of money. (If you saw Christopher Nolan's Tenet, Robert Pattinson's character explains how the rich use free ports succinctly. Ironic, given how infamously confusing that movie is said to be.) Foggy realized that this also means the area is out of city and federal jurisdiction. That explains why Fisk imprisoned Adam there, too, though Matt and Foggy didn't know about that. What Matt does know is why the mayor wants to build a complex in Red Hook. It would essentially operate as his personal lawless city-state, like international waters on land.
Karen and Matt head to Brooklyn, where they see Fisk's Red Hook crawling with AVTF members. But they decide not to attack right at this moment. Thank you, Karen, for encouraging him to be smart! So instead, the next morning (while Fisk is implementing the last steps of his plan) they go to Josie's Bar in Hell's Kitchen (finally, the superhero known as the "Devil of Hell's Kitchen" has returned to his proper neighborhood) to build an army.
The troops are pretty scant right now. All they have are Josie, Karen, Cherry, Angie Kim (the hostage negotiator from episode 5, and the detective who figured out Muse's identity) and a handful of more moral cops. They don't even have BB Urich on their side... yet. Hopefully season 2 will add some more superheroes to this lineup as well. Getting Tom Holland's Spider-Man on a Disney+ show might be a stretch, but what about Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones? Or even Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk? A gal can dream! I spotted Hector's niece, Angela Del Toro, in the closing montage. She could suit up as the next White Tiger.
What happens in the post-credits scene?
As you saw towards the end of the episode, Frank Castle decided to start hunting some of his "fanboys" back. Unlike Daredevil, he does go to Red Hook and gets into a big fight with the AVTF, who are now fully decked out in his Punisher iconography. The leader, Powell, offers him a job on the AVTF. Castle laughs in their face and calls them clowns. He kills more than a few of them. They lock him up in Fisk's underground prison along with The Swordsman and half of the City Council... but not for long!
After the credits roll, we see Frank in his cell. He befriends a guard who happens to be a fellow Italian from New Jersey. Not for long, though! Frank lets the guard get close, and then kills him. He's free and will be back on our screens before we know it.
