As always, spoilers ahoy.
We open with a flashback to Fisk being admitted to prison after Daredevil finally beat him down at the end of last season. He’s processed and put in white and lead to his cell. Then we see him meet with his lawyer to discuss his limited remaining assets and keeping his wife safe. Then another mobster visits Fisk in his cell and threatens Fisk to keep him in line. Fisk plays meek. Then we flash to the prison cafeteria. A white collar criminal approaches him to make friends. Fisk starts making plans to rebuild his empire from inside prison. That takes us back to Frank meeting him in the excerise yard. End of the cold open.
Back from the credits, Elektra is pouring Stick’s concoction into Matt’s arrow wound. As he lays on the floor recovering a clean-up crew of some kind whitewashes all traces of death and combat from Matt’s apartment. When he’s finally lucid, they talk about her killing the ninja and why, and the Hand, and who she truly is; an assassin who enjoys killing. He tells her he won’t judge her for who she is but he is who HE is and they can’t keep corrupting each other, and tells her to leave.
Fisk and Castle are talking in the yard. Fisk expresses sympathy for Frank’s losses. Frank doesn’t want his bullshit. Fisk tries to point him at the guy in power by telling him he was involved in his family’s slaughter. Fisk and Castle make an uneasy deal. Frank thinks Fisk is scum, but he knows Fisk is right. He agrees to do as Fisk asks.
Foggy shows up at Matt’s place to ask for space for things to cool off. They argue about his vigilantism, and Matt tells Foggy he’ll never change and that he and Karen are better off without him. Foggy leaves. At the office he’s packing up and Karen arrives with more info she’s dug up that might expose DA Reyes’ coverup. Foggy tells her to let it go. She wants to fight to make things better. Foggy tells her to be careful with Matt and suggests they both move on.
Matt accosts the accountant from a few episodes ago. He wants info about the Hand, but he refuses because they have his son. Matt asks where they’re keeping him.
Karen returns to the newspaper to talk to Ben’s old editor about the new evidence she’s dug up. She wants to give it to him and walk away but he convinces her to stick with it. Frank meanwhile kills the prison boss’ bodyguard and tells him they need to talk. Matt meanwhile gets the accountant to take him to the Hand’s place to get his son back. Karen and the editor go talk to the corrupt disgraced mortician, and he tells them the John Doe he fudged details on was an undercover cop.
Frank gets some answers about the night his family died from the prison boss, and how some unseen man called The Blacksmith was responsible, how it was a police sting gone wrong. Frank kills him anyway, and Fisk’s prison guard locks him in and lets out the rest of his men as Fisk himself thanks him like a patsy. He slaughters every single one of them. The guards gas him and take him to his cell.
Matt catches the Japanese Roxxon guy offguard and tries to get info out of him. He’s less than intimidated, and finds Matt’s threats funny. Matt hears unsettling things in the basement. Karen and the editor talk about figuring out how deep the cover-up goes, and he gives her Urich’s old office to work in. While there she finds Urich had a file on her that included a drunken teenage incident that got someone killed. He tells her he doesn’t care and neither did Ben.
Fisk visits Castle in a secure cell. He’s impressed that the stories about Castle’s violent were true and plans change. They fight, and eventually Fisk tells Castle he’ll set him free, to kill his way to justice. Castle swears someday he’ll kill Fisk. Fisk is counting on him to try.
Matt is being lead downstairs by the wormy Japanese Roxxon guy to the basement, where he finds the accountant’s son and several others being slowly drained of blood to feed… something. He tries to free them as the accountant frees his son, That’s when Nobu comes back from the dead and kicks Matt’s ass.
Fisk sits with the former prison Kingpin as he dies, claiming the title for himself, as Castle is lead out of the prison in riot gear. Nobu asks Matt if he still has scars to remember him by. Matt says he’s dead. Nobu escapes with the weird giant urn they were feeding blood into and says there’s no such thing as him being dead.
And that concludes episode 9, see you in a bit for 10!
