As the Nelson & Murdock firm struggles to survive with no money, a new player is killing off the gangs trying to take Fisk's place.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Action Prologue: This episode starts off with Matt taking down a gang of diamond thieves who are overpowering and shooting the cops that are chasing them on foot.
- All Bikers are Hells Angels: The Dogs of Hell are a very hardened gang of criminal bikers who are just as deep in organized crime as any of the other Hell's Kitchen gangs.
- Almost Dead Guy: A cartel member survives on a meat hook long enough to let Daredevil know all the killings were done by one man.
- Artistic License – Geography: The opening shot of Matt and Foggy walking to work is actually shot in Harlem, as a street sign for East 116th Street is visible in the background as they're walking past the Rite Aid.
- Bad Guy Bar: Foggy has to enter a Dogs of Hell clubhouse looking for information, nearly getting himself killed or seriously injured when they take offense to his presence.
- Bait-and-Switch: The Kitchen Irish guys are set up to be the series' antagonists, as their leader gives a speech inciting his troops to a campaign of violence to retake Hell's Kitchen. Then the Punisher machine-guns them all in about a minute.
- Batman Cold Open: Even more so than the first season's cold open. This time, Matt goes after diamond thieves in ski masks unrelated to the overarching plot. The cold open even ends on an epic rendition of the show's theme and Matt standing on a building's roof as the police take one of the thieves into custody.
- Belated Injury Realization: Grotto manages to make it all the way from the scene of the shooting to Josie's, have a drink, and converse with the Nelson & Murdock trio without realizing that he's bleeding from a shrapnel wound.
- Black Comedy Rape: One of Nelson & Murdock's clients is a guy whose dog defiled (or as Karen clarifies,
"humped repeatedly until completion") his neighbor's statue of St. Francis.Foggy Nelson: That's a dog I want to defend. - Boom, Headshot!:
- The Irish are massacred and it is all shown in detail, including several headshots.
- Frank grabs his backup gun and almost casually shoots Matt in the forehead.
- Butt-Monkey: Turk again; Matt slams a trunk on his hand, breaks several other bones during his interrogation, then tosses his car keys in the river so he can't drive off with the evidence of his gun dealing and he'll be busted for parole violation.
- Call-Back:
- Even after being sent away, Wilson Fisk's name is repeatedly mentioned, to illustrate just how much of an impact his arrest has made on the crime circuit.
- The scene of Matt and Foggy walking to work, and Matt asking pressing questions about Foggy's dating life, seems like a reversal of their first scene in the season 1 premiere, where Foggy is introduced heckling Matt about his presumed dating life over the phone to wake him up for their appointment with the realtor.
- When Karen is telling Matt and Foggy about which clients are which, the client who got attacked in a bar fight says to Matt and Foggy, "Your girl's a badass," to which Karen laughs and says, "You have no idea..."
- Chekhov's Gun: A detective present at the Irish mob crime scene points out that one of the dead mobsters' hands is missing, and openly wonders where it had gone. It shows up in "Penny and Dime", still cuffed to a case full of Finn's money.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome: When Foggy wants Matt to take the night off so they can have fun together like the old days, Matt cites a domestic abuser whom he stopped from murdering his wife when she tried to leave him. The man ended up in the hospital with a restraining order pinned to his chest. Matt points out that if he did take the night off, he'd be responsible for anything bad that happened because he did.
- Cliffhanger: Matt is shot and falls off a building.
- Continuity Nod: The biker gang mentioned by the Irish and visited by Foggy (the Dogs of Hell) are a New York City chapter to the same gang that Lorelei took over in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The font branding is identical and the logo is very similar. As befits the grittier style of Daredevil, they are not Played for Laughs as in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- Cowardly Lion: Foggy's persistence earns the grudging respect of the biker Sergeant-at-Arms, but Foggy says it's just the adrenaline talking.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Foggy is on the verge of being sliced up by the Sergeant-at-Arms, when (after several tries) he's able to cite someone the biker knows that was helped by Nelson & Murdock.
- Evil Lawyer Joke: The bikers are prepared to damage Foggy when they think he's a fed, and then seriously damage him when he clarifies that he's a lawyer.
- Evil Power Vacuum: After Fisk being incarcerated, the Russians being killed, and Chinese having left the city, The Irish Mob now tries to take over the Kitchen. Of course, that's an Aborted Arc, as they're quickly wiped out by Frank Castle.
- The Faceless: Despite driving the plot and showing up in person to kill Grotto in the hospital, we don't see the killer's face until the very end, when he drops the title and shoots Matt in the head.
- Feet-First Introduction: After The Reveal that the killings have all been done by one man, we cut to his feet walking into the hospital.
- Food Porn: The Irish are enjoying an impressive spread of corned beef and cabbage before they are attacked.
- Hands-On Approach: Karen teaching Matt how to play pool. It's pretty obvious she's flirting with him—and he's letting her, as he immediately proves when she walks away and he easily sinks two balls with one shot.
- Hollywood Law: We see Matt and Foggy arrive at the office and Karen fills them in on the clients in their waiting room. While the scene is funny and is meant to convey the eccentricity of Nelson & Murdock's clientele, Karen is publicly disclosing each individual’s legal problem in earshot of the other clients, potentially a violation of a New York attorney’s duty of confidentiality to a prospective client
. - Ironic Echo: The initial conversation between Foggy and Matt seems very reminiscent of their first onscreen conversation in "Into the Ring".
- It Tastes Like Feet: The Nelson & Murdock trio are relaxing after work with a game of billiards at Josie's. Karen goes to grab a pitcher of water:Foggy Nelson: You can't drink the water here. Josie's pipes have issues.
Matt Murdock: Rust, mold.
Foggy Nelson: I think I can actually see the bacteria floating in there.
Karen Page: [laughs] Oh, ew, ew!
Matt Murdock: See, that-that's why we, uh, keep our cocktails neat.
Foggy Nelson: Pretend you're abroad. On vacation someplace exotic, but no mojitos. Josie just throws mint in the beer.
Matt Murdock: [laughs] Right. - Kick the Dog: The robbers in the Batman Cold Open are shown shooting one cop, disarming another of his pistol, and taking a young girl hostage so we don't feel bad about Daredevil doing his thing.
- Kitchen Chase: Opens with Matt chasing down some diamond thieves who are evading the cops that are pursuing them. He manages to corner one of the thieves in a Japanese restaurant kitchen and beats the guy senseless. Once Matt is gone, the kitchen staff get their turn to beat the shit out of the thief.
- Loose Lips: Matt's super-hearing allows him to pick up on some of the police detectives discussing the fact that some of the Kitchen Irish victims were wearing bulletproof vests, and were shot with armor-piercing rounds. When he speaks his questions out loud, Brett thinks someone inside is leaking info and tells a passing uniform, "Hey! You keep it down in there or someone's getting written up."
- Mythology Gag:
- A guy trying to buy guns from Turk is told that he "ain't no dead-eye": in the comics, Deadeye was a minor villain who fought with The Punisher at one point.
- The massacre of the Kitchen Irish is undoubtedly based on a Civil War tie-in, wherein the attacker massacres a bar full of D-List supervillains right when one is announcing that they will return to their old glory. It could also be based on the "Kitchen Irish" storyline from the Punisher MAX series.
- A twofer: the biker tells Foggy "You got guts, Harvard. I'll give you that." Foggy corrects him "Columbia, actually." This is an oblique reference to 1) a comics story wherein Foggy tries to infiltrate the Mob to help a client and winds up getting the nickname "Guts" Nelson thanks to Matt's covert assistance; and 2) the fact that in the comics, Matt and Foggy transferred from Columbia Law School to Harvard Law School before opening their practice.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: No name is given to the Mexican cartel faction that got targeted by the Punisher.
- Oh, Crap!: Even just seeing Matt's jaw while he has the mask on, it clearly hits him hard to learn the numerous gang murders are all the work of just one man.
- One-Man Army: At first, everyone assumes the killings were done by an "army". Matt learning it was the work of one man invokes this trope.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Matt dealt with a man attempting to murder and dismember his ex by breaking his arms and leaving him to the police with a restraining order pinned to his chest.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Averted as word has gotten around and Nelson & Murdock is finally getting a lot of clients. The only problem is they can only afford to pay in food.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Nesbitt caps off his rousing speech to the rest of the assembled Kitchen Irish by preparing to execute a member who had sided with Fisk when he took over Hell's Kitchen, only for Frank to shoot up the joint.
- Ship Sinking: Season 1's Ship Tease between Foggy and Karen appears to be over. Foggy is apparently going out with a barista and griping that Matt no longer has the time to be his Romantic Wingman, and he isn't bothered by the obvious UST between Matt and Karen.
- Shout-Out: The Punisher's attack on the hospital clearly echoes the police station massacre from The Terminator: an implacable individual armed with a shotgun, assaults a security guard, then opens fire on Karen and Grotto.
- Sole Survivor: Grotto manages to survive the Punisher's machine-gunning of the Kitchen Irish meeting, no doubt because he immediately seeks cover rather than try to shoot back like everyone else tries doing.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: After the massacre, as the camera tracks over the bodies, Nesbitt's cell phone rings, with "The Irish Washerwoman" as the ringtone.
- Superheroes Wear Tights: Foggy jibes Matt about taking on criminals in his underwear. Matt points out that underwear is supposed to be comfortable.
- Title Drop: Done courtesy of the man who shoots Daredevil after they fight each other.
- Undercover as Lovers: Karen pretends to be Grotto's wife in the hospital. Not that they have much time to get their story straight before Frank arrives and starts shooting up the place.
- Walk and Talk: Matt and Foggy's first scene as they walk to work.
- We Do Not Know Each Other: Brett attempts to do this when Matt and Foggy show up at the Kitchen Irish bloodbath, because there are other bystanders there. Not that he tried really hard. He eventually has to take them aside to where the police vehicles are being staged so he can privately share information to them out of earshot.
- Wrestler in All of Us: The Punisher delivers a suplex to Matt during their fight.
