Maya returns to her hometown.
Tropes
- A Minor Kidroduction: The show starts out with a flashback to Maya's childhood - worth noting is that they bring back Maya's child actor, and manage to integrate it all with footage we already saw in Hawkeye.
- Accidental Truth: William says that dragons aren't real, but live in another world to help comfort Maya in her childhood. Amusingly enough, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings shows that dragons are real and really do live in another dimension.
- Ambiguous Time Period: Downplayed, but while Ronin's killing of William Lopez clearly takes place during the blip, it's not clear how much later Echo's fight with Daredevil occurs (during or after the blip), leaving the question of whether Daredevil was dusted during the event still ambiguous.
- An Arm and a Leg: Maya's prosthetic leg is revealed to be the result of her losing her right leg to a car accident.
- Bury Your Disabled: Maya's mother, who it turns out was a deaf woman like her, dies in the flashback. She's the only relative aside from Maya's father who dies, and the very first chronologically. Downplayed however as Maya herself of course survived.
- Canon Welding: Continuing on from Hawkeye, several allusions to Daredevil are put out by Fisk, notably the strong implication that he killed his abusive father when he was twelve years old.
- The Cameo: Daredevil briefly appears during Maya's flashback, fighting her and Kingpin's other goons.
- Continuity Nod:
- Fisk appeals to Maya by revealing that his own father was murdered, and mentions he had rage issues when he was twelve. Given the conversation following this about redirecting Maya's rage to be more productive, Fisk is likely impliclty referring to how he defended his mother and killed his abusive father back in Daredevil, by doing what he's asking Maya to do; channeling his rage in a more productive way.
- Daredevil defeats Maya by throwing a shelving unit over her, similar to how Dex defeated him in their first fight back in the Bulletin years ago.
- Daredevil is wearing the older red and black suit, as he hasn't gotten the red and yellow variation from Luke Jacobson yet at this point.
- Corrupt the Cutie: Wilson trains Maya to be one of his assassins.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: Daredevil takes out the other two goon's accompanying Maya quickly, and keeps her on the backfoot throughout their fight, but Maya gets a few good hits in. The Kingpin acknowledges how most of his henchman can't even manage that much when he talks to Maya in the aftermath.
- Dramatic Irony: Daredevil tells Maya that he's been watching the mobsters for a while, accusing her of interfering. He can't actually see, and she can't hear him.
- Exact Words: Fisk tells Maya that his father was killed when he was 12 and thus understands what she is going through. He omits the fact that he killed his father himself.
- It's All My Fault: Maya blames herself for her mother’s death. Claiming that if she hadn’t made her go to the store to get more hot chocolate, she wouldn’t have “gotten hurt”.
- Leitmotif: The track playing during Daredevil's fight with Maya ("Cage Fight
" on the OST) incorporates John Paesano's theme for the Netflix series in the opening seconds, only with a horror-like bent to represent Daredevil's Hero Antagonist role. - Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Henry gets William a job working for Fisk, which eventually gets him (and at least a few ASL interpreters) killed.
- No-Sell: Daredevil attempts to land a leg-crippling blow on Maya during their fight, only for his billy club to harmlessly strike her prosthetic leg.
- The Oner: When Maya is brought along by Kingpin's men on one of their assignments, it leads to a long and laborious brawl. This also works as some meta Five-Second Foreshadowing, as the one-take-brawl started before Daredevil makes his appearance; the one-take fights being frequent in the Netflix era. Also, in a rarity for this trope, the music changes halfway through the brawl when Daredevil shows up.
- Open Heart Dentistry: When Maya's wound gets infected, it ends up getting treated by Gretchen, the town's mortician. Maya is not pleased at the thought, especially when Gretchen jokes that there is no need to embalm Maya today.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Maya's grandmother was still alive when her mother died.
- Raised by Grandparents: Biscuits and Bonnie are raised by their grandmother.
- Self-Surgery: Maya has a bad gash on her abdomen that she first tries to treat on her own by suturing it shut with dental floss. However, the wound gets infected and requires attention from someone with medical knowledge.
- Surprise Car Crash: Maya and her mom get into one early in the episode as one of William's enemies cut the brakes. The collision ends up killing Maya's mom and costing Maya her right leg.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Maya has this reaction when needing to suture her bullet wound and then another one when Gretchen needs to fix that same wound.
- Unreliable Narrator: Fisk proves himself to be one several times:
- He empathizes with Maya by bringing up his own father's murder, and suggesting she channel her rage to be more productive. He of course leaves out the fact that he was the one who killed his father.
- He praises Maya for her fight with Daredevil, saying that none of his people have ever lasted that long against him. In fact, Fisk has had multiple associates last quite a lot longer and even defeat Daredevil in fights, but this fact would inconveniently get in the way of his grooming of her as an enforcer.
- Wham Shot: The final shot of the episode shows that Kingpin is very much alive, albeit hospitalized and missing an eye, after the events of Hawkeye.
