The fallout from Fisk's play to level a major part of Hell's Kitchen comes now. So the episode has to make sense of where each of the characters are in that aftermath. Matt has found his target in Vladimir, who somehow survived the explosion of the factory, and was in the middle of an impromptu interrogation before getting caught by the police. Fisk, having left Vanessa after their date, is now on the run under protection through the city.  






Fisk spends the entire episode inside a car, if one is looking for a unique stylistic choice. In fact, entire narratives occur with the characters in one place. If that was done for economy's sake or to keep the show within its budget guidelines, well, it hardly matters. The show thrives by juxtaposing the epic with the intimate. Matt gets to know Vladimir just by sharing the same space with him. Circumstances force that to come into play.



The plot jumps off of Matt's decision to take Vladimir to an abandoned warehouse after nearly beating him to death and nearly getting caught by the police. It's likely that Matt doesn't want to beat policemen to a pulp, but again, it's a necessary evil. He couldn't get arrested. That would detract from what he needs to do with Vladimir. Of course, Vladimir got shot by the police during the scuffle so that complicates matters. Matt is superhuman, yet healing bullet wounds isn't part of his special skills.



Being blind probably makes him a less than ideal candidate for such a precise task. Like the fact that a nurse just happened to find him unconscious, he's lucky that a road flare was available to cauterize Vladimir's bullet wound. He's not so lucky with the police that descend onto the warehouse. Matt is caught with his guard down, especially when he questions the patrolman. It's believable that he's a rookie fresh out of the academy so it's a real surprise that he commits to his job and calls for backup.








The explosions in Hell's Kitchen have mobilized the entire police force along with the media to converge on the area. The police, having been mostly bought by Fisk and his minions, are on the hunt for the Masked Man. Being confined to a small area like Hell's Kitchen allows for the police to quickly close off all areas of escape available to Matt. The manhunt along with keeping the majority of scenes in the abandoned warehouse add a palpable sense of claustrophobia. 



The fact that Vladimir remains angry at both Fisk and the Masked Man while dying is funny and rather dramatic at the same time. He sees himself and the Matt as the two sides of the same coin. Fisk is just too powerful, and the moment that Matt decided to take him on, there's a very high probability that he will meet the same end as Vladimir suffers here. At several points, it looked like Vladimir was truly dead. He came back each time, but death remains as relentless as the police manhunt.









Matt is eventually besieged from all sides. The corrupt police isn't going to listen to him, and he doesn't have leverage with that because he did assault several police officers in his escape. Fisk makes good points, all things that Matt should have picked up by now. He's only one man. What he's fighting against is too big to topple. Fisk wants to break him, see him suffer. And now, Claire has met both Foggy and Karen at the hospital. If Fisk or Wesley or any of the organization's associates do somehow connect the dots one day, the people Matt loves is in danger. 




This does feel like the end of an arc, but it may just be a pause. Matt will keep going because that's who he is, and that's what he has to do. To take Fisk down, he may have to break his "no kill" rule. The villain always lacks the morality that the hero possesses. This is the price of business to Fisk. To Matt, it's much more personal. This is going to eventually boil down to either kill or be killed. Matt probably wishes that weren't the case, but Fisk is aiming to do otherwise.