There is a mirror effect with this episode that plays into the series' Netflix-aided serialization. Karen comes out of the faceoff with Wesley haunted by what she had done. This is something personal, not an instance where a bunch of people are dispatched to take out one or the other. So we can see what happens at the end due to what Karen sees at the beginning. Her dream about Fisk's threat against her inadvertently turns out to be a premonition of sorts to the shocking death at the end.  






That death would seem to fly in the face of what is canon in the Daredevil mythos. Ben Urich was a long-time staple of the comics, even going so far as to be one of the few guardians of Daredevil's true identity. So, in a unique way, the powers that be with the show have forged their own path from the source material. That means everything could be in play down the line as the show barrels into the season finale.  



Being that this is the penultimate episode of the season, and much of the season has had our heroes completely separated, there had to be the eventual reunion in order to team up against Fisk by the end. The majority of the plots come to a head in this episode, with Fisk's discovery of Wesley's dead body making it so that he himself has to hunt down who the culprit was in addition to who tried to kill Vanessa. 



That subplot gets an answer here as well, and it's a whopper: Leland and Madame Gao combined forces to poison Vanessa (explaining why Leland didn't so much as sip his glass of champagne) and try to take her off the board. It's a ballsy move by both because they know of Fisk's rage that will come to be the end result of having those he's close to threatened. I mean, in the wake of finding his friend's lifeless body riddled full of bullet holes, he relentlessly beats one of his own bodyguards as a way to relieve his despair. 







That scene informs on the one that caps off the episode, where Fisk surprises Ben by stopping by to "chat" with the intrepid reporter. Ben had to know he was in danger at this point. He was just fired from his job earlier in the day, something that would send a normal person into a full-blown depression. He went to see his wife, to plan the future of their lives together, and it only served to embolden Ben even further than what he gave his job up for. 



They both let their guard down for the briefest of moments to talk like men, with no hidden agendas or indirect attacks, and that's just enough to take the scene to its intended end. Fisk's mother is a soft spot that Ben and Karen poked at, knowing that it will provoke something. The response gets Ben killed. If Fisk ever finds out what the truth is behind the attack on Vanessa, watch out. Madame Gao may have the right idea to head back to her homeland. What Leland will do is left up to question, though given his cowardly tendencies, I'd wager he wouldn't last long against Fisk. 







Up until Ben's death, there was the sense that forces were marshaling in order to strike back at Fisk. We're left to wonder how they'll do it since Fisk is such an established position of control, but it makes for more excitement than the subplot has produced within the season thus far. Foggy is still mucked up about discovering Matt's alter ego, but he has softened on that position because there is no other way to go. The information the Devil of Hell's Kitchen got by force and investigation points hard at Fisk's more unsavory activities in trying to achieve his "dream" for the city. It's so convincing that Foggy resorts to calling Marci of all people to his cause. Matt is left to hunt down Madame Gao's operation on his own -- in an incredible sequence where he chases a limo on foot across multiple rooftops and using the sound of classical music as his guide -- leading him to the Steel Serpent heroin factory that he burns down. 



Fisk's organization is crumbling slowly now, and it's being done so on his blind side. This is how you take the Kingpin down to size. A direct attack isn't going to work. Each little block has to be taken out so that he has nothing left to stand on. It's an approach that isn't going to be clean, and Ben is the latest good guy to fall. Once the king is sufficiently weak enough, you go for the head. The end is coming soon enough.