In which Ward continues to act as the perfect audience proxy by rapidly losing his mind. Fractures indeed.

I would say that this is the point in the series where the writing really went downhill, but that would imply that it had actually been good at some point. Still, it’s pretty bad, even for this show.

Claire sits around reading a letter from Luke to remind us that this show is connected to better shows. Then the show lets us think she’s being attacked, but it’s a fake out and is actually Colleen, but that’s a fake out because they are both actually being attacked. Meanwhile Danny tries to go warn Harold about the hand and finds a bloodstain from where Ward killed him. Despite having seen multiple dead bodies he assumes, albeit correctly, that Harold is dead, and incorrectly that it’s his fault. That’s an assumption that Ward reinforces when he shows up a moment later, presumably to clean up the blood.

Danny meets up with Colleen and Claire and they decide to make a trip to the factory in China that they assume is where Gao is making the heroin. Danny also speculates that his father must have discovered what Gao was doing fifteen years ago and that that must have been what got him killed, implying that Gao has been making heroin and shipping it into New York long before the events of Daredevil or Iron Fist, but whatever. Claire makes a big deal about how stupid this plan is, and then insists on coming along. They hop on a private jet that Danny, having just been ousted from the company the day before, should absolutely have no access to and take off for China, along the way encountering turbulence and sending Danny into flashbacks. They also talk about the morality of killing someone like Gao and Danny insists that he’s spent the last fifteen years learning to control his body, mind, and emotions, which is certainly new knowledge for the viewer, as we’ve seen absolutely no evidence of any of these things in the show so far.

Meanwhile we have a relatively pointless sub-plot about Ward and Joy negotiating their non-negotiable departure from Rand and disagreeing on whether to take the offered deal or try to fight it. Ward keeps hallucinating blood everywhere because that’s entirely original symbolism for guilt and not remotely overused. He tries to go behind her back to take the settlement, but she’s already gone behind his back to refuse it, with the plan of blackmailing the members of the board with dirt dug up by Jessica Jones, again reminding us of better shows. She tells him how much she admires him, which his guilt can’t handle so he decides to show her their dad’s penthouse and tell her everything. Another blood hallucination makes him scrap that plan and leaves her super confused.

Meanwhile Danny and Colleen decide to give up on waiting for Gao to show up at the factory and just burn the place down, so they run in and hope to find something to burn it down with. Gao shows up, because of course, and some Benny Hill level shenanigans happen as they try to hide. They follow her to another building next door (making the fire idea extra stupid) and one of the only decent fights in the show takes place as Danny faces off against a drunken master, and despite fifteen years of learning to control himself Danny manages to lose it completely and nearly beats the guy to death. Gao shows up, taunts them for a bit and there’s a quick scuffle where one of her guys gets poisoned by his own weapon, leading Danny to realize that the pilots on his plane had been killed by the same poison, so obviously Gao killed them, since no one else in the world has access to poison. He gets really mad at this revelation and punches the wall behind Gao but does not hurt her, because he’s totally in control of his emotions. Despite being centuries old and a badass fighter in her own right, and having some kind of telekinetic chi powers, Gao immediately just gives up and lets Danny lead her away.