Daredevil Season 2: Who is Grotto?
By Nick Tylwalk
Note: This article contains spoilers from the first three episodes of Daredevil Season 2, especially episode 3, “New York’s Finest.” Please go watch those first and then rejoin us later for more comic book context. You’ll be glad you did.
Poor Grotto. And by poor, I mean as poor as one can feel for a guy who seemed to be a slimeball doing odd jobs for the Irish mob in Hell’s Kitchen but turned out to be something even worse.
Though Grotto’s confession was coerced out of him something fierce by the Punisher, his admitted killing of a woman who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time gave Frank Castle even more ammo, figuratively speaking, to end his life. Daredevil certainly did fight for him, as did Karen Page and Foggy Nelson on the legal front, but whether he was even worth that effort is one of the more interesting early Season 2 philosophical questions.
Here’s something we can tell you: Grotto is a real comic book character, albeit one with a less significant role to play. And hey, at least he survived the Punisher’s first few attempts to kill him. Not many mobsters can say that.
Grotto in the Comics
Grotto was introduced to readers in the Daredevil comic book series in the early 80s. He was a minor thug with some connections to organized crime, which tracks with the way he was originally presented on the Netflix series. One big difference is that he was connected to Wilson Fisk in the comics, while the TV Grotto is working for an organization in direct competition with Fisk.
Most notably, he was a running buddy for Turk. While the two characters aren’t connected on TV (at least that we’ve seen), we have seen Turk several times as an arms dealer and reluctant informant for Daredevil.
Perhaps Grotto’s main claim to fame is that he was the brainchild of legendary comic book creator Frank Miller, most famous as the force behind The Dark Knight Returns but also extremely instrumental as the man who came up with many of the concepts we’re seeing come to life in Daredevil Season 2. Getting brought into the fold at the same time as Elektra and the Hand isn’t too shabby, so while Grotto may have made some poor life choices on Netflix, he’s at least in good company in the show’s source material.