After the murder of his family, Marine veteran Frank Castle becomes the vigilante known as “The Punisher,” with only one goal in mind: to avenge them.
Frank Castle’s penchant for unmitigated violence and bloodshed once reflected the darker ethos of our country coming fresh out of the Cold War. While many details of the character update/change, the core ones stay the same: someone killed his wife and kids, so he kills bad guys. The comics often concern itself with whether that truly is the moral high ground or if Frank Castle is a stark raving lunatic. He’s the comics character even Captain America spits on. He’s gritty. He’s tough. He’s vulnerable in odd moments. Netflix’s second season of this character brings all that to life, with the violent tendencies and moral arguments gun enthusiasts reserve to protect their second amendments.
Open on Frank. Life is good, man. He’s shacked up with a cute bartender off the road, even playing Dad for a bit. Maybe this soldier found peace, which we all know is a lie. Enter a teenage girl seeking refuge from a murderous preacher-looking type (John Pilgrim) and oh! His betrayed best friend Billy Russo woke up from his coma, face scarred in a jigsaw puzzle of pieces (along with his memory.) These two narrative threads never really merge, but instead, circle each other on and on, providing endless opportunities for Frank Castle to shoot, stab, and punch the ever-living-hell out of thugs and mercenaries alike.
The Punisher’s not a character to apologize and neither is this show. You can tell the tone through their music selections: Shooter Jennings (country rock), East vs West, a song titled Death Row Messiah, The White Stripes, The Abyssmals, L.A. Guns, Marilyn Manson, Alice in Chains. The music choices enhance his working man background while offering the kind of metal/rock/country commonly popularized as military favorites. Playing a tonal range from sad acoustic covers of Fortunate Son (a throwback to Castle’s Vietnam War veteran status) to Alice in Chains raging over grisly gun battles, the show demonstrates a show almost exclusively populist. These are the tunes of small-town American teenagers or kids.
The whole season plays out much better than the first in terms of narrative pacing. The entire first episode barely lifts a trigger finger, instead, opting to show us a world where Frank retires. Slowly, the narrative builds steam only to falter halfway through. As much as Billy’s recovery fascinates us, we can’t doubt he will turn evil and terrorize all the protagonists of the show. Small turns and twists carry us and John Pilgrim’s journey truly captivated my attention as this pious man falls from grace, but maintains his dignity. The best episode of the entire season came early, however, in their direct ape of “Assault on Precinct 13” in the episode “Trouble the Water.”
A show with guns at its heart, heavy metal in its stereos, and a sermon on its lips might carry the ideology of small-town America. It’s fascinating to me to see the moral flexing the non-Frank Castle characters go through (as they derive much of the plot, to begin with.) Never taking a side in any major debate, “The Punisher” steers clear of it’s more populist trappings by reigning ungodly amounts of bullets. Instead of stopping to justify the guns in his hands, they work to justify his actions themselves. I applaud showrunner Steve Lightfoot for maneuvering around any kind of debate that isn’t purely moral. I will say, on the topic of gay rights, Frank throws out a comically significant: “whatever people wanna do by themselves is fine by me. They’re not shooting people, I don’t care.” Or something like that.
Jon Bernthal graces us with his performance. In many ways, I can’t imagine a different person playing The Punisher. His twitches, half-smiles, and odd chuckles counterbalance the all-out psychopathy of a screaming Frank Castle, guns literally blazing. This season Frank’s mania balances out with the addition of Giorgia Wigham’s Amy character: a runaway teen. Someone with that much sarcasm adds so much to Frank’s blunt speech it’s enjoyable to watch the two banter (until Frank psychologically scars her with a lesson on guns.) She provides a hitherto unseen levity the show needed to rebound from its dour tone.
The Punisher never forgets who it’s for and never strays far from its tone so all I can really say about this show is: If I were a sixteen-year-old boy I would absolutely love this. It’s so bloody and violent I wouldn’t tell my parents I watch it, but that would be part of the fun. Currently? As a 25-year-old man with eyes on a whole lot of other content? I watched it on several airplane trips so it mollified my need to be distracted, but I can’t promise I’d go out of my way to watch it. In terms of a season 3? Who knows? Netflix axes Disney shows right and left, but the way season 2 ends – I’m comfortable if the show doesn’t come back.
Now available to stream on Netflix
