OK Punisher, so I’m going to make you a promise; I will stop making references to how slow the majority of the show has been, and in return you keep giving me episodes like The Virtue Of The Vicious.
For the last couple of episodes, The Punisher has seen something of an upturn in action – which is something of a benefit considering that it’s supposed to be an action orientated show – but the real progress was make when the last installment manged to mostly sideline the overarching plot concerning an illegal operation in Kandahar in favour of a secondary plot featuring a mad bomber.
Basically, it’s the kind of thing the show should have been doing all along and as this smaller, bottle adventure comes to it’s conclusion, it’s also managed to drag the status quo of the show into vastly interesting territory that’s finally making good on the promise of the character’s debut in Daredevil.
In the wake of the troubled Lewis Wilson finally snapping and becoming a bomb setting domestic terrorist, Frank Castle’s first attempt to bring the man down left his friend Curtis beaten and strapped to a claymore and the fact that he’s still alive revealed to the whole world. Still, that doesn’t seem to be bothering Castle all that much who seems to find the whole affair giving him a taste of his pre”death” life as the marauding vigilante known as the Punisher. However, as we rejoin the action in the aftermath of some violent attack on liberal, anti-gun senator Stan Ori, the various statements given to Detective Sergeant Brett Mahoney soon start to piece together the chaotic events that’s just occured.
Thanks to the words of Agent Madani, Senator Ori and the walking shit magnet we know as Karen Page, we discover that Wilson had managed to penetrate the protection put together by Billy Russo’s Anvil security detail by finding a weak link and infiltrating the hotel where Page is interviewing Lewis’ target. As he advances through the building, popping caps as he goes, he’s not aware that Frank Castle has renewed his pursuit with the express intent of sending the traumatised veteran into the next world whether the police is on to him or not. Of course, the press have already suggested that both Lewis and Castle are not only cut from the same cloth, but are actually collaborating on the recent bombings that the former is responsible for.
But while Frank enters the fray to once again save Karen’s life and Wilson attempt to counteract his assault by rigging himself as a walking bomb on a dead man’s switch, Madani is in the building to question Billy Russo as to why the men who attacked her sting operation were all once hired by him.
In the devestation, not only does Madani finally figure out the truth about Billy Russo bad guy status, but so does Frank; but will any of this actually aid them while Wilson is strapped to enough explosives to liquify an elephant.
Even though there’s certainly been a fair few gunfights, brawls and flat out executions thus far, it hasn’t really felt like The Punisher has fully embraced its action status until now. A New York environment? Frank’s dressed in black? There’s a bad guy he wants to put down like a dog? It’s literally all here – but wisely, the episode chooses not to splurge it all in one go and breaks the rather straight forward storytelling conventions of the series so far in order to compile the events via the point of view of those present. As a result, not only does the episode have some of the most interesting storytelling of the entire season, but it may be the most satisfying episode to date. OK, so again we’re denied Frank doing his thing without his trademark white skull design, but then that’s a common complaint of virtually every adaptation we’ve ever had (even Ray Stevenson’s skull was weirdly muted), but it’s also pretty smart because some of the eyewitness testimony is also clouded by political judgement.
While a lot of shows and films that contain conflicting political ideologies sometimes tend to paint both either in a positive light, or refuse to take a platform at all, The Virtue Of The Vicious takes a rather amusing alternate route by paint the extremes of both sides as equally problematic. While the episode’s antagonist is a right-wing gun nut and who exercises his warped sense of what his country should be by blowing people up, the left-wing liberal is painted as a snivelling coward who lies to the cops about how heroic he was in order to secure future votes. It’s probably as close as any Punisher adaptation has gotten to some of the cheekier and murkier politics that some of the comic writers managed to cultivate over the years.
It also doesn’t hold back on Frank’s rage either. We’ve already established that he finds the way that Wilson’s gone about his war utterly abhorrent and you know that his ire is up that the newspapers have paired them both together despite Castle being adamant that they couldn’t be more different. But when Castle and Karen manage to outwit the bomber and diffuse Wilson’s suicide vest in a genuinely cool moment, Lewis retreats to the debatable safety of a meat locker which gives our lead the opportunity to goad him into triggering his explosives and ending his troubled existence. It’s a dark and distinctly non-heroic moment and it’s utterly in-character for Castle as we get a reminder that despite his noble intentions and his desire to effect change, that doesn’t mean that he’s going to go about it in a nice fashion. In fact, the Punisher has always worked best when he’s using underhand tactics and refusing to fight fair because that’s the exact thing that sets him apart from virtuous heroes such as Daredevil and Spider-Man – I mean, you’re not about to see Captain America talk a man into suicide any time soon – and it’s what keeps him interesting.
However, arguably the most impressive aspect of the episode is that it manages to also energise a lot of the tired, overarching plot stuff into something that’s now vital and exciting. Wilson may have blown himself to smithereens, but in doing so he’s inadvertently managed to bring everyone’s secrets to the foreground as both Madani and Castle find their tense stand off interrupted when they both figure out that Billy has been playing them both all along.
This especially proves to be something of a relief, because there now technically shouldn’t be any reason why the show can’t be able to build up a major head of steam for its last three episodes and fully embrace the character more closely.
It’s taken an almost obscene amount of time for the show to get Frank Castle up to speed, but now that it’s little side adventure has supercharged proceedings, the sky is seemingly the limit for Marvel’s grittiest character. I hope I’m not setting myself up for a fall, but the showrunners find themselves with something of an open goal and all that have to do is shoot their shot straight down the middle to end the show on a much needed high. I mean, we all know the Punisher is proficient with firearms, but it would be a shame if he was to shoot himself in the foot now.
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