I haven’t made much of a secret about my enthusiasm for the Punisher showing up to be the initial focal point of Daredevil’s second season, but besides my long time love for the character, his appearance means we get to watch one of comics most fascinating relationships finally play out on screen. Sure, a lot of Marvel heroes have long standing grudges that instantly equal maximum drama (the Hulk and Wolverine really dont like each other much and I’m sure that Tony Stark gets up the nose of his teammates at least 40% of the time), but there’s always been something extra special about the bad blood between Matt Murdock and Frank Castle. Both think of the other as a hypocrite as their opposing views on the law have led them to rearrange each others faces with varying out comes and as an ardent Punisher fan (don’t worry, I’m not actually a rabid advocate for capital punishment, I just see Frank as a tragic character who needs the perfect creative team to make him work), to see the show directly adapt one of their most infamous showdowns is a violent dream come true.
In his attempts to bring down the murderous vigilante known as the Punisher, Matt Murdock has racked up two humiliating loses already as the military trained Frank Castle has managed to outmaneuver him every time they’ve clashed. However, the last time coincided with the DA’s office dangling member of the Irish mob, Elliot “Grotto” Grote, out for the Punisher to finish off and after Daredevil intervened, his super senses went on the fritz allowing Castle to knock him out and gain the upper hand.
Matt awakes chained to a chimney stack with apparently a front row seat to whatever Castle is planning next and what follows is a very heated debate between the two vigilantes over their highly differing methods of stemming the flow of crime in Hell’s City. Matt decries the Punisher as a madman whose heavy handed tactics deny anyone the chance to be redeemed and change their ways while Frank scoffs that Daredevil no-kill policy is only a half measure that only knocks criminals down, but doesn’t keep them down.
While the argument rages, Foggy manages to track down hospital worker Claire Temple who has had run-ins with Matt before in order to find out where he might have gotten to. However, while the Punisher’s antics have cause numerous gangs go to war, a fight breaks out in the ER that somehow only Foggy is able to stop…
Meanwhile, back on that rooftop, the Punisher decides to step things up a notch when trying to prove his point and has taped a gun loaded with one bullet into Daredevil’s unchained fist while revealing that he also has a badly beaten Grotto captive. The game is simple, either take that bullet and kill Grotto who proves to be nowhere near innocent as he’s previously claimed; kill Frank to save Grotto; or simply do nothing and let punishment run its course. Faced with an impossible decision, the move is now Matt’s…
Essentially an episode where two crime fighters call each other out on one another’s bullshit, I genuinely can’t imagine how New York’s Finest could possibly get any better. Not only is it a semi-accurate retelling of Garth Ennis’ The Devil By The Horns issue from his celebrated Welcome Back, Frank arc that reinvigorated The Punisher back in 2000, but there’s also tissue from a story entitled The Creep that debuted back in 1988. The result is a gripping hour of television that gives Charlie Cox a perfect showcase to stretch those acting muscles, but also proves to be the true introduction of Frank Castle as he now gets an opportunity to bounce his bitter world view off of his captive audience.
Cox is fantastic, but he’s more than matched by Jon Bernthal who may prove to be a more raw and outwardly angry Punisher than we’re used to, but he certainly puts his experience at playing Shane Walsh from The Walking Dead (another man with directly opposing views from the hero) to use here. And yet it doesn’t actually feel that Benthal’s simply switched a deputy costume over for black body armor and a skull – although that hasn’t surfaced yet – as the two, while certainly sharing a similar temperament, actually are noticably different thanks to Frank’s more disciplined nature thanks to a military past.
The dialogue crackles and every word feels like thrown punches in a fight that’s suddenly turned verbal; every time Frank derisively calls Daredevil “Red”, every time Matt tries to appeal to a better nature that simply isn’t there, everytime the similarities between to two men make both feel uncomfortable, every one feels like right hooks, block and straight shots to the bridge of the nose and I am here for every single bit of it.
While it doesn’t follow Ennis’ inspiration to the letter (the original choice is far more brutal in the comics and Matt’s subsequent escape in the show feels a little too simple), the fact that the lion’s share of it is up there on the screen is impressive enough, but the fact that everyone involved seems dedicated to making it as powerful as it it can be is nothing less than an utter treat to this old, grizzled comics fan.
In fact, even the cutaway to Foggy and Claire in the hospital doesn’t manage to leech away any tension as it A) shows the effect the Punisher’s murderous rampage is having on criminals and B) it’s good to see Rosario Dawson pop up again in the Netflix Marvel-verse after doing the rounds in the likes of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. Elsewhere, Karen’s search for the truth will no doubt reap rewards later down the line and the image of her looking at a fateful x-ray of a skull with a bullet in it may prove to be eventful sooner rather than later.
But back to the main event and after the words are done and Frank puts Grotto out of his misery, he then chooses to detonate the bar across the street that belongs to the Dogs From Hell biker gang. However, before he can pepper them with rifle fire, Daredevil gets free and manages to finally take him down; but while the Punisher has been subdued, what is Murdock supposed to do about the horde of criminal bikers surging up the stairs to crack some skulls? The answer is another one of the “onesie” action sequences that sees Daredevil work his way down numerous flights of stairs, fucking up thugs as he goes in a single “unbroken” shot. The first one back in the first season was revelatory – but guess what, this one is even better as it contains more thugs, more traveling and Daredevil utilising the chain still wrapped around his arm to bust out lights or whip his foes into submission. It’s the perfect, action packed ending to an episode that’s acted like a pressure cooker, power house two man, theatre piece and for my money, it’s the best episode that Daredevil has put out so far throughout its entire run.
My only fear is that the season may have peaked ridiculously early as the show’s going to be hard pushed to better something that encapsulates both its feuding characters so perfectly in one single episode. But even if that turns out to be the case, the fact that the show has managed to get one of the greatest Daredevil/Punisher moments up on the screen where it can do the most damage.
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