I have to be honest, I thought that considering we’d already had the lion’s share of an origin story thanks to his sizable role in Daredevil, I was banking on Netflix’s Punisher show launching out of the blocks like a crazed greyhound as it let Marvel’s controversial anti-hero do what he does best. However, it seems that I have to adjust my expectations a little as instead of being graced with a show that sees the relentless Frank Castle clearing up the streets of various forms of scum, we’re actually getting something way more deliberate than just a dude with a skull on his chest shooting capos for kicks.
Anyone expecting the mob, cartels, or even the Kingpin must be somewhat confused that after a wonderfully hard-boiled opening episode that saw Castle getting back into the swing of things thanks to some street level shenanigans, episode 2 let’s us into the fact that this show is going to be more of a political conspiracy thriller rather than Death Wish on steroids. Are you ready for All The Punisher’s Men?
Thanks to his quick stop off at a gangster’s gambling den, Frank Castle’s trail has been picked up by a mysterious hacker living off the grid known only as “Micro”. It seems that he’s got some business that only The Punisher can help him with and it turns out that it was he who left that evidence disc as Castle’s odd house for Frank to find. On the disc is footage of Frank’s old unit back in Kandahar, torturing and murdering a man that we realise is the former partner of Agent Madani and is the focus of her current case.
Needing answers to discover Micro’s identity, Frank taps the best source he knows, journalist Karen Page who manages to backtrack and discover that not only is Micro is actually David Lieberman, a former NSA analyst accused of leaking secrets, but he – like Frank – has successfully managed to fake his death and drop off the grid.
Meanwhile, in an effort to get to understand Castle more, Madani has decided to question his old Kandahar war buddy, Billy Russo, about his former brother in arms by visiting him at his private security firm. But while the two hit it off and Russo seems genuinely eager to help, Madani’s boss, Carson Wolf, both shuts the enquiry down and attempt to cockblock them both to no avail.
Elsewhere, Frank manages to get Micro’s full attention by hanging around his family’s house and sparking up a connection with Lieberman’s “widow”, Sarah, in order to get the hacker to drop his guard, but not before he has a few choice words (and fists, and bullets) for Wolf Carson who was the one responsible for the cover up over Lieberman’s “death”. After getting the info he needs and leaving the corrupt Homeland Security boss in a pile on the floor with a terminal case of broken neck. Next on the agenda is locating Micro, but once Frank finds him, is the hacker due for a spot of “punishment” himself?
During his fifty year tenure in comics, Frank Castle has targeted all manner of criminals, so the fact that the Netflix show is treading in the same kind of political action/thriller territory as the Bourne films or shows such as 24 and Homeland isn’t that much of a surprise. Similarly, I guess we should’ve been expecting something of a shift seeing as both fellow Netflix shows Daredevil and Luke Cage also deal predominantly with organised crime and to have Castle join in might have resulted in something a bit too samey. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that while a plot that delves heartily into crimes perpetrated by American troops on foreign soil sounds like fertile territory to put the Punisher against a whole other breed of criminal than the Kitchen Irish or an invading Russian mob, a lot of the rushing around and street level spy work feels a bit too slick for those wanting the basics.
In the show’s defence “the basics” hasn’t exactly benefited the character’s on-screen endeavours in the past with none of the previous trio of movies ever really reaching the heights of a Spider-Man 2 or a X-Men: Days Of Future Past, so giving him a new world of digital surveillance and spy work to deal with instead of just kicking in the door of the closest drug den might pay dividends in the long run. Still, it’s not as if he’s flying totally solo as Two Dead Boys drops a familiar face into the mix in the welcome form of Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page and her return is especially welcome considering the bond they forged during Daredevil’s second season.
Thankfully however, the episode doesn’t follow up on the vaguely romantic connection they seemed to have (sorry Frank, you’ve always done your best work tormented) and instead keeps things strictly business as she gets to work ferreting out the info behind one of the episode’s two major introductions – Micro. While the character in the comics and in Punisher: War Zone is commonly a heavier guy in glasses who joins Frank’s crusade due to a lost loved one, here he’s a bedraggled whistle blower who, thanks to the haunted stare of Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s haggard looking eyes, looks like he hasn’t slept in a year. The bulk of the episode’s plot concerns the two using spy-like tricks to maneuver the other into some sort of compromise condition as Micro seems to want Frank’s help while Frank couldn’t think of anything worse than having someone on his back. It results in an episode that, much like the previous one, feels more like an introduction to the new normal than an instalment of a season in full swing – which is understandable considering as this is technically only the second one. But the fact that Castle had such a strong run in Daredevil gives me the distinct impression that the season may be starting a bit too slow.
The other character to be introduced is Ben Barnes’ Billy Russo who Punisher aficionados will know is destined to eventually become the scar faced arch villain Jigsaw, but while Barnes unsurprisingly has the suave, handsome guy act down pat as he seems to be sparking up a relationship with Madani, we’ve still probably got a long way to go until he reaches his final form and the overall result is a show that still seems to be finding its feet as it gradually adds more details to its evermore complex plot.
However, once again acting like throaty-voiced glue is the central performance of Jon Bernthal who continues to rise to the challenge of adding levels to the traumatised Castle. In fact, watching him change gears from suspicious recluse, to dogged spy, to uncomfortably recalling a day when he violently berated his son to rarely accepting an act of tenderness from Karen is proving to be more exhilarating than any acts of random violence the character is famed for. Not every actor can go from warmly infiltrating a woman’s home under the admittedly sinister pretense of flushing out her husband, but even fewer still could aldo brutally torture and snap the neck of Carson Wolf later in the episode. The man’s a star.
Settling into a pace that’s a little too sedate for my liking, The Punisher seems to be playing the long game when it comes to plots and characters both new and old. But while the showrunners take the softly softly approach for Marvel’s most violent vigilante, Bernthal continues to offer a compelling case why he’s king of the Castle.
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