Marvel’s The Punisher comes out on Netflix on Friday, Nov. 17 and provides a story of pain and grief as Frank Castle tries to live his nightmare. Audiences were introduced to Frank Castle in Daredevil season 2. The character was on a warpath of vengeance as he sought retaliation for the death of his wife and children. The gangland murder also left him for dead, but he survived the bullet to his head, and now much deal with the constant turmoil of living a nightmare with seemingly no resolution in sight. The Punisher showed his rage, violence and aggression in Daredevil but now he has his own standalone series on Netflix that will dive deeper into the character and those around him.
The Punisher has the darkest storyline of any of the other Marvel characters on Netflix and that’s the compelling reason to watch when the series drops at midnight PST on Friday morning. The review is based on the first six episodes of the 13-episode season and sees Frank Castle struggling to process his grief and his pain. He’s walled himself off to everyone and after faking his death in Daredevil, he has to adopt a new identity. He lies low, grew a beard and doesn’t talk to anyone, other than Karen Page and his former military buddy Curtis (Jason R. Moore). It’s how Frank lives that is more fascinating as the series begins. The viewer knows what he’s capable of and the trauma he’s experienced. He’s a rubber band on the verge of snapping. A character on the brink of no turning back. He’s isolated and struggling with not only the loss of his family but from the post-traumatic stress from his time in the military and the things he was ordered to while overseas. This attention to veterans and the care, or lack thereof, they receive when they return stateside.
The Punisher isn’t just a story about a vigilante who has a war chest of assault rifles and a penchant for inflicting pain. The Punisher is a story about a man mourning and unable to process the emotions of the devastating losses he’s experienced and the lingering trauma it causes. The fractured masculinity gives way to the supporting characters from law enforcement who are investigating something devious that happened in Kandahar and a private securities firm that crosses paths with Frank.
I enjoyed what I saw from The Punisher and the continuation of the storyline first introduced in Daredevil. The supporting characters, especially David Lieberman aka “Micro” as the super spy with a past connected with Frank makes for good drama and suspense to make it feel “Marvel” in a show that otherwise feels like its own thing. And it’s because of that feeling that I think it’s one of the best shows from Marvel and Netflix. Having said that, The Punisher isn’t going to be for everyone. If you didn’t like his turn in Daredevil, I don’t suspect you’ll be watching his own show. The violence is extremely present and the use of guns to carry out that violence may be a sensitive subject for viewers, especially in the wake of mass shootings happening with regularity in the United States. I understand the sensitivity in that regard, but at the same time, this is a fictional story based on a comic book character. Frank Castle is not a hero. This is not a guy that is going to have a happy ending. He is a broken man and he is beyond repair. Watching the extent of the pain and grief he’s experiencing and the lengths he’ll go to alleviate that is what makes The Punisher a must-watch.
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