The Punisher-- Marvel/Netflix

[FPAlpha]

Just finished and i have to say it was not entirely what i expected and that is a good thing.

As with many people i expected a regular gore fest, some easy to follow blood soaked action when Frank tears through New York's gangster scene and punishes them but the show was so much more. It was already apparent in season 2 of Daredevil that Frank's story was one of great tragedy and the show focused on that instead of solely finding more gruesome ways to kill people.

I'm not sure what the point was of showing Lewis' PTSD struggles that led to a a tragic end other than showing what PTSD victims go through but exploring Castle's own personal hell was heartbreaking, especially when he started to act as a surrogate dad to Micro's family (something they both needed to feel a little normal in their fucked up world).

Rawlins was forgettable as a villain, the typical government asshole who has too much power and uses "the end justifies the means" as an excuse to act out his assholishness but fortunately Billy was better developed and was the true villain that ultimately elevated the show.

Bernthal knocked it out of the park as could be expected, a tremendous achievement that should be honored with Emmys or Golden Globes (fat chance unfortunately).. he managed to both be the Punisher but also a broken man who wants to die because he has nothing to live for and that is a take on the character that made one hell of a standalone season for Punisher that i easily place as the best Marvel Netflix show right beside Daredevil.

Now i am only worried that they won't get to make season 2 since Disney is preparing to launch their own streaming service and Netflix is surely going to lose the Marvel license when Disney starts to consolidate their IP's. One can only hope that either Netflix and Disney come to a mutual agreement to finish the running story threads for their shows or that Disney just picks up all the teams and continues under their own banner because i want to see Punisher season 2

 

[Christopher]

As with many people i expected a regular gore fest, some easy to follow blood soaked action when Frank tears through New York's gangster scene and punishes them but the show was so much more. It was already apparent in season 2 of Daredevil that Frank's story was one of great tragedy and the show focused on that instead of solely finding more gruesome ways to kill people.

I think it kinda did both. There were some really gruesome and bloody parts, and a whole lot of injury porn.

I'm not sure what the point was of showing Lewis' PTSD struggles that led to a a tragic end other than showing what PTSD victims go through...

On the one hand, I think it was meant to discourage the idea that the Punisher is someone to be emulated, since the guy inspired by his example was a murdering lunatic. But on the other hand, it kinda seems like it was meant to make Castle look more noble by contrasting him against someone really awful.

Rawlins was forgettable as a villain, the typical government asshole who has too much power and uses "the end justifies the means" as an excuse to act out his assholishness but fortunately Billy was better developed and was the true villain that ultimately elevated the show.

I don't think either of them quite lived up to Fisk or Kilgrave or Mariah or Madame Gao in the villain department.

 

[Booji]

I thought the show was relatively tame eight episodes in. I did not find it tame by the end. I don't want to give away the specific moment but let me know by the time you finish what you think.

Finished up yesterday. Frank used ‘The Mountain’ maneuver! It definitely got a little more gruesome. I’d say the show is a step down from Game of Thrones on the gore scale. It’s a bit more gruesome than Daredevil, but not by much.

Overall, I loved the show. It’s right there with Jessica Jones and DD season 1 imo. The cast was absolutely fantastic. Frank was superbly written and I really felt bad for him. They handled all his killing extremely well. With the exception of the opening sequence, every kill was in self defense or in defense of another. Yeah, Frank takes it a bit further at times, but hey, he’s the frickin’ Punisher and the peeps he took out got what they deserved.

I’d love to see another season, but this one was wrapped up so well I could live with what we have. Mad props to the writers. They get an A+ in my book.

 

[Christopher]

They handled all his killing extremely well. With the exception of the opening sequence, every kill was in self defense or in defense of another.

I'm not sure I'd say that is handling the Punisher well. I think it's copping out, portraying the character more benevolently than he deserves. As I see it, the Punisher is a badly damaged person who's gone too far over the line. I would've liked to see him played less as a straight-up hero and more as an ambiguous character, someone whose actions did some good but also had negative consequences and hurt or driven away the people around him. I guess they paid lip service to that by having him inspire Lewis's bombings, but they didn't really follow through on that, on addressing what it revealed about Castle's own actions as the Punisher.

Honestly, I'm kind of reminded of the Punisher's guest appearances in the '90s FOX Spider-Man cartoon -- which started with Micro urging Castle to try using nonlethal tactics "this time" so as to improve his bad press, and Castle grudgingly agreeing. They had to tone down the character's violence in order to meet the standards of the show. This felt the same way -- that rather than just doing a straight-up Punisher story where he's hunting down ordinary criminals and gunning them down with extreme prejudice, they contrived a story that put him mostly in the situation of defending himself against really bad people trying to kill him, so that he came off as more of a conventional action hero. Which is wise, because the normal portrayal of the Punisher is too much like a mass shooter, an obsessed lone individual who takes it upon himself to address what he perceives as society's problems by gunning down civilians. It would've been a really bad idea to portray the "pure" version of the Punisher on TV in the current climate. So, not unlike the '90s cartoon, they had to tone the character down to make him palatable. It's probably the only way they could've made this work, though I think they went too easy on him.

Still, in its defense, I guess it showed that Castle toned down his actions thanks to the influence of the people around him like David and Sarah and Curtis and Karen and Madani. Implicitly, if they hadn't been there to influence him, he would've gone down an even darker road. I guess the idea was to tell a story about Castle starting out as the Punisher, a lone, broken man with nothing in him but vengeance, and becoming more humanized and healed thanks to the connections that he made. So this wasn't an origin story, but a redemption story -- he started it as the Punisher but ended it as the ex-Punisher, putting his quest for vengeance behind him and trying to become a more functional man again (although of course that will only last until the next season drags him back in, which would be kind of a shame). But it tried to have it both ways, because he still did carry out his intention to kill all his enemies -- except Russo, but that could hardly be called an act of mercy.

 

[Booji]

I'm not sure I'd say that is handling the Punisher well. I think it's copping out, portraying the character more benevolently than he deserves.

That would have made for a shitty story imo since I’m not a fan of comic book Punisher. The writers took a one dimensional character and made him interesting. I think you’ve made it quite clear your mind was made up on this show months before it aired, so we’ll have to agree to disagree.

 

[Christopher]

That would have made for a shitty story imo since I’m not a fan of comic book Punisher. The writers took a one dimensional character and made him interesting. I think you’ve made it quite clear your mind was made up on this show months before it aired, so we’ll have to agree to disagree.

No, actually I think we agree completely. My whole point is basically what you're saying -- that a direct, faithful interpretation of the comics character would have been a bad story, that they had to turn him into something more nuanced, and that the show we got was actually pretty good compared to what it could've been, what I feared it might be. As Keith DeCandido pointed out in his Tor.com review, they basically ran away from the character's roots. Well, he was talking more about avoiding connections to the MCU, but they also took a problematical character and changed him, and the nature of the story around him, to make him work better. But I think that, insofar as the show worked, it worked despite being based on the Punisher. And while I'm glad they made Bernthal's character deeper and more nuanced and sympathetic, I wish they hadn't gone quite so easy on him in terms of portraying the negative impact of his violence.

Come to think of it, though, I guess the TV version of The Punisher isn't that different from Arrow. The TV Oliver Queen started out in much the same place, as a lone vigilante on a vendetta to kill people he perceived as villains, and he was gradually helped by the friends and allies he made to turn onto a more heroic and redemptive path, although without ever fully losing his lethal potential. I guess if I can tolerate that (though I've never been happy about it), I should be able to accept what we got here. It's just hard for me to separate this version of Frank Castle from the comics' Punisher, a character I dislike seeing portrayed as anything but a villain. Green Arrow doesn't come with that same kind of baggage.

 

[Snaploud]

I really enjoyed this series. Bernthal deserves a lot of praise, and I see the audience discomfort (with the character) as a feature rather than a bug. Very few shows force us to confront society's love/hate relationship with guns, violence, and killing.

 

[Christopher]

I see the audience discomfort (with the character) as a feature rather than a bug. Very few shows force us to confront society's love/hate relationship with guns, violence, and killing.

I'd agree more if I felt the show really had confronted it more confidently. I think it acknowledged the issue but was kind of inconclusive about it. I'm not sure it really had a clear position on the issue, and I don't think it really addressed the core issues in the gun control debate. (Like the fact that most of the pro-gun belief and rhetoric these days has been driven by the propaganda of gun manufacturers that are mostly selling to hardcore collectors rather than really having anything to do with rights or self-defense, or the fact that nearly 2/3 of gun fatalities in the US are suicides.) It didn't help that the sole character representing the side in favor of gun control was painted as a craven political opportunist. If they really wanted to address the issue fairly, there should've been sincere representatives on both sides of the debate. I mean, certainly O'Connor and Lewis represented the dark side of the pro-gun faction, but there wasn't really anyone representing the good side of the gun-control faction.

 

[Skipper]

I'd agree more if I felt the show really had confronted it more confidently. I think it acknowledged the issue but was kind of inconclusive about it. I'm not sure it really had a clear position on the issue, and I don't think it really addressed the core issues in the gun control debate. (Like the fact that most of the pro-gun belief and rhetoric these days has been driven by the propaganda of gun manufacturers that are mostly selling to hardcore collectors rather than really having anything to do with rights or self-defense, or the fact that nearly 2/3 of gun fatalities in the US are suicides.) It didn't help that the sole character representing the side in favor of gun control was painted as a craven political opportunist. If they really wanted to address the issue fairly, there should've been sincere representatives on both sides of the debate. I mean, certainly O'Connor and Lewis represented the dark side of the pro-gun faction, but there wasn't really anyone representing the good side of the gun-control faction.

It's always fascinating for me to watch Americans debate the issues of gun-control, as if the reasons of the opposite factions had equal merit. It's like watching a debate about the pros and cons of eviscerating small kittens and throwing their interiors to the passers-by and the moderator is equidistant from both sides. "Yes, we can accept that someone thinks that eviscerating kittens is distasteful, but don't forget that a lot of people consider this a natural right, given them from God and believe that this country was build on carcasses of little kittens."

 

[Christopher]

It's always fascinating for me to watch Americans debate the issues of gun-control, as if the reasons of the opposite factions had equal merit.

That's the last thing I believe personally. I loathe guns, and I would've preferred to see an unambiguous anti-gun stance. But I know better than to expect that from The Punisher. I'm just saying, it seemed to me that the goal of the producers was to present a "balanced" take on the issue, and if that was what they were trying for, I don't think they succeeded. Arrow's Very Special Episode last year did a better job.

 

[Borgminister]

Given it's the Punisher, it's been a worthy 13 episode ride. Probably be best to let Frank veer toward the Salvation Army and call it a day, because there ain't nothing more to be that eye-gougingly angry about. If this was a self-contained, anti-hero one-off, then bravo. If not, watch out for sharks.

 

[Christopher]

Probably be best to let Frank veer toward the Salvation Army and call it a day, because there ain't nothing more to be that eye-gougingly angry about. If this was a self-contained, anti-hero one-off, then bravo. If not, watch out for sharks.

Yeah -- this is a show that I think would only be diminished by a second season. Finding some excuse to drag him back into the damaged, sociopathic place that he's finally starting to climb out of would only invalidate his journey here. And, per macho-revenge-movie tradition, the only thing that could set it off would be the murder of someone he cares about, which pretty much means Curtis, the Liebermans, or Karen -- unless they set him up with some new surrogate family in the first episode just to kill them off, which would be deeply lame.

I suppose they could do something where he was recruited for what he thought was an honorable secret mission but that turned out to be a slaughter of innocents, and then he'd go after the people who sent him, but that's too much like the story they just did. Most likely, the best place to end Frank Castle's narrative journey is exactly where it is right now.

 

[Beagleman]

I love Bernthal as Frank Castle, I find the way he gives nuance to the role deeply fasciniating and satisfying but I have to agree, from a narrative point of view Castle's arc is done.

 

[Skipper]

I have to say that the big difference with his comics counterpart is that he's not particularly interested in killing the criminals, just avenging his own family. The fact that the perpetrators of his family's death were all criminal gangs is purely accidental. Probably he would do the same even if the dead were the result of a clash between the Boy Scout and the Salvation Army. Instead, in the comics (both regular Marvel Universe version and the Max version) , he continued to kill criminals even after eliminating the perpetrators.

 

[Skipper]

The only killing made by the Punisher and unrelated to his family I remember is when he snuffed a shopkeeper trying to sell him a pedophile film. And the guy insisted even after it was clear that Frank was not interested in the merchandise.

Really, more than a murder was an assisted suicide.

 

[The Mighty Monkey of Mim]

Just finished it. Fucking. Awesome. Best and most cohesive Netflix MCU show thus far, bar perhaps the previous high mark Jessica Jones. (Daredevil comes pretty close to both, with Luke Cage not too far behind.) Bold and very refreshing after the wobbly Iron Fist and the overall clusterfuck that was The Defenders. (Not that I didn't find any enjoyment in those...they were just uneven.) Don't wanna hear any complaints about the violence; it was entirely appropriate to the material.

-MMoM

 

[kirk55555]

I'm liking Punisher a lot, but damn episode 10 is a pile of crap. Not the actual story, but the format. I spent the first 10 minutes convinced that Netflix had skipped an episode on me. Its borderline incomprehensible. Whoever decided to do this episode in a bizarre flashback, multiple angles style did not have the ability to pull it off. This is easily the most disjointed thing a MCU Netflix show has done. Hopefully something this bad doesn't happen again.

 

[Skipper]

It seemed pretty straightforward to me. Everyone just told his/her version of the story.

 

[kirk55555]

It started out after the events happened, then kept flashing back and fourth. It was hard to follow and just felt like a cheap way to spread a 15-20 minute plot over a whole episode.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

It's Rashomon.