I Watch A Lot Of TV: The Punisher

Needless to say, I watched a lot of TV over Thanksgiving, and I wanted to put a few shows on your radar. First on the list is The Punisher. Marvel’s most recent endeavor held out of New York Comic Con because of the recent mass shootings, and I was a little worried going in that was going to lean towards gun porn. The Punisher as a story goes in a darker direction than many of its counterparts, especially in light our country’s issues with gun violence. It follows Frank Castle as a former special forces operative who loses his entire family in a massacre, and devotes himself to assuming a vigilante role and killing everyone responsible. Those of you who watched Season 2 of Daredevil will already be familiar with Jon Bernthal’s Punisher. Without giving too many spoilers, this series treats Bernthal’s appearance in Daredevil as, more or less, a piece of his origin story; and follows the Punisher after he’s wrapped up the bloody business from his introduction. I want to do my best to keep this relatively short and sweet, and I’m no TV critic, so I’ll say right now that this is worth watching. This is one of Marvel’s best-written shows to date, and it avoided the midseason lull that I often found had accompanied their previous efforts.

Jon Bernthal puts in an incredible performance as Frank Castle. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time, and he’s an example of how many folks who were originally considered to be character actors are getting their shot at leading roles. In this case, it is well deserved. Bernthal acts the shit out this part. His Frank Castle is sweet, devastated, haunted, terrified, socially awkward, and yes, unhinged. Bernthal isn’t the only one who shines, and while the show misses on a couple of characters that really don’t serve a purpose, most of its roles deliver with a punch. The show also does a great job telling a story like this in a substantial way that doesn’t just rely on bloodshed. I thought it missed in some areas, such as giving a half hearted and on the nose effort to write in different parts of the gun control debate. It would be hard not to do that with a show like this, that relies so much on the “good’ish guy with the gun”- but it ends up feeling like they just throw in a couple of talking heads who voice the big shouting points from each side of the debate.

However, this isn’t quite as bad as I make it seem, and it’s made better by the fact that the show focuses much more on veteran issues than anything else. Most of the main characters in the show are soldiers who have returned back home from conflict, and struggle to heal the mental, and physical wounds that remain from the war. The writers do a nice job devoting enough time to these individual characters to make sure we know what makes them tick, and it allows a theme like this to effectively carry the show.

While the show does eventually enter ultra-violent territory, the pacing and time given to develop the characters pays off. Frank unleashing his vigilante justice on the bad guys, while graphic, feels less gratuitous because we have such an understanding of what he’s going through. The violence is a lot, and it’s disturbing, but it’s different because the show knows it’s disturbing. The writers aren’t trying to paint Frank as a saint. They’re showing Frank as a disturbed, traumatized man who bears his share of responsibility for the show’s events. I could spend all day diving into the various themes that surround Castle’s character and make him who he is, but I think you’d enjoy just going ahead and watching the show more. I enjoyed it, and I believe a compelling story combined with a knockout performance by Bernthal make it a series worth watching.

P.S. I'd be remiss to not give shoutouts to Amber Rose Revah, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Ben Barnes for their roles on the show. While I didn't give any time to them specifically, they were all great.