The Punisher Review: Vengeance is Not Swift (Season 1 Episodes 1-4)

There’s an intriguing story somewhere in Marvel’s The Punisher, but the show seems to be content to take its sweet time finding it.

The first four episodes of the latest offering in Marvel’s Netflix universe, beginning with The Punisher Season 1 Episode 1, “3 AM,” are plodding and slow, offering up some great character moments, but little direction or cohesion. Frank Castle is a fascinating character in many respects, but it’s as yet hard to see the point of the story his new series is telling.

Unlike the other entries in the Marvel Netflix universe, this isn’t a superhero tale, per se. Frank doesn’t have powers, unless you count being skilled at shooting guns or snapping necks to be an enhanced ability.

In fact, The Punisher is probably the least connected to the other series within the Marvel Netflix universe. Yes, Karen Page from Daredevil shows up, and the series references a few specific moments from that series, including Frank’s trial and Wilson Fisk’s arrest. But that’s kind of it.

In all honesty, you could watch this series completely independent of the rest of its shared universe and basically not miss anything.

It’s also more than a bit difficult to watch a show like The Punisher right now. Our current cultural moment is particularly fraught when it comes to issues of guns and gun violence, and this is not the kind of show that’s equipped to address that in any substantial way.

To be fair, maybe it doesn’t have to be. Yet, there are moments where The Punisher is exceptionally uncomfortable to watch, and they almost all have to do with the fact that the show deeply wants us to like Frank, and feel at least somewhat comfortable with what he does.

Frank Castle is not a good person, and that’s part of what should make his character interesting. He is one of Marvel’s most brutal heroes, a gun-happy vigilante who racks up massive body counts without blinking an eye.

Yet, in its first four episodes, The Punisher seems more interested in making Frank relatable, in explaining and justifying his rage to the audience, than it does in saying anything interesting about it.

This feels like something of a step backward for Frank’s character versus his original appearance in the second season of Daredevil. His multi-episode stint there not only served as an introduction to his story, but offered an intriguing look at his moral code by positioning him opposite the more religious Matt Murdock.

Unfortunately, Frank’s solo outing slides back into origin story territory, rather than moving forward. The series re-positions the murder of Frank’s family as part of a larger story involving a secret military conspiracy and cover-up, and it’s…just not that interesting.

This is, of course, done merely to give Frank a reason to keep killing past his original “mission”. (The series opens with him finishing all the murders in his original quest for vengeance and burning his Punisher vest.)

The Punisher begins by tracking what are essentially three separate story threads, that we must assume will all come together in some way by the end.

There’s Frank, fresh off his vengeance tour and haunted by dreams of his dead wife. Of course there’s no rest for the wicked, and he’s almost immediately tracked down by a former NSA agent named David Lieberman (code name: Micro) who believes a secret government conspiracy surrounding Frank’s old military unit is really the reason behind the deaths of his family.

It’s worth saying: Jon Bernthal is fantastic in this role. The material doesn’t always live up to his abilities, but he’s consistently great, playing a brutal, broken man who carries his rage around like Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill.

However, despite his seemingly endless anger, Frank is somehow most interesting in the quieter moments. The strangely sweet bond over loss that Frank builds with Micro’s wife Sarah, who thinks her husband is dead, or the weighty history that exists between him and his old Marine buddy Curtiss are ten times more compelling than any shoot ‘em up moment so far.

It’s not an accident that Bernthal’s best scene comes opposite Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen. Sure, the two share a history from Daredevil, but she’s also the one character that has consistently seen the man within the monster. (That she’s also the one who seems most willing to push him on the innately problematic nature of his murder sprees is equally interesting.)

The Punisher also follows the story of a military veterans’ support group, helmed by Frank’s friend Curtiss. Here, the show does a much better job with nuance, presenting competing (and often competing) viewpoints from men with vastly different experiences.

These scenes are not only deftly handled, they pose difficult questions about America and our treatment of veterans, men we’ve asked to kill for us and abandoned to face their own personal traumas afterward.

These are not typical scenes for a Marvel Netflix series, and perhaps that’s why they’re so interesting.

What isn’t interesting at all, however, is The Punisher’s third subplot, in which Homeland Security agent Dinah Madani and her partner Sam conduct a parallel investigation into Frank’s activities and military past.

Almost every Marvel Netflix series suffers from episode bloat, but the problem is particularly egregious here, where multiple storylines seem to drag on for a long time for no reason. (By the time I finished episode four, I couldn’t believe we weren’t at least halfway through the season.)

Sadly, Agent Madani’s storyline is the worst offender in this area, managing to be both dull and directionless at nearly all times.

Theoretically, her connection to the story should provide an interesting outsider perspective. She was, after all, friends with the Lebanese cop who was murdered in the video that features Frank’s regiment.

Yet Madani remains a generic law enforcement type, which is doubly unfortunate since she’s one of the few characters who isn’t from the world of the comics. Instead, she almost seems to be in a completely different show, following a basic crime story that has yet to go anywhere.

As The Punisher continues, there’s a chance that this disparate threads will finally come together into some kind of cohesive whole. But if we have to wait eight more hours to get to it, will it be worth it?

Stray Thoughts:

• I totally thought that nice kid Donnie who almost got killed in a cement mixer in the first episode was going to be Frank’s sidekick and I am honestly kind of mad that didn’t
• I wonder what this show would be like if Frank were partnered with someone who’s slightly more upbeat? The dour vibe that pervades this show really does get exhausting.
• The flashbacks to Frank and Ben’s time in Afghanistan are incredibly well done.
• As much as I love Karen Page, her sudden and meteoric rise to star reporter is possibly the most unbelievable thing that’s happened to date in the Marvel Netflix universe. (And this is a world where the Defenders fought ninjas in a dinosaur skeleton beneath the city.)
• I am also officially a “Kastle” shipper now, thanks for nothing, internet.
• The Johnny Cash-style credits music is such a perfect pick for Frank.

What did you think of this episode of The Punisher? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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The Punisher is now streaming on Netflix.

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