If Netflix releases a Marvel series and it has no buzz whatsoever, did they actually release it?
After taking the world by storm with a superb first season of Daredevil, followed by Jessica Jones and Luke Cage doing likewise, Marvel’s street-level Netflix series seemed poised to do for TV what the Marvel Cinematic Universe had done for movies.
But Netflix seems to want out of the Marvel business. They cancelled Iron Fist, which surprised no one given the lukewarm reception to same, but then they cancelled two of their bona fide hits, Luke Cage (whose first season was so popular it briefly broke Netflix) and Daredevil (the thing that started it all). Worse, none of the shows’ second seasons created the same buzz and anticipation of their first, and the crossover series was flawed.
The unplanned part of the whole thing, The Punisher, taking advantage of Jon Bernthal’s breakout performance in Daredevil season two, just released its second season, and it may be Marvel’s swan song, pending whether Jessica Jones season three happens or not.
If so, it ended with quite a whimper.
SPOILERS for The Punisher season 2 and the rest of the Netflix MCU
The sophomore outing for The Punisher could charitably be called a mess. There are two concurrent plots going on that not only have nothing to do with each other, they also actively interfere with each other.
We start with Frank Castle—now “Pete Castiglione,” the new ID created for him by the Department of Homeland Security after season one—in Michigan, watching a band at a bar and chatting with the bartender, Beth. A jerk hits on Beth and Castle manages to drive him off, and the two eventually fall into bed together. The entire relationship between Castle and Alexa Davalos’s Beth is charming as heck (aided by Jagger Nelson’s cheerfully snotty-kid performance as her son Rex).
However, this isn’t a rom-com with Pete and Beth, it’s The Punisher, so naturally, Castle gets embroiled in some shit when a young woman is attacked by a large number of trained professional soldiers. Turns out the young woman—who we eventually learn is named Amy—is part of a crew of criminals who took pictures of a U.S. senator, David Schultz, kissing a man. They were hired by Russian mobsters who want to have dirt on a presidential candidate. (Wow, that’s not timely at all…)
Said senator is the child of two very rich Evangelical Christians (played with appropriate skeeviness by Corbin Bernsen and Annette O’Toole) who want him to be president and must keep his homosexuality a secret. To that end, they have one of their flock—a semi-reformed neo-Nazi named John Pilgrim—and the aforementioned mercenaries retrieve the pictures and kill the ones responsible. Pilgrim kills the mobster who hired the criminals, and also the criminals—except for Amy, who got away because she was out getting food and then hid under the bed when Pilgrim came back. And she has the pictures.
Castle saves her, but Pilgrim keeps coming. Beth gets shot, and eventually Castle and Amy wind up in a sheriff’s office having a showdown with Pilgrim’s seemingly endless supply of mercenaries—
—and then Agent Madani shows up to take him back to New York because Billy Russo has escaped the hospital and needs to be found.
The Russo plot is an even bigger mess. For starters, Russo’s face is supposed to be hideously scarred by Castle slamming his face into a mirror over and over again at the end of last season, but he’s got a couple three facial cuts, and that’s it. He’s one mediocre plastic surgeon away from looking no different. Hell, in the final few episodes, Castle looks worse after getting beat up, and nobody’s talking about him like he’s hideously scarred. One episode started with a flashback to Russo and Castle’s time serving together in the Marines, and I honestly couldn’t tell the difference in Ben Barnes’s face. The makeup department utterly failed the script here, as people keep saying that Russo looks horrible and acting like he’s all ugly and horrid-looking, but he mostly looks like Ben Barnes being dishy.
Russo is enabled by his therapist, Dr. Krista Dumont (Floriana Lima trying her best). She has a troubled past that is nowhere near enough to explain how and why she suddenly falls in love with Russo and is willing to throw her entire career away and be an accessory to murder in order to give him closure and run away with him. Russo, meanwhile, gathers some ex-vets to form a gang—which he then inexplicably abandons, along with his obsessive vendetta against Castle, in order to run away with Dumont. Neither side gives us enough to believe that they’d throw everything away for each other.
Also Russo apparently has amnesia—but not complete amnesia, as he seems to remember some things, but most important is that he has no recollection of Castle’s family being massacred, nor his role in it, nor anything that happened in season one. It’s set up to give us some kind of payoff when he does remember or is confronted with what he’s done, but we never see that or get that. We just get this weird-ass romance with Dumont.
The two stories are supposed to be intermingled, but—just as Castle’s introduction in Daredevil season two resulted in a schizophrenic season that didn’t gel—they mostly just interfere with each other. Castle goes back to New York and takes Amy with him because—well, honestly, I have no clue why Castle keeps Amy around, nor why Amy sticks around especially when she gets so many opportunities to bugger off. She only runs away late in the season when there’s a bounty on her and Castle’s heads, so she needs to be rescued, but why didn’t she leave sooner?
Amy is left twiddling her thumbs for several episodes while Castle goes off to deal with Russo—and Russo is also left on his own because Castle is dealing with Pilgrim, and it’s all just a big mess of people sitting around doing nothing waiting because their part of the plot isn’t on stage just then.
Worse, the plot with the Schultzes and Amy has to be crowbarred into New York City because that’s where the show films and where Castle is from, and where Russo is. But it would work much better staying in Michigan, and actually playing out on its own for half the season, and then have Castle brought back to New York by Madani after the Schultz story was finished, with Castle having completely gone all Punisher again.
And then in the end, it all just sort of collapses in on itself. The Schultzes are the theoretical bad guys of the Amy half of the plot, but Castle doesn’t even know who they are until the final episode, and their big confrontation consists of a FaceTime call at the top of the thirteenth episode and a more direct confrontation at the very end. Russo’s story ends with him seeing Madani and Dumont getting into a fight that ends with the latter falling out a window (repeating a childhood trauma where her father attempted a murder-suicide with her by grabbing her and jumping out a window, and only succeeded at the suicide part, but she was badly injured). Russo then confronts Madani, but she shoots him three times. He gets away, but winds up getting shot dead by Castle who walks in on him bleeding on the floor, shoots him twice, and walks away. Okay, then.
The characterizations are all over the place. Russo’s amnesia is a mess, his level of obsession and anguish is wildly inconsistent. Amy is either a great con artist or a terrible con artist depending on the needs of the plot that week. Pilgrim creates no impression whatsoever, as he plays him with such a bland affect that it’s hard to care about him. Mind you, the script wants us to care about him because he has a dying wife and two sons, but he’s mostly just a force-of-nature villain, which are, bluntly, the most boring villains in fiction.
And once again, the show refuses to even acknowledge that it’s part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the sole exceptions being the presence of Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page in one episode, Rob Morgan’s Turk Barrett in another episode, and Royce Wilson’s Detective Brett Mahoney as a recurring character. But even there, it’s problematic, as the events of Daredevil season 3 should have informed the characterizations of Page and especially Mahoney. At this point in the MCU timeline, Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem, and Chinatown each has its own neighborhood hero (and you can throw Forest Hills in there too, thanks to a certain spidery character played by Tom Holland), and that’s the sort of thing that should maybe come up in conversation when this particular vigilante comes back to town. For that matter, Mahoney’s very recent experiences both with Bullseye pretending to be Daredevil and especially with Wilson Fisk’s gaggle of corrupt federal agents should affect his dealings with, respectively, Castle and Madani. (And this has to take place after DD season 3, as Page is back to working for Nelson & Murdock, which is how she gets in to see Castle in the hospital, as she works for his lawyer of record, as established back in DD season 2.)
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As for Page’s guest appearance, it feels like it’s there just because Bernthal and Woll established such a good relationship in DD season 2 that they want to re-create it, but there’s so much water under the bridge for both characters since then that it feels awkward. (I also love Castle’s speech to Page that she can’t come with them, that pretty much boils down to, “Sorry, Karen, but you’re only contracted for one episode, so you have to leave now.” Danny Rand’s one-episode guest shot in Luke Cage season 2 had similar issues.)
The season has its moments. There are some superb set pieces here, from the standoff at the sheriff’s office, which is gloriously filmed, written, and acted; to Russo’s bank robbery, which is almost done in by a magnificently stubborn bank manager played with terrific Noo Yawk attitude by Cecilia Antoinette; to the delightfully klutzy fight among an injured Pilgrim, the crippled Curtis, and the barely competent Amy in the trailer. There are a lot of really strong supporting characters here, and they’re all people of color, too: Jason R. Moore’s Curtis, who remains the only grownup in Castle’s life; Mahoney; Joe Holt’s excellent Sheriff Hardin who refuses to let vigilante thugs take his prisoner; Brandon Gill’s Deputy Ogden, who gets himself shot and still acts like a hero to save the life of Amy, who stole five bucks from him; Antoinette’s Lillian; and Amber Rose Revah’s Agent Madani, whose recovery from the trauma of season one is not smooth.
But as ever, the season manages to be watchable primarily on the strength of Bernthal, who has the uncanny ability to have chemistry with anyone he’s standing next to. He modulates so perfectly from the almost-content Castle of the opening into angry rage as the season goes on, but what’s fascinating here is that he’s the most together person in the cast, mostly because he’s the only one who’s completely comfortable with who he is and what he’s doing. He has a purity of purpose that no one else can manage. It’s a superb performance, as always, and it’s only a pity it’s wasted in this mess of a season.
Netflix and Marvel had a good thing going, and it’s really too bad that corporate nonsense is spoiling it—though junk like this and the two seasons of Iron Fist don’t exactly inspire confidence in their ability to continue with skill, either. Having said that, the fact that we’re not getting more of Daredevil or Luke Cage (jury’s still out on Jessica Jones) is a travesty.
Keith R.A. DeCandido has also reviewed Iron Fist, The Defenders, Luke Cage season 2, and the first season of The Punisher for this site. His “4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch” appears here every Friday, an in-depth look at every live-action superhero movie based on a comic book (including a look at the three attempts to do a Punisher movie). His 2019 releases include the novels Mermaid Precinct (latest in his fantasy police procedural series), A Furnace Sealed (first in a new urban fantasy series), and Alien: Isolation (based on the movie series and the videogame), and stories in the anthologies Thrilling Adventure Yarns, Unearthed, and Release the Virgins!
My dream– one that you should never ever do because it will be impossible– is that after finishing up the comic movies and the Netflix series, you go back and do every comic book TV series. One season per post, excluding (or reprinting) the ones that you already covered such as Batman, Netflix, etc.
I really want to read a Krad series about the Incredible Hulk, and Smallville, and that awful Captain Marvel show… Don’t actually do this. The number of hours of TV you’d have to watch per post would possibly kill you.
(Really, you could write about the Smurfs and I’d be happy. Those were a comic series, right? ;) )
Joe: Aw shucks. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Yeah, I really liked DD Season 2, so maybe I’ll still like this one as well. But, then again, I was all in on the Hand, so… I do wish they had delved more in to the Capital Cities of Heaven, but Iron Fist’s poor reception pretty much did that part in.
I liked this season okay. It’s a mess, sure. But it’s still a damn sight better than any of the Iron Fist seasons, so I think that’s a very unfair comparison. Bernthal is awesome as Frank Castle, and if Finn Jones was as good as Danny Rand, Iron Fist would be a much better show. I agree that a lot of things don’t make much sense in this season of the Punisher, but since I’m used to this character basically boilling down to “really angry guy kills criminals 24/7” since my childhood, I didn’t feel I needed any reason for things happening beyond the fact that Frank Castle always ends up massacring dozens of mobsters everywhere he goes, no matter what he does.
I don’t follow the entertainment industry but as soon as I heard that Disney was starting a streaming service I knew all Marvel properties on other networks/services were doomed. Netflix doesn’t want to advertise for a competitor and Disney wants all of our money.
Keith – I am only on episode 9 or 10 and yet I read your whole review because things are moving so slowly that at this point I don’t even mind spoilers.
I agree with pretty much everything you said. Bernthal is great as Castle. The rest of the cast is generally very good as well.
I found the Pilgrim character a bit more interesting than you. The quiet, cool competance factor is there, which I always like. So far I don’t have much empathy for him (dying wife aside), but I think the episodes are going to try to steer me there (last time we saw him was when the big bad was comparing his new golf club (and its poor performance) to the Pilgrim’s failure to smoke out Castle and Amy) – we’ll see.
Speaking of the abruptness of leaving Michigan, I had a hard time accepting Medani getting from NY to Larkville, Michigan so fast. Castle’s call to her (when she tells him to piss off) and the shootout all occur within a few hours of each other, and she’s there to shine a light in the Pilgrim’s face just in time? Meh. Maybe the timing works out – I know a flight from NY to Detroit is probably no longer than 2 hours, especially if she pulled DHS strings and got a private jet there (and then a helicopter from Detroit to Larkville). But still seems like a stretch. Threw me out of the story, at the time.
The absence of the rest of the MCU is really a shame. Not surprising at this stage of the game, unfortunately, but still a shame. I feel like the writers forget that they don’t have to actually have scripted parts for characters that exist in this universe – they can still MENTION them. For instance, don’t you think at least one of the robbers would have had a spider-man or daredevil mask?
Eh. I’m going to finish the series just because I don’t like leaving things incomplete (and, aside from Bernthal’s excellence, the action scenes are pretty damn good) but man, I’m feeling like it’s a slog.
Still not as bad as Iron Fist Season 1 though.
Spot on review… love all things marvel but this was a tough one to get through. And multiple time I thought to myself “I can’t tell the difference in Russo before and after Frank tickled him with the mirror”.
Kalvin: It’s not as bad as Inhumans, either, but that don’t make it good. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Rolled my eyes and stopped reading once you said Army and not Marine Corps. Also what diff does it make if superb acting from people of color, can we not act normally? ;p Saying this as a minority Btw, Heh.
I drifted away from this season around episode 6 because, despite the chemistry of the actors that you noted, it just wasn’t holding my interest.
I’m hoping that Marvel decides that the hints given in both Dr. Strange and Ant-Man that there are multiple universes and that both the Netflix shows and various other series (Agents of SHIELD, Cloak and Dagger, etc.) exist in realities separate from the MCU.
The Netflix shows have already had continuity/reality differences from the MCU. For instance, in the films (and AoS) the US President is Ellis, while the Netflix shows name-checked Obama as President. So maybe Spider-Man doesn’t exist on Netflix.
” I feel like the writers forget that they don’t have to actually have scripted parts for characters that exist in this universe – they can still MENTION them. For instance, don’t you think at least one of the robbers would have had a spider-man or daredevil mask?”
… That’s not how we use canon or worlduild –+—-________——-. Ugh
@10:
A picture of Spider-Man was on the newspaper Ben Urich was reading when WIlson Fisk killed him. Also, in JJ 1, there are Spider-Man themed ice pops in Central Park.
Boring, watched only to review it on my podcast. Even if I let go the fact that again it’s a generic story with no Marvel content beyond a guy named Frank Castle who’s dubbed “the Punisher” by the media (and a couple of secondary characters more), it’s all over the place, I couldn’t care much about any of the characters.
And Russo’s scars are ridiculous; I doubt it was the make-up department’s fault, they probably did what they were told to do by the showrunner.
And while I can buy that Franks turn from “I’m almost content being Pete the drifter” to “I will protect this girl and put down Billy because it’s my fault”, I just can’t buy that he goes from there to full on Punisher mode, just because the comics say he has to.
Oh, and Frank massacring what looks like to African American gangs in the end is a bit iffy.
Hey Krad,
I’m surprised to see you referencing that Netflix “wants out” of the Marvel business, as I was under the impression that Marvel was the one pulling out so they can put shows under Disney’s new streaming service, once it launches. My impression is based on here-say and the inability to grasp why Netflix would want out of a deal that simply prints money, so I’m not doubting what you say, merely surprised.
Thanks for the great articles.
Blaze
Blaze: Netflix are the ones who cancelled Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Daredevil, not Marvel. In fact, initial production had already started on Luke Cage season 3 when the cancellation order came in. While I have no inside knowledge, my guess is that Netflix feels that there’s no room for expansion since Marvel will take any further shows to Disney+, so why bother?
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I saw Krysten Ritter in Jessica Jones attire shooting on the streets of Park Slope in October, so we are definitely getting JJ S3.
We all have our own opinions in this world and especially the entertainment industry. But I must confess that I disagree with your article. While it’s true that Jigsaw’s face was very underwhelming and did not match up with the other characters perception and dialogue. Which is all thanks to the showrunners. Nearly everything you brought up as evidence to support your claim is false.
Continuing with Jigsaw. He was a fantastic villain who could be mostly unsympathetic and psychotic. Especially with the added strains of amnesia and mental confusion. Despite those flaws, he was able to care and love somebody who he felt close to his life. Including the Vetarans that he gave new identities to because he did not anymore of friends to be murdered by The Punisher. Who was his vendetta, not theirs. What a shame it was that he did not go down without a fight in the end.
Secondly. I would like to bring up Dr. Dumont who had a very substantial reason to aid Jigsaw because she saw a piece of her Father in him. Due to Barnes being broken and her believing she’s the only one who can put the pieces back together again. Throughout the early and mid parts of the season, we see the Doctors remorse and common sense kick in. As she knows that Jigsaw has crosses the line several times. But because of her childhood trauma and inability to help her Father before his suicide. She did not give up on him. Which was foolish but almost admirable.
Thirdly, John Pilgrim is NOT a force of nature villain. He is a villain of circumstance and was only doing evil deeds due to those crazy evangelicals using him, and holding his kids hostage. Not against their will in the beginning but as the season progresses to the 12th and 13th episode. You see O’ Toole’s character deliberately state that they were going to hold Pilgrims kids from their Father as leverage so that they could control him. In the finale, we as the audience care so much about the villain and what he went through. Even The Punisher understands his situation as the usual merciless vigilante assists Pilgrim in getting rid of the Evangelicals. Which was like killing two birds with one stone. Freeing Amy of her fugitive state of being and giving Pilgrim his kids back. As he got another chance at redemption from Castle. A truly powerful scene in the Season.
Another point would be Detective Monroe. While he was acting like a nuisance in The Punisher’s life this Season. He was only doing that to preserve his scene of lawful justice. Which Kingpin twisted twice in the MCU. That is why I believe he was so hellbent on keeping Punisher locked up. Even though pointing a gun at the person who saved you was foolish and desperate. Especially coming from somebody who is aware of countless superheroes, including Daredevil. Regardless, the detective was doing what he thought was right. Until he realized how wrong he really was.
Overall, the second season of The Punisher and was a tremendous success for me and was better than season one. I hope you get a chance to see this comment so that you can see a different perspective from yours. I hope that many who did not give this season a chance any reason will check it out! It’s great! A good way to finish the series if it gets cancelled.
Frankly (sorry), I’m glad I didn’t bother with this show. I don’t understand why people like the Punisher so much, or why they consider him a hero – anti- or otherwise. He’s not. He’s a straight-up villain. Going around murdering people, even criminals, just because you think it’s a good idea doesn’t make you a hero. And doing the occasional truly heroic thing doesn’t negate all the murders.
That they made a bad show from such a character doesn’t surprise me.
The “but shouldn’t Batman kill the Joker” conundrum is uninteresting to me. If a hero goes out of his way to bring a villain to the authorities, and the authorities can’t keep the criminal locked up, the subsequent blood isn’t on the hero’s hands. The Punisher doesn’t even try to use the justice system. He’s the Batman that would kill the Joker – but not after the Joker got out of Arkham. He’d kill Joker the first time he met him.
Itai: It’s perfectly fine that you disagree. I’m really glad that you got more enjoyment out of Punisher season 2 than I did. Thank you for sharing your own take on it. That’s what the comments section is for, after all!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
danielmclark @18:
Um… no. Thats kind of the point; the justice system is broken. Its already failed him. The only thing he has left is revenge. Hes not Batman; hes not rich, he doesn’t have gadgets to do everything for him. He can get guns, and he has the skill to use them.
You *can* tell a good Punisher story, but not by replacing Batman with Frank Castle. They’ve done pretty well setting up the support he needs, with Curtis and other vets around him. I think Amy isn’t the kind of person he needs to keep so close; he could have locked her up to keep her safe instead of leaving her alone in a trailer to wander off or get taken. He needs a “man in the chair” like he got at the end of S1, but no such luck here; that is why there seems to be so much lead time, as the only way they learn things in this season is to wait for one of the other players to call them.
Its too bad that none of these shows will make the transition to Disney+. This is a fairly good group of actors, and they could really do something by pulling storylines from the comics instead of recreating the wheel here. I’ll just have to hope that Jessica Jones ties up some of the threads that we really want to see before the shows disappear like some mad titan snapped his fingers…
“Jessica Jones ties up some of the threads that we really want to see before the shows disappear like some mad titan snapped his fingers…”
Jj focuses on actions happing only in JJ. When they bring in other stuff they dont explore it or somehow make it convlaut the first main plot
Though ABC figured how to do it for an entire season
You lost all credibility when you said they were in the Army…….
Thanks to Devilotte and Eric for catching my service screwup. I’ve fixed it. Sorry for being dumb. I blame too little coffee. Wait, no, that’s not right, I drink a ton of the stuff — that’s it, I blame too much coffee!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, going off to make more coffee….
If Batman had killed the Joker the first time he crossed the line many lives would have been saved. That is why the Punisher works. He isn’t for everyone, but he is for those of us who support capital punishment and justice, and have a jaded view of the government.
This season had it’s flaws. The lack of Micro lending a helping hand being the biggest one in my book. The desire to recreate The Professional in a Punisher series didn’t work very well either. But other than that I enjoyed it enough. It had some good social commentary about the state of veterans, the dangers of extremist, and the evils of the oligarchy, while providing plenty of blood and mayhem. This is the closest any live action has come to the Frank Castle I want to see.
Putting the Netflix series in a parallel universe very close to the MCU is a good idea. It would allow some of the actors to be brought back, or into the MCU in their current rolls, with slight cinematic shifts. The lack of cohesion between television and the silver screen has been my biggest disappointment in this epic experiment. It’s where DC failed from the gate, and where Marvel has serious loose threads.
I liked Season 2, but it was no where near as tight and powerful as season 1. The underlying theme in S1 was PTSD, and everything played into it. Almost every character suffered from it, and many had to deal with the aftermath of it. Every bit of the story involved that theme. And as someone who has experience with PTSD, that season was truly amazing.
While this season does have PTSD themes, they are not as tight, and not all the storylines converged on it. Having two villains that run the length of the season muddied the waters. S1 had the story line with Lewis, but it tied in perfectly to the overall theme. Pilgrim really didn’t have anything to do with PTSD, or with the Russo-Castle dynamic.
At first, I thought the resolution with Russo was going to be anticlimactic with him dying in the dumpster. Which was kind of amusing; I liked the doc looking at him passed out, then the money, then the shot of Russo in the dumpster. But I do like how they finished it. Castle was so done with Russo, and shooting him mid-sentence worked well for me. Castle knew he should have done that in the first place.
Somehow I feel like the whole Netflix/Disney thing caught up with this show. Had it not happened, I feel as we would’ve got a full season with the Amy/Schultz plot, and another full season of Russo. Instead we got this, a season that while it was good, it felt all over the place.
I do disagree with your complaints against Mahoney, he does specifically mention his disdain for Federal Law Enforcement and their bending of the law for political reasons. I don’t feel that it needed more, as the more you include from other shows, the more you ask the audience to keep up. Not everyone watches every single Marvel show, my father for example likes the Punisher but hates all the others.
I’m so glad I never watch shows based on articles like this. The season was okay, 7-10, but definitely not bad as you make it seem. The only thing I agree with is Jigsaw’s face being nearly unaffected.
I finally got around to watching The Punisher season 2 — I wanted to see it before I watched Jessica Jones season 3, just in case there were any continuity connections and just out of my general completism. All in all, I kind of wish I hadn’t. There were parts worth seeing, like Bernthal’s impressive acting and Amber Rose Revah’s incredible beauty (Giorgia Whigham is also gorgeous, though she didn’t look as young as her character was supposed to, and her hair remained impossibly lush and perfect in spite of all the hell she went through), but for the most part I found its storyline weak and its violence deeply unpleasant. I should’ve let this one pass by.
I agree with pretty much all you said, Keith — the Russo business feels like an afterthought, just cleaning up loose ends and rehashing old beats from season 1, and it’s alongside this completely unrelated other plot, so there’s a lack of cohesion and focus. It was hard to see what the point of doing it at all was. One thing you didn’t mention was that it’s amazingly slow-paced for a shoot-’em-up action show. This could’ve been ten episodes easily.
I also disliked what it did to Frank Castle’s character. I’ve never liked the idea of the Punisher, but season 1 came kinda close to redeeming it by portraying it as a dark side of Frank that he was given the chance to resolve and move on from. If it had ended there, I would’ve been satisfied — and I think I commented at the time that I would prefer not to see a second season because it would have to undo that satisfactory ending and contrive an excuse to drag him back into being the Punisher. This season is exactly what I feared in that respect. It takes just a couple of episodes to establish that he can never stop being the Punisher, that it’s just what he is, and the rest of the season is just more of the same, erasing the previous season’s growth and just sticking him in a relentless status quo while the other characters get dragged down with him. At least it shows that what he does is nothing glorious or admirable, and engages the other characters in debates about the morality of his violence, but it still reverses what worked for me about the first season, all in the name of establishing a continuing status quo — which was rendered moot by the series’s cancellation, making it all even more nihilistic.
And after watching the whole arc of Floriana Lima’s character, I can’t help thinking, “She gave up being Maggie Sawyer for this?” On Supergirl, she played a solid, strong character in a great relationship with Alex Danvers, and maybe she thought this role offered more complexity or acting challenges, but ultimately Dumont was a rather pathetic character, codependent and misguided and a really lousy and unethical therapist. She wasn’t even charismatic enough to be an interesting villain, since she was pretty one-note throughout.
I agree the clerk at the payroll place was a high point of the season. She was the biggest hero in this one.
As for Billy/Jigsaw, I think the minimal scars were sort of the point — this was a guy who prided himself on his perfect face, so even minor scarring would be intolerably hideous to him. (I think there was a story in the comics that did that with Doctor Doom, and The New Batman Adventures did it with Calendar Girl.) The problem with that theory, though, is that there are times when other characters react to his scars as if they were more extensive than they are.
@26/BonHed: When Billy pulled himself out of that dumpster rather than just dying there, that’s when the show lost all credibility for me. He’d have to be Captain America to be that resilient.