Ryan Kirksey
The following recap contains spoilers for The Punisher: One Last Kill special presentation (written by Jon Bernthal and Reinaldo Marcus Green and directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green). Spoilers also include some information from Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 and Season 2.
It’s been over seven years since we have seen Jon Bernthal’s Punisher (aka Frank Castle) in a starring role on television. After two successful Netflix seasons as the revenge-minded antihero, The Punisher was cancelled and was never brought back to life amidst the transition of the Netflix Marvel properties over to Disney+ and the MCU. Punisher showed up for a couple of brief appearances in the first season of Daredevil: Born Again, but has largely been absent from the reworked MCU until Tuesday’s release of the MCU Special Presentation of The Punisher: One Last Kill.
While there are a lot of reasons for his absence, part of the reason Punisher has been MIA was that Jon Bernthal didn’t always agree with the direction Disney was taking the character. In fact, he left Season 1 of Daredevil: Born Again because he didn’t agree with the story or the writing. It wasn’t until Disney brought in Dario Scardapane (former showrunner for The Punisher) to be the Daredevil showrunner that Bernthal agreed to return.
Bernthal—and he is right about this—has very specific ideas about who The Punisher should be on screen. After much research, he understands how troubled he is, how violent he is, and how conflicted he is in what he does. Any dilution of that doesn’t do the character justice, Bernthal believes, which is why he just did a “toe dip” in Daredevil: Born Again to see where the character would go.
Satisfied with how those episodes went, and particularly in the famous verbal confrontation between Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and Punisher, Bernthal got to work on what he thought would be the seminal exploration of just how troubled Frank Castle/Punisher is. The result is another masterpiece of single-shot storytelling from Marvel Studios in The Punisher: One Last Kill.
At the end of Season 1 of Daredevil: Born Again, Frank Castle was imprisoned by the Anti-Vigilante Task Force that idolize him and wear his symbol on their uniforms. Unimpressed with these “clowns,” Castle escapes, and his whereabouts are unknown until we pick back up during One Last Kill.
At roughly the same time as the events of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, we find Castle living in a housing complex near Little Sicily in Harlem. It’s an area that has devolved into lawlessness and chaos, partly because of Mayor Fisk’s (Vincent D’Onofrio) laws, but also because the crime family, the Gnuccis, have recently all been killed. Without the organized crime in the area, everything has gone to hell.
We are made to understand that the Gnucci family (the patriarch and four of his sons) were the last remaining thread the Punisher needed to pull to enact revenge for his family, who were gunned down years ago. Punisher has spent most of his waking hours trying to kill everyone involved, and it finally seems like he has completed the gruesome task.
But with that job done, the show really starts to get interesting. Frank Castle, all of a sudden, has no purpose or direction. He has no one left to kill, no commanding officer to give him orders, and no purpose as far as he can tell.
This special episode does an amazing job depicting the post-traumatic stress disorder that so many soldiers are diagnosed with. Without a plan in front of him, Castle begins to hallucinate, relive the horrific parts of his past, and see the walls start to close in on him. He sees visions of his military partner, Curtis (Jason R. Moore). He imagines that Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) visits his apartment and the two share an intimate moment. But more than anything, he sees his fellow soldiers in moments of violence, torture, and manipulation.
Castle decides to lock up everything he has related to The Punisher, bury the key at his family’s gravesite, and end his own life. As he walks to the cemetery, he passes all kinds of violence and criminal activity on the street. In a stark contrast to Daredevil, Castle just keeps on walking, with the understanding that none of that is his business or his job to help. His business was killing gangsters and military that shot his family, and that mission is over.
Before he can pull the trigger, Castle is greeted by some kind of vision of his daughter Lisa (Addie Bernthal, Jon’s real-life daughter), which prolongs Castle wanting to take his own life. Will Lisa help him find a new purpose in life? We will soon find out.
In fact, we only have to wait until Castle is walking back to his complex to find out what Castle will have to tackle next. He is approached by Ma Gnucci, the wife and mother of the men who were recently slain. She recalls that her youngest son was killed violently at 6:47 PM, so she has developed a plan to release Castle’s location to every thug, bounty hunter, and criminal at 6:47 that evening.
That evening at precisely the stated time, a small army of thugs takes over the building, looking for Castle. They begin attacking the innocent residents and set fire to Castle’s apartment, which finally prompts Castle to react. He begins relentlessly killing, injuring, and brutally attacking those in his building who want to kill him. Using every weapon from a machine gun to a writing pen, Castle violently dispenses with anyone who tries to take him on.
He fights his way to the roof and is forced to jump off after the number looking for him there becomes too many. Castle is hurt, but safe, and sees two things simultaneously where he must choose where to go. In one direction is Ma Gnucci fleeing, clearly seeing that her efforts to kill Castle were unsuccessful. In the other direction is a bodega, owned by a neighborhood man with a young daughter, that is under attack.
Frank Castle must make a choice of how to use not only his time, but also how to use his vast resources and experience. With memories of his daughter reminding him of the girl in the bodega, Castle charges towards the young men who are attacking them and horrifically murders them all. It may have just been for a short period of time, but Castle finally chose to protect the innocent and the helpless against lawlessness instead of focusing on his own revenge killing spree.
The young girl, Charli (Mila Jaymes), gifts Castle a paper red rose. He takes this back to the grave of his dead daughter and tells her that the Punisher needs to stay around for a while, because he still has work to do. The final shot of the episode shows what kind of work that is. Punisher has donned the classic black and white skull vest and reacquired all his weapons. He begins patrolling the streets, ready to eliminate anyone who preys on the helpless (including a young punk who killed the dog of a Marine and stole his hat).
The fact that Punisher is about to start doing some of that “hero shit” he told Daredevil he didn’t have time for is an interesting development for this character. The Punisher has always been conflicted about getting involved in other business outside his own, but he seems to finally be starting to see that his form of justice might be able to help restore order in a desolate place like Little Sicily. He can still be the violent, fearful symbol that everyone knows, while helping others at the same time.
Where Punishes goes next, however, might be the most interesting. We are only two months away from the Spider-Man: Brand New Day film, which co-stars Bernthal as Punisher. He is seen prominently in the trailer that’s been released, and we see him in his standard Punisher gear, now understanding the path that got him there. But Spider-Man movies and this Punisher special are very, very different properties.
Will we get a popcorn version of Frank Castle this summer, and more of the real, gritty Punisher in future features? I can’t see Punisher slicing faces in half with an axe in a four-quadrant movie this summer as he did with frequency in this special. But perhaps this just fits right in with Frank Castle and the Punisher after all. Always torn, always conflicted, always trying to decide the best thing to do.
Let me be clear, the best thing to do is to have more Punisher in the MCU, and the best thing to do is also to continue to feature the One Last Kill version of Punisher. It’s the latest in a series of MCU special presentations that is quickly developing a long list of successes.
