So the Marvel Netflix world seems to be slowly dying, and I’m just waiting for the announcement
of the cancellation of Punisher any time now.
But before it went we got one more season of Frank Castle’s story, and now that I’ve
finally finished it, let’s talk about The Punisher season 2.
*clip* And spoilers for Punisher season 2 and season
1 and Daredevil season 3, spoilers for everything, you’ve been warned.
So if you recall, I really loved Punisher season 1.
No it wasn’t perfect but it was well acted, had some great action, interesting characters,
and was well paced.
Well, for most of it.
And did season 2 live up to that level of quality.
Yeah, it did.
I think this is close to the first season for me in terms of how much I enjoyed it,
for different reasons, but it’s a really great but not perfect season of television.
Starting off with something that I think these Marvel Netflix shows have mostly excelled
at, casting and performances, Jon Bernthal returns as Frank Castle and I honestly think
he’s up there with Charlie Cox’s Daredevil as perfect casting choices.
And if you’ll recall I said Charlie Cox’s Daredevil was up there with Robert Downey
Jr as Tony Stark, so yes, I am saying that I think Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle is one
of the best comic book casting choices ever.
I know this character has been played by other actors but honestly I can’t imagine this
character not being played by Bernthal now.
Not only is his performance amazing, but the character is also amazing in this as well,
and I think might even have a more interesting arc than he did in season 1.
I mean maybe this is cuz I haven’t seen Punisher season 1 since it came out, but honestly
I can’t remember anything in that first season that stuck with me as much as some
of the emotional moments Frank has in this season did.
When he goes to visit his family’s graves, his whole relationship with that woman in
the first episode, when he’s talking to Karen in the hospital, his goodbye to Amy
and really his whole dynamic with Amy, I thought all of that was excellently done.
Of course he’s still you know the super tough badass that you want him to be, but
they actually give him quite a lot of depth and question his morality and methods and
it’s just a really interesting character brought to life by a very compelling performance.
The rotten tomatoes critics consensus thing calling this an underwhelming portrayal of
the charismatic Frank Castle, I couldn’t disagree with it more.
On that note, Giorgia Whigham as Amy I also thought was pretty good, initially I was like,
ohh I can imagine this character getting very annoying quite quickly, but she didn't for
me.
I really liked the dynamic her and Frank had of her being kind of like the daughter he
lost and their goodbye at the end honestly almost made me tear up.
The rest of the supporting cast is as great as it was last time around, Amber Rose Revah
is fantastic as Madani, I liked Jason Moore a lot as Curtis this season, he gets more
fleshed out and I won’t say more to do than in the first season cuz again haven’t seen
it in a while so can’t really remember, but point is I like where they went with his
character here.
Little bummed that micro didn't come back but storywise, I understand why they didn't
do that.
Then as far as the villains, Ben Barnes is back as Billy Russo and….I’m a little
torn on him as the villain here.
And not just because of the makeup which yeah, if I’m being honest, he probably should
look more messed up than that.
Like by a lot, but that’s not why.
On one hand I think Ben Barnes gives a really great performance and I thought it was an
interesting and pretty unique villain conflict, a villain who used to be best friends with
the hero and betrayed him, but now has memory loss and thinks they’re best friends again,
and essentially is a different person.
It’s very specific but that’s what it makes it more unique, and I found that part
interesting of, it’s kind of hard to kill him because he still sees you as his best
friend.
However, the part that I was less into was the more crazy part of him, and maybe that’s
accurate to Jigsaw in the comics, I don’t know, but in this, sometimes it just felt
like generic bad guy moments where he’s talking normally and then he just starts screaming
and punching things.
I get that he’s pretty crazy now and that’s what makes him dangerous, but I found him
less threatening and compelling of a villain than he was in season 1, when he was so manipulative
and smart and pretended to be friends with these people and it just made the bad stuff
he did all the more evil and him as a character all the more terrifying.
But overall, I did enjoy Ben Barnes’ performance, even if I didn't love everything about the
character.
I also thought Floriana Lima was good as Dumont, although her whole plot line with Russo was
pretty predictable from quite early on.
Doesn't make it bad, but for most of it I was like, yeah I know exactly where this is
going.
And finally there’s Josh Stewart as Pilgrim, who as far as Marvel Netflix villains go,
I’d say he’s about in the middle.
He gives a good performance and as it goes his character becomes more interesting, especially
towards the end, but he’s not as memorable of a villain as Kingpin or Kilgrave or Cottonmouth.
For the show in general really, I mean combining the great character stuff with the action
which we’ll talk about ina sec, it’s a very entertaining and well made season.
It never got boring and that’s not cuz the pacing is amazing or the story isn’t a bit
of amess which we’ll also talk about in a bit, but it’s because of these great characters
that it stays consistently interesting.
With tv shows there are like pretty awful shows, I can’t actually think of a great
example because I haven’t seen that much terrible tv, probably Inhumans, then there
are shows that are pretty good but I kind of have on in the background sometimes, this
is like Agents of SHIELD or Iron Fist season 2, and then there are the shows that are amazing
and I’m not just trying to get through you know kind of for the sake of finishing it,
I genuinely look forward to watching each new episode, and that’s like Daredevil or
Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad.
And I’d say this season of the Punisher definitely falls close to that top category,
I was pretty excited to watch each new episode.
Also in those categories, sitcoms like the Office and that kind of stuff have their whole
own category cuz that’s a different kind of show, but we’ll talk about that some
other time.
Now what most people think of when they hear Punisher is the action.
The brutal Punisher action, and it is certainly back here and it’s fantastic.
I don’t know if I could say it’s on the level of Daredevil, but it’s close, it’s
definitely on the same level of the action from the first season.
Well choreographed, well edited, well shot, and brutal as all hell.
I don’t know if there’s anything as brutal as the mirror scene or the Agent Orange beat
down from season 1, but a lot of stuff gets pretty close, so much so that I don’t think
I can show this on YouTube without getting demonetized.
And I know I say this a lot, but I really love it in fight scenes when the punches actually
look like they hit and hurt.
I know it sounds obvious, but there are some fight scenes where it’s very clear that
that punch did not connect at all or that sound effect was clearly added later, and
a well done actions cene makes you forget about that and not notice it, and there is
a lot of that here.
I will say there are a few gunfights that maybe go on for a little bit too long, one
in particular in episode 3, but for the most part, amazing stuff all around.
And there’s like an action scene almost every episode, so if you’re here for the
action, there is no shortage.
Now, as much as I enjoyed this season, there are some bad things about it, and first I’m
just gonna talk smaller things and kind of nitpicks before I get to the one really bad
thing that brings this season down overall a bit.
There is some bad acting from some very minor supporting roles, and by that I mean, just
characters that pop up once, for like one scene or something, but still there, there
was some terrible acting for some of those.
Occasionally there’s some really bad CGI blood.
Most of it looked good but one scene in particular I remember it standing out.
Speaking of which while most of the action is amazing, one or two action scenes weren’t,
namely the fight between Dinah and Dumont, there were quite a few hits in there that
didn't look like they hit at all.
And on that note, easily the worst moment in this show and one of the worst moments
in this entire Marvel Netflix world was Dumont’s fall out of that window.
It was just awful and cheesy from both a plot perspective and a visual perspective, cuz
plot wise it’s predictable and cheesy that after all of that build up she’d also end
up going out the window in that exact way, and visually, I mean, do I have to say anything?
Look at it.
I don’t know if their budget ran out or there were time constraints on making this
scene or something, but it came out….well, like this.
Also didn't love the ending.
I feel like if it ended on Frank’s goodbye to Amy that would’ve been a sweet and sad
way to end it.
But then it’s followed with this kind of goofy ending that I guess is cool but it also
doesn't really fit with the rest of the tone of the show.
That’s the thing with these Marvel Netflix shows, they’re mostly quite dark and realistic,
I mean, you know, relatively speaking, and then they’ll throw in something kinda goofy
and something that seems like it should be on one of the DC CW shows, which isn’t an
insult to those, it’s just they have incredibly different tones.
I felt the same way about this as I did that Poindexter reveal at the end of Daredevil
season 3.
And then, the biggest flaw in this season is definitely the messy story.
It’s….well a mess.
This feels like they had two things they wanted to do for season 2, the Billy Russo story
and the Pilgrim story, and so it seems like they just decided to take these two very different
stories and smash them together, very unnaturally and in a way that feels disjointed and awkward
a lot of the time.
It reminded me a bit of Daredevil season 2, where that feels like two separate seasons
in one season, first 4 episodes are about the Punisher, then it’s all about Elektra
and the Hand and then Punisher shows up again a bit towards the end.
Here though, it’s happening continuously throughout the whole season, and these two
plot threads never come together.
I mean they do in smaller ways, like when Frank has a bounty put on his head it's obviously
gonna affect everything going on around him, but it feels like two totally separate stories
happening at once and it just makes it feel a bit overcrowded.
There’s an episode where it really focuses on Billy Russo, and the next episode when
Pilgrim showed back up again I was like, oh yeah, he’s a character in this.
I had nearly forgotten that whole plot line.
I think this could have worked, having these two different plot lines going, but just mixing
them a little more I think would’ve gone a long way to make this season feel more cohesive
as a whole.
In the finale, there’s a part where Curtis brings out this senator and Mahoney’s like
does he have anything to do with Billy Russo and Curtis is like, nah.
It was just kind of hilariously showing exactly why this season feels kind of unnatural at
points.
I think another great example is Billy’s death, which I actually really liked just
as a scene, where Frank doesn't sit with him or listen to him or anything, just shoots
him and leaves, it’s totally in character for Frank.
But at this point in Frank’s story when there’s been all this going on with Pilgrim
and Amy, it feels kind of like an afterthought.
Not cuz it’s brief, but because the whole Frank and Russo story is quite a big part
of this season for the first part and then it sort of disappears towards the end until
this.
That’s why that scene felt kind of unsatisfying to me, not because of the scene itself or
what happens in it, that was great, but because of the lack of a lot of Frank Russo stuff
in the previous few episodes.
And there are also points in this story where it starts to feel a bit repetitive and like
they’re just kind of trying to kill time again with the same thing, especially towards
the middle, like there are quite a lot of scenes of Frank and Amy bond a bit and then
Amy disappears or Frank disappears and then they get mad at each other and then they talk
a bit and start to bond some more.
It’s not horrible or anything, but it happens just one too many times where I’ like, ok
this conflict is starting to feel a bit formulaic.
All in all the plot just feels unfocused at a lot of times.
So overall, Punisher season 2 isn’t the best season of Marvel Netflix but it’s still
really really good, and watching it genuinely made me kind of sad that we’re saying goodbye
to this corner of the MCU.
Hopefully not forever, cuz most of these shows have ranged from good to amazing, and this
is a really interesting and well developed world now with some fantastic characters,
and yeah, it kinda sucks we might not ever see it again after Jessica Jones season 3.
But anyway this season, yes it has some problems, the main one being the plot, or plots, but
overall it's very entertaining, well made, well acted, and I’d say mostly what you
would want from a season of the Punisher.
I’ll give it an 8.6/10.
So those were my thoughts on The Punisher season 2.
What did you think of it?
Let me know all of your thoughts down be low in the comments.
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Thanks for watching and I’ll see ya next time.