Marvel's The Punisher Season 2 Review: Despite Complicated Plots, Jon Bernthal Steals the Show as Frank Castle

The Punisher Season 2

Cast: Jon Bernthal, Ben Barnes, Amber Rose Revah, Jason R. Moore

The Punisher is not your average run-of-the-mill hero running around the streets to find and solve petty crimes. He's a war veteran, someone who's whole ideology is to hit back and how when surrounded by doubts and confusions. The Punisher Season 2 sees our titular anti-hero grappling with his own sense of self. One of the story arcs this season is that of Frank Castle defining what The Punisher means to him.

Season 2 of The Punisher runs with two plots - there are remnants from the first season in the form of Billy Russo, who's on the verge of becoming Jigsaw, and then there's John Pilgrim, the mysterious and menacing Christian fundamentalist who wants some photographs from Amy Bendix. He has already killed off Fiona (Amy's employer) and the rest of Amy's friends who were involved in producing those pictures.

Frank is always watching his own back after the events of Season 1 and doesn't want anymore trouble (or does he?). Nine episodes into Season 2, after spending the previous night by the side of his deceased wife's grave, Frank has a realization, that he had become something different, that he was always The Punisher.

Jon Bernthal is perfect as Frank Castle and in my opinion, is the best live-action casting only rivaled by that of Daredevil's Matthew Murdock. Sadly though, we won't be seeing anymore of Daredevil on Netflix anytime soon and it's something we'll have to live with.

It wouldn't be wrong to say that Jon pulls the kind of confidence that is peculiar to the darkest MCU anti-hero. In one of the scenes, Amy asks him, “What if Billy kills you?” and he reassures her by saying, “No. I'm not the one that dies, kid. I'm the one that does the killing.”

The camaraderie between Frank and Amy develops over the episodes as she fills in the shoes of Micro from the first season, minus his technical expertise. The fact that Frank's daughter would have been around the same age as Amy if she were there is highlighted many times, which is why Amy goes on from meaning nothing to Frank to making him shed tears in the series.

Josh Stewart's portrayal of John Pilgrim is an impression of a man who is doing everything he can to protect his wife and kids. His screen time is filled with mysteries and godly overtones that gets deadly with every passing episode.

The other plot arc explores Billy Russo and his attempts to re-stitch his memory together. It's not just the physical scars on his face but the mental suffering that he goes through after the events of the last season. Seeing Billy in that state surely elicits sympathy from the audience, but we know how strong a character Jigsaw is through his comic book roots. However, Billy Russo remains fairly underdeveloped throughout the stretch of the season.

Since we have previously gone through the same ordeal of Frank figuring out and eliminating the person(s) responsible for the death of his wife and kids in Season 1, it is hardly a plot device anymore and is more of an arc for Billy as he ventures out in the wild to find what happened and why does he keep seeing the skull in his dreams.

Now, balancing these two different storylines throughout the season is a task in itself, but I feel that Season 2 is unable to stick to the points. In fact, the second plot of this season, the whole deal with John Pilgrim, the Schultz family and Amy with the photographs almost seem utterly blown out of proportion. It has a lot of things going on for itself and juggling everything often results in stretched out storylines that take forever to develop. It's about the same with characters such as Beth, Amy, Krista and David in addition to Billy, which remain severely underdeveloped.

It’s very tricky to balance out two plot points, but it seems like in an attempt to do the same, none of them could mature enough.

We know that except Jessica Jones and The Punisher, Netflix has done away with all the Netflix-MCU shows on its platform. The second season of The Punisher as such also marks a definitive send off, as in Frank has finally eliminated all his enemies and can now go on punishing people for their crimes. The Punisher is very much an MCU show with the exception of superpowers.

Having said that, should you watch the second season of The Punisher? Absolutely! Season 2 is as gripping as the first season, barring the diminishing storyline and underdeveloped characters. The action scenes, in particular, are extremely violent and gory which is something that one could look forward to while binge-watching the series. It's classic Frank Castle winding up the bad guys!

Rating: 3/5