So the last time we saw Frank Castle, he was escaping capture from Wilson Fisk’s AVTF, terrorizing Daredevil and many others in New York City. Castle was dealing with the fact that these goon police officers were inspired by him and using his symbol to hurt people, innocent people, and others who fight to protect the innocent. As Frank doesn’t see his mission as something to aspire to and not something to emulate, especially for the wrong reasons, he dealt with many the way he knows how – through killing. Out in the wind, we don’t see Frank in season two of Daredevil: Born Again, even as his name looms large within the events of that series. We know he’s not gone, as he’s going to be in Spider-Man: Brand New Day this summer, so the question we’re asking is, well, where is Frank Castle?
In this Marvel Special Presentation, The Punisher: One Last Kill, we find Frank Castle struggling mentally with where he is in the world. The ghosts of the members of his Marine Unit and his dead family haunt his waking hours. As it seems he’s done killing all the people connected to his family’s murder, Castle questions his place in the world. This part of the special is where we get to see Jon Bernthal at his best, pulling in all the raw emotion his performances are known for. There is so much pain and confusion in the scenes where we see Frank alone and dealing with these ghosts. Humanizing Frank in ways he never has in the comics, and I’ve read a lot of Punisher comics.
This special, written by Jon Bernthal and Reinaldo Marcus Green and directed by Marcus Green, is inspired in some parts by the classic Punisher comic storyline Welcome Back, Frank. Punisher: One Last Kill is something completely different. The two who previously worked on the amazing We Own This City on HBO have a great relationship in working together, and surprisingly, on this character. While the special might start slower than one might expect, once it does ramp up, it’s on ten, and it becomes the most brutal thing they’ve ever done for a MCU entry. I thought they were doing stuff in Daredevil, but nope, y’all they our guy Frank here is catching bodies like he’s in a Contra level.
Sherin says THE PUNISHER: ONE LAST KILL: “Evokes John Wick, The Raid, and Spawn in a slaughterhouse blood bath that propels Frank Castle towards a reason to live again—with violence and sensitivity. And I love that for him.”
Once we get to the scene with Judith Light, the tone of the special changes. What Frank has to do will feel like The Raid and elements of John Wick for the audience, while it also feels like stuff you’d see in a Punisher comic in the early 90s. There is some great visceral and brutal action here. Seeing Frank go through faceless guy after faceless guy never gets boring. His picking up weapons as he goes gave me memories of playing the Capcom Punisher beat’em up game. Bernthal uses these great guttural and primal-sounding grunts to demolish these people as he moves through a New York City project building to the point where you don’t want that sequence to end.
There aren’t a lot of supporting characters in this that exist outside of his head, but it’s great to see Andre Royo, best known as Bubbles in The Wire, play a pretty important small character in this that pays off well. The setting of Little Italy in the Bronx is also a surprising choice. These areas of New York aren’t really shown much, and while the MCU has been there before with Spidey being in Queens, it was a nice surprise seeing a different setting while still being where you expect a Marvel story to be. While the location they chose is small, with just a project building, main street, and stores around it, it adds to a more lived-in and darker feel of this show. The atmosphere, tone, and action of the special might feel a bit different than what you’d expect from the MCU, but this, for me, makes it feel closer to how comics feel, especially with how the character of Frank Castle sits within it.
With its under an hour runtime and no resolution to this story presented here, it might be frustrating for some viewers. While I was taken aback a bit when it ended, I was not frustrated but excited to see what comes next. This episode could feel like a pilot for a show we might not get, but for me, Punisher: One Last Kill is a relaunch much like the comic series that inspired it. It’s a concise, well-acted, and directed piece of work, and it makes Frank Castle one of the most realized characters in the whole MCU. More Punisher, please, and hopefully with Berthal and Marcus Green together.
Rating: A
Level of Enthusiasm: 100%
