Ever since Jon Bernthal’s take on Frank Castle made his debut in the Netflix corner of the MCU (though how much longer that corner maintains that identification remains to be seen), he has served as the best the franchise has to offer. Something about the pairing of The Punisher character with the essence of what makes for a great Netflix drama just works. And the show’s second season continues in that tradition.
With the mystery of his family’s assassination wrapped up in a nice, neat bow at the end of last season, Frank has hit the road in search of peace. But, for a man like him, that’s simply an unattainable goal and, soon enough, he finds himself wrapped up in a whole new mess of trouble he needs to dig his way out of… in blood.
This season of Punisher is a perfect example of what happens when you pay true honor to the source material you’re adapting. While there are season one threads that certainly bleed into this one, none of them are done so in a way so as to say “this is a continuation of the last story.” No, season two is a whole new Frank Castle adventure and all the better for it.
From a solid beginning to one of the best homages to Assault on Precinct 13 made in quite some time, The Punisher is bringing a serious A-game to its latest go around the block.
The only negative thing to be said for the new season, though one would argue if this could really be considered a negative, it’s that there isn’t much growth taking place on the part of Castle’s character.
Where every other Marvel series on Netflix has worked to expand the essence of the main character, the person Frank was at the end of season one is the person he remains to be in season two. The reason the negativity of this aspect is debatable in this case is because, sometimes, all you ever want out of a TV series is some semblance of consistency, and Punisher brings that in spades.
Overall, Punisher season two is more of the same from season one. But, since that same was already great, it’s hard to make a case against rocking the boat unnecessarily. The show is fully formed and Bernthal simply takes the wind out of the sail of any of his fellow Defenders. It doesn’t get more straight forward than that.
Marvel's The Punisher premieres Friday, January 18th on Netflix
