Post — Aaron Ngo

Major Spoilers are included in this episode review. Please read with caution.

Finally got around to watching this second season, and overall, I’m really disappointed. Not going to lie, most of the season was a letdown. The characters were forgettable, the motives tended to get blurred, and how the writers approached Billy Russo’s arc in becoming Jigsaw was messy. In fact, I think they could’ve made him pushed him to the background to make more room for the antagonist Pilgrim and his quest to retrieve Amy, the new character / sidekick to Frank’s Punisher.

Let’s talk about the positive… which is pretty much the first three episodes. The structure was not that bad when it came to Frank’s action-packed journey to protect Amy, known as Rachel during this arc, from all the assassins trying to kill her. The season opens with Frank trying to live a normal life, constantly traveling, until he meets a woman and her kid. He grew attached, made love, and considered settling down with her.

Then, Amy rolled in with her drama, and immediately, Frank reverts to his violent behavior. He jumps to protect her and pummels the assassins in a violent bathroom fight scene. I was in awe on how this was structured, and how Frank used full force to subdue them all. This was a strong beginning to the season, but when they returned to New York City after the three episode arc, everything went to shit.

We were quickly reminded of what Frank left behind, and how he became involved with Billy Russo, while at the same time, he had to deal with the Pilgrim and every other assassin coming for Amy. I thought the disconnect between the two storylines was too large, and in the end, they didn’t intersect, which made the entire season crumble.

Billy Russo’s arc was a mess. First, his face was somewhat decent. I expected it to be unrecoverable based on what Frank did to him. I guess, the show was aiming for a mental Jigsaw rather than a physical one, and ended up missing. His relationship with therapist, Krista Durmont, was somewhat predictable. He ended up twisting her to embrace her own dark past, similar to a Joker-Harley situation.

Frank was the only consistent character throughout the entire season. Whatever dumb situation he was put in, he handled it with violence but made sure to commit to his code of only killing the evil. The short moment of crisis when he believed he broke that code was well-done, and made the return of Karen Page seem more natural than forced.

Overall, I would just watch the first three episodes of The Punisher. It had the right amount of tropes to classify it more like an action movie.

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