#how were they perfectly characterised and their personality fully developed with like 3 minutes of screen time and no dialogue

[rogerrrroger]

Two of my favourite Blu’s from the Pootis s2 premiere!! I absolutely love the blu teams designs and differences, amazing job quazies 😁

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

The Punisher season 2 review

The Punisher season 2 was released 18 January and since I’ve finally finished watching it I thought I’d share my thoughts about the season. 

First of all, I should say that I’m new to The Punisher, and watched both seasons within a week of each other, so there’ll some mentions/comparisons between the two seasons since they’re both fresh in my mind. This will also be a critical review (it’s not very positive towards Billy Russo, Krista Dumont, Amy Bendix and a teeny bit negative about Kastle - more about the way they were written than the ship itself) that analyses the writing of the characters and plots.

On a whole The Punisher is inconsistent across both its seasons. It has brilliant, compelling episodes that have you on the edge of your seat, laughing and crying all within the space of 50 minutes, but likewise there are some episodes that lack in substance, are slow paced and not very engaging. Season 2 is no exception to that. Whilst the first episode of the season started out strong (it was by far one of my favourites of the season) and the finale was equally strong, the episodes in between were a very mixed bag. So I thought I’d sum up what I liked and didn’t like about the season, like a pros and cons list of sorts. 

What I liked about season 2: 

JON FREAKIN’ BERNTHAL - This man is a God. I cannot praise his performance of Frank enough. He devotes every piece of his heart and soul to being Frank Castle (this is a man who does all of his own stunts and broke his hand on one of the first days of filming season 2 whilst doing a stunt, but was so dedicated that he continued performing stunts with a mangled hand because he didn’t want to stop working) and it really shows. His on-screen presence is magnificent, he’s captivating, exhilarating and captures the rage, brutality, vulnerability, grief, empathy and hopelessness that’s inside Frank. Frank’s character and Jon’s performance is what holds the show together and makes it what it is. I’m not ashamed to admit that he’s 99% of the reason that I continued watching until the end of season 2 and he deserves to win all of the awards for his memorable performance. (Unfortunately, Jon has been held back by not-so-good writing which prevents him from going even further with in the role, which I’ll discuss more later).

The first episode of the season - I’ve seen mixed opinions about the first episode of season 2 ‘Roadhouse Blues’, but I loved it. It was the perfect place to pick up after where we left Frank in season 1. His main mission - to kill the men responsible for the deaths of his family - was complete and he was faced with the prospect of trying to rebuild his life in the absence of a war. It was good to see Frank just be Frank for five minutes, have a drink in a bar, listen to a band play and flirt with a pretty woman. This episode felt like fantastic character development to me, because Frank spent the entirety of season 1 consumed with war and the season ended with the realisation that he needed to try and start moving forward from that and begin the healing process. Beth was clearly not going to be a serious love interest, she was simply a nice person who Frank connected with and with whom he could ease the loneliness that plagues him. It would be detrimental to Frank’s characterisation to deprive him of this kind of intimacy, because it’s part of what prevents him from being happy - his inability to let anyone get close to him, particularly in a romantic/sexual context, because of his intense love for Maria and fear of harm coming to anyone that gets close to him. It was also nice to see Frank interact with Beth’s son because Frank comes to life whenever he’s around kids. It really serves as a reminder as to how much of a brilliant father it was and how heartbreaking it is that he will never have a chance to have that interaction with his own children. But of course, there was sprinklings of the big bad Punisher. The introduction of Amy, and Frank’s rampage in saving her life, contradicted the development Frank seemed to be going through in the rest of the episode, but was very fitting. Beth getting hurt confirmed Frank’s fears that anybody that gets close to him is in danger, but we all knew that he couldn’t just give up his lifestyle as the Punisher because that’s come to be his purpose and driving force in life. Like Amy said, it was like he was looking for an excuse to swoop in, save the day and embark on another war. It might have been nice for Frank to have some normality for a while, but he still wasn’t ready to truly move forward from being the Punisher. Overall, this episode was great and a very strong start to the season. It also perfectly demonstrated a key theme of The Punisher - the internal war inside Frank about whether he should fully embrace being the Punisher or give it up. 

Frank and Madani’s friendship - I loved seeing the evolving dynamic between Frank and Madani. Whilst they were kind of allies in season 1, this season built upon that a lot and created a very endearing friendship between two unlikely characters. The traumas they faced with Billy bonded them and it was fascinating to see Madani’s character development in trying to navigate her loyalties to her job and Frank. Madani’s a very moral character who strongly believes in justice, and aiding Frank both affirms those beliefs and contradicts them. On the one hand, Frank’s moral code is very similar to Madani’s except that he operates outside the boundaries of the law, but on the other, there’s no escaping that Frank’s a criminal. I enjoyed seeing how fiercely she defended Frank and that she never even doubted Frank when it came to the murder of those three women. She knew immediately that Frank wouldn’t have done that and it was a testament to how well she has come to know him and how much she believes in what he does. If there’s a season 3, I hope to see more of their friendship. 

Curtis/Frank and Curtis’ friendship - Curtis is a great character who balances out the brutality and darkness of the other characters. He has a pure heart and good intentions, and it was wonderful to see more of him in season 2. His friendship with Frank was a particularly important facet of the season (as it was in season 1), because Curt felt like the only true friendship and connection that Frank had. Although he also had Madani and Amy, Curt was the only one who he has a long history with and their interactions showed that depth of history and bond that they share. It’s a shame we didn’t get to know more about Curtis as a character e.g. more about his back-story and personal experiences, but I enjoyed seeing so much of him in season 2. 

Action scenes - Season 2 definitely wasn’t as brutal as season 1, but there were still some great action scenes in there that make The Punisher what it is. Although the action isn’t the primary reason I watch (I know it is for a lot of people, particularly male fans), the show wouldn’t be what it is without the violence. Jon commitment to doing all of his own stunts only improves the action scenes since we can physically see that Frank is fighting (unlike BTVS where I’m taken out of the moment of a fight by the vision of some random stunt woman in SMG’s place). Also, this is slightly off topic but if Frank were a real live man, he would be completely dead. How could any man receive the brutal beatings he does and survive, let alone be well enough to go back out the next day and get into another fight?

I wanted to find pick out more aspects of season 2 that I enjoyed, but unfortunately, I couldn’t. The shipper in me loved the scenes we got between Frank and Karen in 2x11 ‘The Abyss’ and were everything I wanted to see, but I was unable to fully enjoy them because the way in which they were written felt like fan-service. Karen was absent from the entirety of season 2 (she was only mentioned once in the first episode by Frank) and as far as we were aware Frank had had no communication with her since the events of 1x10 ‘Virtue of the Vicious’ which I assume was a few months before the start of season 2. So to bring Karen in like that for one episode and have those very intense scenes with Frank felt...out of place. Plus, she disappeared again immediately afterwards without even another mention. I know this issue was likely because of Deborah’s commitments to filming The Defenders at the same time that season 2 was being filmed, but even if Deborah couldn’t physically feature on episodes, Karen could’ve been more present on the show through references from Frank, whether that was simply talking about her in general conversation or mentioning that he’d been in touch with her (or even a two minute phone call where Deborah wouldn’t necessarily had to of been on-screen) and then her appearance wouldn’t have felt quite so sudden. 

What I disliked about season 2:

The wacky timeline - Season 1 had a decent amount of flashbacks, but the timeline of season 2 felt incredibly disjointed and seemed to jump back and fourth incoherently. This was a particular problem with Billy whose flashbacks and timelines didn’t seem to fit with the events of the rest of the show. 

The pacing - It’s true that season 1 suffered from pacing issues (largely because the plots that are created on the show aren’t enough to maintain 13 50 minute episodes of television), but season 2 suffered from bad pacing on a grander scale. Some of the episodes felt like they were entirely made up of filler and there were plenty of times where I was on my phone or laptop whilst watching and still didn’t miss much of anything. 

The main plot(s) - I know I’m not the only one that struggled, but I just didn’t even follow the plot this season. Once again this comes back to the lack of coherence overall. The Pilgrim plot seemed to be thrown in haphazardly alongside the Billy-Krista plot and there was no connection between the two. Although it’s common for shows to have an overarching plot and then one or two smaller sub-plots, the way the plots were executed just didn’t work. One moment the emphasis was almost entirely on Billy and the next it was on Pilgrim. Episode 10 ‘The Dark Hearts of Men’ really emphasised this issue. The primary focus was on Frank and Curt staking out Russo’s hideout, and so the scenes with Pilgrim spinning off the deep end with alcohol and drugs felt completely irrelevant and disjointed. The scenes between Madani and Krista were important to revealing Billy’s plans, but they also felt disjointed, particularly since it was unclear those scenes were a flashback until the very end of the episode. This kind of incoherence was really one of the main issues I had with season 2 overall.

Krista Dumont - I really didn’t like Krista’s character or the part she played in the season. She was unlikeable, she had way too much focus for a new character and the manipulative psychologist trope is so cliche. I’d like to believe that someone so obviously corrupt and unstable as Krista wouldn’t be granted access to vulnerable people like Billy. Billy was lost and broken at the start of the season, he didn’t know where to turn and Krista used her influence over him to push him over to the dark side. One might argue Billy would have gone over to the dark side anyway since that’s the nature of his character, but nonetheless Krista was still a huge influence on Billy. Her relationship with Billy was cringey and unappealing. Billy’s arc would’ve been so much better if she hadn’t of been a part of it. Any attempts to make her sympathetic through her relationship with Billy, her scars or her phobias of heights/windows completely failed, yet the writing didn’t go far enough to portray her as a villain. Overall, she was a very unwelcome addition to the season and I’m sure I’m not the only one that was just waiting for her to disappear from the screen each time she came on. 

Billy’s arc - Billy was an interesting character, a great villain and I loved his arc in season 1, but in season 2 it was awful. It felt like Billy’s story had already run its course in season 1 (I think it would’ve been more fitting if Frank had killed him at the end of season 1) and the result was that his entire arc was very repetitive and dull. Whilst I appreciate the shows exploration of mental health (which it does better than many shows I’ve watched), it was boring to watch endless scenes of Billy chatting with Krista. In addition, his facial disfigurement wasn’t severe enough or explored enough. The purpose of Frank mashing his face into the mirror was to take away his beauty, destroy his self-image, give an external visual of his internal ugliness and serve as a reminder of the awful betrayal he committed against Frank and his family. Unfortunately, by wiping Billy’s memories that impact was completely lost and too much time was wasted trying to help Billy retrieve his memories rather than exploring the complex issues of his psyche. His arc also seemed to jump all over the place. I’ve already mentioned the continuity issues with the timeline, but his motivations were also incredibly spotty. He got out of hospital and the first thing he did was kill the man that abused him as a child but why? Since he couldn’t remember the events of season 1 he was no longer out to get Frank, but it still didn’t make sense that he would revert to wanting to kill that man. Presumably he had years to do that, why now? Then he suddenly recruited a bunch of veterans and convinced them it was a good idea to go around the city committing acts of mindless violence and crime. Why? When he found out Frank was the one responsible for nearly killing him his motives switched to wanting to destroy Frank, which was understandable and his method of doing that (making Frank think he’d killed three innocent women) was very effective. Unfortunately, Billy’s characterisation and arc was so jumpy that it lacked any real impact. When Frank finally killed him in the final episode all I felt was relief that he was gone. And not because he was a villain or because of the awful things he’d done, but because I was so bored of him. Billy had the potential to be a fantastically complex villain but it felt like Lightwood didn’t know what to do with him in season 2 so just had him lurch from one villainous thing to another (often with no real reason) whilst simultaneously trying to paint him as a sympathetic victim. Unfortunately, the writing failed to really make Billy either of these things and I grew very tired of him by the end of the second episode. I also found Ben Barnes acting to be a little iffy this season. I saw someone comment that he ‘over-acted’ a lot, and I’d be inclined to agree. 

Amy’s character/arc - Before watching the season I saw a lot of edits of Amy and Frank/Amy and was looking forward to the new dynamic she was going to bring to the show, but I was really disappointed. As a character, Amy felt underdeveloped, stale and for the most part unsympathetic. Although one of the main plots of the season was focused on her I wasn’t invested in her enough to care and she was way too passive within her own plot. For the majority of the season it felt like she was hanging around for Frank rather than actively being involved in the events that were unfolding. Although she was technically an ‘innocent’ young girl, she didn’t feel worth the time or effort that Frank (and others) invested in saving her. We know that Frank is concerned about the well-being of innocents (particularly women and children because they represent Maria and his kids), but I didn’t understand why Frank was so invested in Amy. That’s largely because her relationship with Frank felt...meh to me (which is no affornt to Giorga’s acting or her chemistry with Jon, it’s more about the writing). I understand exactly what their relationship was supposed to be -  a connection to Frank’s daughter and an opportunity for him to bond as a father with a young girl who would’ve been Lisa’s age - but it didn’t work for me. I didn’t see the development of their relationship, it just felt like they went from being strangers who gave each other false names to friends over night. There were a few scenes between them that were adorable (I particularly loved the one where they were playing 3 card brag and Frank was getting frustrated because he sucked so much at it haha), but overall the relationship was lacklustre and therefore I wasn’t invested in it, Amy or her arc. 

The lack of focus on Frank - Frank Castle is the heart and soul of The Punisher because he is the Punisher. The show has a strong cast but Jon Bernthal’s is the star of the show and without a doubt the best aspect of The Punisher. I can’t speak for everyone that watches the show but my guess is that a majority of people watch for Frank. We love him and he’s the one we’re most invested in. Unfortunately, in comparison to season 1, season 2 seemed to take a big step back from Frank. In fact, it felt like we saw more of Billy than Frank. Even Krista seemed to get nearly as much screen time as Frank despite being a brand new character. The confrontation with Billy was really the only part of this season that felt like it was about Frank, but even that was more focused on Billy than Frank. Everything about Frank this season was directly tied to others - particularly Billy and Amy - and it felt like he was propelling everybody else’s arcs forward rather than having his own. As the main character, that’s definitely not what Frank’s purpose should be. He’s the leading man and the plots should be built around him with the supporting characters supporting him (the clue is in the title lol) and propelling his arc forward. In season 1, I feel like he had a fantastic journey and brilliant character development, but not so much in season 2. If the show is cancelled and season 2 is the last season it’s so sad to see Frank still living his life as the Punisher having not truly found closure or happiness. Some may think it was a fitting ending because the show is titled The Punisher after all, and they believe Frank cannot be ‘saved’ or ‘redeemed’ or find any alternative other than living as the Punisher, but personally, I see the show as being about Frank Castle, the man, as much as it’s about The Punisher, the anti-hero. This is a complex issue about Frank’s character, because everyone has different interpretations of what/who his character should be, but personally I believe that the core of Frank’s arc should be about his humanity, so it was disappointing to see the way the season ended. (As a side note, I’m currently in the process of writing an in-depth analysis of Frank’s character, so keep your eyes peeled if that’s of interest to you). The show should really make full use of Frank/Jon (which it did in season 1), because Jon’s fantastic acting has the ability to disguise some of the bigger issues with the writing from view. I know that I spent the entirety of season 2 glued to my screen whenever Frank was on and the second Billy, Krista or Pilgrim appeared on-screen my attention slowly waned and my phone found its way into my hands. 

Overall, I don’t think season 2 was as strong as season 1 (’Home’ is above and beyond any season 2 episode) and it definitely wasn’t a strong enough season for Netflix to want to renew it for a third season (although I still think there’s a possibility it might return, but perhaps I’m being optimistic). However, Jon is a fantastically talented actor who still has so much to give, the show has a lot of potential and there’s still a lot of interesting stories that could develop if there is  a third season. The show definitely hasn’t reached its full potential and therefore, it would be incredibly sad to see it cancelled. With a few tweaks to the writing, more attention to detail and focus on fleshing out the characters and plots, The Punisher could be amazing. Plus, who doesn’t want to see Jon Bernthal return to our screens as Frank Castle? I know that I certainly do. 

Overall rating: 6/10

(For reference, this review really sums up a lot of my thoughts on the season.)