The Punisher Season 2: Are we ever moving on?

The Punisher Season 2 and the third Season of Jessica Jones were the only two seasons of the Netflix Marvel shows that I missed watching before the first season of Daredevil Born again ended, and man was that a total missed opportunity for me, or perhaps it was a helping hand for me to have more to write during season 2, guess we will never know.

Season 2 is of a higher quality than Season 1, and that means more eyes on both the episodes and the blog posts regarding it, so I guess that means it is better for me to do it here no?

Well I am glad I did somehow finish the second season of the Punisher, and I say somehow because the Punisher has a somewhat... now how do I put it, intensity to him?

Like in Season 1 episode 1, when a woman is getting ready to go down on a man and the punisher shoots him straight in the head with a sniper Rifle.

And Don't get me wrong, that is most definitely the Punisher and I am all here for it, but at the end of the day, it is a lot and considering exactly how much my life is always stuffed with nonsense, it is understandable why I found this second season a bit... overwhelming.

Specially because this is the last two steps and then I will be done with it all, and I guess a part of me is sad to see them go?

I don't know.

There is also the fact that this show does not wait to show it's violence, whereas in the first season it only got intense after a few episodes and the violence was much more spaced, here they just immediately jump into it.

But there is still a period of calm and peace for the Punisher, he saves the honor of the bartender from a piece of shit at the bar, and as a result the Bartender calls him home.

They find comfort in each other, both having come from bad relationships, her also being a Single mother.

But even as Pete Castiglione tries to escape this potential new future and fails, because the world is telling him to move on, trouble finds him.

Rachel... Oh I'm sorry Amy, is not only Pete's call to action to get back into the shit races and simultaneously a reminder of his past and his one chance to actually raise someone who would be around the same age as his daughter.

To be a father.

But obviously she isn't going to make it easy.

Given her line of work(collecting blackmail on people) and the fact that everyone of her friends in that same line of work is also dead.

There are very dangerous people after her, hired by one John Pilgrim.

Someone who even the ones who work for him find extremely creepy, and we as the audience are lead from the start to hate him as he hyper-focuses on certain aspects of Christianity and disregards the others to boost himself up and take what he wants.

And then he goes and threatens Beth and her son, who was the Punisher's first attempt to connect with someone after his ex wife.

But even then we see hints of something else, something different, something beneath all the pretention.

It was very clear from the beginning that this guy was using his religion as an excuse to not deal with his issues on a deeper level, and then we see his sick wife.

Even so we kind of kept writing him off as a probable generic villain, using all his woes to justify all the bullshit he is peddling, think...

Something along the lines of Stickland from the Shape of Water.

No I am not putting the sex scene here just to make a point, go to Pornhub you perverts.

But maybe that's not true...

We will get to that later though, currently there is Amy to talk about.

Like I said, her line of work is gathering blackmail, and she is essentially, a con artist.

And so obviously the moment the Punisher steps in and saves her, she wants to escape.

She doesn't believe anyone and doesn't believe she can and as a result she believes she must always survive on her own.

Except when it comes to her friend Shantel...

Too bad that didn't pan out...

But Shantel doesn't know that her bestie isn't friends with Fiona anymore, she's friends with the Punisher, and that is a Dad that teaches you to unload a shotgun into someone before opening the door just for safety's sake.

Regardless, that comes a lot later, for now Amy doesn't trust the man who saved her from her would be killers, going as far as to take a bullet straight in his ass.

I mean... in her defense... he did make her fish it out as well.

The Punisher however realizes that this girl is not thinking straight and letting her escape is only going to put her in Danger, and unfortunately, Pete... I mean Frank isn't going to let that just happen now is he?

I mean I guess at this point he already sees a surrogate daughter in her and he just cannot leave things alone now can he?

Not one of his Virtues.

So what other choice does he have but to Tie Amy up to a bed an leave her struggling there while he sleeps....

Wait What?

Oh yes, and then also a piece of tape on her mouth because she threatens screaming up a storm.

And all this is a great set up for a story but... if only...

You see come last season's end, Frank had the chance to just shoot Billy in the skull but this skull wearing gentleman decided against it, instead he bashed his former bestfriend's face into a mirror again and again on level with the skull on his chest so that it would haunt him forever.

And I guess in a way it did, because after the last season Billy is completely fucked, he wears a mask to cover his face, he has lost all his memories and whatever he remembers he remembers in pieces.

But the Skull haunts him properly.

Jigsaw is a Comic book Villain who has a personal beef with the Punisher, he was known as "the Beaut" pre disfigurement, and like his face, his memories are also broken and all over the place, a Jigsaw in his face and in his memories.

And he is also Billy Russo.

So what happens to him?

Well he has multiple therapy sessions with one Dumont, who believes he can be saved, then lets him stay with her and then starts a relationship, but also him and some of Curt's War Veterans start a Gang once they stop someone's car from being towed as he is homeless and that's his home and then he decides to Rob a Bank... wait what...

In the mask everyone recognizes him in....

What.

The entire story line on the whole is a Distraction from what the Punisher is doing and on the whole his story serves no purpose other than, it was a loose plot thread and needed to be addressed...

I wonder if this happened because somewhere they had an inkling that Marvel T.V. is shutting down?

Because it seems like this was a potential season 3 plot???

Like maybe they show Madani going after him, then his escape and then come back in season 3?

I don't know.

Anyways he threatens Madani somewhere in the middle and then he is shot by her by the end after she tosses his Girlfriend out the window and then the Punisher kills him.

Strangely after the memory loss he actually sees Frank as a friend again, and now that his evil side is kind of subdued(except for all the bank robbing) and maybe him moving on with Dumont, I kind of wanted him to live... maybe get a fresh start?

But enough of that, what does Madani do in this season?

Well in the initial episodes Amy and Frank are caught by local Police and detained for various crimes.

A mistake by everyone involved because their station is locked down and attacked by Pilgrim's team.

Frank tries to get Madani to free him, but she wants nothing to do with him until of course she learns that Billy escaped.

The siege at the police station is meant to ask a single question: Is someone like the Punisher maybe necessary in the world we are living in currently?

The officers certainly seem to think so.

And that is one of the main through lines of this season, what does the Punisher stand for, and is he as a violent force perhaps, necessary in this world?

Madani certainly stands by that idea, But Mahony doesn't, ah yes, the police guy who exists in all of Marvel's Netflix but is yet to appear in Daredevil Born way later.

But as this goes on, I believe we come to the one reason Billy's existence in this season actually plays a proper role, you see man is dating Dumont, who is a Psychologist, and she manipulates it out of Madani that the Punisher can be broken if he ever believes he killed innocents.

But I was going to talk about Madani, and the thing is, while she does undergo character development, every time she makes some progress in the case she is pursuing, more often than not, she steps aside to let Frank do the Job.

There's only a section in the middle when she gets upset with him and then is followed around by Pilgrim, but even that is short lived.

And I do not believe that this in any way is meant to take her Agency away, quite the opposite in fact as doing this is against what everyone else tells her, and by the end she is proven quite right to have done so.

I think this exists to show us that the people who actually trust the Punisher put a lot of faith in him, even risking their own careers and freedoms to do so, and that is not just her, but also Curt, I mean the guy lost a leg for Christ's sake, but he also in the one last kill trailer blaming Frank for something, an it's not clear whether that's actually him or just a Hallucination?

Guess we will see.

But coming back to her, her existence actually touches on a very important point that I believe most shows wouldn't dare to touch or if they did they would probably do it like Stranger Things Season 5 handled Will coming out to everyone...

WHY THE FUCK IS MURRAY THEERRREEE!!!!???!!!??!?

While she goes off on her own and follows her gut to deal with Russo, she is invited to one of Curt's group therapy sessions.

And while in there a Veteran asks her if she is here for research.

And then she gives a very Graphic description of her trauma.

And while we are on that line of thought, the lie that she is forced to say on the record in order to let Frank get away and save her job is also... strange...?

So a Federal Agent's poor choice of sexual partners caused everyone to die, that it?

And that is why Mahony's distrust of her initially isn't actually sexism, but a strange form of respect, where he understands that the system is shit and she is way more capable than she claims.

But enough of that, this post needs an end, and I said we will talk about Pilgrim, so who is he, and why does he go after Amy?

Well he isn't doing it for himself.

He is a part of a group that have tricked him into believing he has "salvation" from his criminal past, they have his sick wife and his two children, in the guise of taking care of them.

And he is doing what he is for them.

They manipulate him, lie to him, and ultimately plan to kill him as a loose end.

Why?

Well they are the parents of Senator David Schultz, who is a gay man, and that is not acceptable to his parents and will probably make his career suffer.

So in a way they aren't protecting him, they are protecting their image.

I swear to god, when we see Pilgrim break down the first time, and how much faith he puts in his wife, and how he laments his failure to break free of his past, everything changed.

This man just wen from interesting to supremely interesting.

And I guess it is a form of Penance for Frank to see his children returned to him after taking care of the shitty parents.

With everything taken care of, and everyone who needed to think it, now thinks that the Punisher is a necessary Force, it only remains to make sure that Amy finds her way out of this and away from the war path Frank is on.

And by the end, the Punisher takes his rightful place taking care of the gangs around him.

And there is one thing that I forgot to mention because there was no place to properly place it so far, and that is Karen's affinity to Frank in Born again makes a lot more sense to me now, as she clearly likes him, and maybe he does too.

Except of course my man can't move on from his habit of Jumping from battle to battle, fighting his "war".

And most of all he doesn't want her to ruin her life for him.

But all things aside, this scene of all the women in Frank's life helping him escape the Hospital is one of the most wholesome things I have ever seen.