Frank Castle's new life looks just as bloody as his old one in the first trailer for The Punisher season 2
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The first season of Netflix’s bloodiest Marvel show, The Punisher, ended on a note of possible redemption for Jon Bernthal’s gun-toting vigilante Frank Castle, making an open question of whether he might, hypothetically, be able to leave his life of near-endless violence behind in favor of something a little more normal. Not so much, it turns out, at least as far as the trailer for the show’s second season is concerned: Frank might not be The Punisher right now, but he’s still definitely in the stabbin’ and shootin’ people trade.
To be fair, he’s got a lot of enemies goading him back into it, including former friend Billy Russo, whose facial scarring from last season’s final confrontation appears to be the bare minimum coverage of Ben Barnes’ face that Marvel thought it could get away with. There’s also new character John Pilgrim (Josh Stewart) who’s been described as some flavor of religious fundamentalist, but who mostly stands around here looking kind of ominous and mean. He’s presumably on the trail of Frank’s new companion on his little North American road trip, played by Giorgia Whigham, who ends up handling some literal blood money from her murderous buddy in the trailer’s closing scene.
Season 2 of The Punisher debuts on Netflix on January 18.
38 Comments
Dead show walking
So this is what the second time the show has hit the reset button on Frank being Punisher? They hit it the first time at the start of Season One because they wanted to have Frank to have a second origin story. Now Season Two is just going to do the exact same thing.
my thoughts too. Add in a bunch more flashbacks of the same moment over and over, and this doesn’t look too great.
Exactly. This summary — “The first season of Netflix’s bloodiest Marvel show, The Punisher, ended on a note of possible redemption for Jon Bernthal’s gun-toting vigilante Frank Castle, making an open question of whether he might, hypothetically, be able to leave his life of near-endless violence behind in favor of something a little more normal” — is not inaccurate, but the note being struck was clearly bullshit. Of course he’s going to come back, so why are you pretending otherwise? Bernthal’s performance throughout was excellent and his final scene really wrenching, unfortunately it was in service to an idea that was cynically never going to happen.
*picture of black and white skull shirt in an overflowing garbage can**view of Frank Castle, from behind, walking away, head down* PUNISHER —— NO MORE !!!!(Then Spidey swings by, says, “hey, you’ll be back, trust me on that”)
Frank had always tried to live up to the words of his beloved uncle: “If you see a guy doing something bad, just shoot him in the fucking head.”
Believe it or not, what you’ve described is almost exactly how the What If Peter Parker became The Punisher? comic ended but with the roles reversed.
It could work if they lean on the tragic angle of Frank getting sucked back into his violence. Normally I’m not one for comic-y status quo resets, but the Punisher’s a character that it actually works with.
So another season of Frank Castle contemplates life? Will he actually be The Punisher by the end of this season?
Punisher 2 – The Escort Mission
still going to watch it. watch how he shoots his way out of this one.
Looking forward to this. Nice choice on Alice In Chains. My only gripe is that there’s not enough scars on JIGSAW. Does he look disfigured? No, that’s like someone shaving a line in their eyebrows to look like they have a scar. He’s Jigsaw. He’s supposed to look like his face is a broken puzzle. Damn you ghost of Scott Buck haunting these productions!
Yeah, they didn’t mess him up NEARLY enough.
I guess they figured they hired a handsome actor, they’re not going to ruin their investment by hiding the fact.
I think they’re afraid of appearing “too comic-booky” and losing their gritty realism cred, despite the fact Frank has already encountered undead ninjas in this continuity.
Undead ninjas are gritty and realistic!
You would think Handsome Actor would demand more scar makeup, you know, because ACTING.
Ugly wins awards, or is that only for women? And men have to gain weight to play fat old politicians like Churchill and Cheney?
Right, hot actresses have to hag it up, and method-acting men have to get fat as fuck.
The gorgeous Ben Barnes has a rider in all his contracts that he has to look pretty at all times. Besides, he has future projects to think about so it’s understandable he wouldn’t go the full unrecognizable route for one season of a doomed show.
Agreed, Russo is still pretty handsome, just with a few rugged scars. I’m glad they didn’t go the poor-man’s Dick Tracy villain route like in ‘Punisher: War Zone’ but they could’ve at least made him a little more frightening to look at.
HA, the scar looks almost the same as this. (The Horror…. The Horror)
This is how bad the ass-end of Peak TV has gotten: I’d never heard of that, and when I looked it up, I thought initially, “well, at least it was several years ago, so it must have died quickly…” but it was on for four seasons. (And before someone says, “Well, actually, it wasn’t that bad”, please no. Just looking at the bargain-basement Leo DiCaprio with his contacts and dinky little scar makes me sad.)
See: kristin kreuk. I thought Smallville was the dumbest idea ever… and there I was 9 seasons later…
I just want more skull. That’s all I care about. Skull = Punisher. If he was just pushing papers at H&R Block all season with a giant white skull on his chest, I’d be okay with that.
“YOU FILED A 1040-EZ WHEN YOU SHOULD HAVE FILED A 1040-A!!”*hail of bullets*
*hail of keyboarding and Bernthal grunting
“I don’t care that I only worked for six weeks at a Stuckey’s last year! I want a $4000 refund and I’m not leaving until… until…”“Cremation’s a lot cheaper.”
“Uh, OK. Never mind.”
“You should have seen him … processing leave requests, one after the other, like it meant nothing to him … like he didn’t feel it at all.”
Yay for more Punisher!Boo for more Madani.
Can’t wait. The first season was a revelation, and its tangential ties to Daredevil aside, it’s living proof that these shows could have thrived without any dumb MCU nods or weak shared universe building.
Wtf, nothing about how this is just glorifying guns for all the Trumpeteers or how the creator of Punisher is disgusted by cops/soldiers using the symbol? Someones gonna have a talk with their manager today!
F U C KY E A H!Something about this really strokes my lizard-brain, and I can’t fucking WAIT.I just hope they find a way to jam an amount of action proportionate to this trailer in each episode. Season 1 was a nice counterpoint to people who worried the show would be some kind of right-wing murder-fest, but now that that’s out of the way, I want to see Castle brutally kill at least half a dozen people per episode.
Why watch? Netflix will leave it on a cliff hanger and then cancel the show.
I’m pretty sure the showrunners saw the writing on the wall in time to at least reshoot an end to the season that works as a finale. Hell, if the end of the first season was the last we saw of Frank it works as the happiest ending he’s capable of getting.
The theme song from the movie Singles is now the theme song to a season of The Punisher? Weird.
Can’t watch the trailer here at work, but I’m really looking forward to this. That first season I watched all in one go (a particularly rainy, stoned weekend) and it was kinda glorious.And since I was stoned I probably should rewatch it. No problem.
before anyone asks.
I loathe comic books or graphic novels or whatever you call them. I loathe gratuitous violence, I loathe oversimplified characters and hokey love stories … but I love John Bernthal. I love him enough to throw all my values straight out da window. #punisher #swoon
I sure hope they don’t end on a cliffhanger!