THE PUNISHER now a Netflix series

[briantw]

25 minutes ago, Eggegg said:

I havent finished the series yet, but it seems to me that the writers seemed more interested in making political points on gun ownership and use of violence and seemed very nervous about making a show which in any way glorifies Frank's war on crime. Every episode they seem to take deliberate attempts to make sure they clarify that 'Frank is wrong, guns are wrong mmkay!'. I'm actually fine with the direction they took, but I can just sense their fear of public outrage.

I don't know...the anti-gun politician on the show was a huge pussy.

As someone who finished the show, I'm not sure I'd agree that it was anti-gun.  It certainly did go to lengths to not excuse what Frank was doing, but I think that is fine.  The Punisher is not a good guy.  He never has been.  He's not a bad guy either, of course.  He operates somewhere in between.  He's a violent sociopath with a code of honor.  But I don't think even the comics ever really try to portray what he's doing as right.  As I'm re-reading the MAX comics, it stands out how often they go to lengths to point out what a broken man Frank Castle is.  

[Kalbear]

Karen Page needing and using her gun so regularly and being an advocate for it kind of makes this a lie, as she's easily the most sympathetic character on the show other than Micro's family. 

[Corvinus85]

Speaking of Karen and her gun...

Spoiler

in the scene where Lewis has her hostage, she shoots him in the leg, with the gun in her purse; at least that's what it looked like to me. The problem is, Billy's security guys made her give up her gun in the lobby, so... wtf

 

[briantw]

49 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Karen Page needing and using her gun so regularly and being an advocate for it kind of makes this a lie, as she's easily the most sympathetic character on the show other than Micro's family. 

And she has that radio scene where she talks down to the pussy liberal* anti-gun politician, as does the host of the radio show.

 

*Just to note, I say pussy not because he's a liberal, but because the show very much makes him look like a pussy later.

[Leofric]

26 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Speaking of Karen and her gun...

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in the scene where Lewis has her hostage, she shoots him in the leg, with the gun in her purse; at least that's what it looked like to me. The problem is, Billy's security guys made her give up her gun in the lobby, so... wtf

 

Spoiler

Karen picked up one of the security guys guns  while she was crawling on the floor during the firefight in the hotel room.

 

[Corvinus85]

20 minutes ago, Leofric said:

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Karen picked up one of the security guys guns  while she was crawling on the floor during the firefight in the hotel room.

 

Spoiler

Oh, ok, missed that. And Frank somehow, or did he just assume she would have her own gun in there, based on their talk when they first meet? Talk about a case of Chekov's gun.

 

[WarGalley]

Finished it. It was ok. Castle killing people was too overstated and forced. Even if his ethos permits him to kill, does he have to kill absolutely everyone? Dude came off as a lunatic.

Spoiler

I also thought the Lewis plotline was complete filler and contributed nothing. Edit: Did we ever get a reaction scene from Lewis's father after his terrorist attack / suicide?

That ending was a little ridiculous. Castle should have died in the ferris wheel fight after having a lung puncture and broken rib the day before. Dina rescuing Castle from the crime scene without anyone knowing was ridiculous too. And the CIA lady and FBI guy giving Castle a pass was sappy, heartwarming ridiculous.

And man, all season I wanted to see Jigsaw's face and now I have to wait. 

 

 

[Werthead]

Karen I thought was very realistically done. Despite being a card-carrying liberal on everything else, she's been put in horrendous situations before and now wants to be armed for her own peace of mind. It doesn't matter what cold logic and inarguable facts and statistics say, she's been through hell before and she wants to be armed to defend herself. I thought it was a subtle nod to gun-owners and tried to get people to understand that mindset who otherwise just take the "All guns are bad all the time" route.

It's a little undercut by Karen often choosing to throw herself into dangerous situations and hang out with people who get in these situations (like Frank himself) but there you go.

8 minutes ago, WarGalley said:

Finished it. It was ok. Castle killing people was too overstated and forced. Even if his ethos permits him to kill, does he have to kill absolutely everyone? Dude came off as a lunatic.

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I also thought the Lewis plotline was complete filler and contributed nothing. 

That ending was a little ridiculous. Castle should have died in the ferris wheel fight after having a lung puncture and broken rib the day before. Dina rescuing Castle from the crime scene without anyone knowing was ridiculous too. And the CIA lady and FBI guy giving Castle a pass was sappy, heartwarming ridiculous.

And man, all season I wanted to see Jigsaw's face and now I have to wait. 

 

The Netflix show as very much Frank Castle on training wheels compared to what he does in the comics.

[briantw]

27 minutes ago, WarGalley said:

Finished it. It was ok. Castle killing people was too overstated and forced. Even if his ethos permits him to kill, does he have to kill absolutely everyone? Dude came off as a lunatic.

He's the Punisher.  Killing everyone is basically what he does.  And his ethos doesn't permit him to kill.  His entire existence is based around killing as many criminals as possible before he's inevitably killed himself.

[WarGalley]

I've never read his comics but there were a couple of times during the show where I was thinking "This guy is batshit crazy."

Spoiler

For example, he had no idea if those soldiers in the forest were criminals or just soldiers taking orders. A lot of the Anvil guys could have been legitimate people but Castle shot first and never bothered to ask questions later. The contrasting father, friend and family man comes off as bizarre against this level of sociopathy.

 

[briantw]

14 minutes ago, WarGalley said:

I've never read his comics but there were a couple of times during the show where I was thinking "This guy is batshit crazy."

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For example, he had no idea if those soldiers in the forest were criminals or just soldiers taking orders. A lot of the Anvil guys could have been legitimate people but Castle shot first and never bothered to ask questions later. The contrasting father, friend and family man comes off as bizarre against this level of sociopathy.

 

You're supposed to think he's batshit crazy.  He is crazy.  He's a violent sociopath who happens to, generally speaking, only kill criminals.  

Spoiler

To specifically address your spoiler points...Frank knew that the men in the woods in Kentucky were there specifically to kill Gunner.  Now, we can argue whether these men were generally bad people or not.  We don't really know enough about any of them, as they were just grunts.  However, they were there with a nefarious purpose, and that was to kill an innocent man because of what he knew.  That was enough for Frank.

As for the Anvil guys, and I assume you mean the scene where he was on the Army base, I'm guessing he saw the way they were kitted out and just assumed that they probably were not good guys.  They were clearly there to murder him, again because of what he knew, and thus they were working for the bad guys.  After taking on those guys, he made a point to try to not shoot that Army grunt in the tunnel on the way out of the base, and even when he did have to resort to shooting him, he made sure it wasn't a lethal shot.

I'd say that, generally speaking, those Anvil grunts and the guys in the forest are no different than your average criminal grunt.  When you decide to do bad things for bad people, you inherently assume some of the guilt for those actions, even if you were just following orders.

 

[mormont]

9 hours ago, briantw said:

 

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To specifically address your spoiler points...Frank knew that the men in the woods in Kentucky were there specifically to kill Gunner.  Now, we can argue whether these men were generally bad people or not.  We don't really know enough about any of them, as they were just grunts.  However, they were there with a nefarious purpose, and that was to kill an innocent man because of what he knew.  That was enough for Frank.

 

The strange thing there is:

Frank does the mission on the military base specifically without killing because he doesn't want to kill ordinary soldiers serving their country. BUT, in the Kentucky scene, he has no idea who these guys are. They may be military. They may be CIA. It turns out they're Anvil, and Frank has no problem with shooting Anvil mooks (even incapacitated, wounded, disarmed and helpless ones). But Frank doesn't know that at the time, and I'm not really clear on whether he ever finds out.

Anyway, on the army base mission he goes out of his way not to kill the Anvil guys, so I assume he thinks they're actually army. OK, he shoots at Russo, but hits him in the bulletproof vest, which I assume was deliberate since every other time he shoots at vest wearers he hits them in the leg or head.

The logic of all this again seems to come back to honour: serving in the military is an honourable pursuit, serving Anvil is not. But the writers aren't terribly consistent about how Frank knows who's who.

 

[BigFatCoward]

On 23/11/2017 at 5:48 PM, Leap said:

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A few things I would have done differently is make it so that Frank's flashbacks with his wife while Rawlins was torturing him were ended when he hit him with the adrenaline. As it was, they showed that it was a conscious choice to choose violence over his family. Personally I think having his family ripped away from him again would a) give him even more reason to go as beserk as he did on Rawlins, b ) leave that question unanswered. Although maybe it is more interesting to have a Punisher who chose violence over his family. I think it cheapened the flashbacks in the circus sequence though.

I also would have killed Billy off, but that's more a general issue with comic book refusal to kill characters than otherwise. We all know he's going to come back as a villain now, so it'd be nice if they didn't do that.

Personally, I think Punisher would continue to work well as a secondary character in other tv shows. If they make a season 2 I hope it's a show about him taking the initiative to take some villains down, ideally not even in New York. Marvel properties are almost exclusively about heroes being attacked and successfully defending themselves. Punisher is a character that lends himself to more proactive plots. That would also be better in an 8 episode format. 

 

clearing

I really hope you don't only need a set of wire cutters to break into an American military complex.

i really enjoyed it, joint first with daredevil for me (though IMDB has it by far the highest rated of netflix/marvel shows).

[PetyrPunkinhead]

12 hours ago, WarGalley said:

Finished it. It was ok. Castle killing people was too overstated and forced. Even if his ethos permits him to kill, does he have to kill absolutely everyone? Dude came off as a lunatic.

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I also thought the Lewis plotline was complete filler and contributed nothing. Edit: Did we ever get a reaction scene from Lewis's father after his terrorist attack / suicide?

That ending was a little ridiculous. Castle should have died in the ferris wheel fight after having a lung puncture and broken rib the day before. Dina rescuing Castle from the crime scene without anyone knowing was ridiculous too. And the CIA lady and FBI guy giving Castle a pass was sappy, heartwarming ridiculous.

And man, all season I wanted to see Jigsaw's face and now I have to wait. 

 

 

I agree with your criticisms on the S1 finale. (Especially the bit about Jigsaw.) But I disagree with you on Lewis...

I think he was necessary to show how someone like Frank would be without a code. They're trying to draw a line between Frank's brand of justice and just an angry guy wanting to hurt and inflict pain on others. Lewis is meant to show us what "real" crazy looks like. A scene with his dad would've been a nice emotional touch, but really it's unnecessary. Lewis' dad was a minor character and only part of Lewis' story to show that Lewis did have support at home and that Lewis chose to ignore that and go deeper into his own delusions and sociopathy.

[Ran]

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I really hope you don't only need a set of wire cutters to break into an American military complex.

Having grown up on military bases, most bases are not fully fenced by any means, and in general the fences are just regular old fences rather than maximal security stuff. Decided to look up where I grew up in Ft. Benning (the main Army infantry, airborne, and Ranger training post) and in the decades since I see they've blocked off a road -- https://goo.gl/maps/s42Ka9fQUPJ2 -- that we used to bike down to buy candy and such in neighboring Colombus. Even back then, there were no guards or gates or anything -- anyone from Colombus could drive up into Ft. Benning.

I'm going to guess the fence -- which seems to extend into the woods to either side -- is all post-9/11 stuff, when most bases received enhanced security, but even then the focus was largely on vehicular traffic; if someone wants to jump a fence, there's really nothing that's going to stop them.

[briantw]

7 hours ago, mormont said:

The strange thing there is:

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Frank does the mission on the military base specifically without killing because he doesn't want to kill ordinary soldiers serving their country. BUT, in the Kentucky scene, he has no idea who these guys are. They may be military. They may be CIA. It turns out they're Anvil, and Frank has no problem with shooting Anvil mooks (even incapacitated, wounded, disarmed and helpless ones). But Frank doesn't know that at the time, and I'm not really clear on whether he ever finds out.

Anyway, on the army base mission he goes out of his way not to kill the Anvil guys, so I assume he thinks they're actually army. OK, he shoots at Russo, but hits him in the bulletproof vest, which I assume was deliberate since every other time he shoots at vest wearers he hits them in the leg or head.

The logic of all this again seems to come back to honour: serving in the military is an honourable pursuit, serving Anvil is not. But the writers aren't terribly consistent about how Frank knows who's who.

 

 

Spoiler

Well, he knew the group out in Kentucky was a hit squad.  Why else would they be there but to kill Gunner?  It was basically kill or be killed there.

 

[WarGalley]

On 11/23/2017 at 9:48 AM, Leap said:

 

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I also would have killed Billy off, but that's more a general issue with comic book refusal to kill characters than otherwise. We all know he's going to come back as a villain now, so it'd be nice if they didn't do that.

I see what you're saying especially with (Luke Cage and DDS2 spoilers)

Spoiler

Luke Cage having a similar hospital room scene for the return of Diamondback and with Nobu coming back in Daredevil S2. While I'm still looking forward to an insane Jigsaw, I think we've explored his backstory enough where he can't be a season long villain without retreading his history / conversations with Castle or having some major plotline with his mother that's been hidden away. I'm not interested in either one of those though. I do think he should kill someone close to Castle such as Karen (not likely) or Micro's wife (doubtful) to put some tension in the show. Curtis or Micro would work with lesser effect. I expect the first half of the season will have a mob family or extraneous villain while Jigsaw recovers, escapes, runs amok and becomes the main antagonist in the 2nd half. Fisk showing up would be amazing and help break the standard 2 storyline arc of a season but I don't think the timeline works out with Daredevil S3 probably being his final fall.

 

[Ran]

If there's a second season, it would need to be about Frank finally becoming a man at perpetual war against crime.

Spoiler

 

Start it a year or two later, Jigsaw vanishes from the hospital and isn't heard from. Frank leaves it be... until one day, Micro and his family are all brutally killed in what the police call a home invasion gone bad. Convinced it's Jigsaw getting revenge, Frank goes on the hunt, a clue pulled from Micro's computers -- details about Billy and so on, as Micro considered him the person likeliest to go after him and his family -- leads him on a chase through more mercenaries and criminals. Ultimately finds Billy, has it out with him... learns that he had nothing to do with what happened. Kills him anyway for whatever bad stuff he was up to in the interim.

Turns out it was just common criminals all along. Hell, make it one of those Hollywood coincidence things and it turns out that among the thugs is no-luck-Donny from ep 1. Ran through his 75 grand that Frank gave him, came back to town, ended up with thugs and criminals again, ends up in another robbery that goes bad. Sob story, grandma, won't happen again, this time Frank ends him, and it ends with news reports of a gangland crime wave as criminals left, right, and center are gunned down by the Punisher.

 

 

 

[briantw]

30 minutes ago, Ran said:

 

Spoiler

If there's a second season, it would need to be about Frank finally becoming a man at perpetual war against crime.

Start it a year or two later, Jigsaw vanishes from the hospital and isn't heard from. Frank leaves it be... until one day, Micro and his family are all brutally killed in what the police call a home invasion gone bad. Convinced it's Jigsaw getting revenge, Frank goes on the hunt, a clue pulled from Micro's computers -- details about Billy and so on, as Micro considered him the person likeliest to go after him and his family -- leads him on a chase through more mercenaries and criminals. Ultimately finds Billy, has it out with him... learns that he had nothing to do with what happened. Kills him anyway for whatever bad stuff he was up to in the interim.

Turns out it was just common criminals all along. Hell, make it one of those Hollywood coincidence things and it turns out that among the thugs is no-luck-Donny from ep 1. Ran through his 75 grand that Frank gave him, came back to town, ended up with thugs and criminals again, ends up in another robbery that goes bad. Sob story, grandma, won't happen again, this time Frank ends him, and it ends with news reports of a gangland crime wave as criminals left, right, and center are gunned down by the Punisher.

 

Spoiler

Personally, I'd kind of prefer if season two didn't directly involve Jigsaw, at least not as the main story.  I'd see it more as him having a role like Kingpin in season two of Daredevil where he's a side character but not the main villain.  I just think it's too repetitive to go directly back to Russo as the main baddie.  I know Jigsaw is a different version of the same character, but still...I'd just like to see them switch it up a bit.  They can always go to Jigsaw in season three.

I also think it would be more than a little disappointing for Jigsaw to break out of the hospital/prison and then...proceed to do nothing of importance. 

I put your original quote in spoilers because I'm not sure if this is a spoiler thread or not.

[Ran]

Good call on the spoilers.