MARVEL'S THE PUNISHER Netflix Season 2 Review & Running Episode Commentary Thoughts Breakdown
Posted by Anthony Mango Sunday, January 20, 2019
Welcome to my breakdown of season 2 of Marvel's The Punisher on Netflix! Per usual, this post will be documenting my running commentary of thoughts as I watch every episode. I'll be adding notes almost as a stream of consciousness and when everything has concluded, I'll be wrapping everything up with a full season recap and review to see just how good or bad the overall package was and the hits and misses in a Reviewpoint podcast video.
I invite you to follow along and to leave your thoughts in the comments below just the same!
Marvel's The Punisher (Season 2 - 2019)
SHOWRUNNER: Steven Lightfoot
STARRING: Jon Bernthal (Frank Castle / Punisher), Ben Barnes (Billy Russo / Jigsaw), Amber Rose Revah (Dinah Madani), Jason R. Moore (Curtis Hoyle), Giorgia Whigham (Amy Bendix), Josh Stewart (John Pilgrim), Deborah Ann Woll (Karen Page), Corbin Bernsen (Anderson Schultz) and Annette O'Toole (Eliza Schultz)
*WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS BELOW!*
Episode 1 - "Roadhouse Blues"
Full disclosure, I normally start these as soon as they premiere, but I didn't for this. I waited 2 days. Why? Well, it's not because I'm not interested or because I didn't like the first season. It's because all of these shows are getting cancelled and I know this isn't going to have anything to do with anything, it'll be its own contained story that will probably drag on too long like most of these seasons, and it's hard to watch these. So nope, no binging start to finish. No rush to watch. I hope this ends up being as good as Daredevil's third season and I breeze through it and love it. I don't have a ton of faith in that being the case for all 13 episodes.
Ew, you're not helping my case by starting off with country music.
Instantly don't like this woman for being abrasive right out of the gate. I don't want to go through some 7 episode journey of her warming up. Give me characters I like and I'm interested in, not people I have to tolerate and learn how to deal with. Bleh. I hope I'm wrong. It's only a minute in, so I'm not giving them credit.
Johnny needs a bullet. Pig.
Ringo's awesome. He'd better not die.
Hey, at least Frank, I mean Pete, is trying to move on. Good for him. Beth is so dead because of that.
Well damn, now I want pancakes, too. Good guy Pete/Frank.
At least Rex isn't a stereotypical total pain in the ass kid like normal.
Can we just keep Beth around instead of this other girl? I like Beth.
Stop it with the country...eeuuuggghhh....
We're dragging this shit out so much. I didn't need four or five stupid country songs. C'moooon get to the next thing. Tighter editing, everyone. These Marvel Netflix shows suffer SO much from pacing issues. Jeez.
Did Frank just give that woman a uranage? Cool. Now do some Sweet Chin Music.
Ringo with the chokeslam!
Oh man, don't be stabbing Ringo like that.
Of course both Ringo and Beth need to die and the annoying girl is going to live.
Imagine what it would be like if we had a Scourge of the Underworld Bar with No Name thing.
You killed Ringo, so at least let Beth live and have Frank choose to leave for her safety.
Episode 2 - "Fight or Flight"
Yeah I really don't like this girl. Stop being such a constant stick in the mud.
Just kill Rachel and save yourself the trouble hahaha
Opening credits, which actually is going to be when I call it quits for right now, since I made the mistake of starting this at 6am.
I still feel like Madani should be partnered up with Martin Soap. For that matter, The Russian should make an appearance.
Good job, Beth, going with the name Pete instead of Frank. Smart move.
Well, never mind.
I'm always curious why people don't just say something similar instead of giving up the right information. She went with Pete, which was good, but she said Castiglione. She could have said Pete Costanza, you know?
I'd at least eat the dinner if I were Dinah. Dinner Madani.
Practically everything that comes out of Rachel's mouth makes me dislike her and pointing a gun at Frank now is even worse cause there's no reason for her to think that he's anything but a positive after all this. He's surly, yeah, but he saved her life and hasn't done anything to harm her since.
Why doesn't Frank just pop a bullet in the woman he just knocked out? He already killed everyone else and he's now fought her twice, and he knows she'll wake up and come after them, so why not just...wait, okay, better strategy for sure. Wait, that's the downside is when she wakes up and shoots you.
I hope this cop doesn't buy Rachel's bullshit.
Don't be a bitch, Madani.
Episode 3 - "Trouble the Water"
These insect noises or whatever actually made me think something was going wrong with my sound system. Not a fan.
I like Deputy Ogden. Don't kill that guy. Give him his $5 back.
Brett!
Nice try, asking for Frank's sandwich.
At least Ogden is likely to survive if he leaves. Sucks for the sheriff and the rest. Oh damn, they're gonna shoot him aren't they? Fuck. I liked Ogden.
"Sweet boneless Jesus" hahaha
That can of coke is still not hit?
Hardin and Ogden are class.
Yaaaay Hardin and Ogden are going to survive! And he got his five bucks back. Even better.
Good episode.
Episode 4 - "Scar Tissue"
Anyone else thinking of Red Hot Chili Peppers with this title?
"What do you want, freak?" / "I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle."
You can't be asking questions, Rachel, if you aren't giving any information, either. So...shut up.
We're now 4 episodes in and there's no Micro yet. I hope he at least pops up somewhere along the line. Also, battle van.
I'm still not feeling all that incredibly bad for Rachel.
Oh hey, Curt.
Between Bullseye and Billy, I think we can draw some parallels. Don't let kids play baseball, and don't name them something close to baseball (basebill, baseballseye, etc)
Yeah, Arthur needs to die.
WHIH news. Nice.
Episode 5 - "One-Eyed Jacks"
Turk!!!!! Give him the Mind Stone.
Tell me, Dinah, do you still sleep with a gun under your pillow?
Everyone has such nice places to live.
I don't know if Lombardi's is a real place, but I want it.
OMG enough with the fucking bugs.
I totally don't trust Dumont. I haven't from the start.
Episode 6 - "Nakazat"
Well, now you've got at least one gun.
Kill this guy, Frank.
Haha nice job burning the place. At least that's something.
Who is this dude at the restaurant? That actor looks SO familiar and I can't place him...
You mean to tell me she had the perfect clothes that were reversing and all? Give me a break.
"Call me old fashioned but I don't work with Russians" hahahaha
"Thanks guys. I mean it, thanks." Yeah, that really helped you out, didn't it? Now, you're going to Texas with nothing, including your support group.
So much for not getting shot in the head.
I just noticed that Dumont was on Lethal Weapon and the guy who played her dad was a cop on that show and is a cop on this show. Interesting.
Oh just fuck Billy already, why don't you? You clearly want to.
Curtis needs to play Father to these two.
Episode 7 - "One Bad Day"
You know, for getting shot in the head, Madani doesn't even have anything wrong with her hair. No scarring preventing that area from growing or whatever. Just saying.
Krista's a biter.
Billy hits it and quits it.
Remember how I keep complaining about the pacing issues of these shows? We've just abandoned Amy and that whole subplot while they get distracted with this Billy story and that just proves how they shouldn't have been dragging that out. It should have been six episodes of the Amy story and then six of the Billy thing that was only tangentially set up in the meantime.
Don't let all these people die just because you're proud, Lilian.
Do not feed the pigeons.
Episode 8 - "My Brother's Keeper"
You've got to admit that Brett at least is on the right side, as much as he's adversarial for this particular set of goals.
Wasting time. This episode is largely just pointless bullshit discussions that aren't accomplishing anything. People are having arguments just for the sake of eating up an episode's worth of time.
Why doesn't Curtis just tell Delia something like "Sorry, a bunch of the guys I help out with are in some really bad stuff right now and I'm trying to help them out. I'll let you know when I'm back." or something? It isn't that hard.
Giving a lot of consideration to just skipping this whole episode.
Instead, I've just been only 1/3 paying attention. Not even half.
I do want some spaghetti, though.
Episode 9 - "Flustercluck"
"Have you forgotten about Pilgrim? Yeah, we did, too. We just didn't have enough material for a full season and hoped we had enough other stuff with Billy to keep you distracted while we stalled."
Can we go somewhere? Accomplish something? We just had a waste of an episode and now I'm 17 minutes into this one and NOTHING has happened. I'm beyond bored.
I do like the touch of having Frank kill the guy so Amy didn't officially have a murder on her conscience.
Oh shit, what's his face, from Person of Interest. I loved that guy. He would have been a perfect Detective Bullock in a Batman film. Still could be.
What a waste of an episode, again. The next one better not be, but I'm taking a break regardless. I don't feel the need to keep binging right now.
Episode 10 - "The Dark Hearts of Men"
Still dawdling and wasting time...
Curtis is such a good guy.
I don't remember there being this many people in Russo's crew.
Did Frank actually shoot those girls? I must have missed that.
Episode 11 - "The Abyss"
Can Amy do something other than sit back?
Karen!
That reminds me, no Microchip still, and no Martin Soap.
At least they didn't wait until episode 13 to expose that Frank didn't kill those girls.
I was really thinking Pilgrim was going to kill Schultz there.
A foot fetish? Yeah, no wonder people think you're weird, dude.
So wait, all we accomplished in this episode was Frank STILL being in custody? Come on man, stop wasting my fucking time. This is the fourth episode in a row that didn't need to be a thing. They could have combined all the worthwhile elements of these four episodes into one and a half.
Episode 12 - "Collision Course"
Finding it very difficult to care about this second half of this season with all this waste. I'm bored and I just want it to end. If there was an option to watch this at 1.5x speed, I would.
Hey, that florist just had the best interaction anyone has had over two seasons with this whole crew. He's going home that night feeling happy instead of, you know, with a bullet to the brain and a knife in the chin or something.
Now, Dinah's going to be the next Jigsaw as her face has a cut on it. Ha.
Weird choice of music.
Episode 13 - "The Whirlwind"
Yeah, Madani isn't dead. I'm not buying that. They wouldn't kill her like that.
Eventually, you two are going to put so many holes in this wall that you'll be able to just walk through it and---okay, yup.
Fuck that whole bullet extraction thing. I hate when I get a hangnail.
That simple, eh? RIP Jigsaw.
Well, he's totally killing himself.
Frank definitely needs to go back to see Beth.
What a lackluster ending.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE SEASON?
LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW!
feature, podcast, review, Reviewpoint, shows, tv
THIS POST WRITTEN BY: ANTHONY MANGO
Tony Mango is the founder, editor-in-chief, head writer and podcast host of Fanboys Anonymous as well as all other A Mango Tree branches including Smark Out Moment. He is a pundit, creative director/consultant, fiction writer and more. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.