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[Punisher] Marvel Murder Machine (Spoilers)
Harry Dresden
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Spoilers enacted, separated the by episode for clarity
Punisher's Netflix series is streaming, a spin-off from Daredevil season 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIY6zFL95hE
Punisher/Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal):
Faked his death in DD S1, and in retirement until something gets him back in the game.
David Liebermann/Micro (Ebon Moss-Bachrach)
A mysterious hacker, who teams up with Frank.
Billy Russo (Ben Barnes):
A former friend and co-worker of Frank from his time in the military. Now a hot shot exec at Anvil, Marvel's counterpart to Blackwater.
Dinah Madani (Amber Rose Revah):
A rising star within Homeland Security, who came back from Afghanistan as a veteran to investigate her partner's murder.
Sam Stein (Michael Nathanson):
Dinah's cynical sidekick/partner in Homeland.
Lewis Wilson (Daniel Webber):
A troubled young veteran.
Sarah Liebermann (Jaime Rey Newman):
Micro's wife, who thinks he's dead.
Karen Page (Deborah Ann Wol):
Reporter from the Daily Bulletin, who has a friendship with the Punisher. Might secretly be a vampire.
Rawlings (Paul Schulze):
Director of the CIA's black ops division.
Punisher's Netflix series is streaming, a spin-off from Daredevil season 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIY6zFL95hEPunisher/Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal):
Faked his death in DD S1, and in retirement until something gets him back in the game.
David Liebermann/Micro (Ebon Moss-Bachrach)
A mysterious hacker, who teams up with Frank.
Billy Russo (Ben Barnes):
A former friend and co-worker of Frank from his time in the military. Now a hot shot exec at Anvil, Marvel's counterpart to Blackwater.
Dinah Madani (Amber Rose Revah):
A rising star within Homeland Security, who came back from Afghanistan as a veteran to investigate her partner's murder.
Sam Stein (Michael Nathanson):
Dinah's cynical sidekick/partner in Homeland.
Lewis Wilson (Daniel Webber):
A troubled young veteran.
Sarah Liebermann (Jaime Rey Newman):
Micro's wife, who thinks he's dead.
Karen Page (Deborah Ann Wol):
Reporter from the Daily Bulletin, who has a friendship with the Punisher. Might secretly be a vampire.
Rawlings (Paul Schulze):
Director of the CIA's black ops division.
Harry Dresden on
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In real life, it's difficult to find pictures of what they look like on the show. Micro is a full on hipster.
Ep 1
I think that’s the setup.
I hope we get to the really crazy and cartoonish villains next season if there is one. The Russian, Barracuda, proper Rawlins, Nicky Cavella, Bullseye (not the dumb MAX version but less killing people with tooth picks), etc. Maybe acknowledge supidaman and what the other heroes are doing? Maybe have someone call Captain America a bad soldier and have Frank get mad like in the comics?
I'd love for crossovers with the other Defenders and/or their supporting casts, this is something Netflix needs to do at least once a season.
Then the twist comes, and he's been working with Rawlins all along, and he's a complete monster.
I didn't realize that he was actually Jigsaw, this is an immensely interesting update for the character who has typically been a dumb, predictable mob boss who's main gimmick was getting his face bashed in and the only survivor of the Punisher.
His romance with Dinah is a highlight, as well.
I wonder if he'll become akin to Punisher's Kingpin. Unlike his comic counterpart he sees to have the brains and skills to keep up with Frank without being written like he has a plot immunity.
Near the end I was just watching it because I was over the tipping point of "Welp, already watched most of it." but I just did not care. The gunplay was sorta bad, and Frank at times hovers over people he's shot...so someone else can shoot him in the back. I felt like they heavily overplayed Frank's wife via flashbacks or whatever.
up to 3
An official ends an investigation? Time to murder-torture him on really flimsy 'evidence'. Good thing Punisher isn't ever wrong.
Except you know that was followed by torture of Micro. Nope not interested in watching this shit.
I don't think he'd have survived had Punisher been told about that slavery business he did in Daredevil.
I cannot be proud, I straight up binged through the lot buoyed entirely by the performance of Jon Bernthal, I have two important spoilers
and also
In summary I think the show is good to pretty bad and always stupid, Jon Bernthal is fabulous
Reminds me of DD season 1, thankful they didn't break the season up into 2 parts.
I really liked the
I wish they had gotten “One” for that scene though. I like the dark country twangy theme, but I was looking forward to that.
I agree.
Micro could have been really bad, but his actor is good. I liked his deal of watching his famil pass by and deal with this dick who’s his only hope and they eventually respect each other. The writing all around is pretty decent, there wasn’t anything where I was cringing at or rolling my eyes at like with Iron Fist.
Villains were not the sociopathic almost cartoonishly evil ones from MAX (whom I still love). They felt realistic somewhat. They turned Billy Russo from just a guy who survived a fight with the Punisher to an actual character. Madani grew on me as did Stein. Lewis’s side story was good, and Curtis not dying was great. Him and everyone they dealt with from the support meetings felt like it had heart to it.
Some of the actors, especially early on, feel uncomfortable in their roles. I think some stuff from the first half of the season could have been trimmed down. Like that one review said, felt like there was too much padding. It takes a long time to get to the action for most episodes. There’s also something that’s missing that keeps it from being awesome. I think DDS1 still has it beat, and I honestly prefer the more conventional Punisher going out and shooting criminals and shit.
No “One” in the entire series
No Chaingun he never got to use from DDS2
No Trenchcoat
Madhani must be the most useless federal agent in history though.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
All the useful agents are corrupt.
Steam: adamjnet
And even though the set up for the Lewis plot was interesting, it just ended up being
But he didn't have to
So is Charlie Cox. Has Marvel secretly been British the wrong time? *gasp*
The actual overall arc was better than most of them have been besides DD1; it didn't suffer from the disgraceful third act problem so many of these shows have had. I think the first half was a bit too padded though, but most of that played into the end, so it wasn't all bad. But for the first five episodes, it didn't really feel focused; there wasn't a good sense of what the overall point was at that time, just a lot of scenes with some relation to each other.
They really went pretty hamfisted on the writing at times. Having O'Connor be a fraud and liar who was handing out NRA pamphlets was just cheap and silly (like seriously, plenty of the people who go nuts on 2nd amendment did serve their country, so it ended up as a sad strawman). The Lewis plot was okay, but also seemed like a way to deflect criticism of The Punisher as a property that sensationalises vigilantism in the present atmosphere. Having an example of the vigilante who does it "the wrong way" rather than Castle who "does it right" is a silly conversation to try and have. Castle is obviously not compatible with the real world, and that's one of the bigger problems of the Netflix series: trying to draw these characters into a more realistic world.
Discussing the veterancy problem is another of those things that again is... eh. JJ and Luke Cage both also had strong themes to aid their shows overarching plots, but I don't think they suffer the same problem the Punisher might. Which is to say that vigilantism to deal with PTSD etc. is something you can only really explore once, and for Frank to continue his crusades again weakens any message you might be making with your series.
I did like that they copied the choreography of John Wick for some of the fight scenes; making sure Castle and his opponents are both in shot when they're shooting at each other, and get the camera to focus on his handling. Definitely improved a lot of the scenes.
Overally, pretty good dumb fun. Oh, and Amber Rose Revah and Ebon Moss-Bachrach should both get more acting gigs, both of them carried roles that could've been an utter mess.
Political themes/Lewis plot
Lewis himself became a twisted version of Frank himself, something this series does in abundance and with excellent variety without them all being boring clones.
In MAX Punisher has no problems hunting down and killing his own copycats who he sees as pushing his boundaries. Which he does have, to a degree. I liked how he had a conflict about hurting soldiers who were just following orders and didn't know how far to go to avoid killing them.
Punisher fighting worse people than himself is an established technique, since they don't want him to be seen as too evil or unsympathetic. That said, there was genuine conversation over him, I agree they should have had more voices opposing his methods though. Noticed they turned down his inner jerk post-DD, which was a wise choice.
Of all the Netflix IP's Punisher's the nearest to the real world they have. He's not a magic ninja, not a super powered detective or bulletproof - he's a vigilante type who just happens to be good at killing people to a ludicrous degree. He's an appropriate vector for gun control, military industrial complex, and veterans integrating back into society after serving themes.
I'd say the punisher is the most detached from the MCU an MCU product has been, it's even totally detached from the other Netflix shows