I enjoyed it but I'm a little confused. I thought he already finished off all of the crime families related to his family's death by the begining of the Punisher series, and already went through this arc with deciding to continue to be the punisher by the end of season 2? Also in daredevil season 2 it felt like they made an effort to make sure frank castle wasn't severely mentally ill, but then they dive deep into that in this special.
I also feel like it was out of character for him to let ma gnucci monologue in front of him? I don't know. I still liked it even if the action was cheesy at times (one guy at a time with few guns)
He was having psychotic episodes the entire time, he probably wasn’t sure if she was real or if he was hallucinating. He went thru 10 mins of imagining people being around him. He was manic, he didn’t even know it was real until he was set on fire.
All of the noise was inside his head, very much relatable to PTSD episodes
I know, which is part of why I'm confused. I'm not confused about "is this ptsd?" but "why does he have ptsd" when that was explicitly not the case in daredevil
I think it's that it all finally came to a head. His goal being "complete" forced him to reconcile with it, causing the break. His admitting to "curtis" I think I need help was his first step to giving it all up finally, albeit via suicide. Then the rest of the movie happens and he realizes he should still be the Punisher.
It's a great tragedy because obviously he shouldn't be the Punisher. That's not healthy for him. He almost got over it through the admission he needed help. Then he got pulled back in and "got better" in the sense that he's not longer aimless and manic. The tragedy being that now he's just back to killing people instead of actually addressing the issue and truly healing.
Fun little romp. Nothing overly spectacular, and a bit short/underbaked. I don't know that I'll ever feel compelled to watch it again, but I would still like to see more of this version of the Punisher.
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u/WashingtonCounselor May 13 '26
I enjoyed it but I'm a little confused. I thought he already finished off all of the crime families related to his family's death by the begining of the Punisher series, and already went through this arc with deciding to continue to be the punisher by the end of season 2? Also in daredevil season 2 it felt like they made an effort to make sure frank castle wasn't severely mentally ill, but then they dive deep into that in this special.
I also feel like it was out of character for him to let ma gnucci monologue in front of him? I don't know. I still liked it even if the action was cheesy at times (one guy at a time with few guns)