Punisher One Last Kill Review

[00:00:00] This is The Defenders on TV Podcast Industries. We're back chatting about a Marvel Television special presentation, The Punisher One Last Kill.

[00:00:30] John Reed is my honor. All done. Nothing left to do. Poor Frank.

[00:00:59] Welcome back fellow Defenders to Defenders on TV Podcast Industries. We are chatting about the Marvel Television special presentation, The Punisher One Last Kill. I am one of your hosts, Derek O'Neill Hello there, fellow Defenders. Kill me now. I am one of your other hosts, John Harrison And falling from a height. I am Chris. You could call me Frank if I just go.

[00:01:29] For an hour. Yeah. Somebody replaced your face, though, in that fall, Chris. Yeah. I am the stunt guy. That's why it looked terrible. I was that stunt guy. Right. That's why it looked like you were falling onto a cardboard box. Yeah. Yeah. In a million dollar production like this. Anyway. I made... Hey, just so you guys know, this is actually a fan film that I made. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's great, isn't it? Yeah.

[00:01:57] I look so much like John Bernthal now with my beard. And they just kind of replace a few things. Well, you certainly did last week. I'm glad you've had your hair cut. I'm being trimmed since then. Absolutely. We thought you were going through some really bad times, Chris. PTSD. Now that you've avenged the death of your family. Exactly. Yeah. And we think that the apocalypse will be met by the three horses of the apocalypse when in fact it would be Manucci on a shop mobility. Going at five miles an hour.

[00:02:28] I didn't know how that was going. And then I'm like, oh, that does make sense. Well done. Good for taking this. I love how she's racing to get away from Frank. Yep. And it's like... It's a souped up mobility scooter. Come on. It is. It actually has... It goes like 50 miles an hour. Well, exactly. She does have a lot of money. I just thought you were referencing Good Omens, John. Which we just podcasted about this week. It's because we've just done that. I was just like, that's how evil presents itself on a shop mobility scooter.

[00:02:59] But I think we should actually talk about The Punisher. As you can probably hear already, there is going to be a spoiler-filled discussion here for Punisher One Last Kill. So if you don't care about spoilers, continue listening. If you really, really enjoyed Punisher One Last Kill, you may hear a different opinion from us over here on TV Podcast Industries. And really, we know we have to cover this because we need to get to Spider Noir, which just came out this week in Prime Video.

[00:03:26] All eight episodes dropped in one day, guys, for this. I know. Again, all of the things that we heard about Spider Noir, you know, the fact that Nick Cage is in it and doing his first TV show, we were going, well, you know, Nick Cage can be good and he can be bad. The fact that it's from a Sony production, the fact that it's TV in the Spider-Verse, all of those things we're saying, you shouldn't be covering it. It's not going to be good. And then we watched the first two episodes of Seth and John. And Chris, you've watched one of them. That's really good, isn't it? It's excellent, yeah.

[00:03:56] It's like, shockingly. Yeah. Long time listeners will know that I love Marvel. I love Spider-Man. Yeah. And I was like, I went in going, okay, they're just essentially kind of cashing in on Nicolas Cage in Into the Spider-Verse. Yeah. Kind of. That's what I was like, this is just going to be a quick cash in. And when Nick Cage does some really good projects and some really bad projects and something

[00:04:24] in between, I was honestly expecting like a six, seven out of 10. And I was happy I was getting live action Spidey. Yeah. I watched the first episode and I was shocked at the quality. Really good. At the songs, everything. And I watched it in black and white. Because I was like, do you know what? It's noir. It's like gumshoe detective, PI. I'm like, I'm going to watch this as kind of nature intended. Well, definitely as the filmmaker's intended. Yes.

[00:04:54] You could tell quite quickly that it's filmed specifically to be seen in black and white. But you could also watch it in color. True color. True color. Yeah. And I think we'll probably watch it both ways before we cover it. But we will be covering that on our main feed in TV Podcast Industries. All just a way to say, if you don't like our podcast about The Punisher, we've got loads of other stuff to listen to over on TVPodcastIndustries.com. Subscribe to the podcast over there and you will get our coverage of Spider Noir when we start that, hopefully next week, when we start to be able to talk about that one. Indeed.

[00:05:24] We also have our coverage of the excellent two seasons of the Marvel Netflix Punisher. Yes. And maybe that might be something that you would like to check out as well. Yeah. But also, yes, tons of Marvel stuff in the back catalog. Most recently, Daredevil. Yes. So let us get on to our spoiler-filled discussion. Derek, what are some of the episode details? Well, this one-off Marvel special presentation was directed by Rinalda Marcus Green and written

[00:05:53] by Rinalda Marcus Green with Jon Bernthal. Jon, you may remember what these guys worked on before and where they met each other. They previously worked on the excellent HBO miniseries We Own This City, which is about the corruption of the heart of the Baltimore Police Department. Bernthal was fantastic in that as a cop, willing to break and bend any rule so that he can further his career. And he breaks quite a lot of the wrong rules. And unfortunately, it is a true story and he does see his comeuppance. But it was an excellent series.

[00:06:23] Loved seeing these two work together. And, you know, at least Ronaldo got a good job out of it afterwards. Yeah, absolutely loved We Own This City. Such a great little series. Kind of made me all sort of nostalgic for The Wire. Yeah. Really, really enjoyed it. And it certainly had that kind of vibe in buckets. So really excited to see what they bring or what they were going to bring to The Punisher One Last Kill.

[00:06:53] And I think, yeah, on the face of it, this show should be absolutely everything that I'd want to see in a Marvel show, to be honest. And so, yes, it'll be interesting to get into our discussion of this special presentation. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Jon, let's do it. Do you want to give us your synopsis for The Punisher One Last Kill? Sure. Frank Castle, as the brutal vigilante known as The Punisher, kills members of the Nucci

[00:07:19] crime family who are believed to be the last criminals involved in the death of his family. The Nucci's former territory in New York City, Little Sicily neighborhood, becomes overrun with crime as a result. Castle lives in a Little Sicily apartment complex where he is haunted by hallucinations of people from his past. After locking up his Punisher gear, Castle goes to his family's graves to take his life, but is stopped by a hallucination of his daughter, Lisa.

[00:07:47] Castle walks aimlessly through the chaotic streets, haunted by an apparition of his military friend, Curtis Hoyle. He is cornered by crime lord, Ma Nucci, the matriarch of the Nucci crime family who seeks revenge for Castle's murder of her husband and three sons. Ma Nucci reveals that she has placed a bounty on Castle's head, attracting every common criminal in the area. Returning to his apartment, he sees a vision of his friend, Karen Page, who scolds Castle for

[00:08:17] his failures, but also consoles him. A small army of criminals enters the apartment complex and attacks innocent residents, looking to claim the bounty on Frank Castle. When his apartment is set on fire, Frank escapes and ruthlessly dispatches criminals, fighting his way to the rooftop before jumping off. He has an opportunity to pursue Ma Nucci, but instead decides to protect local shop owner Dre, his wife Debbie, and their daughter Charlie.

[00:08:46] After the fighting is over, Charlie gives Frank Castle a paper rose, which he puts on Lisa's grave. Castle decides that he still has work to do as the Punisher. Now fully tooled up, Frank Castle once again returns to the streets with a new Punisher costume and arsenal. He stops a group of folks from attacking innocent people and kills their leader. Yeah. That's the full summary. And as we used to do on the Netflix show, we do have an abridged synopsis for it as well.

[00:09:16] The abridged synopsis is a truncated retelling of why Frank Castle still murders when he's already murdered everyone responsible for his family's deaths. Indeed. Would that be about right? Yes. Why he punishes and why he still punishes. Yes. Well, you say punishes, Chris, but this is definitely murder because there's no justification given for most of the people that he kills. And he just is attacking people who are shooting guns, sometimes holding guns, sometimes have killed pets of people that he passed by in the street.

[00:09:44] But yes, it's back to Frank murdering people with a justification that he's decided upon in the show, I think. Yes. Yeah. There were no caveman subtitles on Disney Plus, unfortunately. No, there weren't. Yes. But let's get into our bullet points as we are back with the Punisher. We have our bullet points for the episode. Our bullet point number one is, well, Frank has completed his mission once again.

[00:10:12] This is how this episode begins. We have Frank in his apartment and now in Little Sicily, where it's revealed that he has killed the final people who were responsible for the death of his family, which was his mission after he came home. One that we saw play out over the two seasons of Netflix Punisher. Interesting point to note, I suppose, is that I still, after watching this three times, I

[00:10:38] don't really know how this connects into the MCU Daredevil series, where we last saw Frank captured at the end of Daredevil Born Again. They say it takes place roughly around the same time as season two, but it seems that Frank had killed the Nucci's months and months before. If you look at the Little Sicily has now turned into a hellhole, which was the area of New York that the Nucci's used to control, it looks like that's months since they were in charge of that restaurant, at least.

[00:11:07] So yeah, so this, I don't really know at the moment where it takes place at all. I know it takes place before Spider-Man, which is the next time we're going to see the Punisher. And after Daredevil. Maybe. I presume. You know? I guess, yeah. I mean... I don't really know. I don't know whether Frank is... Is he getting ready for Daredevil season one, or is he somewhere in the middle of Daredevil season one? He has the second place that he goes off to after season one. I don't know. I guess that's the weird thing.

[00:11:33] I mean, I would have hoped that I could have pinpointed this more precisely around his last known location in Daredevil, and knowing that he's going to pop back up in the next Spider-Man. Yeah. I'm not entirely sure I do, because I know we have Karen and Daredevil currently, or they

[00:12:00] were hiding out in his previous headquarters or hideout, whatever it is. He has this other hideout then in Little Sicily where we see him now, which has turned into a complete and utter disaster because of Frank. And is basically in... I'm guessing the draw of the beast in that this is the Nucci's neighborhood.

[00:12:27] We see the closed-down restaurant because the owners have been ultimately shot or killed. And so it's just difficult to understand where this is. But I guess ultimately, in essence, whilst it probably should have been a more connective

[00:12:49] story between those two points, it is going back to Frank's revenge mission of the people that were involved in Frank's family's murder at the park. And I guess it's just whether that is needed. But look, that's where his mission is at this stage. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:14] So to my understanding, and a bit of kind of inside baseball, when they came to Jon Bernthal after the Netflix shows, and this is like the Vahey kind of Kevin Vahey Disney Marvel side, and we're like, hey, we want to bring Punisher back into the MCU. We want to bring him in. Bernthal's kind of... Supposedly, and again, I don't know where this has come from, because I'm not sure it's

[00:13:38] been ever completely verified, but apparently Bernthal was like, I'll do it, but I want a kind of a place to show why Frank is coming back. So obviously that's why Jon Bernthal apparently has kind of helped co-write this, in that he felt that the Punisher's story was done in season one and two of the Netflix show, that the Punisher was like finished punishing.

[00:14:08] That's how he felt it had kind of ended, and he wanted to show... The big issue that we had with that show was that the final scene had him as the Punisher, just like the final scene of this show has, dressed all up in his full gear, going after drug dealers, and then said, in memoriam, to Stan Lee. So that's how it finished. It finished with him going back, a punishing on the streets. And I took particular exception with them saying this was like reference to Stan Lee, hey, look at this guy murdering people in the streets. And so that's why I remember it, Chris. Let's see.

[00:14:38] No, no, no. I'm like, yeah, exactly. And this is what I don't fully understand, because that's exactly it. He was already punishing. So even if you take it that, okay, he was punishing, and then he went and then killed the Nucci's, right? Timeline-wise. Then he went and killed the Nucci's, and then he felt that he was done punishing. And then this is a story of how he got back into punishing before Daredevil Born Again Season 1. Yes. Yeah.

[00:15:06] Then, okay, fine, kind of. But to my own, like, this looks more like this is after or around the same time of Daredevil Born Again Season 2. And, like, this is basically just Marvel going, hey, here's the, you're about to see Frank Castle in Spider-Man Brand New Day. Hey, here's how he came back if you wanted to watch.

[00:15:36] And, like, here's the latest piece of the Punisher thing. It just, okay, if John Bernthal wanted a vehicle to bring Frank back, it just felt like this very opening feels a bit too much like the crib notes on what was, and I still feel, two fantastic

[00:16:05] seasons of content from Netflix. Yeah. In fact, if you go watch the first episode of the Punisher Season 1 on Netflix, the scene that Ma Nucci describes of her family getting killed is basically Frank at the opening three minutes of that show is even better, is significantly better than what they deliver here and Frank's backwards. But I do want to play some compliments in this scene, in Frank completing his mission. I love when he's walking through Little Sicily and he's ignoring everything that's going on around him.

[00:16:32] I love how they do that one shot of everything going on around him in the city, the way that it's all falling apart, the police car coming in and then being pushed out of town because even the police can't come into this area. And then you see another police car up in flames, all being done as a one shot as Frank's walking through the street, ignoring everything around him. I think that's fantastic. And it shows, again, what's going on in his mind. He has killed the Nucci's. That's the end of the mission that he set for himself.

[00:16:58] And now he's going off to do his one last kill, to take his own life when he goes to the graveyard. That's what the whole story is about. And it's for that piece. It's done so well. I really think that's so good. And again, the other pieces in this point, the Marine visions that he has of Curtis Hoyle and the ghosts of his past in the Marines talking about his mission and laughing at him that he thinks his mission is over. That's how his mind is working.

[00:17:24] He's telling himself, well, I promised my family once I killed the people responsible for the death, I would take my own life. And the Marines are telling him in these visions, they're telling him, you shouldn't be. Your mission's not done, basically. I'm laughing at him. And then he starts to cut into his Marine tattoo. All of those pieces, I think, are really, really good. Absolutely. If you're going to do a very short version of Frank's mental state, they show it really well there. Yeah. I mean, I think there's some really good stuff in here.

[00:17:54] And sometimes I think it just, it possibly gets lost. It doesn't come through. I mean, I really liked where it was shot. I loved it with the overhead rail lines, just that whole vibe. I thought it was really good. Part of me lost it in the first bit because I didn't quite know what was going on. We have the pull-ups with a lot of grunting, bloody hands, loads of pills with the bourbon. So a whiskey watch, I guess. Then a vomit.

[00:18:24] And I was there going, what's this? The Punisher's bulimic or something? I do have that noted as American painkiller eating, which is something that they do in every American TV show. When someone has pain, if they're a real man, they swallow it out of the bottle at 12 pills at a time. No, that kills you. Yeah. And then he punches a mirror and I just kind of like, what an opening in the sense of, I don't know what's just happened here.

[00:18:49] And then you watch episode one of the season again, and it's kind of like this entire 40 minutes is concentrated into the first 10 minutes of that show. And it's just way more succinct. And I think because it's drawn out, then I'm going, why has Frank lost the power of speech? Why is this feeling more like a retelling of Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol? Because there's so many ghosts and hallucinations that are happening.

[00:19:18] It's like, you know, the ghosts of Frank passed, you know? But at the same time, I think they're really good. Like, I think the marine stuff, you know, some really important kind of themes in here. But overall, it kind of gets a little bit lost because of the speed at which it's told. Yes. And like the Curtis story in season one was fantastic. And here, it is just a shadow of that.

[00:19:48] They're trying to shorthand it. Yeah. And in doing so, it doesn't give it the time it needs. And that was my biggest issue with all of this. I felt like for most other Marvel shows that have happened since sort of Endgame and all that, you've had the kind of Legends recap where they've shown clips of like Wonder or Doctor Strange or whoever it might be.

[00:20:18] And here we get a special presentation. You're thinking, make something really useful. And instead, it's a retelling of something that's already out there. Again, it's almost a bit like some of the gripes I sometimes have around Doctor Strange or Spider-Man that, you know, the origin story is so good. They just keep retelling it. And I don't think we need to have, you know, or just package it in a different way. But it felt just like shoehorn.

[00:20:48] I think that's it. I think you're right. I am slightly different than you. I think we do need this recap. I think kids that are going to go and see Spider-Man are going to come out of the cinema and go, oh, I want to watch more of that Punisher guy who was in Spider-Man for 10 minutes. I can't watch two seasons of the show. But they didn't do it here for someone to go to the cinema because this is massively violent. It's certainly not for the kids that see Spider-Man movies, right? It's for adults that have seen Spider-Man who can sit through a couple of seasons of the Punisher show, right? Or who know the character from Daredevil. It's not really for anybody.

[00:21:17] They just didn't target in the right way. And they've made a 40-minute special, which is ultra violent and doesn't tell a new story. You know what? I don't even begrudge Jon Bernthal this. He needs it. He deserves it. He's a great actor. He deserves the money for this. He got the writing credit as well. He got extra money for that. He's now in Daredevil and he has his own show and he has Spider-Man. I think they were probably hoping this would propel him into getting his own series on Disney+. I don't think it's going to.

[00:21:46] He just got the same thing from The Bear. Instead of just getting his appearance fees for The Bear, he was able to do a one-shot, one-off special for them as well. So he's obviously getting money for these shows, which is great. He's an excellent actor. Deserves all the money that comes to him. But I just wish I didn't have to sit through it a couple of times to write notes for it. That's all. Can I move us on slightly just to our second bullet point? Because it does actually tie into, again, a lot of the thematic things that we're talking about here is going to continue.

[00:22:15] But our second bullet point is the graveyard kill site. The scene. And, again, what we talked about here is how, essentially, Frank is doing after that long walk through Little Sisseli, gets to the graveyard, gets to see his wife, his son, and his daughter's grave site.

[00:22:42] And he basically is talking to them, having that conversation. And, again, breaking down. And a lot of this PTSD that we see with the Marines' visions begins to manifest itself here. Yeah. Where, again, you get a very, very quick shorthand on his family is dead. And it was his wife and his kid. And he's caught up about it. And you get to see the merry-go-round carousel.

[00:23:11] All of those bits just shot in. In a hallucination style kind of flashing imagery kind of piece. And you get, then, the PTSD element of his daughter, his son, and his wife starting off happy-go-lucky. And then the shots happening, the blood. And then giving out to Frank. Yelling at Frank. Blaming Frank. Yeah. And, again, this is fine.

[00:23:40] And I mean, generously, this is fine. This is, again, very quickly showing his mental state, where he is, why he blames himself. He feels that they blame him. Again, it is just, it was so, and I hate to compare it to a previous, the previous show, where we, it was so well done. So well told, that story of him.

[00:24:06] Him and the pain he felt and he feels about his, the loss of his family and the revenge that he feels he must have. To get it just kind of so quickly slashed back. And then having, what kind of is really harsh is this vision of his daughter blaming him again. Kind of just, like, pushing him and blaming him to take his life.

[00:24:34] Which just didn't feel, and I feel like I'm harping on it, but it's just not, it didn't feel earned in that 10 minute section. Yes. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. It was just so quick. You're going, okay, I get it. And then seeing, I think there was a couple of, the best one, actually, even better example is his wife is lying on the bed.

[00:25:00] And it's all that kind of seductive, sexy, kind of like, oh, we're happy. And then you see the blood forming on her shirt and she's screaming and yelling. And you're like, wait, what? Huh? And it's just like, it's an almost ricochet kind of whiplash. It's almost that whiplash effect. And I get what they were trying to do. They were trying to, in my opinion, give you that whiplash of like, oh, he's having a nice, happy memory of his family.

[00:25:30] And then, what the what? It just didn't, it didn't work, I think is the best thing I can say for me. See, I did kind of like that. And a couple of things I really liked about those scenes is, number one, that his daughter's played by John Bernthal's real daughter. So there's definitely a connection between the two of them. And that's actually probably why they focus a lot more on her than they focus on the son. At some points I was like, does he care that his son's dead? Hey, daddy, watch me jump into the pool. Oh, you're not watching. I'm getting really angry at you.

[00:25:58] But I kind of love the way they delivered those stories with the camera focusing on them. They go from happy to sad to angry and confused at being killed effectively. And that's really good. I love that it's the same actress who played his wife across the two seasons of The Punisher that's come back here to play his wife Maria in this one shot. Just those scenes. I think that's really good that they got her to come back. So, again, lots of respect shown for the previous show.

[00:26:24] But, yeah, I'd say even for these scenes, go watch the show. But the fact that he stays his hand from taking that one last kill, from killing himself because he sees the vision of his daughter and then goes back home to try and live a life in some sense. Yeah, I mean, I guess this, again, I think, you know, really important theme here around what someone's gone through.

[00:26:50] Frank here having to deal with the death of his family or the murder of his family, not even just the death, but the murder that you see him struggling. And, you know, he's done it in a way or tried to cope in a way that only he can because of him being an ex-Marine or whatever, for whatever the reason. I think the problem I have here is that, on the one hand, I really like that we get some explanation from Frank.

[00:27:18] You know, you're so far away from me. Like, he realizes he's hallucinating. He knows it's not real because we see him ask that of Karen because he knows that she's alive. And then he realizes he's hallucinating people who are still alive. And he says, well, I don't know what to do. I'm just tired. And then it's sort of you see him pulling his gun, wanting to kill himself, as you say. But it's all crescendoing up where it's getting angrier and angrier.

[00:27:46] And then all of a sudden it comes straight back down. And no sooner has he seen his daughter Lisa at the graveside than she's gone again. And he has some other form of thing in his mind. But we just don't know what. Because then he's approached by Marnucci, effectively, on the walk back home or to his apartment. So I don't really know what's happened here.

[00:28:15] And again, I think I struggle here that there's just not enough dialogue here. It's just simply, I mean, I don't know where the dialogue is. It's really threadbare. Because you have to kind of make it up yourself. You have to kind of give it a lot yourself. I would assume, again, the death of the Nucci's happened months ago.

[00:28:40] We can tell that from this entire special takes place over one day. So my suspicion is Frank does this every single morning. He goes and gets his coffee. He walks out to the graveyard. He puts the gun to his head and says, Today's the day I'm going to fulfill my promise to my family. Now that I've killed everybody involved, I'm going to take that bullet and kill myself. And then every day he finds a reason to live for another day. But he's living in massive pain and massive trauma.

[00:29:06] I think that moment when he's talking to Curtis, the vision of Curtis, and says, I need help. That moment I was going, yes, he does. That's what you need. Why don't you do that? Why don't you go and get some therapy? And then maybe put your abilities to use somewhere and work for somebody. But that's never going to be Frank. That's not Frank. That's a fundamental problem I have with the character of Frank. That he is a person that takes a gun and kills people. And doesn't work for anybody. And doesn't really follow the plans. And doesn't really do investigations as to whether they should die or not. He leaves that to Micro in the comic books.

[00:29:36] Or other people to give him his targets. But here it's just about him going through trauma. Realizing he probably should get some help. But he's talking to ghosts. I do think it's really harsh of the ghost of Karen Page. When he goes, are you real? And she goes, yes, I am, Frank. And then disappears as well. He's going, oh wow. Your mind's really messing with you, mate. But let's move on to kind of the main content portion of the episode. We've mentioned Manucci a couple of times.

[00:30:03] But our bullet point three is Manucci setting the contract. As Frank comes back to his apartment one more day when he hasn't chosen to kill himself. Manucci comes up to him in his wheelchair. And puts down a pretty big threat to him, right? She goes, you killed my family just like your family. And I am going to make you pay for that. I've set a time for everybody to be able to unleash hell on you. Take you out for what you did to all of my boys.

[00:30:31] And I do love that she does the flashback to the death of each member of the family. Her husband. Who kind of says, well, given his line of work, I suppose I expect him to die way sooner than now. So it wasn't that much of a surprise that all of his stuff caught up with him. But you killed all the rest of them. And it's something, again, once you watch it a few times. Or if you are paying attention the first time you watch it. You can hear that all of these people are horrible people.

[00:31:01] But Manucci is a person that is trying to defend them even though they're all gone and have been punished for their crimes. Right? So the eldest brother, she's saying, was a great cop. And you go, well, he definitely wasn't a good cop. If he got something from Frank, he's definitely been killed because he's a corrupt cop. Didn't help loads of people. And the restaurant owner for the Nutri restaurant, she says he's got a family. Therefore, he shouldn't die. Well, not necessarily.

[00:31:28] If he was involved in the death of Franz Klamli, he obviously was involved in bad things. And then she says, you know, the light of her world, her youngest son. I never believed what they said about him touching kids. And you're going, he definitely did. Those rumors were definitely had some basis in reality. And he's getting killed for that too. So yeah. So I do like that she is talking through the deaths of each member of her family. But also pretending that they aren't bad people except for her husband. Yeah.

[00:31:55] I mean, I thought this was actually one of the best parts of it and what precedes it. Like, you know, you get some kind of reference point as to why then Frank has what's happened previously. You know, I like the fact that Manucci is kind of reflected Frank back on himself. You know, really, you know, my entire family has also been taken from me, effectively by you.

[00:32:24] I'm also lonely like you and ever present hunger. That's all we've got. And so I kind of like this little bit of kind of mirroring that happens here. And I like that we see the black sedan. I mean, it's very, very sort of flagged all the way through this episode. You know, who's in that black sedan that's following him. And I think one of the things ultimately is it does become, though, a little tropey.

[00:32:54] I mean, if what was happening to her prince, the thinker, Carlo, and she looks up to see that it's 647. On the clock. I mean, it just felt really tropey that to me. Like, it's kind of like she looks back in at a really small analog clock in the car to say, and that's why I'm good. I just don't think any. I thought it was all over the thought.

[00:33:23] Like, just send them in. Like, be a proper badass, like, American Italian granny who's had her family wiped off and send them in. None of this. And it's going to start at 647. Doesn't that feel like our Dennis is punishment? No, but it's... It feels like a comic book. It doesn't feel like a TV show. And then we'll have a break for Cannoli at 7 o'clock. I was just like, what is going on? Okay, let's not stereotype. Yeah.

[00:33:53] No, but I just found it... Part of it that I really liked and then shoehorned into it again was this notion of time. The justification for what she's doing, she's laid out and it's been really good. And then this little pointless reference around the clock. I just didn't get it. It was to give him time to tool up, John. And he didn't take it. He had a chat with Karen instead. Yeah. Like, so, anyway. Look, but I mean, I did.

[00:34:22] I really enjoyed having Marnucci. But increasingly, I found it hilarious with her on a scooter. Oh, yeah. To be honest. But yes. So, as this kind of crescendos into the... What we do get is this tower battle. Like, for me, it is some fantastic scenes.

[00:34:43] In particular, where you get that very stereotypical, in my head now, John Bernthal, Frank Castle Punisher, where he essentially runs through a flaming door and smashes it through into the other apartment. And that kicks off his whole kind of war again. And... I was kind of impressed with the burn, though. Yeah. I always love that stunt trick of a stuntman on fire.

[00:35:13] I always think it's cool. And this really did look like Bernthal was on fire. So, it looks like he learned to do that stunt himself, which is a big stunt to do. Always dangerous fire. So, I love that it was literally him in the room looking down at gasoline on the floor going, Ooh, I wonder what's going to happen when somebody sets that on fire. Like, yeah, Frank, step back.

[00:35:32] But, yes, it did ignite the punishment in him, basically, quite literally, and had him running through the door across the way to the kid and mother that he'd seen before who were being beaten. And, well, other things as Frank arrives. A huge stereotypical thing, of course. There's a woman in the movie, so therefore... She must. She must, yeah. This mega shootout was brilliant. I mean, and I think off the back of Marnucci as well, it just felt really, really good. Felt really, really punisher.

[00:36:03] Yeah. You know, I liked... The one line I did like from Karen is, you're not a victim, Frank, you chose it. Mm-hmm. And I thought that was a really, really important kind of line from her. But I think Frank getting set on fire, yeah. Yeah, but I actually really liked the shotgun action in The Neighbours across where he's kind of saves the little kid Isaiah and his mother. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:27] I think we were saying that as well as it went on because of the music, it was kind of action with jazz hands. That's the type of music it was. But that and then transitioning to the balcony and the staircase, I thought was really good. Like, the fire extinguisher down the staircase. I loved that shot. Absolutely loved it. And then, unfortunately, just, I guess, got taken out a bit by some of the roof stuff. The one roof moment, really. You know, because, I mean...

[00:36:58] Everybody's talked about it. It's been all over the internet for the last couple of weeks to the point that the makers of the show had to come out and go, no, no, that was literally a stuntman doing the stunt. We couldn't have Berndal do it. It's literally a face replacement. It's not any CGI at all. The face replacement was just, unfortunately, didn't cover properly. And the stuntman doing the fall didn't look realistic. But it's not a CGI fall, which is crazy because everybody thinks it is. Because it's so bad. It is mad. I mean, the only thing I wondered, he's a marine, right?

[00:37:27] And I know he escaped, ultimately, by jumping off the roof onto the scaffolding. But as a marine, wouldn't you want to try and... Wouldn't it be, like, find your exits? It would be, like, to get to the ground floor? Because there's no helicopter coming, ultimately, to take him off the roof. Yeah. You know, so... But that doesn't look as cool. No, I know it doesn't. I know. And that's... But, like, that's... Like, some of this, I really... Exactly.

[00:37:56] That's what I really... That's what I... It's just... It's the most interesting. It is that when it's contained in that apartment, the action scene is fantastic. It's amazing. When you're in the staircase, the action scene is fantastic. As it gets to the roof, that is where I start to go, hmm, okay, hmm, because it does become a bit... He has exit points, but he kind of doesn't use them.

[00:38:25] He kind of locks himself on the roof. This is what I mean. Like, okay, it looks for a... For the TV show. Or, sorry, for a special. For a cinematic. And I think one of you guys wrote this in your notes. Raid style. The film, the raid. The tower. That's not why I wrote it in the notes, but I'll tell you why in a second.

[00:38:53] It is very much a, like, okay, we're just going to, like, we have a thousand men coming up the stairs, and it is Frank Castle's way of just killing them one after another, after another, after another, left, right, left, right, left. Just to show off his prowess with guns, axes, shotguns, everything. Yeah, and that's the reason why I wrote the raid and dread into the notes. Because that's what it should have been, but it's a terrible, back of a fag packet type version of the raid or dread.

[00:39:23] Both of those movies have a purpose of why you go floor to floor to floor to reach the higher level. You know, if this had been Manucci's apartment, and she was the last member of the crew that took out his family, and he had to reach her to take her out to punish her as the final member of this team before he's able to do his one last kill. It all makes sense why you do it, but you're right, Sean. He's in his apartment. He knows how to get out of the apartment. He knows how to get to the ground floor and leave the apartment. He's been living there for a while, right?

[00:39:52] So, enough so that his neighbours know him. But he goes to the roof for no particular reason, probably because, well, they did it in the raid and they did it in dread, so we'll do it in this show. But they don't have the budget, they don't have the time, and haven't written a show good enough to sell that idea as to why he's doing it. And it ends off, there's probably five or six guys on the roof. You know, there is that great scene, I must say, as all the apartments in the building are being, attacked. I do love seeing Frank take out people from across the way. I thought that was really cool.

[00:40:21] There's some great pieces of action. But to take a template like they had for the raid and then remade in dread and just do such a bad job of it on the terror battle. You reference something and do a bad version of it, it just pales in comparison. So, you're pointing out why yours didn't work, and that's what I felt they did here. And then you have, as he's gotten out of that building, he's fallen all the way down the scaffolding, he comes out and he sees Manucci. Yes.

[00:40:50] So, Frank Castle now is slightly reinforced with adamantium. He must be. Because, let's see, he fell from at least two stories onto a metal box of fans and indented it, crushed it. Then fell two to three stories, at least a story, onto some scaffolding. Yeah.

[00:41:17] And then from some scaffolding, at least three stories onto a bus, and then from a bus onto the floor. And all he does is have a bit of a, I don't know, a hock of blood. Yeah. And then gets up. No. This was the one I was like, eh. Again, you see that in Spider-Man doing it, right? You see Spider-Man smacking off a building and he hits his back with it and Tom Holland reacts and he goes,

[00:41:45] oh, that's sore, but he heals because he's Spider-Man, right? He's got superpowers. Exactly. You see Daredevil do it. Daredevil also has superpowers. Yeah. Frank Castle was in the Marines. Yeah. It's not a superpower. While it is a very difficult job and it's a huge amount of skills, it's not a superpower. And you see him smacking off that bus on his back and fall into the ground and then gets back up and punishes a load more dudes afterwards. But that's where it all gets, it just gets.

[00:42:15] It's confusing. Because on the one hand, it's like about being hyper-realistic and then it's like completely hyper-unrealistic. And then like, you know, so maybe ultimately that's why Manucci was able to escape from him because he had a slight dodgy leg. But we'll move on to the next point. Oh, yes. I think that's probably more in our fourth bullet point around saving the innocents. Yes.

[00:42:40] And the other ones were instead of going after Manucci along with her bodyguards, you know, he does head towards the donut shoppy as well. And I have to say, I said it to Derek when we were watching it. And I wrote it in my notes. It's like, it's a bakery, Frank, not an abattoir. And then it was like, not in front of the children, Frank, not in front of the children.

[00:43:09] Like, I kind of both enjoyed this whole fight in the donut shop. I called it blood and pastries. Yeah. But also, I started just getting silly with it in that when you had the skinhead come in, I was like, oh, that's like a swole flea. And, you know, and then he gets, but then the knifing is really uber violent. It's really specific. With the pen. Yes. Yes, because the pen is like a Chekhov's gun.

[00:43:39] We hear Dre talk about it earlier on. He needs his blue pen to take his notes. I was not expecting the reason why we focused on the blue pen was because Frank was going to stab someone 365 times throughout their body to kill them with a pen. Yeah. I guess the pen is more than this or it is, I say, but yeah. I mean, I think the fact that it was doing a bakery, it just made it like a bit funny for me because I really enjoyed the crowbar to the neck of one of them.

[00:44:08] I thought that was, wow, that's really, that's a kind of a really novel death. And then he gets flung into a tray of pastry as well. I was like, if you're going to die, at least in your last gasp, you might be able to sort of stumble in a donut or a croissant. Something like that. And I was kind of like, isn't that how we would all like to go in the end? So, I mean, that kind of mugger and crook ultimately did get quite a good send off.

[00:44:38] Apart from the crowbar to the neck. Well, yeah. Because you've got a face full of pastries as well. I kind of quite like the donut thing, but in a weird twisted way for me because I just thought it was like... You were maniacally laughing at this point. I was. And then just the little kid who's just seen all of this, rather than literally crying and I guess evacuating everything because it's so traumatic, she hugs his leg.

[00:45:06] And I'm like, okay, I guess so. I would be out of there. Absolutely. But you do hear them in the background when he's like murdering people in front of them. You hear them in the background going, thank you so much for saving us. Really? Is that how bad this place is? Like, you know, having an eight-year-old kid have people murdered in front of them and go, thank you very much, Mr. Stranger. And she'd worked out who the Punisher was when he was in the coffee queue earlier on. But one thing that I thought was really odd about this.

[00:45:35] So the character who, or the person who runs the coffee shop is Dre, played by Andre Royo from The Wire. All I could say the whole time was this can't be the only thing he gets to do in this. But this running theme throughout, that every time he sees violence and his daughter's around, he goes, don't worry, they're just playing, right? And then, like, he's getting beaten up outside and it's like, don't worry, they're playing.

[00:45:58] Like, was this supposed to placate her that she is able to put up with the violence that the Punisher does to people in the coffee shop because he thinks he's just playing with everybody? That's the thing. She thinks he's just playing with everybody. Is that what it is? It's like, you're treating her so naively that she shouldn't then go and hug the person that's doing that kind of thing. Not around the leg. Or maybe in her spare time, she's out having a cigarette out the back going, oh, my stupid dad, he knows nothing about how the world works or something. I don't know.

[00:46:27] Didn't the Punisher get, like, a little female sidekick in the comics at one point? This is how they set it up. They basically had, she's actually a psychopath that he has to train up. Yeah. It could be. So, look, I like the donut scene. I thought it was inventive in terms of the action. Yeah. I thought it did. Again, shorthand.

[00:46:51] Frank is genuinely a good person in that he's a terrible person with no morals. But he, in his own roundabout way, does try and save, quote unquote, innocence in his mind. Exactly. If you've got a baby girl, you're all right. Yes, exactly. Baby boy, not so much. Yes, exactly. Especially one that can swim. Yeah. Because he doesn't like that at all. No, he doesn't.

[00:47:17] But, again, so I kind of, like, look, they literally gave him the Sophie's choice of, like, do you kill this woman or do you go save this family? It was a bit ham-fisted. Literally just, like, whoo, whoo, whoo, what way to, and then you see him go over. And that's my best John Bernthal. Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo. Don't tell John Bernthal he said that. No, no, no, no. He would kill me. Literally. Might get a face full of pastry. Yeah.

[00:47:47] Actually, now, now that we say that, I'm okay with that. So, look, I did like that. And I don't understand, like, she gave him a flower, which I, only on my second watch did I understand that that was what she was making in the first scene in the coffee shop. So it took me, I was, like, trying to figure out what it was. I know, I think we were all going, is that a poppy or a peace lily? Exactly. Or is it a pastry in the shape of a flower? No, it's just a little painting that she was doing.

[00:48:17] Yes, I agree. But it's something special from her to get to the murderer. I mean, punisher. I did like that part. And then, as that kind of essentially moves it forward into the justification.

[00:48:32] So, this moves us into our final bullet point before we kind of start to discuss our notes and our defense, which is this whole piece has the punisher justifying himself being the punisher again. Like, it is essentially bringing it back. He goes back to the graveyard. He has his kind of heart-to-heart conversation with his daughter.

[00:49:00] And, like, this is, I know what you want me to do. Now, I love Jon Bernthal as an actor. He is an ugly crier. But he's an amazing actor. And this was, like, a really good scene of him kind of having that final breakdown moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I enjoyed that. Like, and that sounds terrible to say.

[00:49:27] Like, I enjoyed the emotion that Jon Bernthal gets across in this scene. Yes, I should have as well. I'm certainly, but I think at this stage, I was too far gone. So, I like that he goes back to the grave. But he actually says, maybe I'm going to keep going. So, he's still up for grabs. Until 30 seconds later where he keeps going. But because of everything that went on, I was like, well, there's nothing like the smell of blood and pastries with coffee in the morning to know that you're alive.

[00:49:57] Because he's kind of like, I've just done this. I mean, I don't, I just didn't find the connection. And I guess I was too busy thinking about the donut shop violence. But I just, I thought it was weird that he's like, I'm going to keep going, killing everyone. Yeah, I don't think that's what he's supposed to be meaning. I know it's not. But that is what he's meaning. Yeah.

[00:50:22] What I would have loved, and it's never going to happen because, again, I have a fundamental disconnect with the Punisher character. What I would have loved is he literally says, I need help. I'm going to go and get help. I'm sorry I've lost my family to the murderers. I've punished the murderers. Now I'm hanging up my coach. But he goes, that girl in the donut shop reminded me of you. So there's other innocents out there that I now get the choice to murder because they remind me of my family.

[00:50:50] And not all families have murderers in their families to get revenge for them. So I'll go and do that. It was basically what it was. And then he recites the poem from the book that his daughter used to read, One Batch, Two Batch, which we know from The Punisher Show. It's something that he used to say every time he made a kill, we now get the full poem, which I don't think we got the full poem in The Punisher Show. I don't think we ever got the full thing. I remember that book. I remember that book. Oh, absolutely. No, he used to recite that when he was killing the murderers of his family. That was the thing.

[00:51:20] But now we get that. So at least we've gotten something new in the show. But I'm also not sure if that was what was written into the book. Baby girl to the end of time. I don't know whether that was written into the book as it was written or whether that was just something he said to his daughter when he was saying goodnighter. Not clear, as most things aren't in this show. And I think Dre also says one batch, two batch, three batch, four batch loads, five batch loads. Yeah, exactly.

[00:51:49] Maybe he also reads that book to his daughter. Oh, that's why the daughter reminded him of his daughter, because she had a book about bakers. Yes. The daughter was there. You see, we're putting it all together. Putting it together now. But after he's justified that he's going to be able to go on being the murderer and put on his new outfit and got his new haircut and new beard, he goes out onto the streets to deal with probably the thing.

[00:52:16] The other thing that's been most talked about about the Punisher, one last kill. This guy who is terrorizing people. He's got a gang. Mickey, I think his name is. Yeah. Who is going around terrorizing people in the street. He beats up the veteran at the beginning and then does what people consider to be the most egregious thing to be done in a TV show, even though there's lots of people being murdered in the show. He picks up a dog and throws it in front of a truck, killing the dog.

[00:52:45] So you do that in a TV show, you're definitely not going to survive to the end of the episode, right? So you have to have Punisher out here and he takes him out. I do really love the way he was reintroduced when we had the husband and wife talking about their daughter coming into the city and they're having this conversation. You're going, well, Frank's going to be protecting the city. Looks like they're getting on with their lives.

[00:53:06] You think it's kind of a nice ending and you see a baseball bat coming towards the guy's head as Frank stops him from hurting the old couple and gets the hat back for the veteran who's who's outside Nucci's restaurant. And then there's just this weird moment when the vet goes to Frank. That's not the only thing he took. And Frank kind of looks at him, gets his weapon ready, sees Mickey running down the road and then throws his knife into the back of him because he gets the nod from the vet.

[00:53:35] But the vet didn't say anything. The veteran didn't say he killed my dog or my wife or my whole family or anything of the sort. Frank murders this guy because the veteran gave him a nod saying he took more than just my cap. Yeah. And it was an axe. Oh, it was an axe. Sorry, you're right. I thought it was one of the knives from his new costume. So you're right. So look, again, this is shorthand. They literally shorthanded the actual dialogue. They didn't finish the sentence.

[00:54:06] And they didn't finish him going to get his uniform again. Like, they basically just he was in his new uniform. Yeah, because he had to go to the barbershop to get his hair cut. Okay, well, meaning that. Like, you did need to see him break up, like, break down his wall where he put all his arsenal. You should have seen that again. Like, you should have seen him go get his Punisher gear again and set it up. Like, you should have just had a bit of a suit-up montage. It would have taken 30 seconds. You didn't get that.

[00:54:37] But I think they probably could only have done that if he had an actual mission to accomplish. The fact that he's making a choice and telling his daughter, as John said, well, I guess I'm just going to go on killing people. Or, you know, I guess that's what it is. So he hasn't really got a mission. He's just going to put on his outfit, and when he chooses to say, that person deserves to be killed for what I've perceived, he'll just kill them. So he's not tooling up to go after Manucci.

[00:55:03] He's tooling up to go after people that he feels deserve to be punished in his mind. So, again, the disconnect here is like, again, that's how it comes across. The actual narrative is he's going to protect the innocent. He's going, that's his mission now. He's going to, however he sees it, he will protect the innocent and punish the bold. And you see that as that he is taking the vigilantism.

[00:55:31] He's taking to the streets of Little Sicily as a vigilante, as an enforcement. He is making, going to make the streets safe. That type of piece. That's how, that's what they're trying to get across. They don't. And this is quite unfortunate because like all of this, and I'm going to kind of skip slightly. All of this is based on the Garth Ennis run. Like this is the one of the best of like a, what was it?

[00:56:00] Three, four runs of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, where it was like, this is the welcome back, Frank. And it was the very first one. It was a Punisher Max. It was a Marvel Max series. And it was essentially Manucci. And like, it introduced all that very, there's no, there was no raid stuff. There was none of this other kind of bits. It's a great series written by Garth Ennis, one of the best writers in comic book history.

[00:56:29] And it just, they, they, they took, unfortunately, too many little pieces from this, this, this, and this. And they just didn't give it the breath it needed. And I bring this up to say, we have seen a Marvel Spotlight being done well. In that, like the last Marvel Spotlight that I really enjoyed was the Werewolf by Night. Which was fantastic. It had a very short, direct storyline.

[00:56:58] Like, it was beginning, middle, end. It was the same amount of time, pretty much. And it left you with that last few bit of an end credit scene, kind of, with Man-Thing and Werewolf. Jack Russell, Chris? Because it always makes you laugh. Yes, Jack Russell. You have that scene of them discussing what's next and what they're going to go do. And it is a kind of, you're like, ooh, I really want to see that.

[00:57:23] But, unfortunately, they don't also have this, that kind of last scene part here. Where, essentially, you just have Frank axing a guy in the back. And you're supposed to infer, unfortunately, that what he's doing, why he's doing it. And that, like, essentially, and it is. He is the Punisher. He is a vigilante. He is going to protect the innocent by punishing the bad, the wrongdoers.

[00:57:53] And that's what you get. But you don't even get him saying any part of that. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, what you needed was him to go say that so that when he's back in Daredevil, when he's back in Spider-Man, we understand why he's back. Yeah. And that's just the bit, the shorthand that was missing of this very short, shorthanded 40 minutes.

[00:58:21] But I feel like even if you had Ghost Curtis going, saying the name of the book you're talking about, Welcome Back, Frank, you know? Something like that. If you had something in his mind, which is what these characters are supposed to be, going Welcome Back, Frank, they're, in his mind, he's aligned his focus again, saying, right, he's not mental anymore, because that's the other thing I have a bit of a challenge with. This person has been seeing ghosts all the time, and now he's going to go out and choose who's innocent and who isn't, and they're going to kill them?

[00:58:49] Yeah, I definitely wouldn't trust him to judge people. But the other challenge that I think this show butts up against and has butted up against for me is we had two seasons of an adult version of The Punisher with lots of violence and themes that were aimed for an adult audience. Whereas Werewolf by Night was a one-off special where they wanted to show the character for the first time. So this becomes even more unnecessary.

[00:59:15] If this was, we want to show you an adult version of The Punisher like Garth Ennis' Max comics were, you know? We've had The Punisher as a character in, you know, Spider-Man and in his own comic books in the regular MCU, and then Garth Ennis comes along and goes, no, I want to write this for adults, and I'm going to do this in a completely separate universe with its own characters and its own people to be killed. That's why the Max books works. But he didn't need this because he already had it in the Netflix shows, and they're all available on Disney+. It's not like they're being kept back or anything like that. You can still watch them. Absolutely.

[00:59:45] And the thing here, I mean, for me, this ending, like The Punisher is one of those characters, you know, he operates in that gray space, and people either like him or they don't. It's a blunt character. Yes. They have made him even blunter here to the point where you go, well, he shouldn't be going out doing that kind of stuff. Yeah. Whereas the Marvel Netflix stuff, even the stuff with Daredevil,

[01:00:13] it's like these are the people that he's surrounded with where he says, no, Frank, you know, we have Matt telling Frank to pull back. This, you can't just do this. Yeah. It's that kind of angel on his shoulder, or you've got micro or whatever. And it nuances it. It makes it good. Like you say, if they had just had him going back, getting his Punisher outfit, as you say, Kurt and the other Marines, right at the start,

[01:00:40] they're saying, you know, they're laughing at him. They say you're going to quit. It's you've got, you know, what are you going to do? What's your purpose now, Marine, says Kurt. And like you say, you have them there going, welcome back, Frank. You found your purpose. Something like that. Or something. Whatever about having, you know, the whole thing with the vet and his dog and that retribution happening in sort of an eight episode season

[01:01:08] where it becomes a little tag part, you know? Yeah. This almost makes it, this bookends a special presentation, and I just don't think it's valid enough, to be honest. And I guess that's just where it's gone. They've made this character so blunt that he can hardly speak. He's effectively so messed up in the head. And like you say,

[01:01:36] that after having a good old shootout and a stretch of the old back and a crack of the old back falling off a building, that he's now perfectly okay to go off and start trucking axes around at people. Who, however horrendous, like the reason why he was uber violent was because it was revenge and it was a vengeance. Yes. And he's finished that and then, I mean,

[01:02:06] it needed more than this for me personally. And I think I'm just going to leave bullet point five there because it just didn't help. Yeah. Yeah. I do want to wrap it up because I know we've definitely kind of given a lot of our views. But before we do, does anyone have any notes? I got two quick ones. One is the character that plays the chauffeur for Manucci is Barracuda, which was confirmed after the show came out.

[01:02:36] Barracuda is a villain in the Garth Ennis run. He's quite a significant villain for The Punisher. So they have introduced him here with the view that if people watch this and do want more of The Punisher on Disney Clust, they'll have a villain that can come out. You can't really see Frank getting into big fights with Manucci, I presume. So they will have the heavyweight that is Barracuda. And as you say, throughout the show, he's the one that is following Punisher to find out where he lives. You see the limo following Frank in every location that he's in.

[01:03:05] So it's Barracuda that's chasing him down, which looks kind of cool. And then the other one you mentioned as well, there is Whiskey Watch. We always do a Whiskey Watch on Defenders. So when Frank is swilling down his painkillers, it is an American bourbon from Kentucky. The only thing I could see on the label was that it's FD, but that just says Finest Distilled, which is pretty much all bourbons. That's the purpose of them. And so I don't see a name on the label, unfortunately. Once again, still not giving us label drinks that we can drink along with the show. Maybe there's a reason behind that. Yeah.

[01:03:35] Hot cost. Yes. Potentially. I'm sure somebody would like to partner up with Disney and Marvel on some sponsorship for their product, which they will definitely get some sales out of. Absolutely. Any other notes from anybody else? None from me. None from me. Well, with that, I guess we move on to, do you defend the Punisher one last kill? Chris, I'll give you the floor first. I'm very rarely going to say this.

[01:04:05] I don't defend it, unfortunately. This is for a very rare, do not defend. For me, especially. This takes little bits from Garth Dennis' run, Welcome Back Frank, and just unfortunately doesn't tie it together. And it does have some really nice fight scenes, action bits. Like, there is some bits there. It's just unfortunate. It was too short. It was too contracted.

[01:04:34] And it just didn't feel right to me. It was missing some of those pieces. And do you know, the best example I can give it is, John Wick. John Wick is an amazing film about a guy who comes out of retirement, forced out of retirement, and he's forced to move back. And there's the iconic line where you have Keanu Reeves going, everyone keeps asking me whether I'm back. And do you know what? Yeah, I think I'm back. Like, that,

[01:05:04] that's what this missed. It missed that kind of nail on the head to go. He was out. And do you know what? They pulled him back in. They've made him, they've made him Punisher again. That's what this missed, unfortunately. And it's not like the Punisher doesn't have some good stories. Those Garth Dennis runs, which include Barracuda and Manucci, are some of the best Punisher,

[01:05:31] or are believed to be some of the best Punisher stories ever written. So, and it all ties together and it's fantastic. And it's, so they had something there to start with that they could have teased out. And like you said, given enough of a story that people went, you know what? I really want to see more of this. And then moved it into a series of some kind. Unfortunately, they just whiffed the ball on this. So no, I can't defend this. If you've got,

[01:06:00] if you've got 40 minutes and you've nothing else on, and you know what? Like you just, you don't have any expectations. Sure. Toss it on. But there are 16 episodes of a Netflix show that characterize the Punisher character, Frank Castle, way better. In my opinion, John, do you defend Punisher one last kill? Well,

[01:06:29] it will come as no surprise, I guess, fellow defenders, unfortunately. And I mean, it pains me to say it. Unfortunately, I don't defend the Punisher one last kill. I would give it two last kills out of five. I really wish you'd been even harsher. the real rate. I know. I was. Only because the rating sounds funnier. That's all. The other rating would be, I would give this one last kill out of five. But two, two, does that make sense?

[01:07:00] To me, it feels sad to say that. I loved Bernthal. I love what he did with his collaborators previously that we saw on HBO. And I do like the Punisher as a character. And to be honest, I think it came from the Marvel Netflix shows. And I just have no real idea as to what this was doing. I don't think, you know, is it a recap? Is it trying to connect between Daredevil and Spider-Man?

[01:07:29] Is it supposed to be a new re-imagining of the Punisher? Is it supposed to keep John Bernthal just kind of close? Into the MCU? I don't know. For me, it's actually unnecessary. If you want to see a Punisher show, watch the Marvel Netflix stuff. It will give a much better idea around the Punisher's motivations, his ecosystem, including most of the people that we see here,

[01:07:59] like Kurt, but additional ones like Micro. and the people that he actually doesn't shoot in the face in the first instance and gets to work with. Like this notion, they've made a character way blunter than he is to the point where he's grunting, pretty much. So I think this is a real shame. And I think, I know he's a violent character. I don't mind that. But in the end,

[01:08:28] I was so disinterested in this, I was making stuff up in my head. That's why I like the donut kill zone that he does, because it was just like hilarious in the end. It was so bad that John actually didn't want to watch this a second time. To take this, he watched it once and was like, I don't want to watch it again. I got it. I understand. Which is unfortunate. And I think the biggest disservice of it is that this is trying to show someone, to pick someone, even though it is in a comic book universe,

[01:08:57] who's lost his family. He's also lost his marine family. And he's dealing with severe issues. Yeah. And in the end, what they're saying is turn to violence. Yeah. And yes, there was violence in the Marvel Netflix stuff. Of course there was. But it was just like, this just feels like there's no purpose to it. And that is the problem for me. And I have to say, those themes are important. And I don't think they service them enough. So I would give,

[01:09:27] even though I'm sure they feel they did, I don't believe that they did within the time that they have given to this. And so, yeah, I would give this two last kills out of five or two out of five. Because, yeah, it's, I'm surprised the script was anything but scenes and action references. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a shame. You could do two, one last kills. How about that?

[01:09:57] Yeah. Two X, one last kills. But Derek, do you defend this special presentation? No, I don't. I defend John Bernthal's right to make as much money as he possibly can right now. He's very hot. He's a really good actor. He is being brought into these types of shows because he adds a lot of viewership. He is so respectful of the legacy of the Punisher.

[01:10:21] He is so respectful of the legacy of Marines and veterans coming home and being disenfranchised by the government. I love that about him. I think he's someone that really upholds the experience of the American veterans. Particularly, it's something that's really important to him. So much so that the other two ghosts that are in that scene with Bernthal, beside Curtis Hall, both of those are Marines. They are former veterans. One of them might actually have been an active Marine. I can't remember. But both of them are both Marines.

[01:10:51] So, they are going through the full scene with him. That's how much connection he has to the character. But unfortunately, exactly to the point that you're making, Chris, this should have been, why is the Punisher out being the Punisher? And all I can see after watching it three times is, he had finished his mission, which was to kill the people that murdered his family. And now he's decided to go out and murder. There's no justification. He doesn't have the right to go out into the street and say, those innocent people are being abused. So,

[01:11:19] I'm going to murder the people that are across from them because he has no background in that. He doesn't have a new mission. He isn't going after other people that have taken out incidents. He's not, they haven't set up a future gang for him to take out the drug dealers on the side streets. He's not going after them. He's not going after anybody. He's basically saying, I'm going to tool myself up, back up with the equipment that I have, put on my skull and crossbones, flak jacket, and off I go.

[01:11:46] Even if they had connected it in with Daredevil and said, I am going to go back after those people who are taking on the Punisher name and be the Punisher that people deserve. If it was something like that, anything like that would have been great. If they turned the terror attack into him going after Manucci and he had to go floor by floor, that would have been a great idea. Loads of other ideas, loads of other possibilities. And it just doesn't serve any of them. And to me, once again, they've taken this character back to the eighties,

[01:12:15] terrible action movies, the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, the Sylvester Stallone movies, where it's just a guy with a gun who is what, who is allowed to shoot people for no particular reason. That's still illegal. You know, even if they had referenced the fact that a mayor of New York was taking the cops off the street to deal with vigilantes, and that's why little Sicily was in the squalor that it's in, but it's not, it's actually saying that the reason why little Sicily is doing so bad is because Frank killed the Nucci's. It's not saying anything about the mayor.

[01:12:45] You know, there's no reference to it at all. So there's no reason given here as to why he should become the punisher. And that's the only thing this 40 minutes or this 50 minutes one off was supposed to accomplish. It didn't do it. So cannot defend it. Do you know what actually would have been better? You did the whole tower thing and then you have Manucci and Barracuda shoot something, try and shoot Frank with a rocket or something, blow up the donut shot, kill the kid, kill the dad.

[01:13:14] He has a connection. And now he's like, do you know what? I like that kid from the coffee shop earlier. She was nice. She gave me a thing earlier in the day and you've gone and killed the man. So you know what? I'm going to go punt. Like, like that would have made, because then you can say they killed an innocent kid, reminds him of his daughter. Now Manucci is back on the table. Barracuda is back on the table because Barracuda fired the shot. And then, then you, then you set up, he is going after the Nucci's again. He's going out. He was willing to leave,

[01:13:44] let alone. And now he's not. That's better. So many, so many great options that could have tied into the universe. And now I'm going again, what does it accomplish? Are people coming out of the Spider-Man movie in a couple of weeks time going, I want to see something more of the Punisher watching this and going, I don't want to see anything more of the Punisher. So once again, Bernthal has proven that he works really well as the Punisher, but mostly in shows where he's playing second fiddle to another character.

[01:14:13] I don't think the Punisher for me can work like this as, as a show. It just, it's just not my type of show. Probably. And this proves it even more to me, I think. But I think that's it. It's been a while since we've, since we've not defended a show in the past. And I think Chris, you've got to get out of here, but we have a little bit of feedback from our fellow defenders. Yes. To get through on the show. I really do. And I, unfortunately, I'm sorry for our fellow defenders who have written in and they can't be part of the feedback, but I do want to say fellow listeners,

[01:14:43] you know us. If you're, if you're joining us for the first time, go back and listen to any of us. We are typically a quite a positive crew and we, do not like having to kind of, we don't enjoy tearing down. That is not what we do. We know a lot of people put a lot of effort and a lot of great work into putting this together. Uh, so we say this with love. Thank you to all the filmmakers, to people, to the writers, to the directors, to the crew, to the actors, everyone who pulled this together.

[01:15:10] We know this is anything creative coming out now is a monumental task. So like I said, support everyone, be better, be great. and just, uh, remember that there, uh, is hosts of other fantastic shows, uh, from the Marvel universe that are available to watch. And as I said, go check out daredevil born again, season one, season two, and all of our comfort on it. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks so much, Chris for joining us. Yeah. Thanks Chris for this one.

[01:15:40] Great to have you back on board. you will hopefully be back with us, uh, for spider new wire, uh, which we're hoping to cover in our next slot for the TV shows, right? Yes. Twip, twip, twip, twip. As our resident spider fan, you have to do it. You gotta do it. That's what I gotta do. Ah, the arachnid noir. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Uh, we will speak to you very soon, Chris. Yes. And in honor of German Bernthal, I will say goodbye in the only way Frank Castle can. Later,

[01:16:11] Chris. Bye. See you, Chris. Now that Chris is gone, we don't have to pretend that we didn't like it anymore. John, what's your real rating? I'm joking, but we do have some feedback from our fellow defenders. Lots of them have very different thoughts to ourselves. I'm really looking forward to hearing their thoughts. First up, we have a voicemail in from Harrison Fox. John. Hi, fellow defenders, Harrison Fox here calling to talk about the punisher. One last kill. One. I don't think it was one. I think it was a lot, a lot of kills.

[01:16:41] Oh man. Man. I really, really enjoyed this. I like when movies and specials are just kind of packed into one day. And I think this was just over the course of one day. He meets with that Nucci, Nucci woman in the morning, early afternoon. And then by 7 PM, he is rocking the hell out of town. Just fantastic. Just watching Frank do what Frank does at his best.

[01:17:09] Little TV MA warning at the beginning. I was like, Oh, this is going to be good. Like I knew it was going to be violent because it's the punisher, but at Disney did not hold back. Good for them. No Powell. Surprising. A little surprising at what it actually ended up being. I thought it was going to be more related to daredevil than it was. I'm kind of glad it wasn't though, because we got to see a lot of development with Frank in such a short amount of time.

[01:17:36] And now I think we have a, I want to say maybe revenge satisfied punisher. I don't know who's left to kill. Maybe that Nucci woman. Was she crippled before he met her? Like when she was in the car? Cause I might've missed that. I don't know. Um, just fantastic though. Just five skull shirts out of five. Loved it. Thanks so much. Uh, Harrison for the feedbacks. Really glad that you enjoyed that.

[01:18:04] I think the one thing that chimes with me with what you said is, it's not what I was expecting to get. And I think for me, I definitely thought there was going to be sort of that tie in to looking back at the recent daredevil, uh, series, uh, born again, season two, uh, as well as looking forward to, uh, the Spider-Man and, and, you know, what is that interaction between the Punisher and Spider-Man?

[01:18:33] Maybe it's just a scene and that's it. Um, or whether it's more. And I think because of this special presentation, I assumed it potentially was going to be more, hence the need for this kind of almost bridging special presentation. And so I'd certainly agree, uh, with you there on that. Um, I think, uh, you know, again, lots of really good action in this good themes, uh,

[01:19:02] totally with you, uh, on that. Yeah. Just the execution, which for the Punisher, since he likes to execute things, I just thought it was quite a surprise. Um, thanks so much, Harrison. Uh, we also have an email in from Meryl Smith who says, welcome back one batch, two batch, penny and dime. Now we're on the Marvel property and all, and if all goes well, this should be getting sent out before I check out the Punisher special. My thoughts on the special to follow later. Honestly, it's been great to get all this John Bernthal content all over the place. Most recently in the bear, there was a special and that show that he was in and the various movies,

[01:19:32] movie appearances that he's had as well. Looking forward to seeing what he was up to while Daredevil was in throws on war with Fisk. Keep watching and keep defending. Uh, thanks Meryl. Um, unfortunately Meryl didn't send in a follow-up, uh, email on, uh, her thoughts on the Punisher special itself. Um, but yes, you're right. It's, it is great to see, uh, John Bernthal all over the place. Absolutely. Yeah. Pretty good. Yeah. Really good to see John Bernthal. I really enjoyed his little foray into Daredevil born again. Uh, that was really good for me. Um, yeah. Love him in,

[01:20:02] in the birth. What I've seen. Don't think I'm fully up to date with the birth. I think we're there on the final season, which is season five. And I think we watched up to season three. Yeah. Exactly. And then the special came out of nowhere, a couple of weeks ago, which has him with, uh, micro, uh, effectively. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Or the thing, depending on which, uh, which version of Marvel you watch. So, uh, yeah, really good to get, uh, John Bernthal. I think he's great. Um, and so totally with you on that. Uh, we also got an email in from coffee and vodka. He says,

[01:20:32] greetings fellow dread doppelganger defenders. This should be as short as this spotlight special. My resolution for the year was to keep things positive. So compliment sandwich time. Frank's pathos seemed real. His rise against the excellent antagonistic acting, of Judith lights, Matt Nucci felt necessary and deserved. All I ask of any contemporary hero feature is one. Don't fall back on the tired trope of Spiderman. No more.

[01:21:00] And to never ever kill the dog. More than half of the far too short 45 minutes spotlight special was spent in PTSD fueled lost resolve. Or as the show itself said, Oh, I see you're on the sad sack bullshit. All done. Nothing left to do. Poor Frank. What's your purpose now, Marine? Here's to hoping we'll get the goth Ennis purposeful Punisher in the upcoming Spidey flick. Saying this,

[01:21:27] all points of the production were top notch as well. We got Karen for a bit and the vision of his daughter was heartbreaking.

[01:22:04] The former's speech to Frank, largely superfluous. Largely superfluous. So much for short. Hope your holiday is going well. Three and a half bloody bedtime stories, capped copulating cops, and double tap terminal tenants out of five. Peace and take care. Coffee and vodka. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Coffee and vodka.

[01:22:24] And I think actually you perfectly places and around where you fall on that spectrum for this special presentation. For me, some eye falls somewhere towards the sort of lower half of this that it's largely superfluous. I do think John Bernthal is excellent. I do think it's a really good performance from him. However,

[01:22:50] I do think it's way too much grunting and lacking in dialogue. I love the action. But for me, I would go with the Garth Ennis graphic novel or the Marvel Netflix show for me. Yeah. Yeah. I've read quite a lot of Garth Ennis' run. It's the only place I could find Nick Fury for quite a long time. Nick Fury used to appear. And he wrote a bunch of Fury comic books as well,

[01:23:18] keeping him in that kind of side universe alongside the Punisher. So I read quite a lot of Ennis' run. And it's great, especially if you like the Punisher. It certainly was the kind of version held up by loads of Punisher fans. That's what you had to read if you really wanted to see who the Punisher was. So yeah, highly recommend if you like the Punisher reading Garth Ennis' run. But yeah, as you say, I'm probably closer on the side of an unnecessary detour for a character. We've already fully developed.

[01:23:46] I didn't need to know that he'd finished killing all the people that had murdered his family because we knew that from the Netflix show. He'd already moved on. So I didn't need to see that retold as another story. But thank you so much for your feedback, Coffee and Vodka. Yeah, thanks, Coffee and Vodka. We have some feedback in from Raina who says, Hello lads. My god, what an intense 40 minutes. Fantastic special. It covers mostly what we have seen before, but turns it up to 11. It feels very directed towards viewers who haven't seen the Punisher seasons and need to have a little catch up for Spider-Man brand new day.

[01:24:15] In my mind, it did exactly what it wanted to do and succeeded in telling its story. It's interesting how they formatted the special, going backwards and forwards, portraying the heavy PTSD Frank experiences. While we all joke about the amount of times Frank's decided to finally accept himself as the Punisher, this time felt different. It really felt like a broken guy who was tired after years of doing his Punisher stuff, just having an existential crisis for a day. Also, it feels like Frank is looking for a connection to his family's murder as an excuse to go after more people. At this point, who wasn't involved?

[01:24:46] Excited to see Frank return in Spider-Man and maybe Doom's day after finding out Doom was also involved in his family's death. 4.5, petty and dimes, out of 5. Laters, go-to's, Raina. Oh, Raina, I really, really like that last idea for Frank that maybe he's the one that takes down Doom. He has taken down the Marvel Universe, I think, in two different comics. So, maybe they can set him on Doom. Absolutely. That would be hilarious. Great stuff. Thanks, Raina.

[01:25:17] Over on Discord, Jason B says,

[01:25:49] I enjoyed it enough, off. Two out of five, exactly. It's kind of same sort of magnitude as myself there. Yeah. Yep. I think mainly Frank wasn't needed to be understood here. I think it is kind of that, a Frank 101 for someone who maybe doesn't know this character. Yeah. And a lot of it is just that violence. I think what makes the Punisher,

[01:26:19] or what makes Punisher stories good for me is when they do have a reason. And I think for us, we just didn't really see it in this. yeah. Like, actually, when I watched it the first time, I watched it on my own. And I went, am I being too harsh in this? And I watched it with John, and he hated it way more than I did. But, and yeah, the more I've watched it, the more I've realized how little is actually in the show. And I'm going, maybe it isn't a primer for Spider-Man.

[01:26:47] Maybe it's a primer when people watch it to go, you should probably check out the original Punisher series. If you got through that 40 minutes, there's loads more character development, some great acting, some great characters over there on the, the Punisher TV show. Watch those two seasons. Just if you didn't have enough time to say, I'm going to commit to the two seasons, you can sit down and watch this and go, well, now I should watch those two seasons. Cause there's ought to be something about this character. That's really good. Rush, maybe that's it. Thanks so much for that, Jason. Joe Herbst says, well,

[01:27:16] I guess it wasn't too expensive to make, but what a waste. I suppose I'm glad it wasn't longer. Thanks Joe. Absolutely. Dr. Bob says a simple story of a man who fell apart when his life's purpose has concluded, but his life had not to be returned to him when his paternal side was woken. Unlike the rest of the daredevil stuff, this didn't have much nuance for me. Maybe teetering on the edge of psychosis does that to someone. Judge Dredd without the bike. I think we are left being asked to believe that the beneficent dictator can be a good thing.

[01:27:44] What we need to hear is the balancing voices of Matt, Foggy, and even Karen wanting the just rule of law. That is pretty much exactly what I was saying, Dr. Bob. Yeah, I totally agree with that. It's asking us to believe that this guy can go out in the streets because he's got lots of weapons and experience in the Marines, that he is there to defend the innocence without giving us any reason as to why. In the past, he's had those arguments with Matt.

[01:28:12] We had an entire season of Daredevil Born Again where Matt is arguing with Karen as to why he doesn't want to kill people. And we don't even get the other side of that argument here with Frank Castle. At least in the Daredevil Netflix show when Frank goes up against Matt, the two of them argue about what's the right way to deal with criminality. At least there's some balancing of the argument here. It just seems to be, well, obviously this guy's got guns so he can protect the innocent, right? Yeah. No, exactly. Nothing else. Unfortunately.

[01:28:42] Totally agree, Dr. Bob. Nuance left the building here. really made this character to be as blunt as a brick and as blunt as a grunt. Like, as I say, and yet there are some really, or should be some really important themes to pull out of it. But just not enough time here. And I think you're right.

[01:29:07] Not enough of the restraining influence that you got in Daredevil, that you got in the Marvel Netflix through micro and all that. So, um, really interesting. Um, and yeah, great to get the feedback. Uh, Felipe says, how did that part of the city become the purge just by the death of a mob family? Where were the authorities? I think that sums it up, Felipe. There's a lot of just, this is happening. I mean, it almost looked like,

[01:29:36] is this the day to day in downtown New York? No, there was, there was a joke from, uh, from a fantastic geek who were based in New York. I was talking about them before where they were going, Oh, that's just what little Sicily is like, but that's because they're in another borough of New York. So you hate the borough beside you. Right. Um, but yes, that what's supposed to have happened here is that everybody in the borough worked for the Nucci's. Now they're gone. The power vacuum has left, uh, all of them uncontrolled. Um, you know, that's, that's supposed to be how mob families got their money.

[01:30:05] They protected everybody from all of the advancing mobs, but yes, it feels like the purge and where the authorities, well, all their cars are put on fire to try and enter the area. I wish they'd connected it into the mayor of New York, as I said, because that would make loads of sense. Why are there, why are there no police cars in there? Because they're all surrounding city hall. Um, you know, maybe it's that, uh, but that would have been nice. But thanks, Felipe. Uh, Ken log says it was an enjoyable episode, but I'm kind of annoyed. It didn't tie more into the daredevil series really was excited to see Frank tear

[01:30:34] through the AVTF or what's left of them. Exactly. Exactly. Ken log. Um, I think, uh, it's, it's just a very strange thing for me. Um, but I, I'm with you there. I would have preferred that connectivity to the daredevil, um, series for sure. Uh, and Victor says quite a short, but exciting therapy session. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Um, yes. Uh, thanks Victor for the comments and, and Ken log as well. Really good.

[01:31:04] Um, I think we have some more, uh, feedback over on Facebook as well. Um, Sandy Rosenders says they lost me the second they killed a dog in the first few minutes. I think that might be the case for a large number of people, Sandy, as well. And talk about short time. Like that's, you know, that's, that's short time that people don't use in most shows anymore because people just don't want to see it. Right. Exactly. Um, and Helen Warmington says,

[01:31:34] I didn't really see the point of this. It was just a rehash of the Netflix telling of his story, but crappier. Can't see how this version of him translates to Spider-Man audiences disappointed by it. Um, yeah, I think I'm totally with you there, Helen. Uh, thanks so much for the feedback. Absolutely. Thanks, Helen. Uh, I think I'm much on that one too. mathematician sent in his thoughts on the episode as well. He says, was that corporal mortification from Frank, Frank cutting open his Marine tattoo?

[01:32:03] My take was he was ridding himself of the version of the Punisher. He was out for revenge and will now be looking to use his skillset to protect the innocent as a way of getting through the PTSD bouts. I struggled a bit with the next part, heartbreaking watching him suffer at his children's, those flashbacks and visions looked torturous. When a show invokes emotion, they have done their job well, but I didn't enjoy watching him still suffering over his children. It was horrible to see. Is there an explanation for Frank getting visions of his friend, cursus? Are we supposed to assume he has died at some point since we last saw him?

[01:32:32] Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned is the phrase. As Frank finds himself in his own version of John Wick after being told by a lady in a wheelchair that assassins have been paid to kill him as revenge for him wiping out her entire family. As usual, I missed why. And then that's what we all came to see. I wasn't sure if I was overly enjoying this that much. It was engaging me. But if I'm honest, I was desperate to see Frank go and violently get stuck into some bad guys. One more hallucination, this time of Karen. Maybe cursus is still alive,

[01:33:01] reminding us that his implied feelings for her may cause some issues for our defenders in the future. And here we go. Frank takes out dozens of tracksuit mafia level thugs as only he can. And although, yes, the CGI left a bit to be desired on the big fall moment, this sort of stuff doesn't really bother me. And the 15 or so minutes of brutality that followed gave me everything I need from a Punisher show. Another reminder here of John Wick, who famously killed three men with a pencil as Frank uses a pen to take out the biggest thug.

[01:33:29] The one last kill title didn't make too much sense to me. I think it was closer to 100 kills, unless it was referring to the ending where the Nazi thug who killed the dog got what was coming. After a harrowing start, all came good in the end with all the action I expect from Frank. Looking forward now to seeing how it plays out with him in the usual kid-friendly Spider-Man movie. Three out of five, losing an extra mark for how good-wrenching the first part was, even if it was supposed to be like that. I'd have preferred it sugarcoat it a little bit personally. Thanks so much, mathematician.

[01:33:59] I'm totally with you around the old fights. I must say, I really enjoyed the John Wick-esque stuff going on here. And as I say, I had my own kind of narrative going on around the donut shop. But again, I thought there was some really inventive kills, some great action here. And I mean,

[01:34:26] I think to the point around sort of that final, you know, the Nazi thug and so on. And that kind of, you know, in inverted commas, justice that he's meeting out there. I actually preferred him. It felt more real because we had seen that little kid in the apartment block, Isaiah, with his mother.

[01:34:47] That felt more real of a save to me of him protecting someone than ultimately the veteran on the street and the elderly couple. Yeah. Even though he does ultimately protect them. I, that felt like it had more justification and was more around what Frank would do. Yeah. And because if it wasn't for him, they wouldn't be in the position. They wouldn't be tearing apart the apartment block.

[01:35:16] They wouldn't be attacking their apartment. So I kind of get the justification for why he's protecting them. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And on the point about the name, the one last kill, I think that's my, well, that's my interpretation of it. The one last kill for Frank is him taking his own life after killing the people that murdered his family. That's the one last kill he wants to achieve or thinks he should be achieving as this episode starts. And then by the end of it, he's given up on killing himself. He's now going to use his special set of skills to protect the innocence. I think that's, I think that's what that means.

[01:35:46] Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Great stuff. Thanks, mathematician. And thank you, fellow defenders for all your feedback. Really good to get your thoughts on the show. Certainly because, you know, unusually for us, I think we're a little bit downbeat on it. We are. And I think, yes, we absolutely are normally way more positive. around the shows that we cover. And,

[01:36:14] but equally for John Bernthal and his collaborators and the cast and all that, we know they're not out to necessarily make anything bad. People have different views on it. And that is all very well and good. Yeah. From our side. I'm glad they got paid for it. Yeah. I'm glad he's in, in Spider-Man because we get to see a different side of the Punisher once again. Exactly. And I'm really pleased that, you know, there was such a range of reaction to this one from our lovely fellow defenders.

[01:36:43] But that is our coverage of the Punisher, the special presentation, One Last Kill. Absolutely. Yes. About three times as long as the show itself. I don't know how we got that much to talk about. We do like to talk. We certainly do. I don't like something so much. Absolutely. But if you do like what we talk about and want to hear us talk about some things much more positively, pop on over to tvpodcastindustries.com where you can subscribe to any punishing

[01:37:09] or pacifist podcast of your choice and listen to some of the podcasts about loads of the other stuff that we're covering. We will be back with Marvel for Spider-Man brand new day at the end of July. And the next Marvel series we'll be covering is hopefully going to be Spider Noir, which all episodes are available right now in Prime Video. Go check that out. Whether you want to watch that in black and white or in color, you have the choice there. Yes. And of course, the other Marvel series that is coming up this year will be The Vision,

[01:37:38] which is coming in October of 2026 as we hit our birthday era. Yes. As it were. And we can only hope that maybe there's a little bit more flesh on the bone than this one. Yes. I doubt The Vision is going to have any flesh on the bone, John, because he's an android. Who knows? Maybe he'll get flesh on the bone. He may get flesh on the bone. Let's hope they're better than this though. Yes, absolutely. Thanks so much for joining us. We will talk to you again next time. Yes. Thank you so much, fellow defenders,

[01:38:07] for joining us for our coverage of The Punisher, One Last Kill. Until next time, keep watching, keep listening, and of course, as always, keep defending. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.