The most chilling moment in the series premiere of The Punisher has nothing to do with the vigilante of the title. Nor does the show’s most searing, if subtle, condemnation of violence. They’re both found in a quiet conversation between his assumed-name alter ego “Pete Castiglione” and Donny Chavez (Luca De Oliveira), a young co-worker at the construction site where the former Frank Castle takes out his frustrations on the masonry day after day, hour after hour. Noticing Frank’s battle scars, Donny manages to elicit from the quiet man that he’d been in the Marines. So had Donny’s dad, says the younger man, a fact that made him something close to a superhero in his eyes. Donny goes on to explain that his father did three tours — two in Iraq, one in Afghanistan — before returning home to be killed alongside his mother during a drive home one night. “I was twelve,” he says. The war that had been going on long enough for his late father to complete three tours of duty by the time Donny was in the sixth grade is still going on today. As with Frank Castle’s bloody crusade, there’s no end in sight.

Written by showrunner and Hannibal veteran Steve Lightfoot and directed by Tom Shankman, “3 A.M.,” The Punisher’s debut episode, gets this latest Marvel/Netflix drama off to a thoughtful and compelling start by taking direct aim at the character’s most controversial aspect, his status as an emblem of redemptive violence, often embraced by agents of the state ostensibly tasked with protecting life rather than ending it,  and firing away. I won’t say there’s no way to look at the episode as a glorification of rough justice and misunderstood heroism — people have been misinterpreting the character in exactly that way for decades now, and there are no shortage of other shows since The Sopranos birthed the age of the anti-hero whose viewers have gotten things bass-ackwards — but if that’s the road you wanna go down, you’re gonna have an uphill battle.

I’m playing catch-up on linking to my work thanks to the busy holiday week, but I’m covering The Punisher for Decider, beginning with this review of the premiere. This show has been an unexpected pleasure to write about.

Tags: decider, Marvel, reviews, the punisher, TV, TV reviews

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