The Punisher is Marvel's Worst Show on Netflix

They might say otherwise, but I don't think Marvel was really planning a Punisher series when he debuted in season 2 of Daredevil.  But people liked Jon Berenthal's take on the character and so a spin-off series was quickly put together.

The problem quickly becomes that in order to come up with a 13-episode season, the producers pad the hell out of the story about a secret death squad in Afghanistan that Frank Castle was part of.  And in the end the series is the last thing you want from a Punisher series:  BORING.  And as I Tweeted, it takes real talent to make a character like the Punisher dull, so kudos Marvel and Disney!

The first episode is actually OK.  After escaping from the police in Daredevil, Frank has been hiding out as a construction worked named Pete Castiglione.  Some of his coworkers get a plan to knock over a mob poker game, but when one of their gang is hurt they recruit a young worker who tried to befriend Frank.  The job goes south and so the coworkers are going to kill the kid until Frank intervenes.

That would be an OK blueprint for an A-Team-type show only with the Punisher.  In the next two episodes, though, Frank and a former NSA analyst going by the handle Micro play pointless cat-and-mouse games that could have been averted if Frank had simply picked up the cell phone provided.

Then it gets into this whole boring conspiracy plot.  Frank Castle and political intrigue don't really go together well.  The good thing about the Punisher in Daredevil was he did what the Punisher does best:  go around killing bad guys.  It's not necessarily my favorite kind of superhero thing (I don't really think of him as a superhero so much as a simple vigilante) it's what people expect from the character.  Having the Punisher sitting around blathering with some computer hacker and later the computer hacker's wife isn't really what I'm hoping for.

Also padding the season there's a plot about a young former solider who goes to support group meetings led by Frank's old buddy, who is pretty much the same as Sam Wilson, minus the wings and plus a fake leg.  The kid is spurred on by an NRA nut at the meetings and gets increasingly belligerent until he starts planting bombs in the city.  He soon butts heads with Karen Page, the intrepid reporter who used to be Matt Murdoch's secretary on season 1 of Daredevil.  This really has nothing to do with the main conspiracy plot.  It's mainly an excuse to reintroduce Frank to Karen, not that anything happens with that.

It really takes until about episodes 11-12 before it gets to the over-the-top violence and gore that you come to expect.  It really could have been wrapped up in the 12th episode but instead there's a gratuitous 13th episode where Frank and a former brother-in-arms fight on the carousel where Frank's family was killed.  Which begged the question:  wouldn't they have just shut down that carousel?  What parent wants to take their kid to a carousel where three people were brutally murdered?  And now you have a nearly as brutal gun-and-fistfight on the same carousel?

Anyway, as far as Marvel's Netflix shows go, Iron Fist is annoying and Jessica Jones was confusing at first, but the Punisher was far worse to me simply because it did a poor job of representing the character.

Honestly I think for a character like the Punisher the serial approach doesn't really work.  Subtlety isn't his thing and trying to build up a 13-episode season just leaves too much time to work with.  Either shrink the season down to half that or go with the episodic approach.  The A-Team approach like that first episode.  It would at least not be as boring.

But you probably disagree.  Good for you.