Apparently, watching Frank Castle’s family die over and over is a necessary ingredient in The Punisher formula, much like needing to watch The Wayne’s die, and those pearls hit the ground, or Uncle Ben meet his demise in Spider-Man. We hold these truths to be self evident, all heroes have emotional baggage. Boy, does Frank have baggage. In the opening moments of the MArvel Special Presentation, we can tell Frank Castle is not doing well. And he only has 44 minutes to do better.

Haunted by the ghosts of his past, the show leans on that literally by manifesting fake ghosts, with a grieving mother (Judith Light) who comes to Frank Castle in his moment of complete disillusionment, and tries to suggest that he basically did to her, what someone did to him, except I call bullshit. Even a medicated, drunk, partially conscious Frank Castle would never kill a kid. Nope. But, she needs a villain, not a hero, and this misplaced rage will trigger a non-stop action sequence akin to The Raid: Redemption, where Castle has to punch, kick, shoot, stab, throw, eviscerate, and otherwise maim easily a hundred would be assassins in a glorious, blood soaked sequence that earns the TV-MA rating. My God. Marvel got this in just in time so it can get some stunt coordination Emmy or something. Visceral, brutal, and oh so good, Jon Bernthal delivers in the way that should make people crave more of his version of Frank Castle.

But, why does this exist? What is the point? Clearly MArvel is all in on Bernthal’s version of Castle, which began on Netflix, and whose show is available now on Disney Plus. So, you totally can watch and catch up. So is this a lazy intro to Frank Castle for fans who don’t want to watch anything else, but also need context heading into the new Spider-Man film? I felt like since this is a Marvel Special Presentation, and not a One Shot, or a Marvel Spotlight like Wonder Man, but a Special Presentation, I needed Kevin Feige to come in like Michael Eisner used to for The Wonderful World Of Disney (which he stole from Walt himself), and give me the corporate reasoning. If Feige is Marvel daddy, then I have some questions.

Why are we reliving Frank’s trauma? Because you want new audiences to know, without having to watch the older stuff? He was in Daredevil: Born Again, and KAren Page pops up for a brief second here to tie that in, but it is hard to tell if this takes place at a certain point within Born Again. The city has turned to shit, so is this an indication of Spider-Man or Daredevil’s future timeline? Where is this? I really loved it, but I’m so confused by its existence. If ever there was something that decidedly shouldn’t be tied to anything, it is probably this, because when the questions start rolling, they crack the perfectly clean appearance the show creates. This is great on its own, but if I have to draw implications to either the Punisher TV series, Daredevil: Born Again, or the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day, it starts to look like drunk narrative threads a bit.

Don’t get me wrong. This is amazing. The parts where Frank is emotionally tormented and Jon Bernthal is acting his face off are clearly a byproduct of having the director of King Richard and Bob Marley: One Love at the helm. However, that directors resume does not suggest he’d be as good as he is at the action sequences, and Reinaldo Marcus Green is quite good at making asskicking happen. Sure, Gareth Evans would ahve torn this up, but I’m sure he’d much rather do a feature.

But that audio description though. Jedidiah Barton and the team at Deluxe had to carefully describe things, as it wasn’t always apparent what was about to happen. Like, they made a point of not showing the face of the killer in the flashback, and calling it a Punisher costume, likely reinforcing what fans know. It wasn’t Frank. He also is stabbed, and they don’t say what the object is until Frank pulls it out. And just for the few people out there who visit a certain website about the fate of animals in films, yes, sadly, the dog does die.

I’m not sure what we did to deserve this, but I’m glad we got it. The Punisher: One Last Kill pulls no punches, takes all the shots, and leaves you wanting so much more. Jon Bernthal is simply incredible.

Fresh: 8.8/10