The Punisher S01E05 Review: Jungle Running

The Punisher, Season 1, Episode 5: Gunner

Not a big fan of this episode, and it's just this huge, weird anomalous 'let's go on a side-quest' storyline. For better of for worse, the first four episodes of the Punisher built up the Kandahar/Operation Cerberus/Agent Orange storyline pretty well, and the last episode, while slow, at least served to have an event where Punisher and Agent Madani could come face to face. But here, it really feels like a random fetch quest in the middle of a video game that isn't necessary, but kind of needed so you have some time between event A and event B. 

I really wished that we had more foreshadowing of Micro getting the idea of asking Frank 'dude, who are the guys in the video, and can we track them down?' anywhere in the past two or three episodes. Because that's essentially what happens, and it's treated like a huge revelation. And it's not like they even had to do a huge research, Frank just goes, 'oh, that's Gunner' like it's not a big deal. And it's odd, because there definitely has been some passage in time since Frank and Micro had their little paranoia macho-contest and their supply run. Have they really been only talking about Micro's family and gun cleaning and Micro's poorly-tuned guitar all this time?

Even worse is Agent Madani, who has been obsessed and pursuing this case prior to the season... and apparently this is the first that she's compiled a list of the soldiers involved. And she's speaking it out loud to Stein, who is rightfully angry that instead of dealing with the fallout from her one-woman-show last episode, is chasing old ghosts without explaining anything. Stein may be more pouty than is healthy, but he's right -- Madani is so convinced to be a lone wolf maverick, but any time Stein offers his help Madani pushes it away, and now she wants him to be his errand boy? It's rather poorly written and paced, in my opinion. Oh, and she investigates Karen for no real reason? And also fucks Billy Russo even though she still has bandages (which somehow is bound to emphasize her cleavage) around her chest? Yeeaaaah.

And Madani keeps Frank's involvement a secret (and Stein does it despite his better judgement), but her investigation ends up being found out by... Agent Orange. Who's the head of CIA. And we get this revelation out of nowhere. Just "hey, by the way, Agent Orange is one of the CIA higher-ups". And, of course, he naturally sends a hit squad to get rid of Gunner (and not any of the other soldiers) on the right exact time that Punisher and Micro goes to Gunner to talk. 

And here's where I think the episode fails the worst. The characters themselves are okay. Punisher and Micro get a lot of great lines and moments, especially the bit with the sandwich. Madani and Stein are boring, but at least their tsundere working relationship is something about them I can get behind. Even Agent Orange's sliminess is entertaining. But the fact that the show put so much emphasis into humanizing the hit squads and the soldiers sent into war, and then to have an action scene where the soldiers that the Punisher kills have no more personality than random mooks in a video game... it feels like an odd tonal disconnect to me. 

Add that to the whole story about Gunner being rather muddled and doesn't really feel like it ended up accomplishing much beyond giving us an action scene (Micro being Punisher's "guy in a chair" is great, though, complete with drone). So yeah, overall the episode feels muddled and bland, in a way that previous episodes of Punisher that focuses more on setup never was.

I did feel thank Frank gets a lot of great moments here, though. His moment of restraint when dealing with a known quantity like Gunner, dropping all his weapons and ready to talk instead of responding with violence as he did with Micro earlier this season is very well-done. His interactions with Micro with the guitar and sandwich is fun. His more faatherly acting with Micro's daughter Leo, and his story to Karen about how his late son drew a marine on the wall and stuff, and his tender moment, telling Karen that he doesn't want her to get hurt, and Karen wanting to ask Frank 'what's next?' after he kills Agent Orange... there are definitely a lot of well-done moments in this episode. Karen's words to Frank about how she doesn't want him to meet a nasty end gets an extra bit of oomph because she's mourning Matt's 'death' (even though he's not actually dead because in comic book land everyone keeps coming back like roaches) in Defenders.

Unfortunately, it's over-burdened with a very sub-par episodic plot that feels, more than ever, like padding than anything else.