The Punisher, Season 1, Episode 7: Crosshairs
Okay, that's a good episode. It's just one that I really wished took place earlier in the series -- Punisher could stand to be like a ten episode series with the past 6 episodes condensed into 3 or 4 episodes and exorcising the weird Gunner subplot. But I'll reserve my judgment on that until I've actually finished the entire season. This episode finally moves along the pairs of Frank/Micro, Madani/Stein and Orange/Billy forwards in their respective plans, making things far, far more interesting.
And it does that without sacrificing the slower, quieter character-based introspection that made me hooked onto the slower episodes that Punisher starts off with, while at the same time upping the ante with short bursts of action and plot development. I really liked that scene where Frank talks to Micro, clearly rattled, after being forced to shoot (but not kill) a young soldier that blocked his way when he escaped Colonel Bennett's residence. Frank's talk about how he's just shooting some random kid following his orders comes a little flat thanks to his wholesale massacre of the death-squad sent to kill Gunner (which is another reason that whole subplot felt jarring to me and another mark against episode 5) but it's definitely well-done in the context of this story, and makes Frank's dark "we'll kill them all" insistence afterwards really have an impact.
Also a great scene is the earlier quiet discussion about Frank making the mission a no-kill situation as he struggles with killing soldiers who don't know any better, and his conversation to Micro about it. Bernthal is an amazing actor, and his performance as the Punisher really makes it easy for me to continue watching even if I'm not as impressed with it as a whole as most people are.
The Punisher and Micro's big plan this episode is by letting Micro tell Frank that they need to go and do something, which in this case is to hunt down Bennett and leave him alive so Micro can hack into his phone and lead them to Agent Orange. It's... it's something that I really wished was built up a bit more in the past few episodes, because Micro and Frank really seemed to be completely reactive throughout the past six episodes. And when you're presenting your season in a whole 'watch this all at once' Netflix series, it does feel off.
Bennett, of course, is your typical slimy greasy unimportant villain. After the BDSM session, he gets brutalized a bit by Frank (that smoke-grenade action scene is definitely done well), exchanges some angry shouts with Billy Russo and Agent Orange about being used as bait, before Billy murders him in a hotel room. Billy and Orange also have a conversation that tells us that their alliance isn't as friendly as it seems. We get the cool bit of how Billy (who seems to be in it for the money and connections) criticizes Orange for his obsession with Frank being rooted in some angry manliness thing where he cannot stand the fact that Frank nearly beat him to death in Kandahar.
Madani is still a weak link in the show, I think, as her entire plotline this episode is just finding the bug in her office. Realizing the CIA is corrupt isn't really a huge revelation, though, and I really wished they had done far more with Madani to make her character someone I care about. Lewis also has a subplot this episode, but I don't think it's important, just a heartfelt sequences with his dad. It's... it's well-acted, as always, but I still can't really care all that much about Lewis due to how detached he is from the rest of the show.
The episode ends with Frank tracking down Agent Orange, and about to snipe him in the head... only for bulletproof glass to stop it. It's a really cool visual scene (even if Micro and Frank really should've seen it coming) but at the same time, it's a pretty cool scene that I don't really care that it doesn't make that much sense.
Overall, though, the Punisher really seems like it's going up to ratchet up its storylines a bit more. I've been underwhelmed by how slow-paced the show has been, and how uninteresting the well-acted Madani and Lewis are as side-characters, and the constant repetition of some scenes... but I suppose it all builds up to make us care about things like the Lieberman family or getting Micro back to his family and stuff like that. So yeah, overall, a pretty good episode.
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