The Punisher, Season 1, Episode 13: Memento Mori
So yeah, the Punisher ends with a bang, and what a bang it is. It's perhaps my favourite conclusion to a Netflix Marvel series after Daredevil's first season (Jessica Jones is also pretty solid) for the simple fact that it doesn't try to overplay its hand at going all 'look at all these dangling plot threads for future shows!' There is perhaps the slight hint that Billy Russo might return as his comic-book namesake's alter ego, Jigsaw (which they never hint, and I'm surprised to find out about when I googled him after finishing the season), but all in all the episode ends with an actually optimistic, conclusive ending.
So to recap the ending -- everyone we care about is alive, Billy Russo is brain-dead, Frank gets a lot of money from Micro and gets a free pass from Marion and Rafi (who does it mostly to cover their asses and because they feel bad for the shit Frank's been through), Micro is reunited with his family to eat a turkey dinner, and Frank gets some mental help as he arrives in Curtis' support group and admits that he's actually afraid of this life of peace, with the final line in the season being his admission that "I'm afraid". It's an amazing way to end the season, tying up all loose plot points and giving the Punisher a well-done end to the character.
I cannot praise Jon Bernthal enough for his portrayal of Frank Castle that makes him so much more than hia one-note rawr-kill-bad-guys angsty superviolent comic book counterpart, which is honestly a dime a dozen in this period in time. And, well, to have his story end with a violent shootout while at the same time still remaining optimistic? Yeah, it's a great way to end his story.
But let's talk about the rest of the episode. After an impromptu drive to Madani's parents' house to give Frank some little medical treatment for his tension pneumothorax, Madani decides to cover for Frank's escape (after a brief acknowledgement about Frank's role in Zubair's death). Frank goes off after Billy Russo, and parts ways with Micro -- who gets more scenes with his family. Meanwhile, we get a cool scene of Billy Russo being a one-man army with a silenced handgun murdering the agents that are sent to apprehend him, before blowing up Anvil. He's, in a fashion, became a version of the Punisher on his own. Everything he loved -- which in this case is his reputation and money -- is gone, and he's hell bent on a confrontation with Frank Castle. But like Frank, he still has his honour, and the confrontation with Curtis really shows this.
The conversation with Curtis is super tense, and if the Lewis episode is any indication, Curtis is such a likable character that putting him in the crosshairs of a psychopath that he wants to help is a way to get my adrenaline high. That is an awesome scene, and I definitely loved how the show subverts the easy way of making Billy completely evil and have him attack Curtis the way that Lewis did. The conversation is civil (even if Billy is constantly in power), and while Frank shows up with a sniper rifle, the verbal exchange between the three of them, and how both Frank and Russo honour their promises (Russo not shooting Curtis is very well-done) is definitely well done. The whole 'brotherhood of soldiers' thing has been a running theme between these three characters when they interact with each other, so of course Curtis and Russo's conversation is nothing but polite, and when Frank and Russo has their own conversation, the first thing they agreed is to let Curtis go. Even if Russo did shoot Curtis in the shoulder and threatens to torture him by shooting his good leg, Russo acknowledges that killing Curtis is off the table for him.
And that really makes Billy Russo a great foil to Frank Castle. They go off to have a final confrontation in the 'painted ponies', where Frank's family was killed, and we get some flashbacks of Frank's character and how his family once visited it with Billy Russo, his onetime brother. It's perhaps a bit on-the-nose, and once more I really would've wished that instead of dealing with Lewis, we had more indications of how Billy and Frank were in the past, because with this single flashback, showing how happy Billy and Frank were in the past really underscores the depths of Billy's betrayal.
Meanwhile, Madani continues to disappoint -- her whole arc ends with her going "nah, the Punisher overpowered me" in front of Rafi and Marion, then showing up in the carousel about to ambush Billy Russo who takes her down with one nonchalant shot. It's so abrupt and the shot actually looked fatal (it grazed her head) and when Frank later walks up next to Madani it's wholly ambiguous if he's glad that Madani's alive or if there's no hope... but I absolutely laughed at the suddenness of how Madani was taken out of the fight. Poor Madani is just so ill-served by the show that I genuinely think that, now, looking back, she really was pretty inconsistently written.
The carousel is a great place for them to fight, we've got a bunch of cool mortar launches early on, then Billy shows that he has hostages tied to the carousel, and Billy notes how Frank's biggest weakness is his desire to help people. It's a trope that has been done to death in any superhero show, but the fact that Frank was willing to put himself in Billy's crosshairs and toss away his weapons to save the two random carnival workers is definitely a strong moment. The fight devolves into a brutal fistfight where Billy's face gets even more and more mangled -- first by a shot through the cheek, and later by Frank's insistence of fucking Billy's face by smashing it repeatedly onto a mirror...
And Frank has a knife to Billy's throat. It's over, right? The Punisher punishes, and all throughout the show he keeps insisting that all the bad guys die, and he's not going to have any compromises. But he spares Billy, which is definitely a surprise to me than anything. It's a bit odd that after the reason that Frank spares Billy isn't out of some respect for their old brotherhood or anything, but because he wants Billy to suffer in punishment for his crimes... when Billy ends up being amnesiac, but it's still a pretty neat ending nonetheless.
So yeah, the season ends with an almost final note, and a very happy ending with everyone involved. It's definitely well-done, and I'm honestly a bit terrified of the second season of Punisher (which is definitely coming, isn't it?) because whatever crisis that Frank Castle will face will probably undo a lot of the happy ending... and I wouldn't want that. And, well, it's not a perfect series like what everyone online says it is -- perhaps in no small part due to the fact that Madani and Lewis relatively fell flat with me beyond 'well acted' -- and it has a fair amount of poor pacing, but overall it's still a fantastic show with great actors.
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