The Punisher S02E02 Review: Jigsaw Puzzles

The Punisher, Season 2, Episode 2: Fight or Flight

No promises on the regularity of any of these superhero episode reviews are going to be, as they're going to depend on my own watching schedule. But hey, I decided to finally finish writing this one before I move on to watching the rest of the second season of Punisher.

That was... a slow episode, huh? So slow that it took me the better part of three months to actually finish this episode in like, five minute increments of a time, because the episode was so slowly paced. I watched and reviewed the season two premiere of The Punisher all the way back in like, July last year or something, and I couldn't really get myself to finish the second episode. I kept putting it off over and over and it's now been more than a year since season two of The Punisher showed up on Netflix. I finally finished watching it tonight.

And... and there's something to be said about slow pacing, y'know? I get it. Some Netflix shows really thrive when they're allowed to do things like this, to take advantage that the audience is going to most likely binge an entire season within a couple of sittings, and you can get away with having a bunch of slower episodes since the audience isn't going to be bored, since they're able to get to the exciting bits of the season in short order. But "Fight or Flight" is just there. I absolutely agree that we needed a bit more bonding time between the Punisher and spunky mysterious teenage girl Rachel to have their grizzled-badass/troubled-child bond feel genuine, but at the same time you could do that without being so bland, y'know? The acting is great, both Jon Bernthal and Giorgia Whigham are great to watch, but the scenes about them are just so dull and repetitive. We kind of get it, Frank's a grumpy father figure that's not going to harm Rachel, Rachel's trying to get away from the scary murdery man, but Frank's pragmatic and not stupid. Oh, and there's an obligatorily uncomfortable long "look at how realistic this show is by showing gritty and completely unrealistic ways to deal with a gunshot wound" scene that Netflix-Marvel shows really love. There's a fair bit of drama at the motel, Frank and Rachel try to figure each other out by just talking in said motel, and then we need to get to our action quota of the episode around three-fourths in, there's a rather unspectacular shooty-shoot, Rachel tries to escape and they both get arrested. None of the banter is especially dramatic or witty, just... competent. The dynamic between Frank and Rachel is just there, again, well-written enough to make sense, but not quite as organic as it could've been.

The B-plots are also relatively pretty bland. Billy Russo's got a fragmented memory and using jigsaw puzzles as a metaphor with his psychiatrist to put his mind together, because his comic book counterpart is a supervillain called Jigsaw, get it? Also, Madani thinks he's lying and also traumatized by naked Ben Barnes having sex with her. Okay sure. Meanwhile, creepy new villain the Pilgrim (who isn't named yet, but I'm not going to call him "creepy new villain" every episode) is dropping heavy-handed religious metaphors and is slowly tracking down Frank and Rachel, threatening the poor nice bartender lady that survived that first episode's shootout. None of these characters are interesting -- Madani being possibly the most boring member of the first season's main characters, but crazy amnesiac Billy Russo asking for Tylenol and vague mysterious man doing mysterious things aren't really enough to justify the 50-minute runtime.

Honestly, I'm not sure why I didn't like this episode so much. I guess it's a combination of the slow pacing and the fact that this is pretty repetitive stuff -- not just in The Punisher itself, but in the superhero genre as a whole, and unlike the previous season, none of the concepts here feel fresh. I had the sense of 'get on with it' throughout the episode, and by the time it's over and the status quo is finally changed (Frank and Rachel get arrested; the Pilgrim is coming for them) I breathe a sigh of relief. Anyway, this was a very competent episode, but an extremely dry one. I hope the rest of season two wouldn't take me as long to watch.