Frank Castle is back! The Marvel Cinematic Universe's most brutal vigilante has returned for his first solo adventure in seven years as he headlines The Punisher: One Last Kill. The heavily-anticipated offering is only the third Special Presentation from the Disney Plus streaming service, meaning that it functions as a standalone story set within the MCU focused solely on Jon Bernthal's gritty antihero.
Of course, it's not the first project starring the character, so it serves as a sequel to The Punisher Netflix series, as well as both the original Daredevil series and its Disney Plus revival Daredevil: Born Again. But this one hopes to take Frank in a different direction, allowing him to deal with a lot of the trauma that has impacted him throughout his tenure as The Punisher - all while taking on new threats.
With that in mind, let's recap the events of the Disney Plus Special Presentation and dive into what that ending really means.
Frank Castle's past comes back to haunt him (in many ways)
When we last saw Frank Castle, he escaped Wilson Fisk's cage in the season 1 finale post-credits scene of Daredevil: Born Again. Although he didn't surface in the second season of that series, he has been around the streets of New York. And The Punisher: One Last Kill shows us what he has been up to. Truthfully, he hasn't been doing good.
Frank is tormented by the ghosts of his past - ghosts that are both alive and dead in the real world. The problem is that Frank can't distinguish between them, and his struggles take him to the graves of his family. He attempts to end it all right then and there but a vision from his daughter momentarily stops him. And when he returns to the apartment complex, he is confronted by his past one more time as he is drawn into a new crime saga (or drawn back into an old one), which ultimately brings him face-to-face with one of his most famous Marvel Comics archenemies: Ma Gnucci (played by none other than the brilliant Judith Light).
It turns out that The Punisher killed the whole Gnucci family, but he forgot about her. And now, she's out for revenge, promising him that she will reveal his address to all of the criminals in the neighborhood, placing a bounty on his head. Needless to say, she fulfills that promise - drawing Frank into a very bloody afternoon that is about survival every bit as much as it is about protecting his neighbors from the fallout.
What comes next is a violent 15-minute showdown with all of the criminals that Ma Gnucci promised. Frank takes every single one of them on, fighting through his apartment building, the stairways and onto the roof. When he makes it to the ground below - the hard way - Ma Gnucci retreats, upset that he won't stay down. And although Frank has a chance to take her out, he opts to protect a little girl and her family in a nearby corner shop instead - a moment that proved pivotal in The Punisher's transformation.
When Frank saves the little girl and her parents, he isn't met with fear; he's met with a mix of gratitude and respect. The little girl hugs him, offering him a flower that she made, while the father nods at him with a thank you. The nightmare is over; not just for the residents of the neighborhood but for Frank too, who has found a semblance of closure. He returns to his family's graves and lays the flower there, telling them that he thinks it's a sign as he emotionally, powerfully quotes "One Batch, Two Batch. Penny and Dime" out loud.
When we next see Frank, he rescues an older couple from a thug who had planned to attack them. This same thug we met at the beginning of the episode, when they attacked a man and killed his dog. Frank, more calm and collected than we've seen him in years, is a big believer in an eye for an eye. He takes the thug's cap and allows him to run. That is, until the man informs him that he also killed his dog. And, with that, The Punisher shoots the thug in the leg and slowly approaches him, raising his gun, and pulling the trigger as the credits roll.
Same Frank Castle, brand new Punisher
The Punisher: One Last Kill is a tale of transformation. Frank Castle has been driven by revenge for his whole life, and the Special Presentation is all about what comes after that for him. He's a lone wolf who has always had a mission to violently remove the criminals from the streets of New York City in the hopes that it would avenge his family, but after doing that for decades, this story promises the potential of more for him. And perhaps even something more heroic, too.
Now, don't get us wrong; Frank clearly still isn't afraid to kill, but it's not the first thing on his mind either. He now operates like a more straightforward Marvel vigilante; a Robin Hood, if you will, swooping in to help those in his community and only using excessive force if he deems it absolutely necessary. He isn't driven solely by revenge and, as a result of that, he's more calm and collected than ever before. He's simply there to carry out the tasks before him.
We know that Bernthal will reprise his role as The Punisher in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and while we don't expect him to lose any of the grit that makes Frank Castle, well, Frank Castle, it's clear that we're getting a somewhat less violent iteration of the character (which isn't surprising considering that we are talking about Spider-Man here!). The character's evolution in One Last Kill has allowed him to reach that point, to contend with his demons, and to move forward in a way that he never really has been able to.
For Frank it has always been The Punisher or nothing; the closing moments of the Special Presentation present him with something more. Now, he has found a middle ground that allows him to continue to be The Punisher without the need for the revenge-driven violence. He just gets to clean up the streets in a way that might actually prevent the bloodshed. And if that means working with Spider-Man along the way to make that happen, so be it.
He's still The Punisher at heart, but he isn't doing what he does out of revenge anymore - he's doing it to help others. And that in and of itself has kickstarted an intriguing new era for Frank Castle.
The Punisher: One Last Kill is now streaming on Disney Plus.
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