Marvel's The Punisher

Despite its name and Bernthal’s intense performance, The Punisher is about more than just its ruthless antihero, and proves much more incisive than it may initially seem to be. ... Even when its stylized viciousness is undercut by real-world tragedy, The Punisher, like Marvel’s very best Netflix series, gives its title character a bloody good introduction.

It’s meditative but not self-flagellating; brutal but not a slog. It remains to be seen how it will stack up to the Defenders and their individual outings, but at the very least The Punisher could nab the title of first stand-alone property in all of the MCU, TV or film.

For a show which seemed, given the timing of its launch, to be so controversial, its most controversial element is its lack of controversy. Frank Castle does some bad things, but nothing as bad as what happens in America on a regular basis. As a narrative about veterans trying to find their place in the world, The Punisher has something to say. But it could have been so much shorter, and its placement in the Marvel universe feels tangential at best.

Deeply melancholic, The Punisher is more of a procedural than fans might expect, though one colored by sporadic bursts of the kind of over-the-top violence not likely to spill onto an episode of Law & Order. That being said, it does feel like a tone befitting someone as inherently bleak as Frank Castle.