 Hey everyone, this is Matthew from Miscellaneous Debris and this is going to be my Punisher Season 2 review video. Hopefully you've all had a chance to see it, but if you have not seen it yet, there will be a few spoilers, so you have been warned. But before we get started, please take the time to hit that subscribe button and the bell to stay notified of all of our videos right here on Miscellaneous Debris. To get going, there were definitely some highs and some lows of this season. I did find that fell prey to the usual pitfalls when it comes to the Marvel and Netflix television shows, but if this is our last hurrah with the character, they did send him off with a definitive end and in my opinion, the right end. Right off the bat, I want to say that I did enjoy the season. Not as much as I did enjoy the first season, but that in no way takes anything away from it. It was much like how I enjoyed the Jessica Jones seasons. Season 1 was fantastic and the second season left me with kind of a feeling of eh, ok, ok. It started out really strong, even though I thought that the whole romance angle in the first 10 minutes of the show totally negated the love for his family that was so heavily leaned on in season 1, but I digress. There was a lull in the middle of the season and by the end of it, it ramped back up to 11, which is kind of part and parcel with every season of every Netflix Marvel outing. John Berenthal's performance as Frank Castle is still next to Charlie Cox's portrayal of Daredevil, the best performance of any Marvel Netflix character. At no point in the season do you think that he is ever phoning in his performance. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Iron Fist. He believes every bit that he is the Punisher and you would be hard pressed to argue otherwise. Through the tough exterior, he does give some moments of humor throughout the show that bring a bit of levity to the character. However, the comedy and the levity is firmly grasped by Georgia Wingham's Amy slash Rachel, whatever the hell you want to call her, and Jason Morris Curtis Hoyle. While I did miss the dry wit in the company of Micro in the season, as he is nowhere to be found, these two more than made up for it. I thoroughly enjoy the bond that these two have with Frank and it kind of showed that even in the worst situations, they always stuck by Frank, even when their shit gets really, really violently real. Now, on that wavelength, Ben Barnes did a fantastic job as well. While the writers changed the narrative of the Jigsaw character, given what he had to work with story wise, he is the unsung hero of the season. And I don't think he is going to get enough credit. While I'm still on the fence about the direction they went with the amnesia stick, he's still delivered nonetheless. The whole Harley Quinn angle they took with Dr. Dumont and Jigsaw was a bit of a letdown. I mean, I, I understand why they went that route, but it seemed like it was just forced for the convenience of furthering the plot rather than extending any basis of, you know, storyline for the characters. And now I may be in the minority in this opinion, but I really, really enjoyed Russo's death. Spoiler alert, I was disappointed at the end of season one that the death never happened. But after stewing over it for a while, I changed my mind and I really started to think that it was the right call. In saying that, I was really looking forward to the second showdown between these two. And then when Madonna delivered what turned out to be the showdown moment, quote unquote, I felt the same disappointment. However, when the events played out and how Frank like unceremoniously dispatched of Russo, I was grinning from ear to ear, man, it was great. Speaking of Madonna, who very well may be the worst homeland security agent of all time, we see her in the first few episodes taking pills and chewing them up, which is usually a sign of painkiller addiction. We saw this play out in a sense in iron fist season one with word meacham after the first few times we see her take the pills. They're gone and never seen or to be mentioned again in any other episode. So why even put these in? Why draw attention to it? The same thing with a knife injury to John Pilgrim after the fight with the old crew in the restaurant. The editors draw attention enough times to make you believe that these things will come into play later on in the encounters with Frank or with Amy or with Curtis, but alas, they're never mentioned again and you know, she's seemingly done with the pills and he seemingly healed for no apparent reason. This really bugs me as an editor because you only have so much time for each episode and there's so much other filler in the season that annoys me that things like this are done and left in the episodes and then never paid off. Ah, anyway, I'm done with my rant. I'm conflicted on how I feel about the whole John Pilgrim character. Now, I really liked the no nonsense, soulless hitman via that he had throughout the season, but his actions didn't fit the center of his character's beliefs. I think what they were going for was, you know, the juxtaposition with his belief versus his action. And I realized that that is what is supposed to make him the villain. But when you're running around like a homicidal boondock saint, you kind of need to have a mission statement. So the payoff for me just wasn't there. The fact that, you know, Roger Dorn and his wife were paying for his wife's treatment was not enough for me to buy into the character. In one of the later episodes, Amy and Jenner sitting in a car and she totally calls him out and pointing it out. I was like, whatever happened to thou shall not kill. And he had no comeback for it. So I kind of felt like the writers dropped the ball a bit on that one. He gave the speech to the mob boss in the bar that he was found by Roger Dorn and was given purpose and found God. But that still doesn't explain why he was doing this time. Yes, he was trying to, the Dorns were paying for his cancer treatment, but still the whole religious angle versus the murdering, I don't buy it. I don't like it. I don't get it. Not for me. Now the action scenes in this season were totally on par with Daredevil, and that is saying something. The Punisher is a character where guns and violence are going to play a major role while the violence was still amped up to 11. I did find that the action scenes were more of like the ground and pound fighting were some of the best that I've seen on a Netflix platform. The Punisher is really the only character in the comics that can get away with the type of violence, gun violence in the Marvel universe. And I think the season did not disappoint in that at all, but all in all, I thought that the season was good. Was it great? No, I found that, you know, with most Marvel shows in Netflix, it was way too long. You could have cut this down to 10 episodes and it would have been just as good. But that being said, I would give it a solid three and a half out of five. Um, my top five Marvel Netflix shows are still number one, Daredevil season one, number two, Jessica Jones season one, number three, Daredevil season two, number four, Punisher season one, and number five, Luke Cage season two. But what did you think of the season? Let us know in the comments below. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe. You can hit me up on Twitter at miscellaneous debris with two underscores. Don't you know? And you can hit my brother in crime up on this channel, rd at rock in the D. Take care and we will see you soon.