When this was announced I was definitely interested, I’ve always liked Jon Bernthal’s Punisher so getting a new special focusing on him was good news, but after watching it I was just sort of confused. I mean as a stand-alone 45 minute thing it was fine but it didn’t fit into the MCU timeline at all, didn’t connect to the original Punisher series, Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 (which still has unresolved Punisher story beats) or the then-upcoming Spider-Man film as it turns out, it was like a pilot for a Punisher series that had nothing to do with the MCU but was added to it anyway. Oh well, what’s it like? Well given its length it won’t take long to tell you…
The special starts off with Frank Castle / The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) killing several members of the Gnucci Crime Family, the last people linked to his family’s murder… which is odd as that was how Season 2 of The Punisher ended, he’d killed the last people associated with his family’s murder so got himself a van and decided to start punishing other people who had wronged others, but I guess in the years in between that season and now some new evidence came up? Well, either way, now with his family re-avenged Frank locks his weapons away and goes to his wife’s grave to commit suicide because I guess he no longer cares about punishing others…? Anyway, enough snide bollocks he has a bunch of hallucinations about his family, Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and his old war buddy from his two TV season Curtis Hoyle (Jason R. Moore) (so there’s some connective tissue at least!) and all that leads to him not being able to go through with it, so he heads home.
The Punisher moments away from punishing someone… with death.
On the way there he meets Ma Gnucci (Judith Light) who wishes to get revenge on Frank for all the family members of hers he’d killed, Frank not seeing the irony essentially says he doesn’t care and heads back into his flat. Some more hallucinations later and a large group of armed thugs storms his apartment building and begins killing other innocent dwellers as well as setting Frank’s place on fire, which all leads to him screaming a lot and a long punchy shoot-out across his block of flats, to the roof and then down again. There he sees Ma Gnucci once more…
As I said, it’s 45 minutes so there isn’t much to say here (the Spoiler section won’t be much longer!) but as a quick thing featuring the Punisher it’s fine, the action is entertaining and all that at least…
Overall Thoughts:
I actually remember Ma Gnucci from the comics, I still have “Welcome Back, Frank” as part of my collection. She has more limbs here than I remember he comic counterpart having though…
The Punisher: One Last Kill is a confusing mess timeline wise but looking beyond that its just a perfectly fine 45 minute special featuring some good action and a strong central performance from Jon Bernthal. Can’t complain, even if I’d have preferred something that followed on from the Born Again Season 1 storyline…
Frank sees his opportunity to pursue Ma Gnucci but also sees an innocent shop owner being attacked during the riot that has since started and decides to save the shop owner and his family instead, having a brutal fight that ends with him repeatedly stabbing the last victim really realistically with a pen, which was more disturbing than entertaining, frankly.
Frank after making the decision to help someone… by killing their enemies. Just thought the screengrab from the start of this review is actually from the end of the special! Oh well, Frank becoming The Punisher once more is hardly a spoiler…
Saving the shopkeeper and his family from a similar fate as his own reignites his previously and probably-forever-unexplained loss of motivation to save innocents and Punish (with a capital P) those who wrong them, leading to a return of The Punisher proper.