The Punisher - Season 1 (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Creator: Steve Lightfoot
	Actors: Jon Bernthal (Fury, Baby Driver, Daredevil TV-series), Amber Rose Revah, Ebon Moss-Bachrach
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: January 2018, VOD, 11" tablet screen.
Synopsis: Frank Caste a.k.a. the Punisher faked his death to better track the ones responsible for his family's murder.
Review: The most recent TV-series in the Marvel Universe. We were first introduced to the Punisher in the second season of Daredevil in which I liked him even though he suffers the comparison with the 1989 cinema version of The Punisher with Dolph Lundgren. Jon Bernthal plays a Frack Castle driven by the two things that apparently made him who he is: his military training and the traumatic murder of his wife and kids. And he can't do anything else than ruminate his whole life about those two things. That makes him a very straightforward and somehow predictable character: he is going to find and kill the responsibles for his trauma using the skills he learned and what he knows best to do. He is accompanied by a "side-kick" that took three slow episodes to introduce and build a relationship with (that bored me a little). We also get to see two of his former brothers-in-arms, a female FBI agent with her own agenda that becomes linked to Castle, and apparitions of the now journalist Karen Page (also seen in Daredevil and the Defenders) with whom he has a special relationship. I found the series rather slow, and regretted that it doesn't include any SF, Fantasy or reference to other Marvel products, although it is supposed to take place in a world much different from our own (the one of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for example). The show is slow but keeps you awake with a few twists but more importantly a brutal bloody violence that I found to be too much and often not justified. I watched it to the end for completion but realized the character of the Punisher maybe didn't deserve a full series at his name.
Rating: 3 /10