Steve Lightfoot, the showrunner for The Punisher, has broken down one of the biggest shootouts in season two.
Netflix’s The Punisher is known for its epic action sequences and brutal gun violence, and season two certainly kept that tradition alive. While there were numerous epic shootouts in the season, one of the biggest was certainly the tussle between Frank and John Pilgrim in the hotel.
Steve Lightfoot, showrunner for The Punisher, spoke to ComicBook.com about what they were hoping to achieve with the scene, especially regarding Pilgrim’s inner turmoil:
“When we were developing the scripts, we came to this idea that in a way Pilgrim, he stole the room from the guy nextdoor, it was full of drugs and booze, and the idea was that these two rooms became the warring sides of Pilgrim. There was the guy who used to be, that was a very tempting place to go back to, and then there was the one where he was now the family man who just wanted to get home.”
“It was almost the Jekyll room and the Hyde room. Again, that is similar to Frank, we sort of we maintain that thematic, so when we got to the script for that episode, it made sense somehow for the fight to then happen in there, to see both these guys in both rooms.”
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“It was always this idea of mirroring, and then just having fun with the practicality of, you’re in that room, I’m in this room, how do we swap, how do we change it up. So we wrote a version into the scripts, that, if you like, was driven by theme and where we’d gotten these guys to, and then let the stunt coordinator and the guys loose on it.
“We had built those two rooms as sets, so we weren’t in a real hotel, so we had carte blanche to do whatever we wanted with that location. So we wrote a version into the script, and then I said to the stunt guys, ‘Look, just run with it. And then come back, show me what you’ve got.’ And it came from them, refined it from there. We were shooting that sequence into the elevator, we were shooting that for quite a long time, that was a real labor of love.”
It was certainly a blistering sequence and one of the season’s most memorable. How are you enjoying The Punisher season 2 so far? Or have you watched it all already? Let us know in the comments below…
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Former marine-turned-vigilante Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) has been living a quiet life on the road until he suddenly becomes embroiled in the attempted murder of a young girl (Giorgia Whigham). As he is drawn into the mystery surrounding her and those in pursuit of the information she holds, Castle attracts a new target on his back as new and old enemies force him to confront whether he should accept his destiny and embrace a life as The Punisher.
The second season of The Punisher is streaming now on Netflix and sees Jon Bernthal returning as Frank Castle alongside Ben Barnes as Billy Russo, Amber Rose Revah as Dinah Madani, Jason R. Moore as Curtis Hoyle, Josh Stewart as John Pilgrim, Floriana Lima as Krista Dumont, Giorgia Whigham as Amy Bendix, Annette O’Toole as Eliza Schultz, and Corbin Bernsen as Anderson Schultz.
