Liam Hoofe reviews the fourth episode of Marvel’s The Punisher…
After the excellent ‘Kandahar‘, The Punisher continued to pick up the pace with its fourth episode, ‘Resupply’, an episode which saw two of the season’s key players meet for the first time and also continued to develop the show’s excellent, and intriguing characters.
One of the key elements of The Punisher so far has been the relationship between Micro and Frank and we got to see this play out, even more, this episode as the duo began to put their plans into action. The two have a great chemistry, one that lends itself to both comedy and drama and it is an element of the show that really, really works. The scenes where the two discuss battle plans were amusing, as were the scenes where Frank paid Micro’s family a visit but the tougher elements of their relationship were also handled perfectly. Frank has been used to operating alone for some time now and he is clearly struggling to work with Micro, antagonising his partner at several points during the episode and basically forcing him to take action during the episode’s explosive final moments. I should also mention here the little cameo from MCU regular, Turk – which was a nice nod to the other shows.
One character who was largely left out of ‘Kandahar’ was Detective Madini, but she was finally given her time to shine during this episode’s fantastic finale. The chase sequence involving her and Frank was excellent and the episode’s closing moments, which saw Madini recognise Frank after Micro had nearly killed her were a nice way to leave the audience wanting more heading into the next episode. Hopefully, we get to see more of this side of Madini as for the most part she has basically been doing paperwork and walking around offices looking serious.
Another character getting more and more focus with each passing episode is Lewis, a former soldier who seemingly can’t leave the war behind him, this episode being dismissed by Billy Russo from his fighting unit. Lewis’ character development is interesting and there are definitely parallels to be drawn between him and Frank. He now also has a vendetta against Frank’s friend and confidante, Curtis, so expect Lewis and Frank to have definitely crossed paths before the seasons out. At this point in the show, I’d expect Curtis to end up dead at the hands of Lewis, with the character serving the same purpose as the likes of Pop and Stick in Marvel shows before him.
While Frank and Micro have been excellent as a duo, this episode really gives Frank a chance to shine as The Punisher again. Bernthal oozes charisma and seeing him drop one-liners and killing a room full of murderers just felt awesome. The Punisher is one of the coolest characters in the Marvel canon and it’s about time he was done this kind of justice on-screen.
With ‘Resupply’ The Punisher continues its incredibly strong opening and continued to move all the pieces into place for the rest of the season. There are still 9 more episodes of the show to come and the start has felt very nicely paced indeed.
Are you enjoying The Punisher so far? Let us know in the comments below, and let Liam know on Twitter @liamhoofe
