So on reflection I've decided that it's a genuinely brilliant TV series, but not necessarily a brilliant Punisher TV series. It's a pretty radical re-imagining of the character as we know him in the comics. Which is absolutely fine and made for a really engaging 13 hours or so, but the people who didn't like the level of humanity and emotion that Castle was given in Daredevil are going to hate this series even more.
I do really, really hate how they set up his status quo at the end too. It does actually make perfect sense with his new origin (as I mentioned before, with the conspiracy angle it wouldn't make much sense to start a never-ending war on organised crime so this was the logical consequence of the origin change). But it means we'll have to waste time in the inevitable season 2 setting him up as the Punisher again rather than launching right in to the good stuff. Could really do without that TBH as they covered all that ground at the start of this series. It also sort of undermines the big climactic scene at the end of episode 12 - "I am home" - which is unfortunate as that's the best scene in the whole series I think.
Here's my take on the ending: remember in the first episode when he thought his war was over, but then he just sort of stopped living until the night he heard his co-workers discussing a crime? Then he just went full Punisher mode on them AND members of the Gnucci family? He could have called the cops or ignored the situation as there was no personal involvement. Instead, he just went out and killed bad guys and it was obvious that it was a psychological drive and not just something he felt responsible for. At the end of episode 13, he tells the support group that he doesn't know what he will do without a war and that he's scared. I think it's a hint that he'll just start going out to find more criminals to kill. They could have made that connection stronger, though. I think it would have been more dramatic is he caught wind of some criminal activity and started to get a far away look in his eye.
I think the Punisher we get in this series is still early Frank Castle. He hasn't fully given up his emotions yet, which I think is the right way to go. As I said in another thread, we can't just start off with cold, emotionally dead Punisher from Garth Ennis. We can start with the somewhat sympathetic, traumatized war vet we saw in his early Spider-Man and Daredevil appearances, work our way to a the driven man on a mission we saw from Chuck Dixon and other writers form the 80's and 90's, and then come to the Ennis' version who is almost a complete psychopath. It's similar to people who complained about the violent and unstable Danny Rand in season one of Iron Fist, not remembering that he acted like that in his first few appearances. Netflix likes their slow burns and so do I.
One other thing I hated - the scenes with Karen. Just doesn't make sense that he'd have that level of attachment to her. Doesn't help that I don't like Netflix Karen much at all
Why wouldn't he feel an attachment? Before he went full Punisher, she was the one who had sympathy for him and, in a way, helped him get revenge for his family. I think for this version of Frank at least, that would mean a lot to him. In Daredevil, he came off as just a psychopath but softened up once Karen looked into his path and started talking to him about his family. I think he feels an emotional connection to her.
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