‘The Punisher’ Season 2 Episode 2 Recap: Butt of the Gun

In this episode of The Punisher, a lady uses tweezers to take a bullet out of Jon Bernthal’s bare ass.

There. Never let it be said that I’m one to bury the lede.

But if there’s one thing the Marvel/Netflix shows, even the ones I’m not crazy about, have been good at, it’s tying their superhero/vigilante violence to moments of physical intimacy. Sometimes this involves the main characters having sex, and from Jessica Jones and Luke Cage to Luke Cage and Misty Knight to Matt Murdock and Elektra Natchios, those scenes have been hot across the board. That’s certainly true on this show as well, from Agent Madani and Billy Russo to David “Micro” Lieberman and his wife Sarah to “Pete Castiglione” and Beth the bartender just last episode.

At other times the violence itself is intimate. This naturally tends to be the case more for the characters who lack super-strength than for those who do, but it’s true. Watching mortal men like Matt Murdock and Frank Castle be made vulnerable by the infliction of violence on their bodies is a display of intimacy. To quote myself quoting Barbara Kruger regarding another show, “You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men.” Hallway fights are an intricate ritual indeed.

And then there are the moments of triage that occur after the battle is over. I’m thinking Luke Cage tending to Misty Knight’s mangled arm for damn near an entire episode (overlong thanks to Netflix Bloat, but still notable), or Frank Castle and Karen Page leaning into each other in an elevator after spending an entire episode trying to avoid being murdered by a mentally ill gunman. In this case it’s “Rachel” (if that is her real name), the shifty fugitive Frank’s been protecting for two episodes, removing a slug from Frank’s right buttcheek. Earlier in the episode, it’s her taking his boot off for him when he proves unable to do it himself. You see the same principle at work when Daniel Craig hugs a crying Eva Green in the shower after a killing spree in Casino Royale, or when Bruce Willis has a heart to heart with Reginald Vel Johnson while he picks shards of glass out of his bare feet in Die Hard, or even when Patrick Swayze and Kelly Lynch meet cute while she staples a knife wound in his side in my beloved Road House. Sylvester Stallone, the actor who at his best most reminds me of what Jon Bernthal does, constructed two entire franchises around the idea that there’s something interesting about watching his perfect body get beaten to shit. Moments like this make the violence real and draw those of us who’ve never experienced such combat into the moment by reminding us we all share the same basic physical vehicle for navigating the world around us.

Anyway, that’s all kind of highfalutin for a discussion of a handsome man’s hind end, I realize. But once again the plot of this Punisher episode (Season 2 Episode 2 “Fight or Flight”) is so straightforward and simple that we can spare the room. Basically, Frank and “Rachel” hole up in a motel room after they escape last episode’s mercenaries. Eventually, those mercenaries find them, and Frank kills all but one—Marlena (Teri Reeves), the woman who survived the barfight battle the previous night. She nearly escapes, as does Rachel (who wants nothing but to run as far away from the whole scene as possible, against Frank’s advice-slash-orders), but then the cops show up and arrest all three. This is the break that the season’s mysterious supervillain, a bible-thumping weirdo played by Josh Stewart, requires to track Rachel and Frank down. Meanwhile, in New York, Frank’s old friend turned nemesis Billy Russo is attempting to put the pieces of his shattered memory back together, like a Jigsaw, with one Dr. Dumont (Floriana Lima). It’s not going well, neither for him nor for his ex-girlfriend and would-be murder victim Agent Dinah Madani, who can’t let go of taunting him for the trauma he caused.

And that’s about it. There are some nice touches for the villains, from Billy’s supremely disconcerting white mask to the mystery man in black being actually kind of boring, the way most Jesus freaks are. Jon Bernthal remains a force of nature in the role of Frank, able to be terrifying, funny, stern, and even kind of stupid now and then depending on the needs of the scene; few other actors could make a character like this anywhere near as multifaceted. I also enjoy Amber Rose Revah a great deal as Madani; the Marvel/Netflix “one of the good ones” cop roles kind of blend together after a while, but she has a sharp-featured intensity that sticks in your craw. I still can’t believe how much better Ben Barnes is as a bad guy on this show than he is on Westworld, a discrepancy that clearly lies with the writing of the two shows (handled here by creator Steve Lightfoot, as always working with the vigilante created by Gerry Conway, John Romita Sr., and Ross Andru) rather than with the actor.

Finally, the action is brisk and ultraviolent, the way it should be on this show. I smell a small-town police-station raid in the offing for the next episode, so it should get even bloodier any minute now. Yet the work done to root Frank in recognizable emotional and physical experiences puts this stuff head and shoulders above, I dunno, John Wick or whatever slick bullshit everyone’s freaking out about lately. Load another one in the chamber and fire it directly at me, please. Just not in the ass.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.

Stream The Punisher Season 2 Episode 2 ("Fight or Flight") on Netflix