‘The Punisher’ Season 2 Episode 7 Recap: Sex, Scars, and Skulls

You know how I spent the last review comparing the relationship between Billy “Jigsaw” Russo and Dr. Krista Dumont to the one between the Joker and Dr. Harleen Quinzel?

Yeah. If you need me, I’ll be over here, awaiting my Pulitzer Prize for criticism.
Episode 7 of this season of The Punisher is titled “One Bad Day.” I know, I know: one bad day? Do any of these characters have any other kind of day? But the title references a key component of the definitive, if not technically canonical, Joker origin story, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke. The thesis there is that all it took is one awful, awful day (albeit one that culminated in an acid bath) to turn a down-on-his-luck family man and wannabe standup comic into the deadliest serial killer on the planet. The Joker, who only vaguely remembered the details of his own life pre-Clown Prince, was determined to test this thesis on Commissioner Gordon, whom he kidnapped, stripped naked, and forced to look at gigantic photos of his daughter Barbara “Batgirl” Gordon, also stripped naked, after the Joker shot her in the spine, paralyzing her from the waist down.(It’s a problematic fave.) So it’s hardly like the show is trying to hide its homage to the Distinguished Competition’s supervillain supercouple.
But the relationship between Billy and Dumont has plenty going for it on its own. To wit, it’s extremely hot, and it’s also a pretty damn decent explanation of the appeal of BDSM and kink that explores areas of trauma. Get a load of this post-coital exchange:

Krista: Did I hurt you?

Billy: I thought that was sort of the point.

Krista: You live with pain long enough, you start to miss it. You discover the pain-pleasure connection. Better than pills, right?

Oh, indeed! AHEM I mean yes, that sounds persuasive.
Anyway, we also get a glimpse of Krista’s own traumatic origin story, which she says was a catastrophic fall at age nine that took years to recover from. This is interesting insofar as childhood falls are also the traumatic origin story for prestige-TV damaged-guy lead characters Elliott Alderson on Mr. Robot and Joe MacMillan on Halt and Catch Fire. Oh, and Bran Stark on Game of Thrones too! That’s a pattern, is what that is, and the weird thing is I have a hard time figuring out what to make of it. Is it a way to reference the symbolic thrust of the ominous Tower card from the tarot? A literal fall from grace? It’s not often a superhero show makes you think hard about a recurring pop-cultural trope without an answer ready to hand, so kudos for that.
But the conversation points to a weakness in The Punisher‘s writing, and in most of the other Marvel shows come to think of it. Very rarely do we get a chance to see people just kind of existing around each other, and talking about, like, things and stuff, and seeing their characters emerge from that. It’s always two people one-on-one (maybe three sometimes, eg. Frank and his friend Curtis and Agent Madani, or Karen and Foggy and Matt Murdock over on Daredevil), having a heart to heart about what matters or what’s the next step.
Sometimes this can be fascinating, as it is with Billy and Dumont, or simply fun to watch, as it is when Madani talks to the high-ranking intelligence officer played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio; she and Amber Rose Revah are sharp, compelling actors and it’s a pleasure to watch them do pretty much anything. There’s a bit in this episode where Madani hears Frank talk about their current predicament as a “war” and starts flailing around in frustration like a child who’s detected some adult-world idiocy she’s powerless to stop that’s a marvelous piece of physical acting on Revah’s part, for instance. I just wish there was more variety in how character is conveyed and plot moved forward.
The final component of the episode worth addressing is the violence, which here is both as harsh and as stylized as it’s ever been. The episode begins with a flashback—first a literal cinematic one, and then one inside Madani’s head—where the DHS agent recalls first coming up with her cover story after getting shot by Billy and saved by Castle. This culminates with the repeated image of her getting plugged right in the skull—the show rubbing our face in it along with hers.

Later, Billy and his crew of dejected veterans plan their robbery of a check-cashing joint, and the initial view of them in their masks is impressively creepy in that Dark Knight bank-heist way.

The robbery itself isn’t the model of (extremely unrealistic) efficiency that the Joker’s is, though. Billy winds up nearly thwarted by the owner of the check-cashing place, who simply refuses to cooperate in the looting of her family business. It’s a fun curveball to throw, and she’s got some great lines (when Billy threatens to slide a grenade through the teller window, she says “It won’t fit, dumbass”), but it’s also, y’know, a petit-bourgeois business owner risking the lives of her employees and customers against their will. Forget the Punisher, we need Marx!
But speaking of the Punisher, he tortures Billy’s meth-head henchman Jake pretty brutally to find out Russo’s location, though it’s Curtis who’s really responsible for getting the info out of him. (I feel like this sequence has a bright mirror image in Madani working with a forensic scientist who openly and hilariously fangirls out about working for a “badass” like her.) And when he shows up at the robbery spot, the big skull reveal finally happens.

Billy loses his shit, a bunch of his men lose their lives, and Frank nearly gets popped over and over by a sniper Billy set up on a nearby roof to watch the crew’s backs. The episode ends in mid-chase scene, a smash-cut to black that basically demands you roll into the next episode. It’s the smartest use of Netflix’s autoplay dynamic I’ve seen in months. The chase continues.
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 7 ("One Bad Day") on Netflix